Some jobs are very hard, some physically, some mentally. And not everyone is cut out to work hard one way or another. When I was in my mid- twenties I cleaned carpets in Sacramento. That is a hard job physically. It's hot, heavy, and in order to make money at it you have to be really good at it, pay extra attention to detail, and go fast, but not miss anything. I worked for a very expensive cleaner, and I made really good money, but if I screwed up something I had to fix it on my own.
I ran a two man crew and I was in charge of hiring my helper, and I used a number of people that worked out well. They didn't get paid a lot, but it was more than minimum wage by quite a bit, so it was a good job for someone with little or no work experience. One time when, for some reason, i needed to hire a helper, my boss hired a friend's kid, and told me he was kind of a dweeb, but was one guy we could mold into a perfect employee. I was skeptical. I'd seen the kid, he was maybe twenty-one or maybe twenty-two, very slight build, and just didn't seem to be very capable. But we gave it a try. And what an adventure it was.
We had a full schedule on his first day, three big jobs,and from the work orders I surmised that even if I had had a good helper it would be a long ass day, well into to the evening hours. As we were driving to the first job the kid asked me what time we got off. Bad thing to ask me right off the get, so I told him my standard, "when its all done" answer.
The first job was a whole house, four bedrooms, dining room, living room, den, study, etc, and the rooms were full of furniture. I showed the kid what to do. Luckily the customers were not home, so I didn't have to worry about decorum and teaching the kid what to do and how to do it. The helper job is not really rocket science, but it is physical. I showed him how furniture is usually set against the walls, and when we went into a room his job was to move the furniture out from the walls far enough to clean the WHOLE area under it, then when done set it back in place with either a foil pad under the legs or little blocks of wood if it sat directly on the floor. The first problem he had was, "How do I move a couch all by myself?"
"One end at a time," and I showed him on the first couch. And I had to show him on every piece of furniture all day long.
He also had to fill the water in the machine when it was getting low, add our emusifier to the water and pour it in the machine. And dump the dirty water in the toilet without getting it all over the place. I told him that if I ran out of water we would have to stop until it got filled again and that would make the job take longer. All day long, I had to tell him to get more water every time we would be getting low, and I had to retell him how much emulsifier to add. Every damned time. The first job was scheduled for a four hour slot and we didn't get done until mid afternoon.
The second job was an empty house so my helper's job was easy, just keep the water full and empty the dirty water. Still didn't get it and I kept running out of water, so that 1 hour job turned into 3. I was really getting exasperated and I'm sure I was beginning to get pissed off, so he was probably beginning to not like me very much.
We got to the last job and it was bigger than the first one with a lot of heavy furniture, a couple hutches full of china, a large desk, piano, and more. Plus it had an upstairs room that the machine would have to go up to. We got to that job about 6PM
We would have re-scheduled, but the customer had to be ready for guests the next day, so she was ecstatic when I agreed to stay until it was done, even if it took until midnite or later. My helper, I could tell, was nearly done, it had already been more work than he had ever done in his life and I'm sure he was looking at the furniture, size, and the coming hell he was going to be in for a long long time. It was mid-summer so we were soaked with sweat, hadn't really stopped since the early morning, and I'm sure he was dead on his feet. And I had to once again tell him every damned step, remind him about the water, remind him to pad the furniture and remind him to be very careful. This lady had knick knaks that were worth more than my car. It took a solid four hours to clean downstairs, it should have been an hour. I was fuming and that poor kid was dying.
The machine I used was very heavy, and there was one way to carry it up the stairs, one guy behind to hold it, and a guy in front to lift it up each stair. I was a pretty strong guy and I was capable of carrying the machine by myself but unless I had to, I didn't.
I knew on the first step we were going to have a problem. He couldn't hold up his end very well. The lady was at the bottom of the stairs worrying, and about the third step he dropped his end. I held on to it and told the lady, probably a lot louder than I meant to, to move out of the way. I saved it and wound up carrying the machine up the stairs by myself. He followed me upstairs and when he asked me what he should do next I exploded. There was nothing but plastic chairs in one big room, so I yelled at him to get the goddam chairs out of my fucking way, fill up the water, and then get out of the way. I was just fuming, he was obviously scared, and he picked up the water bucket and headed off to get water, I thought. But he never came back. I found the water bucket next to the tub in the downstairs bathroom when I ran out of water. He was no where to be found. I finished cleaning and got paid, the lady was quite happy with what I had done and she told me she thought I needed a stronger helper. She also told me my helper had gone out the front door. I wrapped all my stuff up and put it in the truck. it was probably midnight or so and I was cussing my boss under my breath with every step. I never knew what happened to the kid. He left, never knew where he went, and as far as I know he never came to get his one day pay-check which was probably around a hundred bucks, and in 1977 that was a good pay for a day.
I've thought about that kid and have wondered how his life turned out. I was probably his first boss and first work experience, and it didn't work out too well for him. Hope he turned out alright
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