I was watching a program on the Discovery Channel yesterday called 'Dirty Jobs', where a guy named Mike Rowe takes on some of the dirtiest jobs around to see just how bad and dirty these jobs can be.
The good thing for Mike is that he gets a variety of dirty jobs, and gets well paid for it, while the people doing the dirty jobs day in and day out aren't nearly as fortunate.
I was thinking about some of the dirty jobs I've had through the years.
While most of the jobs I've had weren't nearly as 'exotic' as the one's Mike performs, they were all in all pretty crappy.
In fact, in talking to some of my friends, it appears that we have all had some dirty jobs along the way.
When I recall all of the dirty, lousy jobs I've had in my life, most were done when I was in my teens and early twenties.
Most of the dirty jobs are done by young people partly because they are too young and dumb to know any better, and also because they have few job skills to offer an employer and often begin with the dreaded 'entry level' jobs.
When I was going through high school and college I had several dirty jobs, including working for a plumber, a landscaper, on an assembly line in a glass factory, working for a moving company, but I believe my dirtiest job was a job in a paper mill where I was given the lovely task of climbing under the huge printing rollers to pull out the oil soaked ends of the rolls of paper.
It was the kind of job where you had to take at least two lunches just to maintain your energy.
Although some of my jobs were pretty bad, I've known friends who have had much dirtier jobs than me.
An old friend of mine named Rick worked for the Baltimore City Medical Examiner's office.
He had the dirty job of going out and gathering up the body parts and other stuff at accident scenes.
Some of his stories would make the most hardened of us weep; such as the time he had to retrieve the bodies of seven children killed in a fire.
The last I heard, a friend told me that Rick had to give the job up to keep his relative sanity.
I also had a friend who drove one of the Portable Septic Trucks that went around emptying out all of the nasty contents.
In my opinion, people who have those kinds of jobs ought to making about a million a year.
As a friend said to me, "a doctor, lawyer and other professionals are only important when you need them, but let the trash not be picked up for a week or two, and you will discover real quickly just who is really important".
While he may be using a bit of hyperbole, having lived through numerous sweltering Baltimore City summers, I can attest to the fact that he has a point.
Unfortunately, most of the dirty jobs get little respect.
People today prefer to have 'clean' jobs, dirty jobs are for others.
I've always respected the people who do the dirty work.
Dirty jobs aren't glamorous but they are the kind of jobs that allow the rest of us to do things not so dirty.
I once dated a lady that had the prettiest long red hair, beautiful smile and the face of a Goddess.
She also had one of the dirtiest jobs around.
What did she do? She cleaned the instruments in the doctor's office where she worked.
That's doesn't sound like a real dirty job unless you're told the rest of the story...
She worked for a group of Proctologists.