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Job Creation Won’t Fix It
How fulfilling is work on an assembly line anyway?
I’ve mentioned in previous essays the fact that my high-school educated Dad was able to buy a four-bedroom house and support a family of six and keep two decent cars on the road. The epitome of American can-do spirit, right?
Yeah, but then there’s this. The man had maybe six weeks of real happiness in his life and those were not consecutive days.
I know he was proud to provide so well for us, but Jesus. Jason Elwood Remington, Jr. was one seriously miserable man for most of his life. Not all of it was work-related, but there are few more frustrating ways to make a living than as an auto mechanic. His hands never healed because every day brought new scrapes, bruises, and cuts. If the cars weren’t trouble enough, well, then there were the owners.
We four girls were expected to finish our dinners quietly and then excuse ourselves. I believe it was so Daddy could use the dinner table to hold forth uninterrupted about all the assholes who daily tried to tell him how to do his job.
But the man was up before first light every blessed day to go down to the local Ford dealership for another day of punishment.
In the litany of miserable jobs, however, auto mechanic is a walk in a springtime meadow…
