Our Life Got Even More Complicated

It got complicated for everyone. These were the Reagan and Bush Sr. years, with their combinations of union busting and suppression (and corruption) and good jobs leaving the country in troves, and then even faster during the Clinton years, soon to follow.

There were few teaching positions open anywhere near us. There were only two, and I applied for them. One was at Cleveland Hts. High School. It was a half-time English position. There were two of these positions open. The school board had divided the full-time position so they wouldn’t have to pay anyone full-time wages. I would have been merely one of two part-timers. So, I declined. The other was in San Diego, CA. But, they would not help with moving expenses and didn’t pay enough for us to even consider moving our family there and starting over.

My work situation had become so desperate that I answered an ad and applied to teach English in Japan. My interview with their recruiter went very well. But again, they would not pay for us to move there, and the job wouldn’t pay enough for me to maintain a residence there and here. So, that was out as well.

So, I initially started working as a resume writer for a small resume writing company (I don’t remember the name of it). That didn’t pay well and didn’t last. Next, I found a job as a technical writer for a company that made newspaper sorting and stacking equipment. It paid even better than any of the teaching jobs I had looked at. So, because I couldn’t find a full-time teaching position and because of my previous experience as a programmer and manual writer at Eaton’s Airflex Div. I backed into the technical writer position. I can’t remember the name of the company, but it was a subsidiary of Scripps Howard News, located in Westlake, OH.

They were eager to have me get started because they were behind in supplying the technical, maintenance, and operation manuals for their equipment to their customers (newpaper printers around the country), who refused to complete their payments until they received the promised manuals. So, I was very busy for a couple of years. And yes, I got them all caught up.

To be Continued

–LE