Introduction to Adulthood Through Temporary Employment

 

Introduction to Adulthood Through Temporary Employment

Those were a few of my learning experiences in graduate school. Now, before I proceed to my career life, I should comment briefly on the various jobs that I worked at in order to earn money to pay for my education. These temporary positions only provided a fraction of my education expenses. In undergraduate college they didn’t even cover fully my tuition. My parents provided the balance. I also had the advantage of living at home, while commuting daily to college classes. After completing my undergraduate degree, they called it quits insofar as paying for education expenses directly, but they allowed me to live at home during the summers, and during the one-year work break that I had to take after my first year of graduate work in order to accumulate enough savings to pay for the second year. During that year I worked for the American Viscose Corporation at a rayon manufacturing plant within walking distance of my parents’ house.

But my first paying job, during the summer after I completed high school was with a construction company as an unskilled laborer, assisting carpenters and brick masons, wheeling concrete, moving bags of cement and brick mortar, and other work that was equally exhausting physically, but rewarding in that it was the first time in my life that I actually felt strong (after weeks of building up muscle). And I gradually began to feel that I was moving from childhood to adulthood. The second summer I worked for the same company. The third summer I began working for it, but the work ran out after just a few weeks, so I found a job at the clothing company where my mother worked. I worked in the shipping and receiving department, and I did that same work each summer until I had to take a full year break, when I worked at the rayon plant as a budget accountant, even though I had never taken a course in accounting.

Although my subject is my inner life, I needed to provide this brief description of these temporary work positions because they did have some affect on my learning. The direct affect of the physical labor positions is that they were almost devastating to the mind. I stayed so tired that I couldn’t focus my mind on anything academic. I had to take a break of a week or two just before starting back into my next semester classes to dig out my textbooks and review the previous year’s work. Math studies are cumulative in that each course requires as a prerequisite a knowledge of the prior course material, and science and foreign language classes also possess that characteristic.

Working at an adult level alongside others of various walks of life was educational. At construction work my coworkers were near the low end of the skill set. Most of them had a minimum of education, many had served jail sentences, and at least one had been in prison. My coworkers at the dressmaking plant represented a somewhat higher level of society, and those in the accounting department could probably be considered at least semi-professional. I did not have any bad relationship experience with a single one of the personnel in any of these jobs. I was subject to some goodnatured teasing, but no bullying; no one shirked his share of the work; no one seemed to resent me. I was always treated as an adult, even by my college professors. To them I was always ”Mr. Barger”.  And, of course, all of this helped me to think of myself more as an adult. Later in life, when I worked almost exclusively with professionals, I was able to appreciate what I had learned from these early relationships.

These temporary work experiences affected me in one other way, a way that I had not expected. Once, in my first summer at construction work, I was preparing mortar in a wheelbarrow for a stone mason who was setting polished marble stones on what was to be the front face of the building. It suddenly dawned on me just what was taking place – gradually, through a long, complex combination of planning, work and materials an impressive structure would result. It gave me a great sense of satisfaction that I was a part, though a tiny part, of it. This was not play, nor a simulation, nor a theory. It was the real, practical world.

I had a similar emotion when I first reported for work at the rayon plant. As I walked onto the grounds the distinct chemical odors lent a kind of aura to the air, testifying to the fact that a manufacturing process was taking place. Something was being produced, and I would proudly become a part of that industry. Work can be a burden at times, but the satisfaction of accomplishment is a more than a sufficient reward.

When I neared the completion of my master’s degree program, I was interviewed by a couple of corporations, but I really wanted to get a research position at the aeronautical research center at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia. I had almost no qualifications for such work, but they were eagerly seeking new employees with a strong math background. Consequently, I submitted my application, and rejected other job offers.

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