Blackened, But Not Defeated

I acknowledge that I'm quick to take a job with shitty pay. In fact, I'm often responsible for such low earnings because I undercut all the competition by offering my services at a very attractive rate. With that said, Iately I've felt compelled to up my prices. So, recently I received a text message from an unknown sender and decided to quote him a higher than normal price. When asked how much I'd charge to sand/paint some shit in Marina Del Rey (MDR), I replied by asking for $15/hour. I explained that MDR's distance from Pasadena (about thirty miles) was the main reason for quoting him higher than the price originally listed on Craigslist. Although I said that I'd be willing to negotiate the price, he said that $15/hour was "cool," as long as I worked for it. Without knowing his name, I agreed to show up at this mystery texter's house the next day.

The next day came and I woke up at around 11:30-- another late start. Aside from having arranged the job in MDR for that day, this was also payday for Gabrielle. Wiping the crumbs out of my eyes, I gave her a call. She informed me that my check was waiting for me in Koreatown.

Took a shit, ate breakfast, and changed my clothes before jumping on the freeway, K-Town bound. I arrived twenty minutes later and made my way up to the manager's office. Upon finally seeing my check I was sure that they had miscalculated my hours. I looked over the timesheet and found that they hadn't. $236 for thirty five hours, so much for delayed gratification.

At this point I had a decision to make. While I could have very happily retired to my house, napped, read, World Cupped, $236 richer, a trip to the beach (MDR) also sounded nice. Additionally, $15/hour seemed too good to pass up. Having the ability to blow off potential employers at the last minute is one of my favorite perks associated with this ODDcupation thing. Despite temptations to do so, I sent a text message to this still nameless correspondent, "On my way."

I GPSed my way to the given address and arrived at approximately 1:30. By chance, the address was a beachfront condo, just steps away from the sandy shore. I telephoned the condo's owner, informing him that I was outside. Two minutes later I was shaking hands with Joe, a shaved head, blue eyed, Texas native. He was in his early thirties and seemed to cuss more than I do.

Joe led me to the condo's garage, informing me that he needed help lowering a busted water heater from a ledge that was about ten feet above ground. We were then supposed to figure out a way to hoist up a replacement heater, which would be no easy task.

As I watched, Joe climbed a latter and spent about half an hour strapping, knotting, and attaching a variety of belts and chains to the heater. With some difficulty, and minimal help from me, Joe eventually dropped the heater from about five feet above ground, no explosion, just a loud bang.

Raising the new water heater to its elevated position required just as much prep work. This time I was able to assist my boss a bit more, climbing the latter and using all my strength to pull that piece of shit onto the ledge, as Joe pushed up from below. All that water heater business took about an hour, in which I earned $15 for no more than ten minutes of actual labor.

My next task would keep me busy for the rest of the day. For the next four hours I was put to work sanding rust stains off of a steel colored elevator door. Cool, eh? This took longer than one might expect because the 60 grit sandpaper left awful scratches and scuffs everywhere. To sand out these scuffs I gradually switched to finer and finer sandpaper grits. 100, 120, 1000. Boring stuff.

Anyways, by 6:30 I was beat and super dirtied. Throughout the sanding process extremely fine specks of metal had stuck to my hands, face, hair, and clothing. I was blackened all over and polishing the now smoothed door upon completing my fifth hour of work. I made my way to Joe's door and asked him to inspect my work before I closed up shop. He followed me down to the elevator and seemed pretty happy with the job that I had done.

Next, Joe and I returned to his condo, where he offered me a Coke, which I declined. He asked me what time I had arrived and I replied, "1:30, though I feel like I just stood around for the first half an hour." He said it wasn't a problem and then entered his room in search of his wallet. He returned and handed me a stack of clean, crisp bills, telling me to give him a call next week for more work.

As I walked out I counted the bills. Four twenties and a five. $85 for a little more than five hours of labor. As Max has pointed out, this isn't the first time that I received more than what was originally agreed upon. Maybe my blackened body and close attention to detail earned me that $10 tip. I'll never know for sure.

I forgot to mention that the beach was visible throughout those four hours of sanding. Leaving the condo, I tiredly walked toward the Pacific. I stripped off my grimy McCain/Palin 2008 t-shirt (worn inside out, a bad Halloween costume idea from a couple years ago), stuck my glasses, phone, keys, socks, and $85 into my shoes and dove in. I spent the next fifteen minutes lazily swimming around, scrubbing the black off my face, and slowly regaining my energy.

I drove home sandy and wet, but not blackened. Traffic as usual, but a pre-drive bowl and eight five extra bucks eased the pain.