Never the Same #45 Kirk Forges a Fresh Course

Kirk, the high school grad, Vo-tech grad, college grad, takes a job as a manual laborer. Has he hit a new low in his life? Kirk definitely wasn’t the same after a hot task.

 

Cue: “Workin for a Livin”  https://youtu.be/KLATbzMutkc?si=8Vlc8d28yU6q6PLQ

 

            Despite Kirk not wanting to follow his father’s instructions in finding a job, and especially not wanting to work at the same plant where his father worked, Kirk had taken the plunge. That plunge being stopping by the Georgia-Pacific plant and accepting the job that he apparently had already been accepted to fill. Got that? 

            So early the next morning, Kirk pulled in the plant driveway and past the small office building. A couple other cars followed him down the incline to the plant entrance as a couple others were departing. When he pulled into the parking lot and parked; he watched. He noticed the people door that the secretary had mentioned the day prior. He knew that he had arrived early, but Kirk didn’t want to be late on his first day. What he would be doing he had no idea. How he’d recognize this so-called Jim, he didn’t know that either. How would he track his time on the job? No clue.

            Nervously, Kirk got out of his van, pocketed his keys and walked toward the people door trying to act like he knew what he was doing, which, obviously, he didn’t. He went inside the door and immediately the heat, the smell of wet plaster (or so he assumed) along with dust hit his nose. Noise of electric motors, voices talking, some shouting, and the general noise of mechanicals filled his ears. His eyes took in some huge iron vats appearing things something or others rose up in front of him maybe three stories tall. He noticed a middle-aged guy wearing plaster-smeared canvas pants off to the right go the wall. Kirk saw a time clock with a big rack of time cards not unlike the one they had at the dealership. Yeah, perhaps the only similar thing between the two jobs. Yeah, Kirk thought, two jobs I didn’t acquire using my own capabilities.

            He scanned the rack for his time card. Alphabetical, he saw his father’s but not one for him. He glanced about to see if someone, that being Jim, searched him out. No one seemed to be waiting around. Everyone else around there had a destination, so it seemed. Kirk wasn’t really paying attention to the door when a voice said something, he couldn’t quite discern what was said over the din of the plant.

            A voice behind him said, “Young Mister Biscuit, I assume.”

            Kirk spun around with a start. “Ah, yeah, yeah. That’s me.” He said with a thumb to his chest. “And you are?”

            “I’m Jim, supervisor of the Day Laborers.” He stuck out his hand and Kirk gripped it.

Kirk said simply, “Kirk.”

Jim’s hand felt gnarly and boney in Kirk’s, but the old guy had a strong grip. Kirk had the habit of shaking hands with a wimpy grip so he adjusted his accordingly to the grip he felt. Kirk took in Jim’s appearance. Like all the workers at the plant, Jim wore a mixture of dirt, grime, dust, and plaster coating his denim outfit. Kirk immediately thought from his older stature Jim should have retired years ago, but here he was supervising the Day Laborers or so kirk surmised. Kirk put one and one together and thought, I’m a day laborer? What a menial, hard-working job is this going to be? Back and butt breaking hard labor like prisoners? Of course, just off the street, what did he think he was going to do, manage the plant? This job, he thought, is going to be temporary. Right?

Jim reached inside his jacket and pulled out a time card.

“Here’s your timecard. Do you know how to punch in?”

“Yeah, sure. Had one in my old job.” Kirk took the card, walked the couple feet to the clock, and punched in. He put his card in a slot under the “Bs.”

“Where’d you work before?” Old Jim inquired.

“Ah, at the Dodge dealership in Williamsville. A mechanic apprentice. I didn’t like it so I quit.”

“Really? Should have been a pretty good job.”

“Ah, maybe, but not for me. Kind of got all the crappy assignments. You know bottom of the ladder.” Kirk realized what he had just said. Speaking of crappy jobs, he just got hired on as a full-time crappy day laborer. Kirk immediately kind of crumbled physically and emotionally under his dire realization. Old Jim might have looked sympathetic to Kirk’s realization.

“Well, Kirk, you usually have to start at the bottom of the barrel, you know?’

Kirk slowly nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

“Come on,” said Jim with a wave. “My laborer crew already have their jobs for this morning, so I’ll show you around for a while. Give you a lay of the land so to speak and do some little jobs as we go.”

“Sounds good,” Kirk said. “I know nothing about the plant, how it operates, and all that so It’ll help to know a little about the operation. He waved to the huge black iron vats near them. 

“These are the gypsum kilns right here where they fire and cure the gypsum before it can be used in wallboard.” Kirk saw the middle kiln’s little iron door hung wide open.

They went through a passageway where electrical cable racks along with liquid pipes ran above and beside where some of which squeezed the way. They came to the wallboard line at the end. To Kirk it felt hot and sticky in there. High humidity air felt stifling. There, several men worked alongside an assembly line-type operation.  The wallboard moved along on rollers at a slow pace. Kirk saw that a layer of heavy paper goes down along with narrow edge strips. The mixed gypsum gooped out of several nozzles as a worker adjusted the mixture as needed. Then, the upper heavy paper layer comes in overhead and is applied to the top to sandwich the gypsum. Kirk thought the process looked rather straight forward. Old Jim said as much except that things can go sideways and the whole process has to be shut down. Not a pretty sight, he added.

As the two walked down to the starting end, Kirk saw large, six-foot diameter rolls of heavy paper. His father had brought some left over ends of the rolls that had been used down to about six inches home, for what purpose Kirk didn’t know. He also saw a crate of wooden pucks that his father brought home as well. These round-tapered pucks had one-inch holes in them. Kirk saw the workers hammer the pucks in the paper roll ends and then shove an iron axle through the holes. He saw as they prepositioned the big new rolls to replace the nearly spent paper rolls. A pile of spent rolls were thrown off the side.

“We need to clear this out,” old Jim motioned. A small propane powered forklift was parked nearby. Jim climbed into the forklift’s seat and fired off the surprisingly quiet engine. Kirk thought the engine exhaust smelled like the kitchen stove at home. Jim drove the forklift over and motioned Kirk to load up the old paper rolls. The rolls had ripped ends and edges and handling them Kirk found they were quite light. With the forks tilted back as far as they’d go, he got quite the load on the forks. Jim motioned to follow along as he headed to an overhead door that was partially open. In the humidity Kirk could feel the cooler aid drift in meeting the warmer air.  Kirk opened the overhead door and Jim drove out with the paper rolls. He dumped them a ways from the building where it appeared they burned the paper rolls. Going inside they continued their tour.  In the next passageway, Jim pointed out a light bulb burned out.

“One of our on-going jobs is to keep the lights lit, so whenever we see a bulb burned out, we need to fix it. In separate areas, if a bulb goes out, I try to replace all the bulbs at the same time so they all get replaced at the same time and then get replaced at the same time.”

Kirk thought Jim’s simple plan was minor genius.

They moved on to warehouse. An expanse of two football fields side by side. The one side had row upon row of the giant rolls paper. On the other side were rows of stacks of drywall in varying lengths. A couple forklifts buzzed around adding more drywall to piles, some stacks of five bundles of drywall reached up maybe twenty feet. He saw they used narrow strips of folded up drywall to place the bundles on. Kirk had to admire the precise driving of the forklift operator to place the bundles up so high without damaging any drywall. Practice makes perfect he supposed. He also supposed he’d never be able to do that because he lacked that critical patience and the required hand/eye coordination. Jim and Kirk wandered down the length of the warehouse where a group of three guys swept the floor and dumped the sweepings into a wheelbarrow. Kirk stood aside as Jim indicated that he was a new hire. They welcomed him to the crew in so many words and Kirk just said hello and gave a wave. So this was the extent of Jim’s crew. Jim told Kirk they’re moving on.

After a convoluted route through passageways and alleys that Kirk knew he’d never be able to replicate they emerged from another outside door. They took a turn away from the main building toward a rather beat up airy sheet metal pole building where a gawd-awful racket emanated. Kirk eyed up the long, narrow metal building that seemed to decline into the ground probably a quarter of a mile away. A huge eighteen-wheeler dump truck spewed black diesel smoke as it roared way. Next to the door of the building, a couple hearing protection noise muffs hung on a hook outside the rattly rough sheet metal door.  They donned the head gear, lifted the heavy metal latch and went inside. There inside, the noise redoubled. A rubber belted conveyor streamed past just several feet from them loaded down with a jumble of rocks. Kirk looked down the conveyor and surmised the truck had just dumped the rocks into the hopper way down at the underground terminus of the conveyor. A small, storage building-like shack sat up a few steps along the side.

Jim stepped up and opened the door of the shack. He motioned Kirk up who followed. They went inside to meet an old guy behind a four by three desk inside the six-by-six shack. Apparently, Jim and this old guy Harv, were old buddies from way back. Kirk didn’t take in their conversation after the introductions which were completed at a loud volume because of the noise and headgear. Kirk didn’t take part in the conversation because he was too busy taking in the wallpaper. Nearly every square inch from ceiling to floor were covered in pictures taken from Playboy and other magazines of the sort. For a young guy like Kirk, it was hard to take it all completely in. The whole shack must have been rated at least R maybe X. Kirk wondered how this display of nude female bodies was allowed by the management. Of course, this particular working position appeared to be a one-man operation far removed from everyone else. After a while, Kirk tore himself from staring at the walls and noticed the little shack reverberated and rattled with a deep vibration from the noisy machinery. Kirk wondered if this job was potentially a death trap with all the moving belts, chains, pullies, and so on. Is this plant somewhere he’d want to work for a while for his entire adult life? His dealership job seemed like a safe, quiet cakewalk right at that moment.

A few minutes passed. Jim signed off with Harv and he and Kirk went on with their tour.  Jim pointed out where the rubber-belted conveyor dumped the rocks into another heavy duty, bucket like elevator that lifted the rocks nearly vertically to another conveyor way above their heads that transferred the rocks to the crusher. From their vantage Kirk couldn’t see the crusher, but heard it along with a steady ear-shattering beat of a clang, clang, clang. He didn’t ask.

 They moved back inside and headed behind where the crushers resided or at least Kirk, in his disorientation, surmised. A couple guys worked in this area. Apparently, they were the “scientists” of the plant. Here as Jim explained, they tested the quality and the consistency of the powder that came out of the crusher. Then, they monitored the amount of water added in the giant noisy mixer that had all kinds of gypsum slop slobbering all over it. They apparently made sure the mix was not too course, too dry, or wet before it was piped to the outlets that Kirk saw on the drywall fabrication line. He could see that a bad mix could really foul things up enough to put a stop on the line as Jim mentioned.

So, Jim and Kirk ventured on seeing the various work centers. Most areas had a small crew of three or four guys like the laborers’ crew while a couple were one-man operations like the rock handler. Kirk wondered how a solo job in a noisy place would affect guy day in and day out. Kirk, as we remember, was more of a lone ranger, but then again could a guy get complacent and make a fatal mistake by becoming part of the machinery? Kirk shivered with the grisly prospect.

After all that wandering about, Jim and Kirk did some clean up, sweeping and taking out of the trash in several places. Kirk got the impression that being a day laborer might not be so bad. The work seemed pretty light and seeing Kirk knew he didn’t enjoy working at night all the shifts would be daylit and always in different places not tied down to one sort of mundane task day in and out. All in all, Kirk decided it would end up being a pretty damn easy job.

 

***

 

            The next day Kirk entered the plant with a light spring to his step. Yeah, he figured after a good night’s sleep things looked up for the old young Kirk man. Yeah, he hadn’t started an overly prestigious job, but the plant had a good standing within the town so if you mentioned that you worked at Georgia Pacific you were kind of all right. He wouldn’t be surprised if his father criticized him working as a laborer after he had suggested or more correctly coerced Kirk into taking the job. Yeah, Kirk thought, his father would probably bring up the fact that Kirk had gone to college for mechanical training and yet here he was at the plant. Yeah, Kirk ran all these off-putting father/son interactions through his mind.

            Anyway, Kirk punched in with just those thoughts percolating not even imagining the job on this second day could be any worse that the first. So, when Jim came in and told Kirk they had scare up a wheelbarrow, shovel and broom Kirk didn’t think of it possibly being other than a minor clean up somewhere. Apparently, only the laborers used wheelbarrows, of course, so Jim knew exactly where one was parked. The two of them then went back to the entry area where they started. Kirk thought maybe they just had to spiff up the floorarea better than it was already. Boy, was he ever wrong.

            Jim didn’t seem bothered at all to inform Kirk that he had to clean the inside of the gypsum kiln. He pointed to the great iron vat kiln that Kirk could still feel heat radiating off of.

            “How do we clean the kilns?” Kirk asked, staring at that open little door with an impending doom festering in his belly.

            “You just crawl in there and shovel it out,” Jim nonchalantly answered. “There’s never more than four or five wheelbarrow loads in there.”

            “Isn’t it hot?” Kirk asked, with his palm held up to feel the temperature.

            “Nah! That one has been shut down for over a week,” Jim said, tossing the shovel inside. Kirk did the same with the broom.

            “How often do we clean these, ah kilns?” Kirk pensively asked, trying to stall the apparent inevitable dive into the dark, hot abyss.

            “Only a couple times a month, not all that often.”

            Kirk glanced at the other three kilns doing some quick math. He decided this was definitely one of the laborer’s jobs that he already dreaded. He stuck his head in the small door, the heat felt stifling with a dusty burnt oil smell. Of course, it was a black, dark chamber.

            “The faster you get started the faster you’ll get done.” Jim said, stating the obvious. “I’ll wheel the loads out and dump them so you don’t have to crawl in and out.” 

            “All right,” Kirk said.

He took a deep breath, stuck a leg in, ducked his head inside, and pushed inside the door. He did the same maneuver crawling in and out of his stock car but that was fun, this was not! Kirk wasn’t exactly claustrophobic, but he sure didn’t like places with iffy escape routes. He’d even sweated in school classes when he realized there was only one way out of a darkened room. This only had that little firebrick and iron door entrance. He took his sweatshirt off. He thought that he had never been in a hotter place even though the humidity must have been close to zero. Jim ran the wheelbarrow up under the door and told Kirk he’d be back shortly. Kirk looked up into the underside of the kiln. A huge funnel-like dome hung up there almost but not quite as wide as the kiln itself with a hole in the center. Was that what the powdered gypsum dropped in or where oil fired flames shot out. Kirk wished he didn’t think about that.

            Kirk wondered how long he’d last in there if someone forgot he was in there and closed the door and turned on the burner. How about if they fired up the kiln? He shivered despite sweat pouring out of every pore in his body. Was this a test to see if he’d stay on the job? He began shoveling and dumping the loads into the wheelbarrow outside the door. The dust he created hung and clogged his nose. He had a sudden childhood horror of Hansel and Gretal pushing the witch into the oven. So, this is what that feels like!  He kept working slow and easily. When the wheelbarrow got nearly full Jim moseyed on by. Kirk wondered if Jim just hung out nearby until the wheelbarrow got full.

            “Are you doing all right in there,” Jim called in.

            Kirk coughed. “Yeah, yeah, okay.”

            Jim took the wheelbarrow away; Kirk had to crawl out. The air outside seemed so cool to the skin after being cooked inside. He inhaled deeply pulling in the fresh aid down into his lungs. He blew out his nose. After a minute or so, Jim came wheeling back, so Kirk crawled back in. No words were exchanged; Kirk just went back to work. As Jim had predicted there were five big heaping loads of powder and ash. As he got close to the point where he couldn’t pick up anything with the shovel, Kirk swept the whole floor toward the door, shoveled the remainders out and called it good. Jim reappeared just then.

            Jim stuck his head inside. “Good job, Kirk. Probably the best of any first timers. Very good. I’ve had guys who refused to go inside.”

            “Well,” Kirk said, putting on his sweatshirt against the sudden cool air, “It’s not the most fun thing I’ve ever done.” He formed a grim grin to the floor.

            “Yeah, there’s that.” Jim said, hoisting the wheelbarrow. “Why don’t you head over to the breakroom, have a coffee and recover for a while.”

            “Sure, thanks,” Kirk paused. “Ah, do you want me to dump that load?”

            Jim seemed to be taken aback by Kirk’s offer. “No, no. I’m fine. Take it easy.”

            Kirk moseyed on down to the breakroom. Stuck a quarter in the coffee machine and let it fill a paper cup. He sat down and sipped his coffee while a few other guys came and went getting coffee, sodas or snacks.

            Kirk wondered if maybe the job of cleaning the kiln might be rite a passage or to see if the newbie would stay on board after that miserable job. Kirk thought some of those fat guys on the laborer crew could never fit in through the kiln door. After just a few minutes, Kirk guessed that the cleaning job inside the hot, dusty kiln wasn’t all THAT bad. So, he wasn’t about to quit on the second day.

Nevertheless, Kirk was Never the Same.