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"Dave, sir."
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"Don't tell me your name! I'll figure that out when I write your last check!"
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He really was a good boss because you quickly figured out that it was an act designed to motivate us and keep us from goofing off. After work we would load our bikes into the back of his truck and he would give us a ride to my friend's house and pay us in cash.
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In high school I worked at a Gulf gas station. I pumped gas and changed oil, washed cars, you name it. Then I went to work at a tire store where the boss would pin a twenty dollar bill to his corkboard and challenge me to see who could sell the most tires. It got to where I would win so regularly that he stopped putting the money up. Instead I was promoted to assistant manager, and then when he opened a second location, to manager.
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I was having more and more work placed upon me, but no more money was coming in, and when I asked for more money I was refused. I applied at every tire store in town, but they hadn't any interest in a twenty-year-old manager or assistant manager. I worked construction jobs. I hung acoustical ceilings and lost that job because I worked with racists and wouldn't hide my own views. They wouldn't dare fire me; they just stopped coming to pick me up as they had always done before.
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I landed a job with a railroad contractor doing right-of-way maintenance. I was trained as a heavy equipment operator. I operated a switch undercutter, imagine a chainsaw blade laid on its side that's ten feet long. It would pull all the rock and dirt from under the switch ties and dump it into a ditch and allow the railroad to repair the switch. I loved the job and made good money travelling the country. In Kansas I got intestinal food poisoning and was admitted to the hospital. That was the only time I missed work, but I was supposed to go to Buffalo, New York a few weeks later and I missed my flight. And when I called the office to explain that I would catch the next one, they said, "Well, I guess that's it for you!"
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"Pardon me?" I asked. "What does that mean?"
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"It means you're fired! I didn't take you to raise!"
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