When I was 15 I got a summer job at a lumberyard my grandfather use to own. My first day I was tasked with cleaning out the sump drains, which were full of mud and cigarette buts (kind of made it look like chili). Basically I had to use this small bucket and scoop up this putrid soup and dump it into a garbage can, then once the can got to a certain point, I had to walk it around the building to a dumpster. Doesn't sound all that bad, except the garbage cans were all cracked around the sides, so as I'm walking this shit to the dumpster I had the muck leaking onto my pants, shirt, shoes, arms, etc. My uncle made me lay down a sheet of poly on the passenger seat in his car because I was so filthy.
Ironically though, that wasn't my worst day at that yard, my last day was far worse. This was a few years later and I had worked my way up to a forklift driver on Saturdays, building orders, loading trucks, and grabbing supplies for customers. This Saturday in particular was incredibly windy, which caused a lot of our packs of styrofoam insulation to blow over our fence and into the creek that separates our yard from the cedar mill next to us. I'm tasked with retrieving them, which sounded simple enough, except this normally calf-deep creek was now around 4 feet deep. I ended up having to jump onto these floating packs and use a pickaxe to pierce and drag each of the packs back onto the shore, then put them on my forks and drive back over to our yard, all while the wind was blowing gusts of at least 80 mph. All while this was happening, I had to try and weigh down some of the other styrofoam insulation packs with various lengths of 2x4's. That worked for awhile, until a big gust of wind came by and threw one of the 2x4's into my side, fracturing two of my ribs... Yeah that day sucked ass.
I've got a lot more work stories, but those two are my favorite because they happened to me at such a young age.
Ironically though, that wasn't my worst day at that yard, my last day was far worse. This was a few years later and I had worked my way up to a forklift driver on Saturdays, building orders, loading trucks, and grabbing supplies for customers. This Saturday in particular was incredibly windy, which caused a lot of our packs of styrofoam insulation to blow over our fence and into the creek that separates our yard from the cedar mill next to us. I'm tasked with retrieving them, which sounded simple enough, except this normally calf-deep creek was now around 4 feet deep. I ended up having to jump onto these floating packs and use a pickaxe to pierce and drag each of the packs back onto the shore, then put them on my forks and drive back over to our yard, all while the wind was blowing gusts of at least 80 mph. All while this was happening, I had to try and weigh down some of the other styrofoam insulation packs with various lengths of 2x4's. That worked for awhile, until a big gust of wind came by and threw one of the 2x4's into my side, fracturing two of my ribs... Yeah that day sucked ass.
I've got a lot more work stories, but those two are my favorite because they happened to me at such a young age.
