Walter Orthmann died at age one-hundred-two this month. He holds the known world record for most years working for one employer. Mr. Orthmann labored at a Brazilian textile plant from 1938 to 2022; from age sixteen to an even hundred. Eighty four years.
I hope that someone will write a book about Walter someday. All I found (along with the world record) was he was born a German-Brazilian and the stuff about the years. My guess is he probably didn’t discuss WWII much with fellow employees during the mid forties. And he probably kept his proof of citizenship and birth certificate close at hand when the Nazi hunters came to South America looking for Eichmann and the other war criminals.
I must wonder if the textile plant was just something “for now” when Walter started out. Maybe he dreamed of being a banana farmer, but time got away from him. And how.
Once upon a time I looked at work as the Day Job that I would suffer until I got rich and famous as a music superstar. Today it is what you do until your rap or “influencer” career blows up. Along with spending too much on lottery tickets those are even crappier retirement plans than what Walter had; but any delusion strong enough can get you out of bed to pay the rent for a surprising amount of years serves a purpose (whether that purpose be good or ill is up for debate).
I buried delusions of grandeur in the desert ages ago. But I refuse to be some kind of oddity. “Hi new employee, meet Leila. She’s ninety-nine years young* and has been here since the dinosaurs walked.“
(*If there isn’t a special hole in hell for people who say “years young” I will dig one the minute I get there.)
Ah time, that elusive demon I so want to throttle. Just last week one of my coworkers had her twenty-second birthday. People still insist on doing that sort of thing, I suppose. Later I realized I am not only the oldest person in my department, but I am one of three who were born in the twentieth century–and we don’t even hold the majority since there are seven of us in the department.
Sigh.
Although I’ve always worked, I officially began my working to pay the rent career in 1977, about ten minutes after my education ended at High School (it was also Walter Orthmann’s fortieth year on the loom in Brazil). So, after a long diet of the Awful Truth, I have decided to make a tombstone and place it in my home office:
Leila’s Day Job
R.I.P.
1977-2025
“It’s been real, it’s been nice, but it hasn’t been real nice”
Yes, I can retire with pension and full benefits when I turn sixty-six and a half next 3 July. The thought that my action will open the trapdoor for the dreams of whatever millennial the government will replace me with moves me not. We all must deal with the Awful Truth when it comes for us. But at least we can say when enough is enough. For the young that usually means pitching a tent on public land; for people who survived a fifty year stretch it opens a three decade long cocktail party. Nothing dies harder than an old lady. So there’s always something to look forward to.
At the end of this trifle I will share the oddest job I’ve ever had; unlike Walter, I’ve had many employers. In a way, it was the one task I feel that I was most qualified for. I encourage all to share their similar experiences.
But for now let us celebrate the six stories we ran from Sunday to yesterday. Yes, once again six because we featured a Sunday Whatever by one of our stalwarts, Michael Bloor. Mick’s The Last Man on the Island is wonderfully conveyed by his ever learned and witty voice. And it is a reminder to all that no matter how much Talisker you have on hand, it is never enough. (This link Sunday Whatever will take you to the Island).
The first of three site debut writers, Alex Kellet, appeared on Monday with You Don’t Remember Me, Do You? This brief piece looks into the mind of madness while it is in action. You want to step in and stop the event, but you are powerless. Stunning unease, brilliantly captured.
Heirloom by our second newcomer, Natalia Pericchi Paga, is another flash into consciousness, but here it is the tragedy of decline. One of the hardest things in life is helping someone go out with some dignity intact–in case that on some level that person is painfully aware of what is happening to her. Though familiar territory, it is extremely well presented.
Our third first time site contributor, Angela Townsend, energized Wednesday with Mind the Gap. There’s a paradoxical innocent cynicism often found in people transitioning from child to adult. Keen observations of the human condition come about, yet the observer has yet to be cut up by life to any great extent. Yet. And the microcosm of the workplace is a wonderful little zoo in which strange creatures come and go. Well done, with zeal and humour.
Speaking of such, At the Zoo is Gil Hoy’s fourth site story. It is written in the clear and concise style popularized by Hemingway a century ago. When done right, as it was here, that style remains highly effective, a testament to restraint and clarity.
The Binturong Blues by Ann Marie Potter, her third LS tale starts with one of the greatest opening lines imaginable and takes you on a wild and fun adventure. The energy never flags and even as it gets progressively weirder, you can’t resist it and wish it would keep going, if only out of respect for the noble Binturong.
Anyway, here again is to all our writers who performed beautifully even if they do not have Stephen King’s bank balance.
And now….
Odd Job
Over the years I have worked for grocers, restaurants, nonprofits and the US Government. But there is one temp job I had at nineteen that I recall fondly and perhaps would not have minded doing for the long haul. For one week I was a Pigeon Relocation Specialist (my term, developed over time–back then I went by: “Hey you”).
North of Seattle lies the community of Ballard. People have many clever things to say about Ballard (referred to as Old Norway for good reasons), but I like the place–so if everyone there wants to drive with his/her left blinker always on, it’s all right by me.
In 1978 a company hired me through “Andex Temps” to remove wood cages filled with trapped Pigeons from a new apartment complex that was going up (I brought back the empty cages every day, in the mid-afternoon, and they would be full again come the next morning).
The birds were determined to roost on the site come hell or high water. I was to drive them in a company truck (one of those ubiquitous little Datsun pickups that were one of the plagues of the late seventies) to a location way to the hell east of Ballard (in a town called Redmond–a drive which featured a floating bridge) and release them in a selected woody area (I had reason to believe that this was without Redmond’s knowledge).
I made friends with the birds and bought a huge amount of day-old bread at a Franz Bakery outlet (using a portion of my fuel allowance). Everyday I’d open the cages and coax them out with the bread. By Wednesday I had developed a game called “Pigeon Warden” in which I (the Warden) released the Pigeons and gave them bread, a fresh start on life, and some helpful advice “Avoid small mammals; never eat at a place called Mom’s; never play poker with a guy named Doc; never roost with someone who is even crazier than you are. Be off my friends, be free.” On Friday, the last day of my appointment, the front end of the truck began making a weird noise, so I abandoned the daily trip to Redmond, took the last of my charges to Dick’s Drive In, and bought a ton of fries (using up my fuel allowance, and the last of my allotted parentheses), then released my parolees at a place called Gasworks Park, which is still about three blocks north of the development; I have no doubt that several beat me back to the location–but my contract was only for that week.
As a job it made as much sense as any.
I look forward to seeing what you have done!
Leila
literally stories 
Another brilliant post – thank you, Leila. I’ve had quite a few jobs though I don’t think any as odd as pigeon relocator. I think if I had to pin it down my most rewarding was in Human Resources in Riyadh. It was trying and troubling at times but getting innocent people out of jail and helping dying women to return home in time has got to count as ‘worthwhile’ I reckon.
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Hello Diane
It is great when a person can work in such a laudable position as you had there. All honest work is noble; but it is a bit tough to compare Pigeon 🐦 work with teaching, firefighting, nursing and what you did in Riyadh (also police, emt, cna, and soldiers)
Thank you,
Leila
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Leila –
I claimed for years “influencer” is not real, but “influenza” is.
Interesting that WA and OR have towns with the same name: Redmond, Charleston. Not too interesting.
As I expected you LS peeps are a bunch of kids.
My “career” runs the opposite direction. Real jobs 1973-83, the rest of the time in school, teaching school, or self-unemployed. My career ambition was also retirement and quit economic activity as soon as I thought I could get away with it.
Keep on mocking in the freak world.
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Duke, I recently red your two-volume bio: “The Actuary that Time Forgot” and “The Actual Actuary of Owego.” Very cool.
Bill Tope (Beetee)
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I dunno, Duke; you may not want to get into sci-fi. I would retitle it as “Where What.” There’s something about that title…it’s going places!
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My actual bio is “Cities” in blog which could be subtitled “The most boring life ever”. It is being written as long as I’m conscious, so should go on for another six months. Due for a chapter “When BT met MM”.
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Hi Doug
At the time Redmond was under construction. Now it requires a minimum six figure salary to live there.
I often wonder if they have ancestors of the birds I brought them. Influenza influences. Typhoid too. It increases mortuary s.
Take care
Leila
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Is Gates’ home in Mercer Island or Redmond? With all of the Microsoft millionaires driving up the prices Seattle is worse than the relatively poor Portland. House my parents bought with a defense industry job in 1941 for $3,000 is listed on Zillow for over half a million now.
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I believe his mansion is in Magnolia, but all the other well to do s tend to live in Redmond and Mercer Island. Away from us riffraff.
Leila
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Leila,
I really enjoyed your essay on the travails of employment. Unlike most of my former government-employed cohorts, I didn’t work for one place for forty years and then retire with a rich pension and a McMansion. I have been steadily (sort of) employed since vacating the premises at my parents’ hovel — where I now reside once more, proving the circle of life.
My first job was driving a van and delivering bundles of newspapers to area paperboys — there were no papergirls — so they could in turn deliver them to their residential customers. Things went along splendidly until I ran over a couple of the munchkins’ bicycles with the van and the boss fired me on the spot. “Guys like you are a dime a dozen,” he told me, “but it’s tough to find paperboys who’ll work for what I’ll pay them.” Which kind of stuck with me, and proved itself over and over again.
I’ve had myriad jobs — they can’t be dignified by calling them positions — including a job at Walmart (4 days); McDonald’s (3 days); 7 years working in restaurants as a cook (I make a formidable biscuits and gravy (B&G) and can fry buffalo and catfish to relative perfection. During college I worked for five years as a security guard for the Mississippi River Festival, a university-based regional concert series, featuring such stars as Janis Ian, Jackson Browne, The Who, YES, The Eagles, Chicago, Linda Ronstadt, and many many others. Working “Alcohol Control,” we would purloin concert attendees’ prohibited libations and then later libate them ourselves. A corrupt bargain all around.
I was also a janitor, a maintenance man, a convenience store clerk, and spent four years as a nude model for art classes at the university (probably more than you wanted to know). My only forays into legitimate employment were two stints as a welfare caseworker in both Illinois and Missouri, career choices which were foiled when I lobbied in favor or workers’ rights and unions and the like and they summarily fired me (for cause). There is nothing so quiet as a union rep’s phone line when you’re awaiting word on your case.
And I could go on….
Bill Tope
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Hi Bill
I too worked for McDonald’s. That job really ran a person around–at least it did forty years ago.
The most impressive thing I ever saw at work was being on both decks of the Nimitz and Abraham Lincoln when they were dry docked on base. I don’t think people do the gold watch kind of employment much anymore. Except for the government that is. I know a guy who retired after forty seven years in the shipyard. He was a metal worker in one shop only.
Thank you again
Leila
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My dad collected his gold watch from the glass factory, but I always fell somewhat short. In government jobs, it often happens — at least at the state level — that employees keep their noses clean and go along to get along. For better or worse, I’m always played the role of the iconoclast (AKA shit-disturber) and I’ve paid for it. However, in my dotage is has afforded me a rich store of plots for my writing and that, of course, is very financially auspicious (ha-ha). Thanks again for a terrific essay, Ms. Allison.
Bill Tope
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Hi and thank you again Bill
It’s good to hear that at least one person got a watch!
Leila
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Sounds like a writer’s resume. It always looks good on the back overleaf to have had a bunch of “people’s” jobs. Actuary would look silly because it is.
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Hi Leila,
So so many strange and odd jobs, not all of them legal or even morally above the wire. I share only one: Defrosting and then breading 20# blocks of turkey testicles, said testicles to then be deep-fried, adorned with snazzy toothpicks and cocktail sauce, and served to hungry pseudo cowboys in an Oklahoma roadhouse.
Workers of the Strange, Unite!
m
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Hi Marco
Now that is an odd job. I spent the 90’s working in a meat department at a Fred Meyer store. I learned that there is very little to livestock that someone won’t eat. Yours was truly worthy of the Dirty Jobs show that used to be on.
Leila
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When I was in Colorado a specialty was Rocky Mountain oysters, bull testicles.
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Hi Leila,
Excellent post as always.
I’m jealous of you being a Pigeon Re-locator, that sounds like something I would have enjoyed.
I hate when folks answer the question ‘What do you do?’ with their job title. It’s not that, that determines us.
Apart from the first year of my first job which I enjoyed as I had the misguided belief that I was then an adult, I have had fourteen jobs. I will not list them as they don’t merit mention. Let’s just say I’ve went from one pile of shite to the pile of shite that I work at today.
The way I look at it is, if someone needs to pay you to do something, that says it all.
Thank fuck for pass-times, fiends and alcohol!!!
All the very best.
Hugh
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Thank you Hugh
I get mad when someone asks another person about his/her career and the one almost apologizes for working at something like an industrial laundry (which I also did as a temp. There are no demeaning jobs, only demeaning mgrs.
Thank you again!
Leila
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Leila
I’d never be trusted with impressionable pigeons. I proved that on my first job after college. Most of us were waiting to get drafted to kill and/or die in Vietnam, something I had a strong antipathy toward. I worked at a retail store, which I closed up at 9 PM, following proper procedures and protocols. I had a part-time girlfriend I was anxious to run into. The Store Manager opened at 9 AM.
When I showed up the next day, the Manager wanted to talk. He liked me. He thought I might try something different with my life. I should think about that.
I had left the safe open. Hundreds of cars drove & countless pedestrians passed the store that night and morning—passed an OPEN safe AND an UNLOCKED front door. I joined the Marine Corp a few days later, where I managed seek such a low profile as to cause no harm to myself nor anyone else — friend or foe — until discharged.
Gerry
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Gerry
Thank you for being a Marine! And look at it this way, you could have been a great manager and gotten killed by some case of arrested development such as Gary Gilmore. Thanks again!
Leila
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Gary Gilmore — now there’s a blast from the past. I used to confuse him with David Gilmore, lead guitarist and vocalist for Pink Floyd. I guess ghosts never leave us, they keep popping back up.
And Gerry, I second Leila’s notion: thanks for your service. I never went to war, but my brother did, and he got REALLY into bad things there and came back heavily addicted. (He used to ship cartons of professionally rolled marijuana cigarettes back home and my parents were clueless, thank God).
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Hey Leila,
I have a friend down here in Florida [a horrible place by the way] who was a Marine as well. For some reason another friend of ours thanks us ‘for our service.’ He told her, “I didn’t do it for you.”
He was right in our case. The incident about closing the store at least saved me from a life in retailing. Glory O! — Gerry
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Gerry
I got one for the Marine friend to use. “I didn’t do it for you, but for a Mrs Ethel Jorgensen of Ohio (any name will do). As you assume, we serve not only our country but specific people. I happen to know that your Marine deserted and cleans up at a brothel in Thailand.”
But seriously thanks again!
Leila
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Good post and recap. Leila, I’m going out on a limb (even though I’ve never been a pigeon relocator) and say someone with such literary interests and abilities as you will enjoy retirement. Don’t know I’ve had any truly “odd jobs.” I was a welder in a factory for three summers. Not odd. Just hot, dirty and exhausting. Making up for it these days by keeping cool, clean and well-napped.
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Hi David
You have earned the right to go into a bar and when someone asks what you do you can grimace like Eastwood and whisper “Welder,” then order a Wine Spritzer.
Thank you!
Leila
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Dear Leila,
Your essay-writing reminds me of Shakespeare in his Sonnets in the way that you reveal so much and connect so well with the human race, while also remaining cloaked in an aura of mystery. The humor and humanity is simply awesome. The story about the guy at the Brazilian textile plant is worthy of a golden nugget from a Montaigne essay. (Montaigne is easy to read and I love reading him while remembering that Good Will read Montaigne in order to create Hamlet.) The fact that you do ALL the various literary things you do while also holding down a day job is beyond amazing. It reminds one of William Carlos Williams, T.S. Eliot or Wallace Stevens, all who worked fulltime jobs while constantly creating literature as well.
My second most recent job was teaching fifth grade at a Catholic parish school even though I’m not Catholic for three years before I collapsed in exhaustion and was fired moments before I was about to tell the individual who fired me that I was quitting. 99% of my students were Mexican so I learned much about how Mexican folks regard and practice their Catholicism while also making a horrible mess of classroom management on every single day I ever worked there. I had the loudest class in the building by far and the principal would often come running to our room to tell us to keep it down even though he knew it was sure to get loud again within the hour. My motto was live and let live and the students loved it. They did horrible on standardized testing but made great leaps in their reading and writing abilities. Then I worked at a small company owned by a family member and was fired by that same family member after six days on the job.
I’ve been fired from so many jobs in my life that I sometimes have trouble remembering how many. I was also tackled to the ground by two undercover police officers who thought I was selling drugs while delivering pizzas (I wasn’t wearing the uniform). I was also robbed of my meager stash of cash by one individual brandishing a knife and another person informing me that he had a gun under his hoody. Back then pizza delivery folks carried cash. I once witnessed another driver running away from two individuals carrying large sticks which they brandished over their heads while chasing him. The trick is that when they ask for the money or whatever you have that they want, you give it to them, and with a smile on your face. Violence is almost always avoided this way while resisting can get your head bashed in. Also, my car was stolen last year by folks who racked up speeding tickets on it and left it in an abandoned alley with a burned out engine. Nothing to do with employment but being robbed seems to fall into the same category. And in the vast majority of jobs available to the masses in America these days, every single day can feel like getting robbed (by the corporations, etc. etc.). Let it go and remember that everything here is an illusion, but for keeps, just like Mary Baker Eddy posited.
Thanks again for everything you do, Leila!!!!!!!
Sincerely,
Dale
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Hi Dale
Thank you so very much for your kind comments. Teaching is one of those jobs I greatly admire; teachers are hardly ever spoken of unless something goes wrong.
The delivery business used to be scary when it was cash only–and for cabbies as well. I am glad you survived the thieves and cops.
Take care and keep the Iago attitude towards what people might steal from you!
Leila
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Dear Leila,
As Falstaff said, “I have a kind of alacrity in sinking.”
I adore how well you know the Bard, otherwise known as Good Will, otherwise known as Bill Shakespeare, including keeping his portrait on your wall. Thanks again! Rare and awesome.
Dale
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YIKES! And I thought that MY employment history was colorful and episodic! C’mon, Dale, let’s see some plotted prose!
Bill Tope
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Dear Bill,
Hello. I’m from the Saul Bellow school of Chicago writing, where flow goes before plotting. Not for everyone, I know (and am acutely aware of); but then again, nothing is. The model, for good or ill, is the stream of consciousness and the river of life; and the risk of failure is extremely high. Even as a small kid, I was unable to follow the paint-by-numbers kits. (I would flip it over and draw on the back instead, usually portraits of people like Abraham Lincoln and Cleopatra.) I appreciate that you peruse my comments. As the boastful, bloated, exaggerating, and half-drunken Falstaff quipped in another context, “I have a kind of alacrity in sinking.” (Orson Welles IS Falstaff in his film CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT, which I would recommend to anyone. Jeanne Moreau and Margaret Rutherford as Doll Tearsheet and Mistress Quickly are also as amazing in this massively overlooked film which blows CITIZEN KANE out of the water.) As Kurt Vonnegut might have said, echoing Tiny Tim, God bless us all! On this Good Sunday.
Sincerely,
Dale
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Hi Dale
I happened to see this. I always have wondered what Shakespeare intended to do with old Jack in Henry V–as he promised to bring him back for it at the close of IV.
He must have realized that the Knight would again steal the show and had to kill him off stage.
Welles was Falstaff indeed! Chimes is a great film.
Hotspur was also a good character–especially the scene with his wife. In fact Hal was the weakest character in IV one and two. So, Will, did what he had to.
Sherlock Holmes is perhaps (rightfully) the most successful fictional character–but Falstaff is the most human.
Take care (off to a friend’s wedding…third time’s the charm, she hopes).
Leila
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Odd. I’ve really hated some jobs and hoped to get fired and get a good monetary package on leaving. My suspicion is that powers that be knew I wanted to be fired, so didn’t out of cruetly.
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Family lore has it that when, as a toddler, I was asked what I wanted to do when I grew up, I answered that I wanted to be ‘An Old Age Pensioner’ (I suspect my grandad’s influence). And I have now achieved my lifetime’s ambition. Roll on July 2025, Leila: you’ll love it.
The summer after I left school, I got a job as a deckchair attendant in Guernsey in The Channel Islands. There was a deposit on the chairs, so I didn’t even have to collect them up at the end of the day. The chairs were owned by the beach cafe, so I got free food and I was going out with a girl who worked in the cafe. If it had been a year-round job, I’d still be there, pension or no pension.
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Hi Mick
Thank you. I have a feeling that I am not one of those peculiar sorts who needs to work until the end, perhaps including the digging of her own grave. I noticed that our president became tremendously more lucid and energetic upon being able to retire. Perhaps I will have the same boost in energy.
Jobs like Pigeon Warden and Deck Chair attendant are very rare indeed.
Thanks again!
Leila
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Hi again Leila,
You reminded me of another short-term job I had: digging graves, by hand. It was really hard work and I got paid $350 for the job. Backfilling graves was much easier, and paid $50, but you could do it in 20 minutes.
Congratulations on producing an essay which has garnered such interest and attention.
Bill Tope
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That is such a great real life story! And sage advice given to the pigeons.
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Thank you Steven
Pigeons are actually very good listeners until the bread runs out.
Leila
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Enjoyable post ! And great stories this week. Pigeon Relocation Specialist sounds fun – I’d get quite fond of them.
‘Funnest’ job for me: potato cleaner (on a potato farm), which involved throwing said potatoes into a giant washing machine full of giant rubber udder-like things. Quite satisfying for the first day…then we’d pack them in 25kg bags and heave them to a lorry… much less satisfying.
Worst job was working at a slaughter house for pigs. Made me vegetarian for a time. Nothing nice about it at all.
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Hi Otto
Yes almost every job that has no heavy lifting has something going for it. Working in a meat department is as close as I am ever willing to get to the Upton Sinclair of the industry (damn it, why can’t soy taste as good!,)
Thank you!
Leila
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Did I already tell my most interesting job? Leila may appreciate this being a Specific West Northerner. Summer of 1964 working on expansion of US26 (goes through Sandy Oregon named after the Sandy River which was named by Lewis & Clark Quicksand I think, because they thought the bottom was quicksand). I cheked to see if the roadbed was dense enough. US 26 goes to the Oregon coast on the west and Mt. Hood in the east.
Old method dig out a hole in the roadbed and then use a tool that meaured the volume, then weigh what had been displaced. As we know density = weight / volume. I was out working when Portland hit a then record 107F temp (global storming warning now the record is 115F).
New method used an atomic calculator which sent particle into the roadbed to come up with the density. I wore some film which if exposed would indicate I had nuclear cojones.
MM
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Hi Doug
Great heat caused the only time I told an employer fix it or I walk. The fans system went out in a kitchen I worked, and near my station it was something like 110 F. They tried to tell me it will be all right, but maintenance was busy and tried to pacify me with a K Mart Desk fan. I said NO. Maintenance got unbusy quick because I was the only one who showed up that day.
Thanks again
Leila
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Hi Leila
I’m late to the party … again! But I didn’t want to miss thanking you for another wonderful post and congratulating you on the countdown to retirement – pretty sure you won’t know how you ever had time to go to work.
I haven’t had an odd job as such, but I did office-admin temping in London while on a working holiday. Without exaggeration, half the assignments entailed doing absolutely nothing – I literally stared at the clock. It seemed to be a thing in the 80’s; when someone went on leave, they justified their role by getting a temp. It was exhausting to the point of nausea … worse with a hangover. A good lesson really.
Thanks everyone for all the great stories & to LS for all your amazing work.
Oh, and Leila – I’ll help you dig that hole for the “years young” folk – so funny, made me laugh out loud – thanks!
Enjoy your week
Karen
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Hi Karen
Glad to see you! I think that “years young” must have been developed by a corporate weasel in the 70’s because I cannot think of anybody else nearly as patronizing–Thank you for dropping by!
Leila
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Great week of stories and great post. I certainly hope I also get nowhere near the years of work that Walter Orthmann achieved. As for odd jobs I cannot rival the bizarreness of your pigeon relocating days, but I once worked in a factory making ‘wallpaper books’ for display in shops that sold wallpaper – the factory didn’t make any wallpaper, just the books.
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Hello Paul
That is a quality odd job. Somehow it reminds me of the Masonic Temple down the street from here that is made entirely out of wood and plaster!
Thank you for your continued support!
Leila
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Full pension and benefits, worth working for, from personal experience, esp. when there’s only a year left to haul. I once worked as a hide hauler, lifting folded up cow hides onto trucks. I couldn’t understand the cowboy boss as he’d been kicked in the face by a horse and could only speak out of one corner of his mouth, without moving his jaw. I also worked as a summer farm hand at the psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. That was training for years later when I became a full time employee there.
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