Summer Job in Waco …

Summer Job in Waco …

Way back in the year 1969 I just graduated from Richfield High School and had no idea what I wanted to do the rest of my life. College seemed the way to go, but I was not that great a student and had no illusions I would improve my academic skills in order to get a degree in anything, but even if I did, what would I do with the degree, still had no clue what direction my life would go in
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My Father Jack wanted me to work with him at the paint store he owned, but I had worked at the paint store off and on and did not care much for the paint business. Dad was good at his job and could sell paint to anyone and keep them coming back for more and he enjoyed the work and the people but for some reason I was just not a paint mixing and selling kind of guy.

My Mother Bea worked at the Owens-Illinois Glass Plant as a glass inspector, had been there 35 years and thought I should work there for the summer and make some extra money for college.
After graduation I turned in my football gear, track shoes, life guard whistle, furniture moving gloves, and paint stacking ability to work at the glass plant in Waco or Beverly Hills which was a suburb of Waco then, and work as a glass stacker for the summer.

Over the years I had made the trip from various places we lived in Waco out to the glass plant either to take mother to work or pick mother up from work, she worked a different shift every other month so I knew how to get to the plant and that working there was not going to be easy due to the shift changes.

I started work with very little excitement, everyone on the line I worked on in the warehouse knew my mother and had all sorts of comments to make about her and her ability, but when she came round they ran for the glass stacks, my mother apparently did not take any crap or off the wall comments from anyone and if they made any she gave as good as she got and usually won! That was another side of my mother I had not been exposed to and it was good to know she was a strong and respected woman in the work force.

Mother decided to let me deal with life on the line the best way I could so I could see if I really liked working there and hoped working there would scare me into staying in school, life at the Glass Plant was not easy, it was hard work and some of the folks who worked there were not nice people.

It was during my orientation I learned just how good a paying job the glass plaint was, even for a brand new kid just out of school. Apparently many of the guys I was working with came to the glass plant as a summer job but never left because the pay was so good.

Base pay for me for one hour was more than I made in a day at most of my other jobs and the plant added to that amount each day based on production and if you worked over time you got time and a half added, they always wanted you to work over time, and if it was a holiday you got triple time, it was a very good paying job.

My first week at the plant was busy, not hard to learn my job, but not easy to do repetitive work hour after hour for eight hours. We did get plenty of brakes and the line was not always that rough but there were times the line was hell and the devil was there to check on you if you were not pulling and stacking glass as fast as the line moved.

Most jobs as they called them took two folks, one on each side of the line, both folks pulling boxes of glass off the line and throwing the boxes onto a giant trailer with tow ten foot sides. Each person had a load plan on how to stack the boxes, when you pulled the box off the line you turned and tossed the box into the trailer a certain way, it had to be stacked that way or at about eight feet the stack would fall over and you did not want your stacks to fall over!

My first couple of jobs were easy, had another guy there to make sure I was doing it right and show me how to pull and toss the boxes so the stacks were right and I thought how easy is this and they pay me big bucks to do it. The line I worked on was a conveyer belt attached to an electronic crane of sorts that could sit at floor level or move up and down as high as twenty feet off the floor so you could get all your boxes stacked as tall as the trailer you were stacking.

The boxes full of glass, mostly soda bottles, twenty four to a box would slide down the conveyer belt onto my crane, I would pull a box at a time, turn to my right or left and toss the box onto the trailer into the stack pattern for that load.

Each job had a ticket, the ticket told you how fast the glass would come, how many folks were needed to accomplish the job, and provide you with a stack pattern and how long the job would last. Most of the jobs were four hours, but they could be eight hours.

When we needed a break, we yelled out and a replacement stacker would show up and do the job while I was on break. When I left he would step in and when I returned I would step in, the line never stopped until the job was over.

 You can see how this could be a problem if you were not able to pull, toss and stack the glass as fast as you had to do it.

I found out that on occasion only one person pulled, tossed and stacked and had no help except the break person and then only during your break. After several days I was doing my job and doing it well, I was way ahead of my job plan, when as the load puller pulled one of my trailers out; the entire load fell on the cement floor! I was horrified, the load puller was yelling and pointing at me, and others came a running to see what happened, they all saw the look on my face, they had told me if I dropped any glass I had to pay for the damage out of my pay, I figured I had just lost a week’s pay and I had not gotten that pay yet!

Turned out this was all a joke to see how I would react and I reacted the right way apparently. I yelled at the load puller and the clean up guy to get the damaged items out of the way, pull in a new trailer so I could get the rest of the job done, that was the correct response, after all the line never stops till the job is done.

Turned out the load puller who pushes in the trailer and sets of the ropes at certain levels to hold the stacked glass in place had removed some of the ropes and or bands once I had attached them, that is also part of the job, at certain levels you had to attach a band to hold the boxes in place. The load puller cut them and when he pulled the load out the majority of the boxes fell over! Some test but one I never forgot.

It was during my first week on the line in the warehouse at the Glass Plant that I was on break having lunch and saw the NASA folks land on the Moon. Yes, we had TV back in those days and they had one in the break room, where you when the guys landed on the moon?

After several weeks I was getting very good at what I did at the glass plant and was making lots of money, but Mother was not happy I might stay at work and not go on to college, but she let me go my own way there and make my own decisions so I would know what it was going to be like working in this sort of environment.

One day I was on the line with no help and the glass was shooting down the line, I was losing a box every other ten boxes but got no help cause they were short of people that night, there was broken glass on my conveyer belt and stand and on the floor below me, the clean up guy was doing his best, but everyone was having a bad night and glass was all over the place, so much for you had to pay of broken glass.

Part of the job of a stacker was also to tie off some of the loads after they were stacked, on my conveyer I had a spool of twine and a razor sharp cutter edge to cut the twine with, this was usually not a problem, but with glass shooting down the line, this was an accident waiting to happen.

On one of my turns tossing the box of glass to the trailer I slipped on the broken glass on my stand and started to fall, so I tossed the box of glass, it fell to the floor below me some ten feet down and broke into jagged pieces, in order to keep from falling off the conveyer and onto the broken glass I grabbed the conveyer rail with my right hand but missed the rail with my left hand and caught the razor!

I pulled myself up to the conveyer stand and noticed I had a sharp pain just below my left thumb, looked down and saw blood all over the conveyer, the glass and me and that the blood was coming from my left hand. I yelled about the same time I grabbed my left hand with my right hand applying pressure to the cut just below my left thumb. I called for the break guy who was on his way, apparently the clean up guy who was below my conveyer saw me fall and saw I had cut myself and called for the backup guy.

Once the line was taken care of I headed to the first aid office to see how bad a cut I had, there was blood all over me and both my hands were bloody as I walked to the aid station. When I walked in, the nurse noticed the mess and told me to remove my hand so she could look at the cut, I told her I did not think that was a good idea, she pulled my right hand away and blood shot all over the place, she fainted and fell out on the floor in front of me.

Just about this time my mother came running in to see what had happened, apparently it was all over the plant I had cut myself and she was coming to see how bad. Mother helped the nurse up off the floor and into a chair as I applied pressure to the wound again. It was about this time that I was starting to feel the pain and loss of blood, the doctor arrived about that time and had me sit down while he worked on the laceration.

I received ten stitches just below the left thumb on what I would call the heel of my hand. I can still see those stitches today, well the scar where the stitches were, it was a bad cut, wound, laceration, the razor had gone all the way to the bone but they saved the thumb and all I got out of the ordeal was a scar and this story!

Needles to say a month later I left my summer job and drove off into the sun rise to college and the next stage of my life…smiles and frowns.