Lessons From My Very First Job
The shop floor I swept
My first job was on a manufacturing floor working through three-layer-clothing cold in the winter and suffocating humidity in the summer. The company made medical examination tables. Wooden frame. Fake leather top. Metal stirrups for the gynos and headrests for the proctos came as add-on features.
I began as a 12-year-old sweeper. It was a full time job keeping the floor free of sawdust and picking up random wood chips, navigating around band saws, lathes, air compressors, and thousands of mechanical bits and parts. I was conscientious most of the time, but I did like to take breaks around the pot-bellied stove to warm up in the winter. I’d spit on the hot cast iron top and watch the ball sizzle like it was disappearing down an imaginary drain. In the summer, the cleanest swept floor you’ve ever seen was the area in front of the shop fan which was the size of a jet engine and just as quiet.
I advanced to the drill press when I’d proven I didn’t act silly around heavy machinery. I used a pattern block to drill uniform holes, without error, into the table legs. Brrrrrrrt. Brrrrrrrt. Brrrrrrrt. Each leg needed three drills. I turned the drill press with my right hand round and round like a sideways steering wheel, driving the bit into the wood. The leg would release wood shavings spiraled like curly fries. Freshly cut lumber smelled like possibility, if possibility could have a smell. The rhythm of grab-leg-drill-drill-drill-stack soothed me, although I suspect hearing loss will manifest at some point. No one wore safety equipment at that time.
About a year later, I was promoted to stapling the fabric to the top of the exam tables. I worked in teams with young men, some just out of high school with young families, some just dropping out of high school not planning to return. My glue gun had to dab adhesive in just the right places with precise quantity to not cause the material to pucker. This was tricky. We then had to stretch the fabric to the right tension without tearing it. Our air-compressed staple guns had to go in right the first time otherwise the table corners would look sloppy. I had the final step in the process—two quick staples to affix the manufacturer’s label to the underside. The whole table top process took skill, and I felt proud when the owner shot us a “good work” smile.
I was not there long enough to make the final rung, the paint room. The highest skilled workers with the most precision worked the paint room. Any mistake in the application of stain or varnish, and you had to start all over. Plus the materials were toxic and flammable. The paint room remained off limits to me during my tenure, but I did sweep around the fragrant area. I like the smell of varnish to this day.
As a young adult, whenever I was at a doctor’s office waiting to be seen, I’d drop down to the floor to look under the exam table. I’d usually see stapled underneath the manufacturer’s rectangular, white label I had put there years before. I’d grin back at the label as I read the black block letters, “Peters Manufacturing Company.”
From my first job, I learned what it meant to grow skills and advance. I learned that other people rely heavily on my small part in the process. I learned that we all need praise for a job well done. I learned that some of the smartest people I’ve been around don’t have college degrees.
I’m writing this on National Manufacturing Day, thinking about my father, the company he built on the back of his passion for woodworking, the work ethic he role-modeled, and the many jobs he created for people to support their families.
