Marcie "Mom" Glanzer's Column
Monday, September 11, 2006
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09.11.06
"That Entrepreneurial Spirit"
I know what all of you must be thinking…where is Marcie with the next
installment of her brilliant, witty, yet informative columns? Well, fear not, I
am back and the reason for my tardiness is the topic of this piece. Work.
I have been a member of the working class for a long time, going as far back as
junior high when I would occasionally babysit for someone’s brats, or do the odd
job for someone. Upon thinking back over my years gone by, I realized I’ve done
a lot of things for money (no, not that!) and have really never made any. My
first real job was the summer before I was a junior in high school. My dad was
the manager at the Co-op station in Carpenter and had to round up a group of
people to set up grain bins. He was a man before his time as he decided to hire
a bunch of girls, myself included. The boss of this crew was a man, but all the
rest of us were female. The work was actually quite dangerous, especially
since none of us were too experienced in power tools or heavy manual labor. The
job entailed piecing together corrugated metal sheets of steel, raising each
level up with a winch, then adding another layer of curved pieces until you
ended up with a grain bin. It sounds simple, but was hard work. As each layer
was added, the winch was harder and harder to turn. You certainly didn’t want
it to slip or the whole works would come crashing down to the cement. One time
we were taking a short break and one of the girls, Mary, was sitting on the
cement eating an apple, then stood up for some reason just as the winch came
unhooked and the bin came smashing down right where she had been sitting seconds
earlier. Another time, we were working at a farm that was infested with rats
and in order to plug in our tools, someone had to crawl through a small opening
in the barn and find the outlet. None of us was brave enough, but thank God
that Mary’s little sister was along for the day and was talked into doing this
task for us. She didn’t realize she was crawling through a rodent infested
barn. I had nightmares about rats for months afterwards…yuck! I made $40 per
grain bin and we put up one per day, so for me, that was big $$$! And, I got an
awesome suntan.
The next summer my dad asked me if I would help keep the books for the Co-op for
a week or two while the real bookkeeper was gone on vacation. I never was too
good at numbers and said as much to him, but in desperation he hired me anyway.
Did I ever make a mess of those books! Well, he couldn’t say I didn’t try to
warn him…the bookkeeper really had her work cut out for her when she got
back…that’ll teach her to take time off.
Following my high school graduation, I moved to Huron, got an apartment and
prepared to line my pockets with cool cash! I began my job hunt, but with no
talents or qualifications, the pickings were slim. I ended up working at 3
different jobs…in the mornings I would go to the Super 8 Motel and clean rooms
until about 1:30, then I’d dash home, shower and head over to the nursing home
where I worked as an aide until 10PM. On the days when I was off from the home,
I worked at the Carmel Corn Shop in the mall. My days were filled and I was
bringing in a bit of money. Then one of my classmates from high school,
Gloria, moved in with me and she went to work at Pizza Hut. Now, the managers
of the apartments didn’t know I had gotten 3 jobs or a roommate, so unbeknownst
to me, they had me qualified for low income housing. I would only need to pay
$1.00/month rent. I should have told them about my jobs, but why look a gift
horse in the mouth? Gloria and I split the rent, each of us tossing in a hefty
.50 per month. Don’t worry…I didn’t screw the government out of much money as 3
months later I became Mrs. Richard Glanzer and moved to my present home in
Carpenter.
With farming not being the success all of you think it is, it became necessary
for me to go to work again. I applied as an aide at the Bryant nursing home and
was hired. It wasn’t a bad job, but was about 40 miles from home. A few months
after starting there, I was talked into taking a job in Clark at the Chef Reddy
Foods plant. My mother-in-law was going to give it a go and we could work the
same hours and ride together, so off we went. Now, to get a clear picture of
this plant, I must say that they processed potatoes there. Clark is a big
potato growing area and this plant made French fries and I suppose other potato
products, but French fries is what I remembered. Have you ever smelled a rotten
potato? Try multiplying that by 6 million of them and that will give you an
idea of what this place smelled like. The air around Clark reeked of it, but I
guess they would rather have this place of employment than clean air. When
entering the building it nearly took my breath away. It was like being in a
sewer. To make matters worse, the noise in the area I was working in was so
loud that earplugs were required. I, being of no seniority, was put on the
beginning of the line. The potatoes were put into a chemical which stripped
most of the peeling off, then they were sent down a table for peons like me to
trim the unpeeled areas away, or throw out rotten ones. This wasn’t a conveyor
belt, it was a huge metal table that shook constantly to get the potatoes down
the length. I was working the midnight to 8AM shift, so when you added up the
smell, the noise, the shaking table and fatigue, it was not a fun job. After a
month or two of this I began to throw up every night at work. A guy that worked
there kindly came over with a hose and swished it down the drain. Finally, I
had to call it quits. It wasn’t fun, I was sick all the time and it really
sucked. Come to find out, I was pregnant with Ryan! He got his first
nutritious oxygen from the Chef Reddy Potato plant! I couldn’t eat a French fry
for a couple of years after quitting, but now can chow down with the best of
them.
When my children came along, working outside the home was out of the question
for a few y
ears.
When Ryan was about a 7th grader, crafty items had become all the
rage. Craft shows would draw women by the thousands to a mall and I had our
house decorated with all the crappy country stuff of that era. Raffia swags,
wreaths, geese…you name it, I had it! So why not turn my passion for crafting
into cash? A great idea! And I had a cohort, Marian Borg, who shared my
passion for crafts and making a bit of money on the side. We signed up for a
booth at a craft show, still not quite sure what I was going to craft, but I’d
figure that out later. As the weeks went by I figured I had plenty of time to
whip something up, but procrastination was my enemy…two nights before the big
show and I had nothing to take! Marian had been busy making paper baskets, if I
remember correctly, but I had nothing ready. I planned to make corn husk
wreaths, so I dashed out to the field the next day, picking bags full of corn
husks. The process for making these is long and tedious and should be done over
several days, but I had no time to wait. I worked on them for hours and hours,
not going to bed until 3 AM. I HAD to get them done for the next day’s show.
Finally, I had had about 5 wreaths made and headed off to bed. I’d worry about
the cleanup later. When I arose Saturday morning, I stumbled out to the kitchen
to eat breakfast when I noticed Sassy cat laying in the center of one of my
wreaths. “Oh,” I thought…”isn’t that cute!!” Upon closer inspection, I found
that she had chewed at the ribbon and raffia on the wreaths and had actually
PISSED in the center of one! I was so mad!! I had to leave the pissy wreath
home and patched up the other ones as best I could and off we went. We had
purchased a large piece of wooden lattice to hang our crap on and it was barely
hanging on to the top of Marian’s suburban as she sped down the highway. We got
there, got set up and waited. Every time someone bought one of our things, we
raced over to another booth and spent the money on caramel apples, or fresh
donuts or some crafty item someone else had made. We did sell our stuff, but
came home broke, fat and decided craft shows just weren’t our thing.
My next endeavor was housecleaning for people in the area. There are lots of
bachelors around here, so I sent out postcards proclaiming my expertise at
cleaning. I was fortunate that none of them had come to my own house to find
out if I was telling the truth! As it turned out, I ended up with about 9
regulars, but by this time I was also hauling mail and it got to be too much.
That’s the thing about work…it takes so damned much time away from TV and stuff
like that.
Anyone who has ever read a column of mine before knows that I deliver mail now
and have since 1989. My goal is to work for 25 years, accident free. Only 8
more to go. But with Alex gone off to college, Jordan married and on her own
and Ryan living in Minneapolis, I find myself with a bit of free time on my
hands. There isn’t nearly as much laundry to do or groceries to buy or food to
cook. What could I find to do to fill up the empty hours that are my life? Ebay…what
else!! I advertised on a flyer that I would list items for people who didn’t
have the time or know-how for a small fee + expenses. Since then I have been
busy, sitting in front of the computer listing clothes, cars, makeup,
computers…you name it…I’ll sell it. Will I get rich from this latest money
making scheme? Hardly…but it keeps me out of the bars and makes me think I’m
doing something worthwhile. When I get tired of doing this it is hard to tell
what I’ll think up to do next. All I do know, is that we are never going to be
rich, so I’d better start thinking up the next money making scheme…Hmmmm…maybe
I’ll start writing a column and some big publisher will stumble across it while
browsing the internet and offer me millions!! Or, maybe I should keep my day
job.