WHAT is the HARDEST days WORK you ever did, if EVER.

**LostOutrider** · 07-06-2009, 08:51 AM

When I was about fifteen, my mother came into my room and sat on the edge of my bed. She said that I was a pretty good kid, with a fair-to-middling good head on my shoulders and even if she could give me a free lunch through life, she still wouldn't. I had started to let my grades slip, see, and I was wanting to drop my job as a bowling alley janitor. She told me that I would go only as far in life as my back or my brain would take me.

Like most parental wisdom imparted to most kids, it didn't take immediately. It wasn't until a couple of years later when I found myself making great money working on what they called the bull-gang or labor gang of a paper mill in the deep South. We were the general knock-around, go-fur, step'n'fetch crew with a foreman who wouldn't spend a drop of gasoline to drive from home from work if he had enough of us around to carry the car on our shoulders. We did everything too heavy or nasty for anyone else to want to do. Pouring asphalt in July, breaking concrete, digging out clogged sewage runoffs, getting heavy hot object from over there to over here. I was young enough to not realize at the time how hard it was. My body would let me know about it later on, see. I did realize, though, looking around that I could grow old, mean and broken pretty quickly in this job - or I could soak up all the OT I could and use it to put myself through college. I didn't see much more inherent nobility in raw physical labor. My hardest days professionally were not when I wore a hard hat, dickies, and an emergency respirator on my belt. I haven't looked back, at least not with nostalgia.

I get ya, though. Kids these days. Why, in my day . . . . up hill . . . milking cows barefoot in the snow . . . had to slice our OWN bread. . . get out of my begonias!

**Ken** · 07-06-2009, 09:11 AM

Originally Posted by LostOutrider

I was young enough to not realize at the time how hard it was. My body would let me know about it later on, see. I did realize, though, looking around that I could grow old, mean and broken pretty quickly in this job - or I could soak up all the OT I could and use it to put myself through college.

I remember those experiences. Probably the best informal education and motivation I ever received. Work 60+ hours a week - as much OT as possible to pay for tuition and books. Then a 3 hour round trip commute 3 or 4 nights each week for 8 hours in evening classes and the library. Then back to work a graveyard shift and a back-to-back day shift and then get out of work just in time to take a shower and drive back to school. Days without sleep.......

Yep. No silver spoon in this kid's mouth. But it was worth it!

**endurance** · 07-06-2009, 11:53 PM

I think the best story I every heard was from a GS-12 NEPA coordinator with the Forest Service. He said he grew up on a sheep ranch and during the winter, when the sheep were in tight quarters he'd have to wake up at 4am, dress in his heavy winter coveralls to take on the Minnesota cold. He'd start shoveling sheep **** by 4:30am, frozen in the snow, stuck in the straw on the barn floor, sheep everywhere... He'd come inside at 7:00am, have breakfast and rush off to school. When he got home from school at 3:300am he'd head back out to the barn and shovel the crap until 5:30 when his mom would call him into the house to clean up for dinner. He'd do his homework and go to bed, only to do it all over again in the morning. He went on with the story for about twenty minutes, talking about the stench in the summer, how it would make your eyes water and you could barely stand in the slimey mess. After we'd all lost our appetite for the lunch in front of us from his graphic description he simply said, "you know, after doing NEPA work for the last seven years, sometimes I miss those sheep."

Count your blessings boys and girls...

**mcfd45** · 07-07-2009, 01:57 AM

Hardest days at work. Hmm. One day we went on a 150 acre grass burn on a nearby island. me and another guy were put together, we got ina truck with a local FF, he pulled up to a marsh of phragmites, told us to get our indian packs on and go to work. at one point we were knee deep in marsh getting caught when the fire flared up and made a dash towards us. it was around 95 degrees.

I had a day at work when i worked our bariatric truck. we moved 2000lbs in one day. one pt was 700.

**flandersander** · 07-07-2009, 02:38 AM

Hardest work i've ever done? I guess it would be when i was 17. Me and 18 other guys wanted to pull a prank on the local police officer. He was pretty into practical jokes, and took everything with good humor. Anyway, we all grabed a hold of his cruiser and carried it town the street. Heaviest thing I've ever lifted. He chased us down the street and climbed into his car, 4 feet above the ground. In our centenial celebration, he had his car in the parade, and the parade only travels at like 1 or 2 miles an hour. Even more of us ran out and picked up his car. He shut it off, and we carried him all around town. It was a highlight of my younger days. That would be the most physically demanding thing i've ever done. The most physically draining thing i've ever done, was when we had a race to the 8th street macdonalds. The 8th streed macdonalds is roughly 45 miles away. it took us roughly 10 hours (can't remember) but that big mac never tasted so good. Needless to say, we caught a ride home.

**DOGMAN** · 07-08-2009, 02:42 PM

Lately, it seems everyday has been hard. Today is a nice mellow day though. I've been working 18 hour days for the past couple of weeks.

**rebel** · 07-08-2009, 04:34 PM

I grew up on a farm. We bailed a lot of hay. My uncles and neighbors bailed hay. If we wanted some spending money. You guessed it, we worked in the fields bailing hay, digging fence posts, etc. Not the round bails where the machines do all the work. In college I took an advanced life saving and water safety instructor certification course. For part of the grade the instructor had us swim eight hours. Then I did the Marine Corps thing. I humped many a mile with my trash and a mortar base plate.

**nell67** · 07-08-2009, 06:12 PM

Giving birth count??? Nahhh, that was the easy part,raising them was the hard part.

**welderguy** · 07-08-2009, 06:47 PM

Well I have to say over all when I was between the age of 17 to 19 I worked for a roofing company that did hot tar commercial roofs and I was the grunt that filled up two 5 gallon buckets of hot tar and carried them to the mopers for 12 hours a day.
Now if were talking about just one day in particular, that would be carrying a little over 200 bundles of shingles up an extension ladder to a second floor roof ( not at one time ofcourse).
And Now I do Structural welding.

**Pal334** · 07-08-2009, 07:17 PM

Originally Posted by nell67

Giving birth count??? Nahhh, that was the easy part,raising them was the hard part.

I guess birthing is a "short term" pain (that would kill most guys). You are right the raising of those things that we call children is the pain ,sorrow and most of all joy.

**OhioHillbilly** · 07-08-2009, 07:24 PM

1) I worked on a crew that waterproofed basements. They jackhammered a one foot wide trenck along all the walls. We had to pack the chunks up the stairs and out to the truck,full five gallon buckets in each hand.
2) We unloaded rail cars full of cross ties. Packed them a few hundred feet to our truck.