Digging Ditches

 

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One of my early elementary school teachers frequently admonished us that, if we didn't pay attention and learn our lessons, we would end up digging ditches for a living.  One day I saw a huge machine that looked something like this parked by the side of the street.  One of the workers proudly volunteered that this was his machine and asked me how I liked it.  I said that I was impressed and asked him what he did with with his machine, to which he replied that he dug ditches.  Next day I told my teacher that, if it was all the same to her, I would like to skip the rest of my schooling and go right into digging ditches for a living.  When I told her about the machine she told me that you have to know somebody to get job like that and and, since I didn't, I'd better pay attention and learn my lessons anyway.

I found out years later what my teacher meant by having to know somebody.  I was looking for work in Anchorage, Alaska and heard that a certain construction job was hiring.  I went to the site and asked about it and was told that you have to be in the union to work on that particular job, so I went to the union hall to see about joining the union.  There I was told that you have to be employed before you can join the union.  It was few yeas later before I found out how the system works.  It seems that many big construction outfits have two crews, a union crew and a non-union crew.  New hires are generally assigned to the non-union crew.  If the boss likes your work, he might recommend you to the union crew someday.  Once you're on the union crew, you join the union and can no longer work on non-union jobs.  The process might be expedited if you know somebody, but there are no guarantees.  It may not be the same all over, so I decided to give Catfish the benefit of the doubt on this one. 

There is still a place for shovel workers on most big excavating jobs.  After the big rig gets done, somebody might have to follow up with a shovel to even up the edges and clean out any dirt that has fallen back into the hole.  It is often said that construction workers spend a lot of time leaning on their shovels.  That might be because they are waiting for the big machine to finish its work so they can do theirs.