First Day on the Job

For my very first post, I thought ‘First Day on the Job’ would be an appropriate topic. If you have a story about yourself or someone else, you can share it in the comments or if you prefer, email it to me at donniechaffin@charter.net, and I’ll add it.

The first real job I ever had was working with my dad and uncles installing septic tanks and lines. I was probably 13-14 years old. Back then, the job required 4 or 5 people. You needed a backhoe man who dug the hole for the tank and the ditch for the lines, which was my Uncle Bo. The low man on the totem pole was me, so I was the stake driver, the one in the bottom of the ditch. Then you had the front-end loader man, who scooped up the gravel and dumped it in the ditch; usually, that was my Uncle Monroe. Finally, you had 1 or 2 men on rakes who smoothed out the gravel. I was the low man for sure, but the job was important. You started with a stake hammered into the ground at the perfect depth. As the ditch was dug, you drove stakes to the appropriate depth, ensuring each stake was level with the previous one. If the stake guy is off, then the guys on the rakes who are leveling the gravel off with the stakes will be off, then the lines will be off. That’s not good because you know what they say – it runs downhill…and it won’t run uphill.

So with that background in mind, I’m in the ditch, and I’ve driven maybe 6-8 stakes, maybe 30 feet of the ditch. Uncle Bo climbs off the backhoe. Everybody stopped working. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was an important moment. Uncle Bo steps down into the ditch and takes the level from me. He goes back over every stake I’ve driven. Now I know what’s going on because Uncle Bo is a perfectionist. If the stakes aren’t right, I’m either doing them over or maybe sitting in the truck until the job is done. I didn’t know. After he’s checked them, he walks back to me, hands me the level back, and returns to the backhoe. I looked back at the other men, and they gave me a nod. It was one of the proudest moments of my life. I assumed he would recheck my work, but he never did – not that day and not ever again. It wouldn’t have mattered. I knew it was important to earn your wage to the best of your ability. Perhaps some of that came from church teachings, but I think most of it came from the examples I saw living around Dutchtown folk.