Some Work Will Never Make A Career

They’re the REAL Boys of Summer - not professional ballplayers, but the amateur carpet-pullers, septic-tank cleaners, animal-hospital orderlies. They work when it’s sweltering, for less than they’re worth. And they’re short-timers. Thus, they get the grungiest of the grunt work, the most boring of the tedious jobs.

I recently asked male readers for stories of their worst summer jobs. Following are a few less-than-fond remembrances:

Ed Stodola, Lexington, Ky.: In the summer of 1961, I got a job at the Larson Canning factory in Green Bay, Wis. I was to stand at a designated spot under the conveyor track to make sure the cans did not get stuck on their way to the peas. I was warned that if a can got stuck, the peas would pour onto the floor. I was given a pole 15 feet long to free any cans. Near the potential sticking point on the track, a clock hung on the wall. This gave me two things to watch during my 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift - the track and the clock. I worked there for three weeks. No cans got stuck. No peas went on the floor. My neck got stiff. And I developed a lifelong interest in time perspectives.

Steve Wright, Dublin, Calif.: When I was 10, a friend and I were hired one summer to rid a woman’s attic of the pigeons nesting there. This was a Southern California attic, so it was blazing hot. We worked our way from one end to the other with house brooms, chasing and prodding the birds toward an opening we’d made to the outside. (You can imagine what we were stepping in all along the way.) Still, some of the birds went way back into tight spots that couldn’t be reached by broom. My friend and I debated what to do about these birds. I had a good, pump-action pellet rifle with scope. My friend shot the first one.

Dave Pettee, Oakland, Calif.: I once worked renovating college dormitories. Without air-conditioning, we spent the summer on our knees ripping up horsehair padding under the rugs in the student rooms. To top it off, the rugs were, shall we say, fragrant with the smell of months-old pizza and beer. By the end of the day, I would be filthy, covered with itchy horsehair, and nauseous.

Peter Wallace, Atlanta: My first summer job was as a janitor at an animal hospital in West Virginia. I had to clean out filthy cages, take dogs to running tracks, feed scared and angry cats, etc. To a 14-year-old, there is nothing quite like waiting for somebody’s old pet poodle to die in a cage, then reach in, grab the dead body and throw it in a trash bag.

Randy Jorgensen, Pullman, Wash.: When I was college-aged, I worked with a guy who installed and repaired septic systems. For minimum wage, I’d dig down and uncover a full septic tank, pump it into a tank truck, then drive to a local field and spray it out on the ground for fertilizer. The flies were disgusting.

John Klus, Lexington, Ky.: The summer after my freshman year in college, I got a job working for an asphalt company in Detroit. After asphalt is produced, it is conveyed to large holding bins where hot oil is circulated to keep it soft. Eventually, a truck is moved under the bins, the bin doors are opened and the asphalt tumbles into the truck. At this plant, the hot oil lines weren’t working, so it became our job to open the bins each morning. To do this, we would stand in the back of a dump truck with long iron rods. The doors to the bins would open. Then we would ram the iron rods up into the cooled asphalt and break it up. We knew we had succeeded in our mission when the cold asphalt fell out onto us, followed by the hot asphalt.

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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Neil Chethik Universal Press Syndicate