I wouldn’t say it was the worst job as it was just one day in my long career.
Ric Tresa’s post has brought back the memory of the day we worked next to a whaling processing plant at Point Richmond North of Berkeley. This was in my first year of employment with the power company and I was the truck driver for the Line Crew. They had installed a new main at the whaling factory and we were transferring the service.
The odor from processing plant was easily the most offensive of anything I had smelled before or since. I was fortunate in that I was working on the ground and could get up wind from landing where they brought the whales in for processing. The lineman was not so fortunate. He was right at the entrance and kept trying to keep from vomiting as he worked as fast as he could to complete the changeover.
As the power had to be disconnected while we did the transfer the few employees were out watching what we were doing so I was able to talk to them about the plant. One worker told me they had a special room to shower and change in as the odor clung to their clothing and it took a long hot shower to also clear it from their pores. He told me one day he forgot and brought a wallet back to his room at the rooming house he lived at and left it on the dresser while he went out for the weekend. He was nearly evicted as the odor could be smelled throughout the entire house and it would be days before it was gone.
We worked well past our lunch hour, which got us a mild reprimand from a supervisor as we had to have authorization to do so. This was just to finish and move a few miles from the plant to eat lunch. The lineman who was up that pole thought could not eat his lunch nor he said dinner that night. His wife nearly through him out of the house as his cloths also were contaminated with the odor. He had to go to wash his cloths immediately as well as shower himself.
Today that processing plant is long gone and I can’t say this remembrance is one to cherish although I will say those of us who were there would recall this story for several years after and always with some embellishment. Gradually as we all moved on to other jobs in the company this story was forgotten, until now.
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Comments
Monte
Yes, Vultures are natures garbage cans, a beautiful bird in flight and awkward on the ground. Thank god for them as they clean up our world. They are attracted by the order of death
Monte,
That mild rebuke we received came because technically we were to be paid overtime for working more than the required time past our scheduled lunch. The supervisor was concerned that we would put in for overtime. In realty we probably would have given up the days wages to pass up the job. The linemen, now that I recall, threw away his jeans and shirt after that day. The short wash was not good enough. His boots were kept outside where it took several days before he could wear them. The leather had also taken up the odor.
Never have I smelled anything worse than that in my life. The employees were three black men who were obviously lacking in education needed to find decent work of equal pay, and it was not a well paying job for them. We made probably as much in a day as they did an entire week.
Monte
Having fished off ocean piers years ago and cleaning the Halibut and Cod believe me they are nothing anywhere near close to the odor of a whaling processing plant. I have to admit since I move farther inland to the Sierra Mountains I miss the trips not far from where I lived then.
Monte,
It is always flattering to received an Editor’s choice, I can never predict what they may choose as I truly think some I have written are not only far better than this piece but in more moving.
I admit being flattered as well, after all I am one of those Neanderthal types who spent little time in the halls of the educated and more time with my knuckles dragging the ground playing power Lineman, not the Wichita Lineman type, but one not used to flowering language but the one who can scorch ones ears with language so foul and abrasive that it peals paint.
Actually, even after preaching hundreds of sermons I am no closer to understanding what will be well received and what won't. I have worked my rear off researching, writing, rewriting and editing a sermon, memorizing it and I will be so proud of it. Then I preach it and nothing happens. Nothing. No comments good or bad in the receiving line after church.
The next week I'll have a funeral and a couple of people seriously in trouble in the hospital and I will finally get some time, short time, to work on a sermon. So I throw something together in an hour, that I think it is barely passable. Then I preach it and people flock around and tell me how it spoke to them, etc.
Who knew?
Monte