Severn Trent Sewage Works
Prior to starting work as a teacher in the 70's, my aunt got me a job at Unigate, where she worked in the offices. My job was to sit in the milk disposal plant at the adjacent Severn Trent Sewage works and watch two dials. Apparently it would have cost a fortune to train and populate the plant in those Unionised days, so the Management solution was to stick two students per shift, 12 hours at a time, six days on two days off, in front of the dials, which were ph meters.

The job, such that it was, entailed turning on a carboy filled with acid into a stone trough when the dairy jettisoned the milk products, which could happen at any time during a 24 hour period. Once the acid was turned on, we had to swill it around with two wooden paddles and check that the ph reading at the end of the trough had returned to a normal reading. (7? is that a neutral ph reading? I can't recall)

This whole process used to last a maximum of 45 minutes. Some days we sat and did absolutely nothing at all, some days we had to work for a living for 45 minutes. We learned to play backgammon, and were sitting ducks for the local chavs with air rifles. We had drag races down the private drive, We got so bored we designed and made a crude Archimedian screw to slot into the stone trough so that we didn't have to do all that terrible slushing around with the paddles.

I worked there from finishing college to starting work in the autumn. My weekly wages were equivalent to my first month as a teacher, a massive £150 per week after full stoppages. That would be the equivalent of around £1500 now I guess.

It may be sh*t to you, but it was bread and butter to me. The tomatoes that grew there were the sweetest you'll ever taste!
( The Lone Groover has mal des nuts., Mon 13 Oct 2014, 17:35, 4 replies)

Am I reading this wrong, or were you making the equivalent of £72k per annum?

( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Tue 14 Oct 2014, 10:10, closed)

I too can append extra zeroes to my salary.

(eViLegion Chief Commissioner of the Scottish Lunacy Board, Tue 14 Oct 2014, 10:32, closed)

^^
No zeroes appended. My final week at the Sewage works, nett, was £150. I'd worked 12 hour night shifts, over the weekend, six days in total. Time and a half after 8 hours, double time weekends plus overnight supplements. This WAS the 70's, and the plant was heavily unionised. I still have the pay slip. By comparison, I earned £149.50 for my first month as a teacher, which included a tenner married man's allowance. A teacher's starting salary now, after stoppages, would be around £1400/1500 a month I reckon.

It's the only time in my life I've been rolling in money. I was earning way more than my old man, which hacked him off royally.
( The Lone Groover has mal des nuts., Tue 14 Oct 2014, 15:26, closed)

You should've stuck with it. 10 years later Sinclair invented the portable TV and Nintendo invented the game boy.
Kids are cunts.
( Slippery Mick ‏, Tue 14 Oct 2014, 19:44, closed)