Well that was quite a story. Let me tell you what it was like for me when I started my friend.
First of all, when I was hired I had to run through a gauntlet of red shirted masochists. They all had big sticks and boots with nails protruding from their toes. There were at least seventy five of them. They formed a crude line from the office door to a tractor. They told me that if I survived I could take a road test and maybe I might have a shot at working here. They pummelled me with those sticks and kicked hard with their pointy tetanus laced boots. I never said a peep. I just calmly walked to that tractor and climbed in. I was bleeding and puffy, but I took that road test and they put me on a road run,
"What about the other fellers?" I asked. "Screw em!" They screamed. With that we all laughed.
The second test I had to take was one they called the seniority squeeze. If I layed on the ground and allowed them to run over my stomach with a smurf I could pick my spot on the board of my choice. Well I accepted the challenge. I lay on the ground and waited for for my center manager to climb up into a smurf. Before I could react that bastard jumped into a Volvo. He pretended he didn't know the difference. He stomped on the gas and rolled up on my stomach. He set the brakes, turned off the motor and I just heard him in there laughing and cackling and calling all his fellow ccms and telling them he was giving me tho old 'seniority squeeze.'
I lasted a good twenty minutes under that truck and because of that they made me number two overall. Some other guy lasted three days. That was one tough hombre.
Of course I too worked hard. My days lasted twenty three hours sometimes. I also had to make my own diesel fuel and they said I had to use my own uniform shirts as oil filters as well. I never complained though because to do so would be a sign of weakness.
I guess up north we're just tougher...
