SALVAGING MY SANITY
A lot of fathers have jobs that are usually passed onto their sons. This happens a lot with trades. A carpenter’s son becomes a carpenter. An electrician’s son becomes an electrician. My father worked as a stationary engineer for 30 years. Right now, I work in Chicago email marketing. I’m not even making half as much money as I would had I become a stationary engineer. Quite honestly, it never interested me. I don’t know anything about tools and I never even thought about going to trade school. If I wanted to become one, I still could. I’d have to be an apprentice for 2 years and go take all the classes for it. But in the meantime, apprentices only make something like nine dollars an hour after taxes. No one can live off nine dollars an hour in the city of the Chicago. But that’s how it’s set up. It’s for kids who just graduated high school or maybe even college and have a year or two to waste and live with their parents. I couldn’t do that. I can’t stand my parents. Moving out was the only way to salvage my sanity. I can’t go back to that and suffer for a year or so. I’d never make it.