Think your job stinks?
By KEVIN P. CRAVER - kcraver@nwherald.com
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| Dave Janes prepares to remove 1,250 gallons of waste from a septic tank during his weekly stop at Countryside Flowers in Crystal Lake. Janes, with Arrow Septic for more than nine years makes six to eight stops a day pumping waste from a typical tank holding 1,500 gallons. (H. Rick Bamman – hbamman@nwherald.com) |
If you think your job figuratively stinks, try working a job that literally stinks.
If you work in a climate-controlled office, your job might figuratively stink. Sure, the break room refrigerator gets ripe every so often thanks to forgotten leftovers. And sure, there are co-workers who seem to get ready for work by marinating in their favorite perfume, as if Clinique Happy is sold by the 50-gallon drum.
You’re getting off light.
Your summer job could involve scraping up road kill, or unclogging pipes, or pumping septic tanks or portable toilets. They are not particularly pleasant activities any time of year, but the heat of summer makes these jobs not for the faint of heart.
So before you curse your lot in life because of the garlic breath of the temp in the next cubicle, you might want to walk a mile in the shoes – or hip boots – of people who have other jobs.
SFlbRoad kill pick-up
Weather permitting, the McHenry County Division of Transportation sends drivers every Monday to check county roads for damage caused by errant drivers or downed limbs from passing storms.
It also is their responsibility during inspections to pick up the remains of unfortunate creatures, great and small, that tried to beat oncoming cars and lost.
Trucks return to the division’s depot west of Woodstock with whatever chipmunks, squirrels, opossums and raccoons are found along the way.
Road Supervisor Loren Schmidt said his workers took shoveling up dead, flat animals in stride.
“Normally they know that’s part of their job,” Schmidt said. “The worst is when you find a skunk that’s been hit by a car. You can imagine how that can be some days.”
Schmidt had just dispatched a crew to pick up a deer that died quite spectacularly on Kishwaukee Valley Road. Although autumn is the most likely time for deer to get hit by cars, Schmidt said he received two deer calls that day.
The small animals that the county picks up are buried at an undisclosed site, division Maintenance Superintendent Mark DeVries said. But the county has found an ingenious way of disposing of road kill deer.
Deer that are found early enough are dropped off at the Valley of the Kings exotic animal sanctuary in Sharon, Wis., where they supplement the diets of rescued lions, tigers and other large cats, Schmidt said.
Plumbing/climate control
Bad smells are all in a day’s work for Black Diamond Plumbing & Electric, Vice President Scott Underwood said. The odors that come from pipes, blown fuse boxes, and old ventilation systems are not going to make their way into aromatherapy candles anytime soon.
Plumbing smells like, well, plumbing. But Underwood said it was the amperes, not the aroma, that dominate his concerns doing electrical work. On one recent job replacing a blown box at a nearby manufacturer, Underwood’s arms were jet black with insulation and grime.
“Electrical work is more dangerous than it is dirty, but it can be dirty, though,” Underwood said.
Underwood said that work on ventilation systems such as squirrel cage fans and blower motors can be black with soot. But nothing, he said, comes close to the smell of plumbing and sewer work. When workers leave the site when the job is done, the smell follows.
“You put your tools in the back of the truck on a 90-degree day, that’s bad,” Underwood said.
Septic tank pumper
Summer means festivals, which means that portable toilets have to be set up to accommodate the throngs of partygoers.
And of course, portable toilets have to get pumped when they get full.
This is a job for Crown Restrooms, a subsidiary of Woodstock-based Arrow Septic & Sewer. But while most people cringe at the thought of driving a waste truck, much less pumping toilets, Arrow co-owner Kathie Christ said the chemical solution, which reminded her of bubble gum, kept offensive odors at bay.
But there’s nothing stopping the smell when a septic tank lid is pried off.
“I personally think pumping a septic tank requires a stronger stomach than servicing a public toilet. There’s no masking odors in that,” Christ said. “I can’t think of a dirtier job that people would want to do less.”
Christ said that there was no getting used to the smell, but that it likely was something that her employees learned to tolerate. Arrow Septic does not have much job turnover, she said.
“I don’t think they would stick around if they didn’t think it was worth it,” Christ said.
