Oh man. My first job was basically normal for many young men growing up in rural southern Georgia. I was 14 years old and for five days each week, three hours per day at $5.00 per hour, I would get off the school bus at the end of the driveway leading up to the main house of the farm's owner. From there, I'd set to work getting food and water to about seven hundred head of feeder pigs. That included a few separately penned boars and sows.
Occasionally, the boss would have me sleep at the farm on a Sunday night. I would get up very early to feed and water the pigs before school. Usually, my sense of smell short-circuited after being assaulted by the stench of hog poo and hog pee, I'd end up forgetting to change my boots before getting on the school bus. I got a kick out of the faces made by those trying to pinpoint the smell.
Only once did anyone ever figure out who it was in the room that had scat clinging to their footwear. Thankfully, that person was also regularly feeding livestock of their own, so they kindly refrained from informing anyone else of their discovery.
My first job was dirty, smelly and not exactly a highly sought after position. Still, after one full school year and a summer tending those pigs, I had enough money to pay a mechanic to get my parent's old station wagon back to a road worthy condition. With a little left over to buy a compact disc player to replace the stock cassette player it came with.
Over the next four years, I worked picking and loading watermelons, cantaloupes and pulling weeds. The Morven grocery store hired me to stock shelves and clean for two hours after school three days each week. Eventually I landed a stock room position with a large chain grocery store in Valdosta. From there, I joined the U.S. Navy and went to school to learn how to be an aviation mechanic, with a focus on structural and hydraulic repair.
After being discharged, my next gig was as a magazine delivery man. My route covered south Georgia with one weekly trip to the Tallahassee airport in Florida. The long hours and the boredom of driving for most of my day compelled me to look elsewhere for work. I got on with a rapidly growing electrical construction company. After a year with them and lots of interesting experience, I was hired by Travel Centers of America as a diesel technician. The year was now 2005.
In 2007, Justin Davis Enterprises of Madison Florida offered me a spot as a diesel technician. They had a fleet of fuel tanker trucks with terminals in Madison and Tampa. Often myself and another tech would travel to Tampa for a week stay to service the units based out of that terminal.
I went on to work for a sign company, a small roadside service company, as a long haul truck driver, a heavy truck parts advisor and delivery man. Also I graced with my presence an embarrassingly high number of other mechanic, welding and construction related jobs up until I was hired in 2018 by John Deere as a parts advisor.
Though grateful for the opportunity to work for a top notch company like John Deere, I started growing more restless on the job with each passing day. I took an auto mechanic position which I quickly lost after a misunderstanding with the shop owner and a position with a local handyman company as a helper.
Finally, Travel Centers of America in Brunswick Georgia got around to reading my resume. Presently, I am happily employed at that location as a diesel technician.
