After walking in on my, now ex, girlfriend with someone else I moved back to Seattle. It has been a little over a year since I got back and have been working odd jobs to make ends meet while everything that I seem to apply to I am either over or under qualified to for.
This has resulted in me working a lot of day labor construction. My idea of working this job is that it might be able to help me understand the facets of how construction is done so as I apply to graduate school in the coming months for architecture that I will have a more tantalizing résumé and the future ability to work as an architect that has less builders frustrated.
The reality is that I do a lot of cleaning and hauling of miscellaneous on the job site, but I have been able to find discover more about the metropolitan area of Seattle as I get sent to work all over to work a site for maybe a few weeks or maybe just a day.
The location of the company that I contract my labor through is located in an area where four homeless shelters are within a few blocks so it results in a lot of the people I get sent out to work beside are homeless. In learning some of the life stories of these people I thought that I would try to breathe new life into my blog to share my experiences of working the odd jobs in Seattle and some of the colorful characters that I get to work with.
I have to be at Trades Labor Corporation (TLC) at 5.30am when they open to then hopefully arrive at my job site by 7am to begin the work day.
Without a return ticket, I wake up at 4am. I eat quickly assembled breakfast "foods" and get dressed putting something on my laptop to break the silence of the house at 4am. Sometimes its Danger Mouse, sometimes its Courage the Cowardly Dog. Nothing that I have to pay much attention to.
The waiting in TLC to get sent out to a job can be very disheartening. We all sit and wait in cheap metal folding chairs. They are neatly arranged when we first walk in as groupings of threes going back but immediately people rearrange them, perhaps not wanting to sit next to anyone else, or trying to find a way to situate themselves so that they are guarding over their suitcases that they have brought in with them. Some small lockers are on one side against the wall and when someone comes in needing access they get a key from behind the counter. Sometimes the person who opened up and is situating things gives them the key they need, sometimes they just hand over the whole plastic container containing all the locker keys so they can just find the key they need.
Twiddling thumbs, I wait to hear my name called. Depending on where I am sent the rate of pay changes. If it is in Seattle proper I get paid $12/hr but if it is in the metropolitan I only get paid $11/hr. I hope for a Seattle job, but realize that I will probably end up getting one in the metropolitan area.
This has resulted in me working a lot of day labor construction. My idea of working this job is that it might be able to help me understand the facets of how construction is done so as I apply to graduate school in the coming months for architecture that I will have a more tantalizing résumé and the future ability to work as an architect that has less builders frustrated.
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| First day of construction: hauling cabinets in Redmond. |
The reality is that I do a lot of cleaning and hauling of miscellaneous on the job site, but I have been able to find discover more about the metropolitan area of Seattle as I get sent to work all over to work a site for maybe a few weeks or maybe just a day.
The location of the company that I contract my labor through is located in an area where four homeless shelters are within a few blocks so it results in a lot of the people I get sent out to work beside are homeless. In learning some of the life stories of these people I thought that I would try to breathe new life into my blog to share my experiences of working the odd jobs in Seattle and some of the colorful characters that I get to work with.
I have to be at Trades Labor Corporation (TLC) at 5.30am when they open to then hopefully arrive at my job site by 7am to begin the work day.
Without a return ticket, I wake up at 4am. I eat quickly assembled breakfast "foods" and get dressed putting something on my laptop to break the silence of the house at 4am. Sometimes its Danger Mouse, sometimes its Courage the Cowardly Dog. Nothing that I have to pay much attention to.
The 301 bus that gets me to downtown gets me to the area 15-20 minutes early. I have found that the crowd of people gathering outside the door before 5.30am can be rather unpleasant as the shelters kick out their residents at this time which includes a selection of people with untreated mental illnesses and others with drug addictions.
Across the street an art gallery plays videos directed outwards towards us. One of the videos that repeats almost every morning before 5.30am is of a business man getting welded into a steel suit and then slowly shuffling to work until he casts it off to climb up a green hill in boxers and an undershirt. With winter approaching the confines of an office job actually sound pretty nice..
I have recently found that the only place in the area open before 5.30am is Top Pot Doughnuts. They have a small selection of loose leaf teas so if I don't have a return ticket and have to be at TLC at 5.30am I take a detour from heading to TLC to buy an Irish Breakfast tea and one of the cheapest doughnuts (last time it was a plain pumpkin for $1.99).
By the time I sit and eat my doughnut it is time for me to head to TLC. A ferry must arrive around this time as when I leave people in business clothing are walking by. Many of these downtown business people have small rolling luggage with them that breaks the early morning silence.
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| Top Pot Doughnuts. The streets are empty, illuminated by a full moon and a multitude of street lights. |
The waiting in TLC to get sent out to a job can be very disheartening. We all sit and wait in cheap metal folding chairs. They are neatly arranged when we first walk in as groupings of threes going back but immediately people rearrange them, perhaps not wanting to sit next to anyone else, or trying to find a way to situate themselves so that they are guarding over their suitcases that they have brought in with them. Some small lockers are on one side against the wall and when someone comes in needing access they get a key from behind the counter. Sometimes the person who opened up and is situating things gives them the key they need, sometimes they just hand over the whole plastic container containing all the locker keys so they can just find the key they need.
Twiddling thumbs, I wait to hear my name called. Depending on where I am sent the rate of pay changes. If it is in Seattle proper I get paid $12/hr but if it is in the metropolitan I only get paid $11/hr. I hope for a Seattle job, but realize that I will probably end up getting one in the metropolitan area.
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