F/U MRI was good. better than I expected/
I need a new job.
My mother is doing well. Cant believe she could do this at 80 both knees replaced.
Good luck on the house.
SO HAPPY for You!!!
@downtoearth - when you mentioned testing, I was thinking academic or licensing. Glad they were better than expected!
Great news on the testing DTE!
I am so tired of the traditional gender roles and expectations.
I am very aware that as a well-educated straight cisgender Caucasian Christian living in 2018, I have so little about which to complain, compared to so many others now and throughout history.
But Iâm still sick of it.
I have to laugh when I see my post next to the picture of the traditional 50s housewife holding a pie!
DTE fantastic news.
ShawWife and I are back from a fantastic trip to China. Beijing, Shanghai but especially Yangzhou and Longsheng in the Guilin area. Mystical. Then we (with a big emphasis on ShawWife) hosted my family for a weekend birthday party for my motherâs 94th birthday. Now, Iâm teaching my executive course at famous university and working with a colleague to slot in a trip to Australia among my other travels (Calgary, Portland, Toronto, London).
Missypie, my niece is who is a student at U Michigan Honors College is working for a month on a factory line (starting early AM for almost 12 hours with no opportunity to sit down). She is meeting a set of people she wouldnât run into in her high-end private high school. People working 2-3 jobs, cheating husbands, mothers who take partial care of the kids while working, ⊠. In her case, she gets to leave to become a counselor at a beloved camp where she went every summer and then return to her next year of school. She doesnât mention this to her peers but on the first day told her mother, I thank you and am really grateful for the life we have.
mp, can you put a tattoo on that housewife?
shaw, I worked at Bordens Ice Cream factory in Indiana the summer of 1970. I was required to join the Union.
The most difficult line was the ice cream bars and popsicles. The management deliberately increased the speed so that the workers were always just slightly behind.
Incentive? Their goal was that a certain percent landed on the floor. It ran 120degrees most days and woman passed out most days. I was offered an easy job loading the cones on the belt. I refused (even more money) because my coworkers would have hated me. It was an experience of a lifetime. Then I could afford to return to school.
Oddly, this is not even on my list of jobs that I hated although it was physically the hardest.
I learned so much about life and hardships that summer My life was not a bed of roses
but others were much worse.
Another former factory worker here. During the summer of '77, it was the only job I could find in my small town area. They hired a lot of college kids because several of my friends also worked there. There were 3 other college student working in my department and we spent every lunch break together mostly talking about how we were fortunate not to have to do this for 30 or so years. We all returned to college that fall and all got our degrees. That wasa powerful motivator for sure.
That said , I hear you on the gender stuff, mp. Also like oregonâs tattoo suggestion.
Shaw, trip sounds amazing!
Another former factory worker here - two factories, in fact. Agree with all that was said above but would add that I also had the chance in one factory to talk to women who had worked there during WW II. They would stop working while they had children but returned to the factory. The pay was higher than anything else around (walking distance for many). It was so interesting to hear them talk about women doing ALL the jobs on the floor, and then when the men returned from war, everyone switched back. They were not resentful sounding, but proud of what theyâd done. The first factory I worked in hadnât been updated since the 1800âs and that was a different history lesson altogether. This âhighâ pay in 1974/5 - $1.65 an hour, IIRC. It was a Union job. The ancient factory was not union, at least not for a HS student working two hours a day. We received our weekly pay in cash in an envelope. Those were the two longest hours of my young life. One of my favorite questions to ask people is âwhatâs the oddest job youâve ever held?â The answers are fascinating.
Trip sounds amazing Shaw.
No factory work for my but I did work in a well known fast food chain for a summer. I didnât eat french fries for a quite a while after that.
Dâs old house closed so down to just one mortgage. yeah!!
In the summer of 1975, I worked at a bagel store filling in for the brother of a friend who was backpacking in Europe between HS and college. What a tough job. In those days, the bagels had to be placed in water, dried, hand dipped in the flavorings, placed on a board and put into a HOT, HOT oven and then pulled out at the exact right moment. It was a NYC bagel shop so people had very high expectations. It probably wasnât the hardest work physically possible, but it was tough.
The most boring job I ever had was in a clothing factory. I never got to see the clothing. My job was to compare order numbers from invoice to invoice. Oy, I am not a numbers person and it was so boring. Plus, every other woman there spoke Hungarian and barely anyone spoke to me. My main memory is that one day the whole place went crazy, screaming, shrieking, crying, even a couple of women fainting. What had happened? Freddie Prinze died. It was so hysterical in the place that they actually closed an hour early so people could go home and grieve with their families.
I will agree that those experiences contributed to motivating me to get through college (which I hated) and to get into law school (which I loved).
No factory work for me. Spent a couple of summers working in a hospital kitchen - my mom worked in the hospital, I didnât have a car, so it was a ride to work.
Grossest part: dish room. Cleaning the trays when they came back from the patients. Back then, patients could smoke. Cigarettes put out in the congealed oatmeal.
I also sliced my finger pretty badly. They sent me down to the ER for stitches - no chart, no bill - they just sewed me up and sent me back to finish my shift.
On Sunday, Son and I were talking about immigration. I told him that when I worked at the hospital, there was a janitor who was a recent immigrant from Vietnam. He had been a physician in Vietnam.
On a lighter note, there was another janitor about my age who was about the best looking guy I had ever seen. I was always mortified that he only saw me in my black hairnet. Then one day I worked up the nerve to talk to himâŠdumb as a bag of rocks. Crush ended.
My kids both had summer jobs while in college that kept them motivated to finish their degrees. D worked in the dining room of a nursing home, helping set the tables, serve the meals, etc. One of her co-workers was in her early 70s.
S worked for a summer in a warehouse, fulfilling online orders. He learned to drive a forklift. He figured out some better ways to do some of the tasks, which would lead to fewer errors (he thought) but when he suggested it to the supervisor, he got yelled at and told to stick to his job.
RM, glad your D is down to one mortgage!
Here are pictures of the region we were traveling in: https://www.google.com/search?q=guilin+mountains&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi15-Ss3b3bAhUJr1QKHcdLDRYQ_AUICigB&biw=1600&bih=735#imgrc=1GYD4QlhfiChxM: and https://www.google.com/search?biw=1600&bih=735&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=yiMXW5TuGuqY0gLK3aqoBQ&q=longsheng+rice+terraces&oq=longsheng&gs_l=img.1.1.0l2j0i67k1j0l7.97576.99417.0.101512.9.9.0.0.0.0.338.1169.0j4j1j1.6.0âŠ0âŠ1c.1.64.imgâŠ3.6.1167âŠ0.-U0RLnZw_7U.
My first jobs were writing software in HS at Bell Labs. The worst job I had was one summer writing in assembly language. Not heavy lifting. Just boring. So, I feel really fortunate. ShawD worked as a Certified Nursing Assistant â which could be pretty tough work â as well as a nurse at a residential school for kids with serious behavioral issues. But no factory jobs.
D passed her boards!!! Thanks for the good energy sent!
She was crazy anxious (especially for her) and was nauseated from her PG.
The test was 6 hours one day a and 9 the next. Tonight she suggested that maybe
pregnancy anxiety is real =)).
During my pg with her both H and I were convicted she had one leg. She had one leg thrown
across her body and evidently the second leg was behind her. We only saw one leg until she was born and
we then learned she was a girl because a leg had covered her sex.
I replied to her " maybe PG anxiety is real" âmine was-- we were convinced you only had one
leg and look at you now running and walking on two legsâ. She actually laughed.
So happy this is behind her.
shaw, really gorgeous pictures. Thanks for posting.
Congrats to your (2 legged) D, oregon!
Congrats to your D Oregon. Great news.
Shaw - I get that. Boy did I HATE assembly. COBOL was almost worse though. Fortran I could deal with. C was really what I liked. C++ okay as well. There are days when I think I should just go back to coding and forget this management crap.
Congrats to Oregon D!
Congrats to Oregon D !
I have had many jobs. silkscreening shop OSHA night mare. ? reason for cancer.
Nursing home kitchen, housekeeping. nurses aide. nurse.
Everyday I am thankful I could feed my kids.
But I still struggle, jobs are stressful. and tough. wears you down. but at least we can enjoy our lives as a result.