Railroaders' Nostalgia > My Dumb Luck: the AFT years 4

4 Long Beach CA Jan 5-8 / Anaheim CA Jan 9-13

On about Jan 7th I drove down to Long Beach and again found Marty. I had done my homework: I knew what HVAC was. (Just knowing what it was probably wouldn't be a skill exactly- but maybe it would make me appear, you know: savvy!)

Marty had nothing for me.

Anaheim was next.

I was supposed to work the next week end, but my boss at Yellow thought my pursuit of a job with the AFT was pretty cool, so he said he'd give me a day off if I'd go down and try again. Okay.

The train was on display on a track running through the parking lot at the (then) California Angels ballpark. It made an impressive sight because the the whole train, less the flat cars, was strung out in one long piece- usually it was displayed broken up in 3 or 4 sections.
I found Marty and, well, they had hired three laborers that very morning! I couldn't believe it! Marty began to explain that they had a steady stream of applicants every day, so.. But she was interrupted when (Johnna-Lee*) stuck her head in the door, “Call for you, Marty”. I waited while she took the call- it was one of the three hired that morning. He'd gotten cold feet! She hung up the phone and said, “Okay, you're next... that's how it works”.

I was in.

She made a call on a portable radio to Greg. If he liked me, he would be my new boss. She pointed out the window to a guy sitting alone, away from anything, in a golf cart about a 100yds out. I walked out to the cart and he motioned for me to have a seat.
We sat in silence, looking at the train.

This was kinda weird.

But he was just fooling around, the drama was a joke. (Ah! I could see that we'd get along just fine) The job would be labor- some amount of difficult physical work, mixed with easy tedious work, and very screwed up sleep cycles.
He gave me a few days to get my affairs tied up in Santa Barbara. Meanwhile, the train would move on to San Diego. The train would then leave San Diego at midnight on the 18th. I promised to be aboard by the time they pulled.

SR

*I'm going to go ahead and use real first names. If you don't know these people, I can't imagine why you'd need their last names- and if you do, well, you'll know who I'm talking about. Fair?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/14 08:57 by BoilingMan.

Why Soitenly!!
Blue 24 out