The Walter Aho piece was a treat to read. In 1958 I started working at Tricnit for $1/hr mainly because my mother was already working there. Seppala & Aho would have been a better fit for me since my father & I had just finished the house on River Rd. We did everything from putting in the foundation, framing, roofing, wiring, plumbing (including the heating system), septic system and 2 wells. I guess that was the Finnish way. I sort of repeated that process with my son in 1980-1982 on an 1840 farm house that I now live in. At least we had a house to start with, but the new barn required a foundation
Hjalmar Aho gave me my first real job in the summer of 1966. I was a skinny sixteen year old. He didn't want to hire me but my father, who had sent me to the S&A office to apply, had been part of the Tamposi/Nash business in Nashua that contracted with S&A so he reluctantly took me on for the summer. Perhaps to discourage me into not taking the job he said I'd have to work for the first two weeks at $1.25 per hour, when the other summer laborers (mostly Finn kids) were making $1.50. I put my head down and showed up for work at a nursing home S&A was building in North Leominster, paying another worker $1.00 per day for a ride. For the first two weeks I mostly pulled spikes out of planks and shoveled dirt around the foundation. The foreman advised me to kneel, not sit, while pulling nails. He said, "Young fella, I don't want to see your rear end touching anything until I say you can take a break."
The Walter Aho piece was a treat to read. In 1958 I started working at Tricnit for $1/hr mainly because my mother was already working there. Seppala & Aho would have been a better fit for me since my father & I had just finished the house on River Rd. We did everything from putting in the foundation, framing, roofing, wiring, plumbing (including the heating system), septic system and 2 wells. I guess that was the Finnish way. I sort of repeated that process with my son in 1980-1982 on an 1840 farm house that I now live in. At least we had a house to start with, but the new barn required a foundation
and all new construction.
Hjalmar Aho gave me my first real job in the summer of 1966. I was a skinny sixteen year old. He didn't want to hire me but my father, who had sent me to the S&A office to apply, had been part of the Tamposi/Nash business in Nashua that contracted with S&A so he reluctantly took me on for the summer. Perhaps to discourage me into not taking the job he said I'd have to work for the first two weeks at $1.25 per hour, when the other summer laborers (mostly Finn kids) were making $1.50. I put my head down and showed up for work at a nursing home S&A was building in North Leominster, paying another worker $1.00 per day for a ride. For the first two weeks I mostly pulled spikes out of planks and shoveled dirt around the foundation. The foreman advised me to kneel, not sit, while pulling nails. He said, "Young fella, I don't want to see your rear end touching anything until I say you can take a break."