This video is a collection of work moments caught on cell cameras during my time working at Southfield in Weymouth Ma. It’s just a boring video, true. I had so many pictures saved over the course of seven months time (December through July) — through some of the coldest rawest days I’d ever experienced then through spring and early July when the project was finally complete. I decided it would be fun to throw them all together and edit some music into it, songs of the ironical variety.  

 

This was my first real electrical job since my last company laid me off back in 2008, just as the economy was going into a tailspin. It kind of put me under the gun for sure. So I collected unemployment and went back to work with my former employer, AC Unlimited (under the table of course) installing and servicing air conditioning. I finished off my electrical school and received my certificate. It was a busy summer for sure but by the first days of fall, work came to a standstill. Though I was still collecting unemployment, my wife was pregnant with our second son and the pressure was mounting to get back to work. No electrical companies were hiring— only skeletal crews remained and those electricians found themselves painting the owners barn or building a dock in the back yard pond just to collect a paycheck every week. By February of 2009, and with unemployment running out, I needed a job fast, anything. As luck would have it (I’ll use this word tenuously here), at the time, my brother’s friend, Jaffy had recently quit his job as an overnight security guard in downtown Boston. Now Jaffy’s boss, the accounts manager for the security company and who did the hiring was also a close friend of Jaffy as well as my brother. I knew him from back in the days of youth at parties and such. Anyway, Jaffy said they were looking for an overnight guard making 15 an hour. At first I scoffed at the idea. I would be too embarrassed and ashamed, all dressed up in a uniform and tie. A security guard? Come on. I’m 41. Yet unemployment was done in another week and nothing was eminent. When I found out it was strictly nightshift and I would rarely have to deal with a large volume of traffic and guards could bring in laptops and watch movies or use internet or whatever, well, I called the accounts manager and told him to sign me up. That day I went out and bought a laptop. Damn it if they weren’t going to pay me to work on my novel, Fat Habits. Well, I would spend the next three years, until September 2012 as the Rover/Security guard at 125 High Street in Boston. That in itself is its own story. And finally in 2013 I finally found an electrical job and was able to resume my career as an electrician.

                                                                   

 

This picture is probably 2012 and not the most flattering but it is the only one I have in the uniform. I am exhausted, bored and trying hard to stay awake for the morning rush. I had gained a little weight-- alcohol bloat. I took the picture out pure boredom.