Hayter for June 11,
2023
“Life is not what you make it”
I saw a news story last week about a couple of college graduates who had both received job offers from different companies shortly before they graduated. Upon graduating, each was informed that there were no jobs available.
The last thing they showed on the news was
a segment on different graduation ceremonies across the country. There weren’t
any sad faces in the crowds. At the end of each ceremony, square caps went
flying, a lot of hugging and kissing took place, photos were taken, and parties
were thrown. End of story.
At that point, I knew that I would not trade places with any of ‘em. I imagine there was a hefty percentage of the graduating class of 2023 whose plans for employment were shaky, to say the least. I feel their pain. Actually, I experienced their pain.
I’ve told different portions of the story
a time or two, but most of you were too young to read at the time. So, here
goes. -- I left Stephen F Austin
University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Forestry.
The good thing about majoring in Forestry
was that I didn’t have to take any foreign language courses. I had embarrassed
myself during my high school Spanish classes and feared revisiting the
experience in college.
So, no Spanish, but a boatload of classes in every type of science known to mankind at the time, other than astronomy. That was the one science subject I might’ve enjoyed.
After graduation, I returned to Pasadena,
Texas as an unemployed Forester with no prospects. I sent a few resumes out to some
forest management companies.
I couldn’t afford to wait to be hired by a
tree-managing outfit, so I had to look for something local. When you live in
Pasadena, your best bet is to try your luck at one of the refineries.
Fortunately, Dad told me not to end up like he did; working in a refinery.
Faris Hayter was married with kids when he got a job with Crown Refinery in
Pasadena. He could never afford to turn down overtime. When you have a job you
hate, and you can’t afford to turn down overtime, it’s considered the third level
of purgatory.
Unlike my Dad, I had a college degree no
one to support, and no job. I also had plans for marrying Kay Cross as soon as
I got a decent job. I tried to get a job with the Railroad, but fortunately,
had no luck. I did get a job as a forklift driver for a company that made
cardboard oil cans. While I had four summers worth of forklift experience, I
had never experienced moving pallets holding 10-foot towers of cardboard cans
from the warehouse to the inside of an empty semi-truck trailer. The stack of
cans had only two narrow straps around it.
I received no instructions on how best to make it from the ramp to the inside of the trailer without losing the entire load. I dumped the first load at the entrance to the trailer. After that, I was assigned the job of building wooden shelves across a long wall. That was the extent of my instructions. After completing my first assignment, I quit the oil can company.
That’s when I went to the Texas Employment Agency, where I found one of the four most helpful people God ever put in my path. I was sitting in a foldout chair in a huge room waiting with everyone else for an interview. I eventually got to talk to a lady who talked to me about places that might need my service. She gave me applications for six different state-run outfits that would likely hire a forester.
She also got me a job at Ellington Air
Force Base to file multiple stacks of info related to certain airmen. Regardless,
it was the third toughest job I ever had. Different cabinets held different
forms and I couldn’t keep straight which form belonged in which cabinet. Again,
I received little instruction. For all I know, I sent different people to
different air bases.
Before I could reroute an airport load of
pilots, I received a letter from the Assistant Director of the Texas Forest
Service, telling me to get my rear to A&M for an interview. I was confident
that I bombed the interview, but the gentleman hired me that day. He showed me
a whole stack of applications from foresters that he had considered, yet, he
picked me. My grades in Forestry were average at best. You ask me, a Colonel
from Ellington Air Force Base put a good word in for me.
In early November I was placed at Texas Forest Service,
District 6 headquarters located off FM 1488 south of Conroe. Kay and I married during the Thanksgiving break and we moved into an apartment in Conroe. By the way, it’s still there. Fortunately, we aren’t.
In a nutshell, that is my after-college job-search story. Over the years I’ve written about how, after two years, I quit the Forest Service, and Kay got a job to pay my way through Sam Houston State where I got my Masters in History and Political Science. This led to a teaching job at McCullough High in the Woodlands and later at Oak Ridge High. It was the greatest teaching experience in human history. I never told the kids that, because I didn’t know it at the time.
It was in 1980 that Barbara Fredricksen
hired me to write a column for the Courier. She too is one of the most
influential persons in my life. And, I owe all of this to a lady at the Texas
Employment Agency. You know what that is? It’s a wonderment.
I do so hope that high school and college graduates of 2023 experience only wonderful wonderments. While doing so, you will find out that life is not “what you make it”. It requires a bunch of other people… some of whom you may never know.
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