What I Learned from My First Job
Robert Hruzek - the master of the quirky story pictured here - has invited many of us to make a contribution to his latest Group Writing Project at Middlezone Musings. The theme? What Have You Learned from the World of Work?
Here’s my piece…
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My first job upon leaving High School was in a dangerous, smelly electroplating factory, getting up at 5 am, travelling 90 minutes each way. Needless to say, I didn’t enjoy it. But I did learn some principles that have served me well in the decades since…
1. A Rough Start is Much Better than No Start
Strange as it may see, throughout my childhood and adolescence, I had never ever aspired to work in a factory! 
When I imagined work, I saw my name on books, I saw myself recording comedy or music, I saw myself as some kind of wierd blend of journalist based on Carl Kolchak and Tintin. (I told you it was a wierd blend).
An A-Grade student until Year 10 (we have 12 “years” or grades in our school system), a B-grade student in year 11, I “lost the plot” and collected nothing above a D in my final year of school.
The wheels fell off my ideals of becoming a journalist.
Now I’ve known people who - when they hit this brick wall - did nothing. Just stopped, stayed in limbo for years, rusting away - even young people. Thank God a friend of my grandfather’s made a phone call for me and got me the gig chromeplating auto badges, oven racks and hubcaps. This crappy crappy job, kept me moving, kept me motivated, kept me saving money, kept me learning.
Eventually during that year, some new ideas for vocation came along and I was able to save my college tuition and move to Sydney to pursue my diploma the following year. That wouldn’t have happened had I moped around expecting the perfect breakthrough to fall from the sky.
A rough start is better than no start; you can only steer when you’re moving!
2. You Don’t Have to Fit in to Fit In
As an innocent 17 year old, new to both the Christian faith and to the world of work, I was a little challenged by the behaviour and attitudes of my workmates. I had the choice to go all Ned Flanders on them, or just sell out and go against my values and standards. Somehow I found a middle path where I stuck to my beliefs and ethics, but didn’t take myself seriously or get preachy with them.
After a few months of ribbing and pressure to blend in with their behaviours, they came around to actually defending me to new workers who wanted to make fun of “God Boy”. They even gave me my nickname: “Father” (as in the Catholic Priest kind). Eventually there came a day when Con the tough 30-something Greek guy came over to the 18 year old God-botherer and said quietly, “Father I think I need your prayers. There’s some guys after me for money.”
Sometimes it’s your differences that help you become a valuable part of your team or community.
3. Ask Specific Questions or You May Just Kill Your Boss
As a teenager, communication was not one of my strongpoints. Then came the experience that made me start to take it seriously.
One of our (giant) machines was constantly breaking down. It looked a little like the photo here but was about 100 metres long, with walkways on either side 2 metres off the ground. It operated on a simple system: arms (with racks hanging on them) being lowered into a chemical bath for 60 seconds then being raised by machinery moving sideways to the next bath and lowering again. Something in the mechanism would stick a couple of times a day and someone would have to hop down inside the machine to put a chain back on or whatever the hell they did. As you may (or may not) imagine, the arms were raised and lowered by two iron plates - and you definitely didn’t want to be between those plates when they came together. (Can you guess where this is heading?)
I came back from a lunch break to find the machine stopped and people standing around doing nothing. I wandered round for a while, then thought “No one seems to taking responsibility here and if those car-badges are in those baths any longer, they’ll start burning; I better see if we can turn it back on.” So I wandered up to the back catwalk where one of the 2 foremen was lounging against the wall. I said to him “Are we ok?” (not a very specific question huh?).
He kind of shrugged and nodded.
So I wandered down the other end of the catwalk, slapped the green button that turned it back on, and went down to my position on the floor again.
15 seconds later, the gears clunked - the first step in the machine lifting the arms … and there was an almighty scream…
… and then I swear I saw a man fly!
The other foreman had still been in the innards of the machine and was not even close to finishing whatever-he-was-doing. I have never again seen such a feat of superhuman strength as I saw when he flew out of that 3-metre-deep pit of machinery.
He lived to tell the tale. So did I - and this brings us back to lesson 2 above: for some reason, he treated me much more mercifully than he would have treated anybody else who’d done this (he was a hard man). He just walked past me, said “Are you trying to kill me Father?” with a half-grin, slapped me (hard) on the shoulder and kept going.
I’ve asked more specific questions ever since.
4. (Last 0ne I promise) Don’t Do Drugs
I learned very quickly that my objection to drugs was a reasonable and pragmatic one. Once you’ve worked around dangerous chemicals and machinery with guys who toke at work, you’ll never be in danger of thinking it’s cool.
I’m not sure whether it was the time I pushed one of these happy-go-lucky mellow-fellows out of the way of the descending machine-arm-with-heavy-rack-attached that was just about to push his head down inside his neck. It may have been the time one of them stuck his entire arm into a vat of sulfuric acid and pulled out the rack that had fallen in, splashing acid literally all over himself. Maybe it was some other acute whacko behaviour. Whatever it was, these guys cured me of any latent temptation to do drugs. 
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There you have it. Why not visit Middlezone Musings for the rest of the posts on Monday June 11th?
Oh, and (private joke), thanks to Jason Alba for the “belated birthday wishes” he emailed me!
Nicely done Pete. Seems like lesson #3 was learned well!