Summer jobs

A couple of weeks ago The Economist carried an article about the decline of teenagers taking jobs during the summer break from school. 
The article focused on Dixon, Ill, the boyhood home of Ronald Reagan and his summer job as a life guard.  A link to the article is here: https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21724850-it-striking-how-often-self-made-americans-have-stories-tell-about-boring-summer

The article
states that in July of 1978 72% of American teenagers were employed, but in 2016 the number had dropped to 43%.   Why
the drop?  Not sure, but reasons may be that the government mandated minimum wage is now $8.25 in Illinois, and companies
cannot afford to employ extra workers, or teenagers are just not interested in working, or are taking summer college prep classes, or they are involved in sports hoping to land a college sports related scholarship, or can’t find a job that doesn’t
involve hard work, or don’t need the money, or…

Anyway, the article prompted me to write this article about my summer jobs in the hope that it may inspire a few of today’s
teens to get a job, if not this summer than a summer in the future.

Starting in 6th grade I had a paper route.  I delivered the Santa Fe New Mexican to the houses in our
rural Pajarito Village.  There were about 10 houses, but the route was very spread out over dirt roads and bicycling
to make the deliveries involved trying to ride over deep sand, mud sometimes, and thorny weeds that punctured tires. 

Then when I was 15 my father, who was still working at Los Alamos Scientific Labs, took a job gauging the Rio Grande for the US Geological Survey.  He didn’t actually do the work, I did.  This was a smart move in his part because
the job qualified him for Social Security benefits when he retired.  His job at Los Alamos did not.  The Lab was run by the University of California and they had their own retirement program, so as a result when he retired he got both
retirement benefits.  I pointed out that this started when I was 15 because in New Mexico you could get a driver’s
license at that age.  I did get the money, which as I remember was $1.50 per day.  The job involved driving five or so miles from our house to the bridge crossing the Rio Grande at Otowi, where the USGS had installed a hand operated cable
car over the river.  I unlocked a storage locker, installed a winch on the cable car, attached to the winch cable
a large heavy brass torpedo shaped sampling device with a ¼” nozzle that let water into a pint milk bottle that I had put into the torpedo.  I then ran the cable car out over the river and took a sample of the river water by lowering the torpedo down to the river bottom and back at a rate that filled to bottle to about ¾ of the way full.  I labeled the bottle with the date and which third of the river the sample was taken from. 
Did this same thing for the middle third and the near shore third.  I then pulled the cable car back to the starting point using a clever tool that latched onto the cable, put everything away and went home.  This was done once a day.  The water samples were kept in our garage, where a man from
the USGS picked them up monthly.  It was actually fun, except when the temperature in the winter was -20◦F and the river was slush and the ¼ inch nozzle froze and my fingers froze and it was dark.  I did this until I left to go to college, and took over again during summers through college, even though I had other summer jobs.   My father continued to do this for some years after he retired.

My first real summer job was as a gas station attendant.  I
started working at Roy’s Chevron at the bottom of the hill to Los Alamos.  This was between my sophomore and
junior years in High school.   I got the job because my parents and several other prominent families in Pajarito
Village knew Roy, and he wanted to keep them happy and therefore keep them as customers.  Roy did not manage this
gas station; he had a bigger station in Espanola, and a car lot, and various other businesses.  The station was managed
by Pete, who was a relative of Roy.  I was paid 75¢per hour.  All of the other 3 or 4 attendants were Spanish Americans
except for Frank the mechanic who was an old American Indian with no teeth from a local Pueblo.   Note that in
Northern New Mexico Spanish American is the correct term for the American Citizens that are of a Spanish heritage since their families have been in the area since before the US was formed. 
Santa Fe was founded by Spanish colonists in 1610.  So
in this job I gained a good appreciation for multicultural relations.  Not that I was unaware.  Los Alamos High School had a fair number of Spanish American students, but as in most high schools there were cliques, and we didn’t socialize with
them very much.  The other workers liked me, the kid, and we spent many slow afternoons talking about life.  Many of them were married and had kids, and as a result they really needed the job.   Pete was mean. I think he drank and when he had a hangover in the morning it was best to stay outside of the station as much as possible, only going in to
make change or run a credit card.  I was pretty much fireproof, as Roy had hired me, and Pete knew it, but the other
attendants were not fireproof.  I saw Pete fire men for what seemed to be trivial incidents, or lack of doing something
that Pete thought needed to be done.  One afternoon Pete told one of the men and me to sweep the driveway, which was
hundreds of feet long.  It was hot and we were using worn out push brooms.   My partner stopped to get a drink of water and Pete fired him.  He was almost crying as he drove away.  He fired another man who
was supposed to be detailing Pete’s car for missing a couple of spots of wax.

The summer between my junior and senior years I got a job working as a counselor at the YMCA Day Camp
for kids.  I heard that this camp was being organized and went to the Y to apply for a job.  Going back to the gas station was not appealing as Pete was still managing it.  
I was interviewed by Dori, the young lady that was going to run the camp.  She was looking for a nature councilor, so I convinced her that I was an expert in trees, bugs, reptiles, amphibians and Indian lore.   The camp was up in the mountains behind Los Alamos.   Every
morning the campers and councilors were bussed up to the camp in an old school bus that was driven by another one of the councilors who I knew, he was one year older than me and I guess had the correct driver’s license, although he was horrible at it.   But we always made it.  There were about 25 kids and 5 councilors and each session was two weeks long.  We had
sessions each day on archery, BB gun shooting, history, outdoor cooking and of course nature.  What I did most days
was take the 5 or 6 kids on a hike.  The first week or two was interesting as I didn’t know where I was going,
but didn’t get lost and did discover some pretty interesting places to hike to, like a cave, a pretty spring, nice meadows etc.  I told the kids what kind of trees they were seeing, we sometimes saw wild life like deer, skunks, porcupines, many types of bugs, and in general got tired and dirty, but had fun.  When it rained we stayed in a tent and I showed them how to make Indian arrow heads out of obsidian, or went through my rock collection or tried to start fires with a stick
and bow.  Taken together it was a pretty cool job for a 16-year-old kid.   

I again took the summer job at the gas station after high school graduation
and before starting college.  Good news, Pete was gone and the manager was Bill Delano.  Turns out he was a cousin of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.   He was much easier to work for.   One of the attendants was
a very short Spanish American who everyone called Shorty.   Shorty had an immense inferiority complex, which
he compensated for by being as tough and mean as he could be.  One morning he did not show up for work.  He also did not show up for work for the next three or four days. 
When he finally did, he was all beat up and bruised.  He said that he had been in jail in Alamosa, Colorado for getting in a bar fight.  Some cowboy called him
a dirty Mexican.  Shorty said he took offence with that as he was not dirty and was not a Mexican.  Shorty of course lost the fight and was thrown in jail.  

Shorty liked me.  One day he asked me
how about if he gets a case of beer and some girls that he knew and we go down to the river and have a party?   I
knew that this was a very bad idea, but in order to look worldly and manly I said OK.   So that afternoon (a
Saturday) he showed up at my parents to pick me up.  My father was outside, took one look at the situation and said
NO.  Boy was I glad that he stopped this from happening.  Sometimes parents stop bad things from happening when the kid isn’t brave enough to say NO.

At some
point during my freshman year in the Electrical Engineering program at the University of New Mexico I applied, was interviewed and took a test to become a summer intern at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratories.  I don’t think I know it at the time, but getting one of these positions was very difficult as they were coveted and highly competitive.  As I remember it, the test didn’t seem to be too difficult. Mostly IQ kind of questions, like what number would come next in a sequence, which shape
doesn’t fit with the rest, read a paragraph and write what should happen next, etc.  I apparently did well because
I got one of the jobs.  I don’t think the fact that I knew the Lab Director, the Technical Director and many
of the Group Leaders, because most of their kids did not get intern positions and I did.  The position that they put
me in was in the Weather Section. 

We put out a weather forecast every morning.

guess

One
part of my job, and the best part was servicing our remote weather stations.  We had automated temperature, wind,
and in some places rain gauges.  Several of these remote locations were up in the mountains, requiring me to take
a Lab Jeep up bad roads to service them.  This was a once a week task.  Fun: off road Jeep driving and getting paid.   Several of these station locations were in highly secure locations like where there was a risk of a radiation leak, such as a nuclear reactor.  In the event of a leak we would want to know which way the wind was blowing and therefore what might have gotten contaminated.  (Never happened.)   

As I have said my sister was married to John Bradbury, the son of Norris Bradbury, the Lab Director.  (See Sisters.)  http://www.afewthingsilearned.com/434352692
 The Director’s office was on the same floor as was our office in the main Administration Building.   One afternoon my boss and I were in our office when Norris walked in.  I
thought my boss was having a heart attack.  Full attention, “Yes sir, what can I do for you?”  Norris, says, “Oh, I need to talk with Marshall.” 
So we went down the hall into the executive conference room so he could talk with me about his upcoming visit with Ellen and John.  My boss was very impressed. 

I
held this summer intern job for three years.  My friends were wheat harvesters, construction workers, or nothing.  I had the coolest job ever. 

These jobs gave me work experience, taught me to be responsible and reliable, helped me to learn how to interface and appreciate people in various walks of life, age, education and economic situation.  This no doubt helped me to be successful when I began my career as an electrical engineer working
for a variety of companies.   (see Silicon Valley) http://www.afewthingsilearned.com/408736978   So my advise to young folks: get a job.