Worst Job - Roger
Like everyone else, over the years I have had many jobs. Some good and some bad. A job is what you make it. If you decide to have fun you usually have fun and if you decide to be miserable you usually will be miserable. Some people go through life having glorious fun at every job they have and others spend 40 plus years in misery. There are exceptions. Let me tell you about my worst job. A job that no amount of good attitude could change.
In the interest of good taste I will do my best to speak delicately. At bases in Vietnam the disposal of solid waste was a problem. The problem was exacerbated by the lack of running water. Sanitation was extremely important. If it wasn’t taken care of it could cause health problems that would quickly incapacitate a military organization. Hollywood war movies never seem to show anyone taking care of this unheroic but certainly necessary task.
Outhouses were set up at several locations around the compound. They were not built over a hole as in the traditional rural American style but rather had a cut off 55 gallon drum about six inches high placed underneath each seat to serve as a tray. Usually there were four seats. A door was conveniently built into the back of the outhouse to facilitate the removal of the trays.
Sooner or later all lower ranking enlisted Marines could expect to have a turn, lasting about a week, at solid waste disposal. My turn came in the middle of the hot Southeast Asia summer. Five of us were on the crew. We were given a jeep to pull a flat bed trailer, spare pans, shovels and of course detailed instructions. Off we went to do our patriotic duty.
The first step was to remove the four pans from beneath the outhouse and empty the contents into a larger pan carried on the trailer. Fortunately the pans all had handles welded on them to make things a little easier. It didn’t take long to learn how to dump them into the larger pans. The pans also had a goodly supply of giant crawling insects of all descriptions as well as an infinite supply of maggots.
The stench was overpowering and very soon everyone became nauseous. Some of the troops lost their breakfast; some even lost last week’s breakfast. We started out wearing T-shirts but because of the mess quickly put on jackets. Of course this only made the heat worse.
We went from outhouse to outhouse collecting solid waste. As I recall there were probably twenty or so. By this time an unbelievable large cloud of flies of every description had accumulated. They landed on everything and crawled everywhere. We ended up putting on bandanas in a useless effort to keep the smell out of our noses and the flies out of our faces. Soon no one wanted to ride on the trailer. One person drove the jeep and everyone else walked along side. In a few hours after all the waste had been collected it was time to dispose of it.
We drove to a specially located area and began the final phase. First the cut off 55 drums were unloaded. They probably held 20 gallons or so if they were full. Usually they were only about half full. After being placed on the ground about three to five gallons of diesel fuel was poured in and stirred with a shovel. After a nice sludge of toilet paper, maggots, bugs, solid waste and diesel was made it was time for the disposal process. A piece of paper was lit and tossed into the mess. A nice hot fire started and a cloud of black oily smoke rolled skyward. An entirely new smell was added to the area. Coupled with a 120 degree day it did not make one think of ice cream sodas.
Now all we had to do was wait for it to burn out. As it was lunch time we headed for the mess hall on the other side of the compound. Upon arriving at the mess hall everyone found something in common; no one was hungry. Somehow all that work just didn’t cause anyone to develop an appetite like other work did. For lunch we just sat on a log.
After lunch the mess had pretty much burned itself out. We went back and stacked the pans to prepare for tomorrow. One little benefit of this detail was that when finished you were excused from further work for the rest of the day. Not a small benefit in the U.S. Marines. We went back to our living area and tried to clean up and scrape the smell off. It didn’t do much good as it started over again the next day.
I don’t know what lesson can be learned here. Perhaps it should be remembered that there are people who do this every day in order to live. Whenever I have to do a job I don’t particularly like, I remember this and realize that no matter what happens I have already done my worst job.
