An Interview With A Dad

This entry is going to be a little different from the usual. Today I interviewed my dad about working. We talked about what he went though then and what he goes through now in the process of getting a job and how much cheaper everything was.

According to Dad, "I got my first job in October of 1972. I looked through the newspapers, sent in applications all over the place and landed a job in a department store. There was no real interview, they called me up and told me to show up at a set time and place. I earned roughly $1.80 per hour, just slightly above minimum wage at the time."

With the money from that first job he helped to support his mom and little brother. Vastly different from what I go through. Months on end go by with no calls, despite the several places I've called and sent resumes to, because I've never used a cash register. Heck, most places they ask me if I own a car, and won't hire me if I say that I take the bus.

Later he worked at a factory doing materials preparation for "I started there making $1.80 an hour. By means of constant small merit increases I was raking in a generous $3.00 an hour. After that I got a job at Herron Optical Company. I was required to fill out a rather extensive application. I filled out four pages of what equipment I knew how to use, what kinds of hand-tools I had experience with, and what jobs I had held."

They hired him in 1975 for $3.00 an hour, but by the end of five years he was making $7.50 an hour doing lens grinding, coating, and quality assurance. Also within that time, he got married and decided to move to Northern California.

In 1980 Dad got a job with OSG optical company for $7.50 an hour doing quality assurance. "I was laid off in 1981 and within two-weeks had gotten a job at OCLI for $7.00 an hour doing inspection. By the time I left there I was earning $9.00 an hour and had bought a house."

By 1985 he started working for GEO Operator Corporation teaching engineers how to operate their computers for $11.00 an hour. "When the company started to look shaky, I walked over to the company where my wife worked (Freeport McMoran) and offered to do tech support and data entry. They hired me in 1990, matching my current pay of $15.00 an hour."

Freeport was bought by Calpine and Dad went through a series of jobs including tech support in the Geysers, Systems Administrator, and data entry. At the time Calpine laid him off in 2006, he was making $32.00 an hour and supporting a disabled wife and a college student. It took several months before he got a job at Restoration Hardware for $24.00 an hour. A year later Restoration hardware laid him off and he is currently unemployed.

According to dad, to survive he needs a job that pays at least $25.00 an hour; unemployment pays the equivalent of $11.25 an hour. "In reality, though, it is considerably less. I effectively pay $8.64 an hour to COBRA for the medical benefits package I was given at Restoration Hardware. That amounts to a net pay of about $2.64 an hour. Ideally I'd like to make $35.00 an hour; which would allow for the occasional splurge like a dinner out or a vacation."

2.  A Few Things Learned

The other day I came across a puzzle in history. I know that in the early 17 and 1800's cities and buildings were being lighted with gas light fixtures. I also knew that drilling for Gas did not occur until the 1800's. Where was the gas coming from? So I looked it up and it turns out that a fellow by the name of William Murdock found a way to manufacture gas and built a gas-works to light a cotton mill in 1792. After that, gas-works boomed and whole cities were lighted with manufactured gas. In 1820 the first gas well was drilled. Mystery solved.

Now and then I do random bits of research. I look up countries and the facts about their founding and their current government. One thing I look at very carefully how governments in different countries are run. In my research on glaring bit of information keeps popping up. The majority of countries with high standards of living do not isolate their government officials. Here in the US, it takes a lot to meet a government official unless they're fairly low-level and even then, it's for maybe ten minutes at some public function. Whereas in much of Europe, you could easily meet one of the high level government officials in day-to-day life. No security telling them to just keep walking and to ignore you, no assistants telling you that you can't speak on certain topics because of national security. They're like ordinary human beings. Next time I'm going to do a comparison chart or something about this.

3. Me, Myself, and I

In a few weeks I'm going to be in a recital. I'll be singing The Trees They Do Grow High and Soalin. The Trees is my solo piece, with my music teacher Laurie doing the accompaniment. Soalin is going to be a duet with my dad. I'm working on refreshing a couple of nice Celtic tunes on my harp; Dublin Streets needs some work on the left-hand part and I've got Road to Lisdoonvarna down fairly smoothly. I haven't played much on the dulcimer, but one of these days I'll get back to it. As for the violin, it goes slowly. I did find my old violin music book, so now I can re-learn some of my old favorites.

Also, I bought my cat Loki a new cat toy. He's a sweet orange and white tabby with the softest, fluffiest fur in the world. Pain to brush, but he's cute enough to make up for it. He keeps killing all his cat toys, so I got one of those fishing-pole types with a sturdy cord and a leather tassel. Sometimes I can get him to do flips, it's pretty awesome. In this section you may have to cope with me gushing about how wonderful my darling Loki is, but I'm sure you can tough it out. If I get a chance, I'll post a picture of him.

4.  Creative Corner

Rainbow, Rainbow on the wall

I wonder where it is you'll fall

Be it in the clouds ahead

Or from my window to my bed?

5. Comments

Sigh, no comments. No one has subscribed yet. Well, my good friend holly did make one comment, but in an e-mail.