I tried talking shop at extended family gatherings. No one understood what I did, and I got tired of talking about nitrogen deposition and the oxidation of organic matter. Eventually I started just agreeing with people. “Yeah, sort of like a Park Ranger” I’d mutter before finding a reason to walk away.
It was weird. For the years I had been with the Forest Service, only a handful of people really understood what I did. To this day, I don’t even know if even my parents, as proud and supportive as they were, fully understood. The locals knew only that I wielded a government-backed bottomless VISA, propping up their businesses to a degree, and that I worked somewhere “Over der at da Tech.” and that I drove a big green truck “Yah is nice but geez you shoulda really put a plow on 'er!”
Friends assumed I ran around all day functioning highly in my dream job. I definitely didn’t hate it. Some days were awesome. I’d find myself at Lake of the Clouds at peak fall color, or skiing into an old growth Hemlock and sugar maple forest, or mixing a highball after hiking all day and camping on the company’s dime. But then there were the other days, the monotony of compiling data in front of a computer, staff meetings, and mountains of sample to process in a cold windowless lab: the kind of tasks that make a job, well, work.
In hindsight, my bad days were the same as everyone else’s. Only my good days were much, much better. The government though, it has a weird way of shackling people. Collateral duties began chaining me to the phone and computer. Purchasing, supervising a safety program, reading and writing manuscripts. Even my glorious days in the field were so compressed that I barely had time to see the forest for the trees in my way. And at about this time, during the waning years of the Bush administration, budgets were crashing, and we barely had enough money to twiddle our thumbs. Add to that the fact that no one was really listening to anything scientists had to say on climate change, land use issues, or invasive species, and morale was very poor.
Most of you know the history of our decision to relocate to Nantucket and of my harrowing survival on wife support. Except for the amusing bits, I am not rehashing it all right now. My point is that unless work is your hobby, every job becomes just that. A job. As awesome as my job was at times, I couldn’t ditch it to go fishing. All we were ever taught about doing something you love is horseshit. No one loves sitting at a computer torturing numbers or fighting to stay awake during meetings.
My advice to kids now is simple. Do something easy. Easy money, since money can buy you a lot of things. Easy hours so you have time to do what you want. Easy on your body because The Man will take it from you if he can. Easy to explain, so you don’t have to look at blank stares and answer inane follow up questions on the inner workings of Jellystone Park.
I have one of those jobs now. When I tell people I am a Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator, no one asks for more. They change topics. Everyone has to shovel a little bit of shit in their own day to day. This I know. For me, it’s only a bit more literal.
My first two years out here were awesome. I spent the first month or two biking around, going to the beach, and catching bluefish. But we knew zero people, and as fall was setting on and the population dwindling, a job held some prospects for sanity.
Here I was pragmatic. I wanted zero responsibility. I wanted flexible hours and no one in my face. I was lucky when Sam hired me. I made enough money to support my tackle habit and pay for one nice vacation a year. We called off work when bass were in the harbor or the surf was up. He knew everyone, so I did by association. It was fun. I spent a good part of my first winter furlough riding a longboard up and down the coast of El Salvador. Life was good.
A year later my back hurt intermittently. My forearms, when they tan, are a maze of scars, and I had averaged 5 trips a year to the doctor’s office for serious poison ivy rashes. And scheduling conflicts and respect for my marriage kept me away from another Central American jaunt with the boys. Sitting around, drinking and watching TV sure sounded cool earlier in the winter, but was really, really unfulfilling. Wife support and my workout schedule were the only things keeping me from the depths of alcoholism.
I knew I couldn’t run this race anymore. As awesome as working for Sam was (and he was working even harder, right at my side), it wasn’t going to lead anywhere positive for me. It would have been great at 21, but at 32 I feared I would soon be flirting with pathetic.
I applied to grow vegetables at Bartlett Farm. I applied to drive a truck for Fed Ex. I told the Historical Society that I would love to answer their phones and make coffee, and I assured the Cottage Hospital that I did indeed have no problem distributing their mail. I even lied to the people at TSA; “No, I don’t think that screening passengers is a humiliating and soul-crushing job.”
They all said no thank you.
One problem was that I had never applied for a job before. My eventual MS advisor offered me a job sight unseen two months before graduation. It could have been mine for life. Sam had me come out and work for a day, if you can call that an application process. So my interview skills were probably a little coarse.
Another was that I had been institutionalized. Based on my unique set of scientific and institutional skills, any number of government agencies would have been happy to hire me away. If you can keep a specialized job for life, great. But if you lose it, you are so fucked.
The fact is that during a recession the skilled hands of a climate change scientist with expertise in stable isotope ratio mass spectrometry and government accounting software are not needed in the island economy.
Eventually, the chief operator at the Nantucket wastewater treatment plant called me back. I had an interview, a second, and then an offer. Huzzah.
It is actually quite a shame that more people don’t ask me about the work of a wastewater treatment plant operator. For starters, we get paid well. Not outrageously - the work involves more skill than I anticipated, but well enough. I would like to think that management acquiesces to the union demands immediately, lest we drag our dirty boots to their office to speak face to face.
Even after a few months on the job, I still enjoy it. I was trained as a scientist, and I view water treatment through this lens. Wastewater treatment involves little more then applying the nitrogen cycle while manipulating microbiology (both specialties of mine). I can’t rebuild a centrifugal pump seal, but I can identify treatment problems simply by monitoring nitrate and ammonia concentrations from tank to tank.
I fish and surf and boat and do all sorts of awesome outdoor things on this small eroding sandbar we call Nantucket. I care about it. During the last years of my Forest Service career, my scientific efforts were filed away and ignored where it really mattered. Here though, I am creating clean water. I consider myself an environmentalist and believe that our 8-man crew are stewards and do more good for the island’s ecosystem than any other group. And I find that especially rewarding.
Several people wondered why I suddenly was boasting on facebook about my CDL. All glory aside, I am now a working man, union and blue collar. I punch a time clock, which is a change for me both mechanically and idealistically. Having a commercial drivers license is a requirement for the job, as is a uniform. But given the economy and my last three years, it is also a guard against unemployment.
Yesterday I drove the 14 wheel dump truck to the landfill. I was hauling just under 16 tons of polymerized septic sludge. There it is digested with the organic waste stream and turned into compost, which is then piled high in the recycling parking area. Cheap summer folks shovel the free fill into buckets to spread on their gardens, unaware that it was formerly poo. I giggle and drive by.
When people do ask me about my job, the question is always “How do you deal with the smell?” Odds are, if you are a doctor, nurse, or raised children, you have gotten more shit on your hands than I ever will. Our facility is 2 years old, fully automated, and cost 42 million dollars (part of that is an extensive odor control system). Most of my day is spent behind something resembling Homer Simpson’s safety console, or in the lab running analysis. There are of course, a couple dirty jobs worthy of Mike Rowe that we have to do once in awhile, but these rotate and are really as much amusing as terrible.
Besides, this is Nantucket after all. Our shit doesn’t stink.
