You are about to read part 3 of a many, many part autobiographical memoir. It involves the happenings leading up to a nearly 10,000 km (6000 mile) hitchhiking adventure... and the happenings of that hitchhiking adventure. If you enjoy it, feel free to leave a comment. Upvotes and resteems are particularly welcome, as I am just getting started and need all the help I can get... HUGE thanks to all the people who liked Part 2 and made it my most successful post (by a huge margin!!!) I will continue posting this story until it is all up... so stick with me if you enjoy it.
You should start at part 1
https://steemit.com/life/@allcapsonezero/hitchhiking-memoir-part-1
and then part 2
Enjoy Part 3!!!
Talking about Al and his personal life I realize that I have not told you about me, which does not seem to be quite fair. I graduated from the University of Alberta, after 5 years and much dilly dallying, with an Arts degree in Political Science and Philosophy where most of the political science was philosophy.
Shortly after graduation, I moved in with my girlfriend and her friend and started my callcenter gig. Things most certainly did not work out with my girlfriend and myself (after 3 years) and I moved into my cousins basement a broken man. I stayed there for over a month until a room opened up at another buddy’s house. I was at a very awkward stage at this point in my life as I had taken a fall... a big fall. The whole life that I had been building was a charade and a lot of the things that I was fighting for turned out to be fruitless. I found it very difficult to face the day and found a church that gave me some sort of grounding and purpose. I believed in most of what was being said minus some political agendas and fundamentalist rhetoric... but it was something I certainly needed at this stage in my life.
I was a drunk in school and came to the conclusion that it was either all or nothing with the booze and knew all to well what life was like drinking. So, I had made a choice not to touch a drop of alcohol at this point as well. So at the tail end of my callcenter gig, I decided to stop drinking, I broke up with my girlfriend, got kicked out of my apartment and shortly after quitting that job, had a new roommate, a new place to live, and faith that things could only get better... as well as an institution to place that faith.
Summer rolled around and I was hauling drywall. I think I started on June 21 and finished on September 21, the entire summer season ironically enough. I had made good money, in comparison to what I was used to, and managed to save up a couple of grand. So, I did what any lost, lazy, still a little pot-headed, aspiring artist would do. I took a few months off.
By the time December had hit, I was flat broke and I had it bad for a girl. I was still a mess, I was far from myself and confused. A few free tickets came my way so I got a couple of free dates which was nice, although it seemed that she was not interested in me the same way I was interested in her... but I did meet a guy who told me he could get me a job in the trades and that all I had to do was call him.
In Alberta, when there is a serious economic boom, the trades are where the money is... the trades and the oilfield. I was trying to get into the trades before I started at the callcenter, but found it darn near impossible to do so without a car or the funds to purchase a car. So, this offer was very good for me. Even though my date went terribly, I had the prospects of getting a good job... or at least a job that paid a bit better.
I jumped through the appropriate hoops and I ended up working on this apartment complex going up on the north side. Over an hour of public transit and a few transfers a day landed me there. I was cleaning up after the tradesmen, who like to leave quite a mess. Sweeping, and throwing chunks of drywall off of balconies into dumpsters (which proved to be the highlight of the job). The portapoddy urinal had a six inch layer of frozen urine on it, which seemed to grow daily. The majority of workers were decent enough, but the few jerks more than made up for it... And... on Friday by noon, many of the workers were rowdy and intoxicated. I never asked how much I was going to be paid, simply due to the fact that I needed a job so badly that I would have taken whatever... but I ended up getting paid $9 an hour... which is very low, especially on a construction site. I worked hard and just before I quit, after 4 weeks or so, my boss had offered me a raise as he had noticed my work ethic was solid and the quality of my work reflected that. The raise was not much... but “it was better than a kick in the butt...” to quote my supervisor at the time.
A family friend had lined me up a job for $11 and hour working in a warehouse making radio towers, which I have already mentioned somewhat. I took that job and found it a much more pleasant place to be working. There was your typical conflicts, butt kissing, cocky bosses, and pointless busy work for the sake of looking busy, but all in all it was alright. I took that job just before Christmas holidays, which they gave all of their employees, which was surprising to me as the callcenter I was working at the year before kept on running throughout the “joyous season.” I also got a gift on my 2nd day of work, which was nice. The owners, although they were making ridiculous money, worked in the shop and it made the job feel a bit more legitimate. The owners were alright too... I may not appreciate the fact that there is this disparity, but, since there is, they seemed alright. One of the owners was a bit too cocky for my liking and acted as if he was above everyone else, he loved to hear himself speak, and called workers “monkeys”... He never called his workers monkeys... but he called workers monkeys to his monkeys (I mean workers).
There was always orders coming in and always orders coming out. I figured this out really fast and just kept a steady pace and did not let it get to me. My supervisor would stress out and snap and have tantrums when he was busy... He would make us work overtime to “get ahead” when there was no possibility of “getting ahead”. When we were ahead for a day or two, he would feel really good, and then when an order came in that put us behind he would get really upset. I guess he felt comfort in the fact that the next order would be taken care of... but... the nature of this warehouse industry is that there is no getting ahead or getting behind... there is just a steady flow of work to do, and if the workload gets too heavy for the employees, more employees will get hired.
I worked with my brother for a bit at this job and he was of the same mind frame as me on getting ahead... we just worked all day and laughed at the fact that our supervisor would stress out so much. All of the workers worried a bit about him as he looked like he was setting himself up for a heart attack. A common ailment for the workaholic. When he would have one of his fits, people found it very funny to push his buttons to make him get even more angry. I found this to be pretty hilarious. There was even a meeting held on the topic of keeping him happy and not causing more breakdowns. My supervisor, Gary, was most certainly a workaholic. He was always working, even when it was pointless work and borderline counter productive. When he went away for a week, everything got done, everything was spotless, and we were standing around a lot, just waiting for our next task. The next task would get done right away because we were right there with nothing else going on. If Gary saw us standing around, he would make us do something, which usually mean moving something, or taking something apart. So, the warehouse was always a mess, and when something needed to be done, we had to get pulled off our other task which was still incomplete.
Gary would always make comments on unions and how union workers were lazy and useless. I disagreed with him, but it appeared to me that he missed the point and enjoyed being a low paid stooge. He was talking to the owner one day about all of the jobs that he had going on and the owner, off all people, remarked, “I am amazed that someone will work so hard for so little.” I think Gary took it as a compliment. This anti-union stance he had ultimately forced Gary to quit. The sales supervisor had to leave at noon one day, so the sales team, unsupervised, left work a half hour early. Gary, ratted out the boys to the supervisor the next day and they got chewed out by their boss. The sales team had no reason to be nice to Gary any more. Gary, always at the edge of his sanity, and always ready to snap did not need much of a reason to quit his job. He is 50 and has had over 50 jobs in his life. He quit shortly after he stabbed the rest of the workers in the back... Hopefully he learned a lesson about brotherhood and sticking together, but I doubt he did.
During my time at the warehouse, I moved out of my buddy’s house, into a small bachelor suite closer to work. Shortly after that my friends offered a spot for me in a house even closer to work. I really thought living with these two would work out well for me as well... so after a month and a bit in my bachelor suite, I broke the lease, forfeited my damage deposit, and moved into a house. The landlady wanted her son to move into the house that we were renting and got really mad at us for getting a dog after we cleared it easily with her husband. She threatened to kick us out after our 6 month lease because of the dog... although shortly after we discovered that it was because she wanted to have a place for her son to stay. My roommates, who are married to each other, were sick of renting and being at the whim of landlords, decided to buy a house. Sure, you are still at the whim of a bank, but, the unexpected garbage that a landlord can bring up will no longer be a hassle. So, I moved again. In just over a year, I moved from an apartment, to a futon in a basement at my cousins, to a house with my own (not including all of the mice) room at my buddy’s, to a bachelor suite on the other side of the river, to a house with some new roommates, and then to another house with the same roommates. Wow!
One nice thing about moving so much is that you realize a lot of the stuff that you own that you come to resent. I found myself thinking, ‘why am I still luggin’ this crap around?’ So, I ended up getting rid of most of my junk in the process.
It was at this time, after spending half a year at the warehouse, and just getting comfortable with my living arrangements (much thanks to my roommates who are wonderful) the strings were starting to get pulled. My head was getting restless. My heart was again rejecting the life I was leading. It was time for a change and I knew it. I was 24, a few months from 25 and the realization of this had sunk in. I am not getting any younger. I could wake up tomorrow and be the workaholic supervisor at a communications warehouse trying to get ahead. I did not want that.
I watched the movie “The Motorcycle Diaries” which is based on Che Guevara’s trip around South America on a motorcycle which had provided a major shift in his life and he went on to do some big things. People even buy shirts with his face on it from shopping mall kiosks ironically enough. The revolution, being a hot commodity these days where hunters can take money away from those that think they are down but have no idea how to get down.