My journey to the top

I interviewed at JFS in January of 2007 and was offered the job shortly thereafter. I said yes because JFS would look really good on my resume (let me be honest), would train me in on state of the art technologies, and was offering a lot more per hour then the crap work-study jobs offered at my college. From the time I was officially offered the job until the time I was actually hired one year went by. To explain why this took so long I must elaborate a bit on what it is the group I work for within JFS does. They do things related to optics (think displays). It's highly likely, in fact, that the screen you're staring at right now has some technology made by JFS inside of it. Unfortunately, it's been a bad year for the displays market and JFS has been losing a lot of money in this area. Thus, I wasn't able to actually come on at JFS until the higher-ups had approved the acquisition. Like I said, this took one year.

So in January of 2008 I had my first day at JFS. I learned that, of the two men who I interviewed with, only one was still within our group and would be my working boss (as opposed to my "reports to" who is a higher-up and my official boss, to whom I have exchanged perhaps two sentences with in my life). I also met the woman below him who I would in fact be working with everyday. Below her was another lab technician similar in stature to me but with more experience in her position and seniority at the company. At the bottom there was me.

I was excited to be at JFS and eager to learn. I acquired as many skills as I could, asking not only how but why (oh isn't he sooo smart?) because I was genuinely interested in the tasks of my new position and how the devices which I was creating worked. The other lab technician was eager to teach me and also just as eager to bitch about the job and its "ergonomic hardships" (gloveboxes in the cleanroom do pose some odd strains to the neck and back, but these complaints are trivial when compared to the pains found in any standard retail or waitressing job). Soon, the lab tech had taught me everything she knew and, shortly thereafter, bailed on her position. She began not coming in to work and soon avoided the clean room at all costs. The higher-ups finally yielded to her complaints and, while an "ergonomic investigation" was held in the cleanroom (of which there were no results as, quite honestly, nobody gave a fuck) she was given a new position. At this point I had become #3 in knowledge and seniority within the clean-room.

To replace ergo-woman a new tech-aide was being hired, and an existing technical employee was being transferred from another division. Simultaneously my working boss, the man whom I had originally interviewed with at JFS, announced that he was moving to a new division. This made the #2 boss, the woman whom I worked closely with everyday, the new #1 boss and made me, concurrently, #2 in seniority.

The new #1 boss and I began training in the new and transfered employees so as to regain the momentum we used to have. Within several weeks we were working at a faster pace than ever and everybody was happy in their positions. Then one day I came in to work and my boss looked at me and said "Well you ought to know that I've been terminated." I stared at her in disbelief. "What?" I said, laughing a little, "Like you're 'exploring new opportunities'?" I'm smiling. "Yeah, like I'm fired."

She is serious.

She is fired.

I am now #1 in seniority within the cleanroom.

I am 21 and I get paid 13$/hr.