My first job out of college has nothing to do with either of my degrees, and everything with the family general construction business that I am proudly a forth generation of. I am the new full-time painter for a retirement center, and the discoveries and adventures I have from this job are a daily occurrence.
Within the first two days, the main painter (we’ll call him… Jay) already allows me to work on my own, by Friday, when he had to leave early, he trusted me with the task of re-staining several front doors on empty resident rooms.
This particular stain, he explains, is far more flammable than other wood stains. Other wood stains you can throw the rags away after you’ve used them. This stain will spontaneously combust (O.o) if you don’t put the saturated rag into a water-filled metal can within a couple hours. After showing me how to do the staining, and how to dispose of the rags afterward, he leaves for the day and I leave to stain the doors.
The doors, I would like to note, came out beautifully. Unfortunately, so too did one side of my pants. And too much imagination, plus the warning he gave on the flammability of this stain, equals a long two hours of paranoia with the mental image of my pants going up in flames.
Obviously, this did not occur or my job may have gone up in smoke before my first paycheck date, but it did make for an interesting end to my first week on the job.
-Abby
