Good luck to county's grads
By Staff
Jason Cannon, Franklin County Times
Next week, high school seniors across the county will grab their diplomas, walk across the stage and head off to the future.
Some will head off to college. Others will head to local community colleges and others still will go to work.
When I graduated from high school in 1998, I got a job installing burglar alarms.
The hours were pretty good and the pay was really good compared to what I was making working part-time in school.
I had always been fairly adept with electrical wiring and liked to work with my hands, so installing the alarms seemed like a good fit for me.
It didn't take long for me to figure out just how hard this job could be.
The month of June wasn't so bad but come July, the job took a turn.
For those of you with attics, you know how hot they can get in the summertime.
Well, imagine crawling around in one for three and four hours at a time, hunched over and carrying a flashlight and a tool box.
Homes with crawl spaces weren't much better. Sure, it was cooler but I'm not built to fit comfortably in a crawl space. Plus, the mud, the spiders and occasional snake made the attic much more appealing.
From July to August I lost nearly 20 pounds.
The job itself was intense physical labor. Combine that with the 100-plus degree temperatures outside and the 150-plus degree temperature in the attic, and it was as good of a weight-loss program as you could find.
I drank more Gatorade that summer than any baseball or football season I had ever endured.
It was a hard and hot job, no doubt about it.
When September rolled around, I left the job and enrolled at UAB.
The classes were air-conditioned, and I quickly found those 20 pounds that I lost only a few month before.
I look back on that summer job fondly because it was a good experience for me.
Since leaving that job I haven't wired anything more than a ceiling fan, but it was a life experience.
At 18 years old, I was given a lot of responsibility by the company I worked for, which included a van stocked with several thousands of dollars worth of tools.
All of that was placed into my care with the understanding that I use them to do my job and do it to the best of my ability.
I didn't have a supervisor standing over my shoulder. I only had to call him when I was done to get my next assignment.
I not only appreciated that kind of responsibility and trust, it made me work harder to sustain it – I didn't want to let down anyone who had so much faith in my ability to do the job.
It didn't teach me a work ethic – my dad took care of that – but it did validate it. I also think it made me work harder when I went off to UAB.
Good luck to all of the county's graduating seniors, wherever you decide to go and in whatever you decide to do.
