Ok, I’m kinda bored right now so I’m going to tell y’all about my job. I am the equipment mechanic for a mid sized landscaping/landscape construction company (and because I live in a rural and heavily forested area that also means land clearance company). I am pretty much just left alone in a garage to fix everything from chainsaws and weed eaters to ride on mowers to backhoes and skidsteers. Occasionally I have to drive to a job site to do on site maintenance. This is great for my autistic ass- i interact with my elderly maga nut boss minimally, I’m not excessive bored and most weeks it’s only 20-30 hours of work (though with an occasional 12 or 14 hr shift thrown in lol). It pays well enough that I can get by and have money to spare, and still have time for organizing. Ok the bad.
Everything about this companies work is satanic. We take land and just make it sterile and desolate, destroying bushes and trees and putting in or maintaining ugly hardscapes or lifeless lawns. It’s spiritually draining on a certain level knowing my blood and sweat is going to destroy plants so rich assholes can have uglier yards. Also, Fox news is on in the main office literally at all times, including when I’m in a meeting there. Given my bosses appalling views on almost everything (which she’ll bring up in entirely unrelated meetings) I’m surprised she hired an extremely openly queer person at all, but hey. Say la vee or whatever the French 🥖 say
Honestly, the value of being left the fuck alone most of the time with decent enough work to do is pretty solid if the pay is decent enough.
I could see things getting shittier if the elder maga boss kicks the bucket and a younger maga fiend takes over, but I would enjoy the relative peace while I could.
The only son seems to be ideologically uncommitted but is also apparently a belligerent drunk. Also works as a crane operator in LA so I don’t even know if he’d want to move out here to take over the family business when his parents kick it. He really likes me for some inexplicable reason.
I’d stick it out for now. Like some others said, hunt for a dream job since you’re in a comfyish spot. I’d be a little worried about the owner croaking and the business shuttering if there’s not some kind of succession plan.
Maybe I’m just being a hopeless optimist right now, but experience around an extremely openly queer person who is a knowledgeable working laborer might have a casual deradicalizing affect on your boss/co-workers. Depending on where one lives, it’s entirely possible they’ve never even talked to an openly queer person, which makes the media stereotypes easier to accept if they have no real life experience to contradict it.
I suspect that it does have a casual deradicalizing affect
as the saying goes, old boss is always a dick until you meet the new one.
it can always get better, but it can always get worse too. It’s a bummer doing something that makes you feel morally low, but you have to look at it the way the system frames it too. You have to eat. You have bills to pay. A fulfilling job is always great, but so is a job that allows you to pay your bills, save a little scratch, and even allows some time for being proactive in the community near you.
If I were in your shoes I might look for other employ, but I probably wouldn’t be beating down doors for it. Look around and if that super duper opportunity to advance monetarily, or move into a position you really enjoy, follow up on it.
Yeah, these are very much my feelings
learn everything you can and take zero guff. i’m not as on-the-ground as i used to be, but holy shit, people who can effectively troubleshoot and engage in small engine and landscape equipment maintenance / repair are worth their weight in gold. every place has one and when they leave to do something else, the place is fucked.
i can half ass my way around typical farm and residential-commercial level equipment, but as it becomes more complex i can just follow maintenance schedules. clean, and that’s about it. i ended up going back to school for agriculture after some moves didn’t pan out, and that set me on a different path. i think a lot of really small residential equipment is going to keep transitioning to electric/battery, but there’s probably a trillion dollars worth of diesel equipment in the US that nobody is in a big rush to replace because diesel technology is so reliable.
anyway, there are absolutely land management groups out there doing good works that need those skills. yeah, the people you work for sound like shit wizards, but bigger equipment like skidsteers and backhoes, in a day, can do incredible things in terms of earthworks that would take a village of people months of perfect weather to do.
if you learn how to service and maintain lots of different equipment like that, such that someone can bring you something new but you can figure it out, there’s no reason you can’t take and use those skills for good when you find an organization that takes contracts restoring wetlands, building affordable eco-housing, pond development, or other custom hire land management projects.
landscaping and landscape management can be extremely cool things. it’s just that usually, the visible version that makes really phat stacks and run large, highly visible crews are owned by mercenaries tearing shit up for fast loot.
if you take those skills of maintenance, repair and safe operation… and add to them with some basic credentialing in soil science and ecology to help with the pitching, you could eventually recover and repurpose old equipment to take those contracts yourself.
learn everything you can and take zero guff. i’m not as on-the-ground as i used to be, but holy shit, people who can effectively troubleshoot and engage in small engine and landscape equipment maintenance / repair are worth their weight in gold. every place has one and when they leave to do something else, the place is fucked.
I think of myself as some greasy schmuck with an autistic hyperfixation on machinery, basic problem solving skills and a high pain tolerance but Your probably right about this. It’s much harder than my old automotive grease monkey days, as the manuals for small engine and landscape equipment are generally lacklustre and there isn’t just a YouTube tutorial for almost every imaginable repair.
safe operation
Bold assumption
if you learn how to service and maintain lots of different equipment like that, such that someone can bring you something new but you can figure it out, there’s no reason you can’t take and use those skills for good when you find an organization that takes contracts restoring wetlands, building affordable eco-housing, pond development, or other custom hire land management projects. if you take those skills of maintenance, repair and safe operation… and add to them with some basic credentialing in soil science and ecology to help with the pitching, you could eventually recover and repurpose old equipment to take those contracts yourself.>>
I guess that’s the dream. cooperative restoration contracting with the comrades. Probably a long ways out but would be really cool.
Bold assumption
lol relatively speaking, of course. shaking hands with danger is hard to avoid. keep all your fingers, knee pads are cheap, since you have spare money buy some nice/comfortable PPE for yourself so you always have it handy, always ridicule, without mercy, people who do “safety squints”, and practice a knowing headshake for the next time you see somebody do something dumb as hell, safety wise. my favorite response to a big fuckup (where nobody got hurt) is, “that looks expensive.”
Say la vee or whatever the French 🥖 say
Such is life, if we’re gonna translate it.
I feel a bit like this working for a place that’s very intertwined with the beef industry. What we do could be used for good and environmental restoration, but its mostly used for meat livestock. The place is good to work for but I feel like I’m contributing to one of the biggest factors in carbon emissions
The level of dominance of the beef industry in certain areas is genuinely crazy.
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So I had som. e experience with a lot of this equipment (both heavy equipment and small engines) from working as a park ranger (maintenance not law enforcement) and a logger, and I had worked in a mechanic shop (which I hated) and I also lied a bunch on my resume. My job is interesting because it’s essentially a combination two distinct trades- small engine repair and h equipment repair, though I don’t think that’s too uncommon.
In terms of education that could help, there are a few community colleges and unions which offer trainings on equipment operation and maintenance but they can be hard to find. most community colleges offer auto shop classes which are a good basis, and particularly learning to work on diesel engines and vehicle electrical systems is good. You will be expected to know how to do some welding, which you can also learn at most community colleges. Both of these also just worthwhile skills to have. Having at least some experience working with/operating the kind of equipment you are maintaining is also important.
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