As an active student-athlete during high school who maintained a very busy schedule, summer seemed like a great opportunity to relax and enjoy myself. However, for the last three summers I have been a working man. After my sophomore and junior years at Bellarmine College Prep I worked in a construction yard, handling and preparing loads that were to be shipped out to construction sites. My father is a good friend of John Albanese, president of Jos. J. Albanese, Inc., and John basically did my father a favor by hiring me. Before my first day I met with John, and he promptly told me I was “the grunt of the shit.” As a puny 16 year-old you can imagine how intimidated I was by his pep talk. My co-workers consisted of two buddies of mine who also were family friends of John and were in the same situation as I, while the other 20 employees I worked with directly were all Mexican. It was difficult at first, being a privileged white boy driving a nice car to work, getting dirty looks from all my co-workers, but eventually I got to know most of them and earned their respect through my hard work and dedication to the job. I worked from 9 AM to 4 PM most days, and made 9 dollars an hour. However, I also participated on the varsity football team, and workouts were held from 7 to 8:30 AM every day, with afternoon practices three times a week from 3 to 5 PM. On those days I had afternoon practice, I would wake up at 6 AM for football, get out of workouts at 8:30, head straight to the construction yard for 5 hours of work, then back to the football field for practice.
Looking back, I am not quite sure how I survived the grueling dog days of summer. My buddy Kevin, who began the summer on the same schedule as I, promptly quit football and stayed with the job. The money was what kept me going. It felt refreshing to be able to make my own spending money for the first time in my life. My parents were great about giving me gas money, so that I could watch the fruits of my labor grow. By the end of the first summer at Albanese Construction, I made $2,000, which lasted me all of junior year, with some money left over going into the next summer of work. As junior year ended, it was time to go back to the yard for round two of being “the grunt of the shit”. Kevin had enough the first summer, so it was just me and a friend two years older than I, Jeff Alves, who kept the gringo going at J.J.A. Construction. Before I started my second summer, I met with John again and politely asked for a raise from my first year’s wage. He agreed to give me a raise of one dollar, and I gladly accepted $10 an hour for my hard work. Football and lacrosse were more of a priority going into senior year, so work kind of went on the back burner in a sense. I made about the same amount, $2,000, as I did my first summer.
After two summers in the yard, I had persevered all I could take. After I graduated from high school, I told my father I deserved to work somewhere other than a filthy, grimy, musty construction yard. An uncle of mine had worked at an upscale restaurant in Los Gatos during his high school days, and was good family friends of the owners. So, this past summer, with the help of my uncle, I worked as a host at a restaurant named Steamer’s. I got paid $8 an hour, with tips not included. The job was fairly easy and the waiters, cooks and other hostesses were very nice, but I could not help but be frustrated with the pay. As it is now 3:25 and time to go to class I will promptly end my low-wage life story.
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