did having a difficult manual labor job as a kid..encourage u 2 college?

[vash]

HOLY! i volunteered to go to some property yesterday to weed wack. i took my underutilized STIHL weedwacker and worked it yesterday...5 hours of full throttle hell/fury. i beat back some hill sides that were too steep to mow with any regular driven equipment. it was ugly. i didnt want two long trips, so i focused on getting it done in one day. i wore a 100oz camelback. i stopped for lunch and respooling and fuel. i got it done. i was so tired on the 2 hours drive home..got home, eat, showered..fell asleep at 7pm..woke up at 8:30am!! by my math..13.5 hours. i did this because the old man grants me access for hunting. payback time.

got me thinking. i remember the exact job, that got me thinking about college. i was digging a trench for an electrical conduit, for some hospital marque (spell?). we were slaving away..and my good friend says,"jesus cliff, look at us...we are ditch diggers!!" (exact quote as i remembered it)

what about you?

[scottmandue]

Worked in my Dad's HVAC company from my 20's to my 30's... learned a lot but hot, dirty, back breaking work, went back to school at 30 and got a two year AA degree and now working as an electronic tech.

Like I said I learned a lot and that experience has served me well... however if I had started my career 10 years earlier I would be looking at retiring... now at 53 retirement is 10 years away.

[Seahawk]

Grew up on a ranch, was expected to work...Manual Labor, as my dad used to say, is not a Cuban Jockey. Get busy.

The summers were the worst, pulling alfalfa out of the Central Valley. I also worked as a construction laborer, framer, dishwasher, etc.

It wasn't that the work was hard, it was that I didn't want to be doing it when it would be.

[nostatic]

My going to college "aha moment" was a little more complicated, but during the 4 years after HS that I tried to be a rock star, I worked a few jobs that certainly led me to believe that the real world sucked:

3. masking cars at an auto body/paint shop.

2. installing cable tv. The day I burned a pole was the day I thought, "this really blows" as I was pulling creosote and splinters out of my arms and chest.

1. working on the assembly line at Ektelon racquetball racket company. Job consisted of waxing a long steel rod, placing down six different shaped pieces of graphite and kevlar, then rolling that around the steel rod. Slide off and put it aside. Wax steel rod, place six different shaped pieces of graphite and kevlar, roll around rod, remove and place aside. Wax steel rod, place six different shaped pieces of graphite and kevlar, roll around rod, remove and place aside. Wax steel rod, place six different shaped pieces of graphite and kevlar, roll around rod, remove and place aside. Wax steel rod, place six different shaped pieces of graphite and kevlar, roll around rod, remove and place aside. Wax steel rod, place six different shaped pieces of graphite and kevlar, roll around rod, remove and place aside. Wax steel rod, place six different shaped pieces of graphite and kevlar, roll around rod, remove and place aside. Wax steel rod, place six different shaped pieces of graphite and kevlar, roll around rod, remove and place aside. Wax steel rod, place six different shaped pieces of graphite and kevlar, roll around rod, remove and place aside. Wax steel rod, place six different shaped pieces of graphite and kevlar, roll around rod, remove and place aside. Wax steel rod, place six different shaped pieces of graphite and kevlar, roll around rod, remove and place aside. Wax steel rod, place six different shaped pieces of graphite and kevlar, roll around rod, remove and place aside. Wax steel rod, place six different shaped pieces of graphite and kevlar, roll around rod, remove and place aside....

Get the picture?

[m21sniper]

All work and no play makes Todd a dull boy.

[scottmandue]

I should add.. the ah ha moment... hanging duct at the Seiko robotics factory... hot, working on a ladder, covered in fiberglass.

Looking down at the guys working on the robots and thought "I could do that".

[jhynesrockmtn]

Working in restaurants most of high school and college. One summer on a state DOT road survey crew out marking new freeway pavement for lines, signing at intersections and getting *&^% thrown at me, etc. All of that certainly motivated me in college and to get a degree that would lead to a career versus a job.

[Tidybuoy]

I did all kinds of jobs growing up and was never unemployed from 9th grade & up (actually 6th grade if you count my paper route). I actually thought I would become president of each company I worked for.

However, as circumstances worked out. I quit my job at Carl's Jr. at age 24 at the precise time my sister was Graduating from UCLA Medical School (she had already graduated from Berkley). This kind of put me into a minor state of depression and I really felt like a loser - this is the exact moment I went back to college and got my BS in Accounting.

Of course, if I were to do it over, I would choose engineering or something that involves building or taking apart things. Debits & credits, although very interesting, can also be boring too.

[Burnin' oil]

I like manual labor. I like busting my ass. Ditch digging is a favorite - no joke. I like the simplicity and objectivity. Plus, when your shift is over, it's over. Out of sight, out of mind.

Cliff,

I am a little disappointed you didn't let me know you were going up the hill. Let me know next time.

[legion]

No.

I grew up in a family where my parents and grandparents had all gone to college. It was expected. I never thought once I wouldn't go and finish in four years.

I was probably on track for dropping out. I was in college to have fun and goof off.

Within the first two months, I lost my best friend and roommate, lost my girlfriend, and had a huge fight with my parents where I realized they weren't my friends. In that period, I had an epiphany and realized that the only person that cared about my success in college and life was me. I became a serious student and didn't let anything stop me from graduating. Not girls, not booze, not other "fun".

[dipso]

I love manual labor. I can't even stop working when I'm off. I love taking apart my car and working on it, removing walls in my kitchen, yardwork, trimming trees, whatever.

I'm working right now on a mansion in Montecito. No not Al gores or Oprahs house.
Guys are blowing on scratch coat, I'm helping them tug the lines if necessary. Climbing scaffold, building a house. I love it.

I would go insane sitting down all day. In fact the only time I sit down is to bust balls in PARF.
Boy, when I get old and tired you guys are really gonna get it.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by Burnin' oil

I like manual labor. I like busting my ass. Ditch digging is a favorite - no joke. I like the simplicity and objectivity. Plus, when your shift is over, it's over. Out of sight, out of mind.

I need to redo the sprinklers in my front yard... what time can you show up?

[LWJ]

ABSOLUTELY. I worked regularly as a kid mowing lawns, paper route, cleaning gutters until I was old enough to have a real job. A neighbor (and lawn customer) got me a job in the cast house at Reynolds Aluminum straight out of HS. Having co-workers murdered and burned was a huge wake up call as to what things could be like. Great money. Horrible work. Forward on to UO, I was very aware where every dollar came from and why I was there. It was the driving motivation that lead me to crush most tests and also have a very good time. I credit my paying for college myself with nasty jobs as being one of the significant formative events in my life. I graduated Phi Beta Kappa and am proud of it.

Fast forward to career, I bumped along in a bunch of different jobs for a while and then reinvented myself 10 years ago. People commonly ask me how the heck did I do what I did? They are amazed that I totally moved from one field to another successfully.

The answer? I knew I could. Why? Because working crap jobs gave me the ability to power through difficult times.

So to answer you. Yes. Labor was critical to my success.

[pwd72s]

One summer setting chokers (logging), another working in a lumber mill pulling the green chain convinced me to look for something else...tho I never completed college.

[Normy]

My parents told me from day ONE that I was going to college, there was no debate.

-They were good to "push" their child toward education. I have a friend who I grew up with, who's parents were a lot like mine, but they never pushed him. I remember in 1982 his statement about an algebra test that we had coming up:

"Why strain your brain?"

He turned out to be a great guy, married and living in Sunbury, Ohio, outside Columbus. But he barely got through high school, and barely achieved an associate degree from a community college. He sells motorcycles these days, and though he does alright...I cannot help but wonder about the massive WASTE that he is responsible for. This guy is VERY intelligent, could have easily pulled a 4.0 in high school, and there wasn't a single job that he wasn't capable of, including being a neurosurgeon. But he didn't care, and this was because his parents never pushed him. As such, he spends his time buying and selling motorcycles. He reads prodigiously, and in the past few years I've kind of pointed out that he isn't using his potential, and he freely admits it.

My dad made me work in the yard when I was 3. I was handing him paper towels while he crawled under the '70 VW Beetle to change the oil when I was 4, and I was charged with the actual changing of the oil on his '72 Ford when I was 10. At 14 I worked on a tomato farm in Michigan, picking "turners", or tomatos going from yellow to red. When I was 18, I made pizzas for Little Caesars [Yes, in 1984 in Toledo, you could have bought an official "Normy" pizza~], then worked as a janitor in the coal-fired power plant that my father ran in Monroe, Michigan.

-This was one of my favorite jobs ever! They handed me a broom, and I was told to clean an area...but realistically I had the run of the plant. I'd do my work quick, and then run around the place, looking at the lines and equipment, tracing the steam route from the boilers to the units...and then I'd go down to the head offices and talk to my dad's colleagues, who all knew me from coming to the house over the years. But...it didn't pay much, so I took a job with a landscaping company around Detroit. We worked 12 hour days, monday to friday, and most of our work was at power plants around Detroit. Some of the neighborhoods we went through! Connors Creek, north of downtown Detroit we rolled up the windows and locked the doors when we drove through, and this was four big guys in a truck full of sharp implements...and we didn't stop at stop signs and things like that!

-Every one of those jobs SUCKED. But somehow, I found a way to enjoy each one of them, and I look back fondly on those times. All of those jobs taught me that there must be a better way to live, but in the end I would not say that any of them pointed me toward education as the way to succeed in life. That's the problem, now isn't it? Hard work sucks, but it doesn't "point" you towards something better at all. That and the fact that at NO time during my 100% public education did I ever receive any instruction that education beyond high school could possibly improve my life.

N

[RWebb]

wow - I didn't you were all such softies!

In high school (summer) I dug ditches - canals, really, in the sweltering Louisiana sun. A cool day was 90 oF but the humidity was still over 90% too.

I didn't need that as motivation to go to college.

It was a very interesting crew -- I was able to get a Sociology paper out of it. The prof. like the comprehensive description but gave it a B as it was "short on analysis." I was a physics major and had NO idea that Sociology even HAD analysis...

Sadly, I now have to go do some digging in my yard...

[BRPORSCHE]

My first REAL job was working at a local shop in garage that my parents sent their cars too. The owner employed me for the summer. By far the biggest eye opener of my life. Here I was 17 years old, the summer before my senior year, making 500 dollar's every two weeks with essentially zero expenses. I was living the high life.

I would do odd's and ends around the shop in the beginning, such as; sweep here, mow this, and turn this wrench. Near the end of my employment I painted a cement truck, was doing full rear end jobs, and with some instruction wass able to tackle most anything.

The other two guys on the crew that I worked with all taught me how I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. They single handedly showed me that having an air conditioned office in the middle of the Baton Rouge summer was the place I wanted to be, and for that I am extremely thankful. I owe Larry and Eddy many, many beers.

After all the hard work I finally have my air conditioned office, albeit in Houston.

[Moses]

My dad was very old school. At one point I was offered a summer job as a lifeguard. My dad wouldn't let me take the job because it wasn't "real work".

Starting at age 13, I spent every summer on a road crew laying asphalt. It was a small company with a crew of 6. No way to hide and avoid labor for a few minutes. The older men ran the heavy equipment while us youngsters manned shovels all day. No gloves were allowed because of the fear of getting caught in machinery, so my hands bled for the first two weeks of every summer.

Asphalt comes off the truck at more than 300 degrees. When you walk on it, it will melt the glue in your shoes. Summertime temps were usually 90-100.

When I was 16, a truck driver dumped his load in the wrong place. My friend and I shoveled 6 tons of hot asphalt back onto the truck in 4 hours.

To this day the smell of asphalt makes me sick.

Did it motivate me to attend college? Hell yes.

[nostatic]

imho there is a difference between a summer job during HS and working after HS. For the summer job, you know there is an end and you'll be "saved" by school. Once you get out and you're working, there is no such easy rip cord. Much different psychology...

[s_morrison57]

I love hard work, I can watch it all day.
did my bit in college and hated it, couldn't stand the thought of getting a degree and wearing a tie to work , it just wasn't me. I thought of what I wanted and needed and that was big money and lots of time off, so I got some training and went to work on the Diamond Drills, still love it, its taken me to over 20 countries and after 33 years I look back and the only thing I would have done different would be to have some of the money stick to my arse instead of blowing it all, been in a managment position for 20 years now but its still field work, I just tell the crew what and how to do it. for about a decade I would only work 4 - 5 month a year, never missed the 100K since 82, been a sweet ride so far.