Unless you've been living under a rock, you will know that heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne has his funeral in Birmingham, UK, today. Now, before I go any further, I don't have any of his music. I liked one or two of his songs, but on the whole, I'm not a heavy metal fan.
Quite rightly, there have been lots of tributes flying around the web and timelines filled with videos of the man, one of which is an interview where he explains about jobs he had before stardom, including making two-tone car horns. Ozzy relates how, at eighteen years of age, he would stand in a soundproof room testing two-tone car horns, adjusting the pitch for the sound, talking to a guy who looked like he had been there forever. The guy seemed proud of being there for thirty-five years and was looking forward to getting his gold watch. Fortunately for the world, Ozzy decided to get into music instead. It reminded me of when I moved to the Midlands in 1987. When I arrived in the Black Country, I didn't have a job. My parents had moved up many years earlier, so I at least had a place to stay until I got myself sorted. My then brother-in-law told me there was a job going at his place and that I should call round in the morning and have a word with the boss. My interview consisted of "What's your name? When can you start?" I kid you not!
So I arrived the following morning, and the foreman took me to a shed where there was a huge machine with rows of vertical sanding belts and two guys, one standing at either end. My job was going to be breaking the bands holding the square tubes together and then manhandling four tubes onto the bed of the polishing machine. The tubes would pass under the belts, and the surface, hopefully, would be polished to a shine. The guy at the other end would turn all four to the next surface and send them back down the line, and the process would be repeated until all four surfaces were shiny. Like Ozzy, I spoke to one of the guys during our strict ten-minute tea break.
Me: "How long have you worked here?"
Old Boy: "Twenty Years."
Me: "Twenty years!? OMG."
Old Boy: "It's a good job. I can just switch off."
After a week or so, I couldn't take it anymore and told the foreman that I was thinking of leaving. "Don't do that! I'll put you on something else," he said. So I come in grudgingly on the following Monday. Oh, he'd put me on something different, alright. He'd put me on round ones!
This was even worse! You literally placed the round tube in a sort of V-shaped box, and the friction of the sanding belt pulled the tube through. Imagine eight hours solid of that! I went to see the foreman and told him I was leaving. OMG, he flew into a rage, basically saying I didn't want to work. I told him he could get a trained monkey to do the work and that I had to leave before my brain turned to mush. Sadly, I didn't go on to become a rock god. I started driving Taxis instead, but that's a whole other story.
[None of the images in this post are mine; you must click on the pictures for the source]
My actual name is Pete. This is why I have the username dickturpin
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