by Studs Terkel
Where it really gets you down is, you’re at some place and you’ll meet a person and strike up a conversation with ‘em. Naturally, sometime during that conversation he’s going to ask about your occupation, what you do for a living. So this guy, he manages this, he manages that, see? When I tell him—and I’ve seen it happen lots of times—there’s a kind of question mark in his head. Just what is this guy? You work. You just sweat. It’s not mental. ’Cause a lot of these jobs that you do, you do so many of the same thing, it just becomes automatic. You know what you’re doing blindfolded.
It’s made me a pretty good livin’ so far. But I don’t have a lot of time that a lot of these guys do that are in my age and in the same status that I am. I put in every week at least sixty, sixty-five hours. And then at night, you never know. If somebody breaks down, you can’t tell ’em no. You gotta go. My friends work forty hours a week and they’re done. Five days a week. I work seven, actually. Every other Sunday. I have to come and open up.
I don’t really like to talk about my work with my friends. They don’t really seem to, either. A lot of times somebody will ask me something about their car. How much will this cost? How much will that cost? I don’t really even want to quote my price to them. A couple of ‘em work for the state, in an office. A couple of ’em are body men. One’s a carpenter, one’s a real estate salesman. A few of ’em, they just work.
I come home, I gotta go in the back door, ‘cause I’ve got on greasy boots. (Laughs.) If it does happen to be about six thirty, then I won’t get cleaned up before I eat. I’ll sit down and eat with the wife and kids. If they’ve already eaten, I’ll take a shower and I’ll get cleaned up and I’ll come down and eat. If it’s a nice night, I might go out and putz around the yard. If it’s not nice outside, I’ll just sit and watch the TV. I don’t really read that much. I probably read as much as the average American. But nothing any more. Sometimes you really put out a lot of work that day—in general, I’m tired. I’m asleep by ten o’clock at night. I come to work, it varies, I might come in between eight and nine, maybe even ten ’ in the morning. I like my sleep. (Laughs.)
He’s the one that opens it up. He believes the early bird gets the worm. But that’s not always true either. I might come in late, but actually I do more work than he does here in a day. Most of it probably is as careful as his. I can’t understand a lot of the stuff he does. But he can’t understand a lot of the stuff I do either. (Laughs.) He’s getting better. He’s kinda come around. But he still does think old-fashioned.
Like tools. You can buy equipment, it might cost a lot more money but it’ll do the job faster and easier. He’ll go grab hand tools, that you gotta use your own muscle. He doesn’t go in for power tools.
Like judging people. Anybody with long hair is no good to him—even me. If he caught me asleep, he’d probably give me a Yul Brynner. Hair doesn’t have anything to do with it. I’ve met a lot of people with hair really long, just like a female. They’re still the same. They still got their ideas and they’re not hippies or anything. They go to work every day just like everybody else does. It gets him. Especially if someone will come in and ask him to do something, he’ll let them know he doesn’t like them. I don’t give people that much static.
When somebody comes in and they’re in a rage and it’s all directed at you, I either go get the hell out of there or my rage is brought up towards them. I’ve definitely lost customers by tellin’ ’em. I don’t know how to just slough it off. In the majority of cases you’re sorry for it.
I’ve seen my father flare up a lot of times. Somebody gives him a bad time during the day, he’ll take it home. Whereas instead of tellin’ ’em right there on the spot, he’ll just keep it within himself. Then half-hour later he might be mumblin’ somethin’. When I used to live at home, you could tell by thirty seconds after he got in the door that he either didn’t feel good or somebody gave him a bad time. He just keeps it going through his mind. He won’t forget it. Whereas when I go home to the wife and the two kids, I just like to forget it. I don’t want to talk about it at all.
I yell a lot, cuss a lot. I might throw things around down here, take a hammer and hit the bench as hard as it’ll go, I’m getting better though, really. I used to throw a lot of stuff. I’d just grab and throw a wrench or something. But I haven’t done that in a long time now. When you get older and you start thinking about it, you really have changed a lot in the last few years. (Laughs.) It’ll stay inside me. You learn to absorb more of it. More so than when you were a kid. You realize you’re not doing any good. Lotta times you might damage something. It’s just gonna come out of your pocket.
When I was younger, if there was something I didn’t agree upon, I was ready to go right then against it. But now I don’t. I kinda step back a half a step and think it out. I’ve gotten into pretty good arguments with my buddies. It never really comes down to fists, but if you’re with somebody long enough, it’s bound to happen, you’re gonna fight. You had a hard day and somebody gave you a hard time and, say you went out to eat and the waitress, she screwed something up? Yeah, it’ll flare up. But not as much as it used to be.
As far as customers goes, there’s not too many of ‘em I like. A lot of customers, you can joke with, you can kid with. There are a lot of ’em, they don’t want to hear any of it. They don’t want to discuss anything else but the business while they’re here. Older people, yeah, they’re pretty hard. Because they’ve gone through a change from a Model T to what you got nowadays. Nowadays a lot of ’em will put up the hood and they just shake their heads. They just can’t figure it out.
Some of ’em, when they get old they get real grumpy. Anything you say, you’re just a kid and you don’t know what you’re doin’. (Laughs.) They don’t want to listen to you, they want to talk to somebody else. There’s a lot of ‘em that’ll just talk to him. But there’s a lot of ’em that want to talk to me and don’t want to talk to him. My-age people. It’s a mixed-up generation. (Laughs.)
I have pride in what I do. This day and age, you don’t always repair something. You renew. Whereas in his era you could buy a kit to rebuild pretty near anything. Take a water pump. You can buy ’em. You can put on a new one. I wouldn’t even bother to repair a water pump. You can buy rebuilts, factory rebuilts. Back in his time you rebuilt water pumps.
His ideas are old, really. You gotta do this a certain way and this a certain way. There’s short cuts found that you could just eliminate half the stuff you do. But he won’t. A lot of the new stuff that comes out, he won’t believe anybody. He won’t even believe me. He might call three or four people before he’ll believe it. Why he won’t believe me I don’t know. I guess he must figure I bull him a lot. (Laughs.)
When he was working for a living as a mechanic, his ability was pretty good. Actually, he doesn’t do that much work. I mean, he more or less is a front. (Laughs.) Many people come in here that think he does work on their car. But he doesn’t. He’s mostly the one that meets people. He brings the work in. In his own mind he believes he’s putting out the work. But we’re the ones that put out the work.
He’s kind of funny to figure out. (Laughs.) He has no hobbies, really. When he’s out he’ll still talk his trade. He just can’t forget it, leave it go.
I’d like to go bigger in this business, but father says no for right now. He’s too skeptical. We’re limited here. He doesn’t want to go in debt. But you gotta spend money to make money. He’s had to work harder than I have. There’s nobody that ever really gave him anything. He’s had to work for everything he’s got. He’s given me a lot. Sometimes he gives too much. His grand-kids, they’ve got clothes at home still in boxes, brand-new as they got ’em. He just goes overboard. If I need money, he’ll loan it to me. He’s lent me money that I haven’t even paid back, really. (Laughs.)
(Sighs.) I used to play music. I used to play in a rock group. Bass. I didn’t know very much on the bass. Everybody that was in the band really didn’t know all that muc
h. We more or less progressed together. We played together for a year and a half, then everything just broke up. Oh yeah, we enjoyed it. It was altogether different. I like to play music now but don’t have the time . . . I like to play, but you can’t do both. This is my living. You have to look at it that way.
STEVE DUBI
We’re in Pullman, an industrial neighborhood on the far South Side of Chicago. It is a one-family dwelling, much like all the others on the block. He has lived in this area all his life. “I was born in the shadow of them steel mills.” He has worked as an inspector at the South Works of U.S. Steel for forty years.
“I was hired in ’29 as a water boy. I was sixteen. I had to be seventeen, but in those days they overlooked a little thing here, a little thing there. I worked for a year. Then came the Crash. I was rehired in June ’33 and I’ve been inspecting ever since. I’m ready for retirement. But the home we live in isn’t paid for yet. The car I’m driving isn’t paid for yet. Nothing to show for forty years of work.”
His wife is a licensed practical nurse who “works with geriatrics.” They have two sons. Robert, a Vietnam war veteran, is married. He’s in the field of sales. Their other son, Father Leonard Dubi, is one of the city’s most reknowned activist priests. As a passionate spokesman for the blue-collar community in which his parish is located, he has on numerous occasions challenged some of the city’s most powerful men and institutions.
During the visit, as his weariness is evident, his wife joins the conversation.
When we were kids we thought the steel mill was it. We’d see the men comin’ out, all dirty, black. The only thing white was the goggles over their eyes. We thought they were it, strong men. We just couldn’t wait to get in there. When we finally did get in, we were sorry. (Chuckles.) It wasn’t what it was cut out to be.
You’re on your feet all day, on concrete. They lay the steel out on the skids. It’s like a long horse, and they lay the steel across. You get your flashlight and you walk over it and you chalk it and mark the defect. You look for the defect in the steel. You watch the tolerances for lengths and thickness and what not. You have a chipper or a grinder to smooth it out. If it comes within the tolerance the customer allows, it’s all right. If it goes too deep, you scrap the bar or recut it. When we broke in, the older men showed us what defects to look for. A crack in the bar is called a seam. Some would be wide open where you couldn’t miss ’em. Some were real tight and you would have to look close. It’s hard on the eyes. Oh, your eyes do get tired. I put some drops in my eyes.
I’m getting up in the age now where I can’t take it any more. In my younger days I used to work eight hours, go out and play a doubleheader of softball, go out and drink a shot, and sleep it off (laughs), and go back to work in the morning. And not feel too much pain. (Sighs.) But now I can’t take it any more. I’d like to retire. I think I’ve worked hard enough and long enough, but I still can’t see my way out. I don’t know if I’ll make it. I got sore legs and a sore back, sore arms, arthritis, bursitis, and every other thing is catching up on me. (Laughs.)
Everyone looks forward to retirement, but there’s a lot of ‘em not makin’ it. That’s all they talk about is retirement. Where are you gonna go? What are you gonna do? And the poor soul never makes it. A lot of ‘em, they’re countin’ the months instead of the years—and pass away. A lot of my friends are passed away already.
I can take it any time I want, but I won’t be fifty-nine until December. I don’t get on social security until I’m sixty-two. Why, that’ll be another three years. I don’t want to go just yet, but maybe I won’t be able to take it any more. It’s gettin’ tougher. I’m not like a machine. Well, a machine wears out too sometimes.
And they’re forcin’ more work on ya. It’s knockin’ off men, makin’ cutbacks here and there to save money. They’ve knocked off an awful lot of jobs. With the foreign imports of steel they’re losin’ money. That’s what they say. I suppose in order to make a profit they have to cut somewhere. But I told ‘em “After forty years of work, why do you take a man away from me? You’re gonna force me into retirement.” All of us were real angry. But there’s nothin’ we can do about it. What can I do? Quit?
I try not to take this home with me. I don’t tell her nothin’ about it. It’ll cause her to worry. There’s nothin’ I can do about it. About four ’ I’ll sit down here and watch TV, maybe get my dinner on a TV table and watch the finish of the ball game or the finish of a good movie. I’ll sit back here and work the crossword puzzle and read the sports news and fall asleep. (Laughs.)
I had to ask this coming Sunday off because I’m going to a golf outing. Otherwise I’d have had to work from three to eleven. They’re working us twelve days in a row. When I’m workin’ on the day shift I’ll work Monday through Saturday, seven to three. The following week I’ll be lined up on the three to eleven shift. It’s a forty-hour week, but it’s always twelve days in a row.
If they’re in a slack time, they go down to one shift. You can’t make any long-range plan. When we bought this house fourteen years ago, the real estate man wanted to sell me a lot more expensive house. I said no. With the job I have I don’t know if I’ll be workin’ three, four months from now. We might go out on strike. We may go down to four days a week. Been like this all these years.
I got nothin’ to show for it. I live in a home the bank has a mortgage on. (Laughs.) I own a car the finance people have the title to. (Laughs.) I don’t know where they got the idea that we make so much. The lowest class payin’ job there, he’s makin’ two dollars an hour if he’s makin’ that much. It starts with jobs class-1 and then they go up to class-35. But no one knows who that one is. Probably the superintendent. So they put all these class jobs together, divide it by the number of people workin’ there, and you come up with a fabulous amount. But it’s the big bosses who are makin’ all the big money and the little guys are makin’ the little money. You hear these politicians give themselves a thousand-dollar raise, and they scream when the steelworker asks for fifty cents an hour raise.
You pack your lunch, or you buy it at the vending machine. We used to have a canteen in there, but they cut that out. The vending machine is lousy. It hurts a man when he’ll put his quarter or thirty-five cents in there for a can of vegetable soup and it takes the coin but don’t kick anything out. There’s no one there to open the machine and give him his quarter back or a can of food. (Laughs.) A lotta machines are broken that way. Every day it occurs.
You’re not regarded. You’re just a number out there. Just like a prisoner. When you report off you tell ’em your badge number. A lotta people don’t know your name. They know you by your badge number. My number is 44-065. When your work sheet is sent in your name isn’t put down, just your number. At the main office they don’t know who 44–065 is. They don’t know if he’s black, white, or Indian. They just know he’s 44—065.
Of course, there are accidents. They’re movin’ a lot of steel—a lot of crane movement and transfer buggy movement and switchin’ and trucks. And there’s machinery that straightens the bars and turning lathes. Always movement. You eat the dust and dirt and take all the different things that go with it. How you gonna grind a defect out of a bar without creating dust? How you can scarf the billet without makin’ smoke? When a man takes off sick, he’s got a chest cold, how do you know what he’s got? A lot of people died, they just had a heart attack. Who knows what they die of?
We have to slog our way through dirt and smog and rain and slush to get to our place of work. From the mill gate to where I work is about a fifteen-, twenty-minute walk. In-between that you have puddles. We don’t have a nice walkway with an overhead ramp. We don’t have a shuttle bus. If it’s raining, you walk through the rain. If it’s snowin’ or blowin’, you’re buckin’ that snow and the wind. In the wintertime that wind is comin’ off that lake, it’s whippin’ right into your face.
That place is not inside a building. It’s just under a roof. There’s no p
rotection against the winds. They won’t even plug up the holes to keep the draft off you. Even the snow comes through and falls on you while you’re workin’. The roof is so leaky they should furnish you with umbrellas.
His wife murmurs: “He’s sick all the time.”
The union squawks about it, but if the steel mill don’t fix it, what are you gonna do? The washrooms are in terrible shape. But when they get around to fixin’ ’em, there’s five hundred men usin’ one bowl to sit on. The union’s helped a great deal, but the steel mill is slow in comin’ across with things like they should.
If I retire right now, I would make $350 a month. There’s a woman across the street got a half a dozen kids and no husband, and she’s probably gettin’ five hundred dollars a month from ADC. She gets more money than I would right now after workin’ for forty years. If I retire now, my insurance is dropped. I belong to this Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurance now. If I go on a pension, I would get dropped automatically. The day you retire, that’s the day it’s out.
I told my sons, “If you ever wind up in that steel mill like me, I’m gonna hit you right over your head. Don’t be foolish. Go get yourself a schooling. Stay out of the steel mill or you’ll wind up the same way I did.” Forty years of hard work and what have I got to show for it? Nothing. I can’t even speak proper. When you’re a steelworker (laughs), you don’t get to speak the same language that you would do if you meet people in a bank or a business office.
“When I was going to school I really loved mechanical drawing. I really excelled in it in high school. I was gettin’ good marks. But my dad died. Well, most of the children had saloon keepers and grocery store keepers, they had dads workin’, and they were able to buy things. I felt embarrassed because I couldn’t buy the proper paper. I would use the other side of someone else’s discarded paper. I did love mechanical drawing and I was good at it. Well, I had to get a job . . .”
