Job hunting was a new experience for me and I didn't know where or how to start. One day I saw in the newspaper an article about a job hunting seminar in Toronto. The company organizing the seminar promised many things. Each “client” would have coach to help them write a résumé, there would be training sessions to prepare for job interviews, how to make cold calls to a company, and more. I remember the four-weeks course costing over $2 000, very expensive in 1980's dollars, but the company claimed a 60% success rate in finding jobs so I signed up.
I found a cheap room in New Toronto where I would stay during the week, and on the weekend I would return to Owen Sound where my wife and kids were staying with her parents. The company was located in downtown Toronto in a tall office tower and my first impression was that I had landed in the head office of some large company, sweeping view of Toronto, everything from office chairs, work stations, pens and stationary appeared pricey and made me feel like I was out of place. However after meeting the other twenty “Clients” I relaxed, we all seemed to belong to the same boat- salesmen, bank clerks, social workers, technicians and managers. One man who seemed out of place was a vice president of a bank who treated everybody with a thinly-concealed contempt. He kept butting into the training sessions/discussions, starting with “In my bank ....” and a couple of jokers mocked him behind his back, amusing the rest of us. The first couple of days were disappointing. We were given sort of “Job Hunting 101” lectures, mostly common sense, but they were appreciated by a few desperate people, who had lost their job after working in the same company for many years.
I spent almost two weeks checking newspaper ads, sending résumés, making cold calls and networking, without any results. I was getting very frustrated when out of the blue, I was called for a job interview by the Maple Leaf Mills, a huge Canadian food processing company. “We have had more than one hundred applications for the job advertised and you are one of ten selected for the interview, congratulation,” the interviewer told me. ”We will choose two or three applicants for another interview before making the final decision.” Congratulations? To compete for the job with nine others? Disappointed, I returned home to Owen Sound.
My wife showed me a local newspaper. “LOF Glass in Collingwood is looking for a maintenance foreman, you should apply for the job”. I knew the factory, I drove by every week on the way to Toronto. “I am an engineer, I don't have any experience running maintenance, it is like apples and oranges,” I told her. But she reminded me that my unemployment insurance would be running out soon so to keep her off my back, I sent in my résumé, highlighting that I worked at the PPG glass plant in Owen Sound. On Monday I went back to Toronto and to my surprise I was called by Maple Leaf for another interview. This time I talked to three different supervisors and left with high hopes.
Then came another surprise- my wife phoned to tell me “LOF Glass called, they want you to come for a job interview." Fred Parry, the supervisor of plant services gave me a tour of the plant, took me to the maintenance shop, then we went to his office and talked about - fishing in British Columbia! When it was time to leave, he said "Maybe you should meet the Plant Manager" and took me to his office. The plant manager talked to me briefly, didn't asked me to sit down, then the phone rang with something that was apparently important because he gestured us to leave his office and my interview was over. Driving to Owen Sound I realized that we had hardly talked about the foreman position and I had no clue what was the job about. "It was a complete waste of time, they are not interested” I told my wife.
On Monday I received disappointing news from Maple Leaf, I was their second choice, another engineer was offered the job. "But we will keep your résumé on file." I was back at square one, getting ready to start another round of job hunting. Then my wife called, all excited: “LOF wants you to come to talk about the salary and benefits.” I had a job, even-though it was nothing to brag about! As I expected, the maintenance foreman job was on the low end of the pay scale but I was given a vague promise that I would be considered for a promotion when other jobs came up.
I went back to Toronto, cleaned out my desk, and left without telling anybody about my new job. I had paid only half of the fees to the company and I felt [without reading the fine print] that because I gotten the job myself, I shouldn't have to pay the other half of the fee.
I rented an apartment in Collingwood and found out that the local yacht club had a slip available for my sailboat. Everything seemed to be falling into place when out of the blue I got a call from Maple Leaf.“The other engineer changed his mind and the position is still open, let us know if you are interested.” I was astonished. Suddenly I had two jobs to choose from and they couldn't be further apart.
Maple Leaf had many food processing plants, grain elevators, and storage facilities. I would work as a field engineer, visiting various installations, investigate problems, and prepare projects. I would be based in the head office in Toronto and the company offered excellent salary and benefits. It would be challenging work but I had held similar job before and was confident that I could handle it. The downside was that we would have to live in Toronto and I disliked living in a big city.
The maintenance foreman job at LOF Glass was a strange arrangement. I would be working a steady day shift, while another foreman would work the afternoon shifts. There were two maintenance crews rotating each week between the day and afternoon shifts. It meant that I would be working every week with a different crew. I had a gut feeling that it wasn't a good job but I liked Collingwood. It was a small town that offered a lot of outdoor activities like hiking the Bruce trail or skiing on the Blue Mountains, and the region provided some of the best sailing in Georgian Bay. That tipped the scale and I decided to take the foreman job. I always claimed that my motto in life was “To work to live, not to live to work.” Now it was time to prove it.
No comments:
Post a Comment