From 1993 to 1998 was an interesting time of my life. I lived
an extraordinary amount of life in a short period of time. Many people look to
find themselves in college and then do the same career often at the same place
till retirement (remember this is 80s -90s mentality) and think this the way of
life. I started out thinking this way. Many of the jobs I begun, I would go this
is it I will be here for many years. Thing is I was never satisfied; I was too
much of a hot head and I enjoyed traveling way too much. I wanted to experience
life. I set no roots; I was looking for the next job even when I took the one, I
was doing.
This is not the best place to be in, in my opinion now. It did offer me a lot
experience in many areas. The main thing I did through out of it was mechanics,
mostly in the diesel realm of things. Average length of time at anyone job was three
to six. With even having my own business mixed up in all this on and off. 80-90-hour
work weeks was the norm and I thought nothing of it. I would get pissed off at
bosses and be like ok I am done. Some of them were warranted others I was young
and dumb. Life lessons at the end of the day. Looking back I don’t have this
time of my life well documented, going to do a brief over view of all the crazy
I did up to start driving over the road.
Finishing up school I was working part time in hydraulic hose shop. Making
hoses and servicing hydraulic equipment. This led into my first big job,
working at scrap yard that fed the local steel mill. At the time not the safest
place to work, over the years much better conditions came about the men that stuck
it out did well.
From there I went into working on farm equip at a Ford/New Holland dealership. The
early experience of working farm equipment gave me many opportunities and variations
of equipment. You want to find out what you like to work on mechanic wise get a
job there. The variant alone will show you quick what you truly like to mess
with. Everything from little lawn mowers up to combines and big tractors. Skid
steer loaders to back hoes and excavators.
Now without digging spending some time and digging into this
era is where I lose track of the timeline of what I was doing. One I had seven
to nine w-4s
This is the era I started my own mobile repair business. I did ok, I look back
now and see how I could have done better. My, know it all attitude at the time
did not help things out. Specially being in experience at the time working to
play with the big dogs. Thing is you must take chances, or you will never
learn. Action wins the day. Now I had my own business, I still did tree and
wrecking with my Uncle, these two fall backs I would either work part or fall
back on when I quit other jobs or did some contract work. For a time.
Here is a few of the places I worked to help make ends meet when life was lean.
House mover – as in picking entire house up relocating it to new land. I work as a grunt man and driver.
Heavy equipment operator & Trailer setter for a very large trailer house complex.
Mechanic and Driver for a startup quarry.
Mechanic for a small fleet trucking company.
Mobile repair of farm and heavy equipment, along with on site hose repair. Hydraulic Cylinder repair & testing.
To say the least a very interesting time, I worked myself into the ground. I took a step back and went I need a break from all of this. I need to refocus and figure something else out. This was both good and bad, I started looking at the next chapter of my life. How to get out of debt, what could be a career that I could do that would not be so hard on me physically. I chuckle now. For you see I became a truck driver, which comes with its own lists of good and bad issues. That is for next time in this series.
Agnitio Veritas Macto
Nathan
Twitter @SteelJanz
IG @barbarianrhetoric
This is part 4 of a series as I work through my history of jobs I have had.
Part 1: 31 Years Of Blood Sweat & Tears-What I Learned
Part 2: Mistakes Cost More Time And Money
Part 3: My Thoughts On Adventurous Years Of Learning
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