So... Alright - Best Jobs and Portable Air Compressors

Episode Date: December 24, 2024

Geoff sorts into his power tool house, reads some viewer mail, and reminisces about former jobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I live in northwest Austin, almost Flugerville. We've recently been invaded by QT gas stations. They're pretty fast at repairing theirs. I was sorted into the Ryobi house of power tools, and they make an inflator that I bought and works great. Tires, balls, air mattress, etc. Cheers, man, Dustin. That's a great email Dustin Dustin, for a couple of reasons. One, I'm glad to know I'm not the only person in Austin that's having this problem,

and I will keep my eye out for QT gas stations. I don't know that there's any very close to where I live, but yeah, there might be. I don't have a mental index of all gas stations in my area. But the thing that jumped out about Dustin's email to me is that he said he was sorted into the Ryobi House of Power Tools and I've never considered tools in that way before.

But, oh, that tickled me. And I started trying to figure out what power tool house I sorted into and it just got me thinking about my old job. I have been lucky enough in life to have some interesting jobs. Clearly, this is a pretty interesting one. Roosteeth was pretty interesting. I was an army journalist, but, you know, P.A.

on movies got to do a lot of really cool. Got to, oh, you know, got to go on tour with bands around the country as a roadie. Got to do all kinds of fun stuff. But one of the best jobs I've ever had, actually the best job I've ever had, what is the best job you have ever had? Mine was working in a video store. I've talked about it in the past.

Maybe I'll talk about it here. I have so many wonderful fucking memories of working in that video store. But right up there, maybe just under it, not as much juvenile fun, but very creative in an interesting way, tons to play with and lots and lots of alone time with myself and a warehouse full of gadgets. Also the guy that I worked for at the tool repair shop was pretty rad. His name was Dean. Have I mentioned that I'm talking about my job in high school as an electronic,

hydraulic, I'm trying to remember it as an electronic, hydraulic and pneumatic tool repair man. I was working at a fast food restaurant called Sydney's Fried Chicken, local chain in in the South there in Mobile or in Theodore. I think they had maybe three locations, but the one I worked at was in Theodore, Alabama. I've talked a lot about my experiences working at a fast food restaurant and about how I started washing dishes, worked my way up to cook and then all the way up to the front where you talk to customers and then managed to work my way all the way back down to washing dishes because the customers found me off putting and disconcerting. And the problem there was I was 16 and I was

just making fun of everything. Everything I saw I made fun of. I don't know what to say about it. It's like my bulldog, you know, he's 13 months old, but from about three months until a year and a half, all he does is put stuff in his mouth and try to destroy it. I was kind of like that as a high schooler. I've calmed down significantly, but I must have been brutal to be around. So I don't blame them for demoting me back

down to dishwashing, which I was probably better suited for anyway. That was not a great job. That was a terrible job with fun people. It was a terrible job that I had a lot of fun at, if that makes sense. But the job that I left for was to go be a tool repair man for this guy Dean at,

well I don't know if it's still around, so I won't say the name of the place, but it was Air Mobile, and he worked with paper mills and construction sites and any contractors, anybody who was doing any kind of industrial work with tools, whether it was a, oh, I don't know, like a tugboat that had a lot of shit on it, like pumps and presses and stuff for moving cargo up and down the bay, or whether it was a paper mill

that just needed for some reason all the impact it drills in the world. Or man, I think out of all the tools, I worked there for maybe a year and a half, and then I joined the military, then I joined the army and moved on, which was, I was sad to leave Dean, I liked him a lot. He was this really, really interesting kind of Renaissance blue collar guy. When he was a kid, he had polio, and it limited the use of one arm

So he was he had an arm and a sling and then he had one good arm and with that one good arm That man became a truck driver. He became a tool repair man. He worked oil rigs in In the Gulf he worked oil pipelines in Alaska Gulf, he worked oil pipelines in Alaska. He did every kind of difficult and impressive and awesome fucking job you could think of. And he did it with one hand. And so when I met him, he was trying to settle down. He had just been married and he was trying to eke out

kind of a comfortable little life for he and his wife there. And the way he did that was scrounging and scrapping. We had this tool repair shop, I think he bought it from somebody, so he already had a customer base, and then he was trying to expand it. And this guy did, he was so capable and clever and smart and creative with how he ran a business

and how he lived and how he managed to make it all work. I got hired by him through my school's placement program, job placement program. So I don't know if it's, I'm sure it's like this now, but like my senior year of high school, I left at after third period. So right before lunch, so like 11.30 every day, 12 o'clock, I got to leave my senior year.

And I just went and I worked from 12 to five at the tool repair shop, where I learned all about fixing circular saws and drills and any manner of fixable thing. I remember one time I walked in and Dean had a bunch of pieces on the ground. And I go, what are we doing? I saw like a tank and he goes,

I've got a special one for us today. We're gonna build an air compressor. And I was like, from scratch? And he's like, yeah, it's not that hard. We can do it. And I was like, from scratch. And he's like, yeah, it's not that hard. We can do it. I was like, OK, why are we doing that? And he had traded an air compressor for something. And he he just didn't have the air compressor.

So we built it real fast. And that was what it was like to work for him. You would come in and there would be these these shelves upon shelves of tools that were broken with tickets. And some of them had been there for years before Dean worked here. Some of them had long been forgotten. There was a pile of broken tools in a corner. And you you would just kind of go through and see what you could fix in the moment.

Well, as highest priority, if the parts had come in yet. And then if so, you had to go look at a schematic and figure it out. And then you're like, OK, this this angle grinder isn't grinding. It's making a noise. Let's check the brushes. Take the brushes out. Brushes are fine. OK. Oh, armature seized or no armature is good, but the ball bearings are bad around it. Pop those out, replace another one or the brushes are bad.

It was always the same shit, you know, or the trigger is bad. You got to replace the cord. Or it was like a pneumatic drill and it's the and it's losing pressure. So it's like you got to replace an O-ring or any number of things. There are a million different ways to fix a tool, obviously. So there are some days when I would just go in and I would just go from ticket to ticket and just fix it and give it to Dean. But there were days when I would come in and there wasn't anything to do.

And Dean would say, find work for yourself. And he had all of these little tasks that always needed to be done. He did a lot of work with winches, people with giant hooks that were lifting really heavy shit on paper mills and stuff. And they would like a giant hook, think of like a 15, 20 pound hook in your hand that you see like in a movie with a bunch of chains

next to it and like a winch system where you're like lifting an engine up or something. Those hooks would bend right and Stretch and and they're not broken. They're just been all out of whack and it's like 20 pounds of metal in your hand That's all twisted and Dean would go if you ever get a downtime fix a couple of those There would be a pile of them on the ground He had a giant

barrel of oil like a 55 gallon drum with no top on it, full of oil, that was specified for this job. And I would go over and I would get a hook and then I would blow torch it and get it super, super, super, super hot and then bend it back into place and then dunk it in the oil really fast. Cause if you dunk it in slow, the oil could catch on fire.

You dunk it in really fast and then that treats if you dunk it in slow, the oil can catch on fire. You dunk it in really fast, and then that treats it as it cools down and retains its strength. And there would be days that I would go in and I would just bend hooks for a couple hours. The worst fucking job that I had to give myself sometimes is Dean was such a spendthrift, he had to be, right? The profit margins on a local business, on a tool repair business, in a

depressed area are not great. He was always just scraping by. And so some days I would go in and I would, if there was nothing else to do, I would go in and I would pull nails out of old boards and straighten them, get them next to, I'd get them on a table and hammer them straight and then regrind points on them, and then put them in like a good nails box. One time I came in and he had, I wanna say, I hope memory's not inflating this, but I wanna say four giant boxes,

like moving boxes, full of C and AA batteries. And they were just loose in it and let thousands upon thousands of batteries. And I go, well, what is this, Dean? He goes, I was dropping some tools off at the site and I was checking out the dumpster. It's another thing Dean did, and sometimes we did. Dean loved a good dumpster dive at a job site.

If there was nothing, if there were no nails, there were always nails to pull. But if there was, if he wanted to get out of the office and there were no tools to deliver sometimes he would take me and we would just go to dumpsters and look for tools and you'd be amazed at what he'd find at a job site anyway on this particular day I came in from school and he had all these boxes of batteries thousands upon thousands of batteries all C cell which are practically useless and then double A and I go what's all all this? And he goes, I just found them in a dumpster. I don't know if they're good or bad, but I want you to figure it out. And so he had me test all

those batteries that day and almost all of them were bad, but there were good batteries in there. I probably, I probably pulled out, I don't know, maybe a hundred out of a couple thousand batteries that were good. And that was a good day for him. One time I came into work and there was a forklift in the bay. And I go, oh, we got a forklift. That's cool. What do we need it for? And he was like, oh no, we're fixing it.

And I was like, we're fixing a forklift? I don't know how to fix a forklift. And he goes, I don't know, I don't either, but we'll figure it out. And then we did. And we fixed that forklift that month for rent. He, the landlord had a broken forklift and instead of paying rent,

Dean worked out a deal where he convinced him we could fix it. And then he went out to pay rent that month. That's kind of how that guy lived. That's kind of how you had to live in Alabama in the 90s. By the way, we learned how to fix a forklift that day and it wasn't that hard. I don't know that I've retained any of those skills other than problem-solving. I will say one of the greatest things about that job was problem solving, was being confronted with a problem and knowing there was a solution or an answer to it

and setting about figuring it out. And the only time it wasn't great was when you couldn't figure it out and then you'd have to go to Dean and say, I can't figure this out. And he would explain what you'd missed or what to try. And then even that was good because then you'd learn something else

and you would learn how to think around the corner. It was amazing how creative tool repair was and just that life was. I really do feel like a lot of the skills I use, I attribute a lot of the skills I use in my life and in my career to the army and to the discipline and the things I learned in the military But I learned so much at that tool repair shop in the year and eight months that I worked there that It broke my heart to leave him. I think he he he had

Kind of gone through a run of kind of shitty high school students who didn't care and I was He always said like if he could put my brain Let's tell you a little something about how about my weaknesses he always told me if he could put my brain in someone else's hands he'd have the perfect employee because I am fumbly and awkward and I'm not a you know I'm not a muscular wrench turning guy. I was a scrawny kid who didn't have a lot of coordination. And so I was always dropping tools and fucking flinging stuff, and I was just a calamity.

But mentally, I was great. I was kicking ass, I was figuring problems out. It's just my hands wouldn't always do what my brain was telling them to do. I am so dreading groceries this week. Why? You can skip it. Oh, what, just like that? Just like that.

How about dinner with my third cousin? Skip it. Prince Fluffy's favorite treats? Skippable. Midnight snacks? Skip. My neighbor's nightly saxophone practices? Er, nope. You're on your own there.

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Dine in only until 11 a.m. Anyway, when I joined the army, he right before I did, he asked me what I was, you know, he knew that I was getting out of high school. We talked constantly. It wasn't like this was like one conversation we had, but so I kind of kept him updated and abreast, but he he offered the shop to me. He said that he'd like me to take it over from him and run it someday and, you know, continue past him. And then he could work there and then eventually retire. And I had to say no. It was flattering, but it was where he wanted to end

his grand adventure. And he had a hell of an adventure. Like I said, that dude was all over the map. Had a crazy adventure, had the most insane stories. I wish, I can't imagine he's still alive. He might be, he might be, he'd be up there. He'd be in his 70s or his 80s, but I would love to get that guy in a podcast

and just ask him to tell me stories again. He had the most fascinating stories, and he wasn't a bullshitter. He was a pretty straightforward dude. He was a straight shooter. He's a good, genial, tempered man. Wasn't particularly funny. Wasn't mean. Just one of those, just like a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy. One thing I do remember about him is that he loved Paul Harvey so that every time Paul Harvey came on, we stopped working to listen to Paul Harvey

Even I got the stop and he I'd get to come into his little office and I would sit there and we would just Watch his little radio as Paul Harvey would play and then he'd go now You know the rest of the story and then I'd go back to work. Anyway, that is the place where I was Pulling something up on the roof. It was a tall like 20 foot ceiling pulling something up on the roof, it was a tall like 20 foot ceiling warehouse, maybe higher, maybe 30 feet. And I was up on like the fourth shelf grabbing something and I jumped down and jumped through a shelf and got trapped with my arms stuck for like 30 minutes until he came back and dug me out. That was a great, that was a great place. And so thank you. Long way around. Thank you, Dustin, for telling me you were sorted

into the Ryobi House of Power Tools because it got me thinking about what my power tool house is, which got me thinking about Dean and tool repair and all of the adventures and fun I used to have in that job. And I guess if I had to pick, I would say I'm the Milwaukee or Bosch. I really don't know.

Those were probably the, the Bosch hammer drill and the Milwaukee bandsaw were the two best pieces of equipment I worked on. Where just like, they were well made and when they broke, it was something easy to fix that made sense and you could get them right back out the door. We used to have these old bandsaws because they were just they were fucking running through these bandsaws in Alabama, whatever they were doing. I probably fixed more bandsaws than

anything else. And talking about this, the pile of broken tools, sometimes Dean would let me just go or if I like I got there early and I was feeling motivated, I would go in and I would grab an old shell of an old Milwaukee bandsaw, cause there were so many and because I understood from top to bottom how a band saw, how a Milwaukee bandsaw worked. Like it was very simple to understand and to put together and to take apart.

And I would go grab an old one and then I could take it and I would sandblast it. We had one of those little sandblasting rooms that you put your arms through the thing and go, you know, and sandblast all this shit and grossness off of it so that it looked brand new. And then just take that metal husk and just build a new brand saw.

And then he would be able to sell it for like 70 bucks or something, you know? God knows what it would cost now. I miss those days. Thank you, Dustin. Here's a helpful email. I got an email from Andrew who said, I think I have the reason as to why the Mackinac Bridge is so busy. It's the Great Lakes.

I mentioned that it was one of the busiest tourist destinations in America, which I thought was strange because it's kind of way the fuck up there. He says, traveling from southern Ontario to Salt-Saint-Marie is a long journey, anywhere from nine and a half to 12 hours, depending on traffic in Toronto. Whereas going through Michigan, it's six to seven hours. So getting out of Ontario going west is way worse, usually over 24 hours of driving.

Going through America takes about five hours off of that, with better roads, cheaper gas. Both of those alternate routes involve Mackinac Bridge. That makes sense, that makes sense. Hi, Jeff, I don't know if the air machines at our gas stations are out of order because I have an air compressor that plugs into my car that I can keep in my trunk.

Might be something you could look into so that you don't have to pay $2 for an air machine that doesn't work anyways. I ain't that the truth, Robert. I do have one, Emily's dad bought her one for Christmas and it was, I had used it previously and the battery was still dead and I was charging it and that thing charges pretty slow.

And so I do have one, here's an email from J.O.K. that said, I had a similar issue with gas station tire fillers in Phoenix. I finally just got a mobile filler. You know, the plugs into my car, it's the best option. Yes, yes, yes, I'm gonna get a lot of emails about that. I get it and I do have one. I just, oh, here's somebody who, that's funny,

Alex just sent me a Ryobi one. Just listen to your 1217 episode of So Alright, where he talked about air pumps and also being broken. When you need one, I had similar issues and I found a solution, very effective for the last three years, portable air compressor. Yes, yes, yes, and it's a Ryobi, which was I think Dustin's tool house.

Oh man, I'm gonna get a lot of emails. I have in front of me a lot of emails about the tire pressure. I think it's more, yes, there are other solutions, cheaper solutions. I think it's more the indignity of finding them all to be broken, especially when they're new. If you roll up on one and it's 100 years old

and it looks like a homeless person's toilet, then you expect it to be broken. But if it's brand new and glistening and you can tap to pay, you think it should probably work. And if nine out of 10 are broken, no matter the condition, it just seems like what the fuck is going on. I think there's also a website Let me see Yes a website called free air pump com that tells you where free air pumps are in gas stations and like Costco's and shit

All around America so you can go look. I'm gonna look it up. Let's see Really air pump calm okay? Step I'm gonna check my zip code it looks like the map Let's go in here. I'm step. I'm gonna check my zip code It looks like the map there's an app or a website you can go to that tells you where all the chili cheese burritos are At all the Taco Bells in America, and it looks very similar to that but with bicycle tires and gas pumps, okay, there's 45 places in my area

There it well, these are all free bike pumps. That's good to know as a guy with a bike, but the closest. Free gas station air pump to me is a little far. Definitely not as close as the electric air pump that I have in in the back of the car that is now charged and that I can use. Oh, now here you go. Julian has helpful information. Hey, Jeff, I was listening to today's podcast and heard about your tire pressure troubles. Just want to let you know there are a few places that are usually free.

When I found myself low on air, I just mentioned free air pump dot com. But Wal-Mart, if it has a mechanic shop attached and most super centers do, if you ask nicely, they'll top you off. Costco and Sam's usually have free air pumps outside. You just have to look for it. Most tire and lube places like oil change places, et cetera,'ll top you off. Costco and Sam's usually have free air pumps outside. You just have to look for it. Most tire and lube places like oil change places, et cetera, will top you off for free because they want your future business.

That is true. I also know most military PXs and gas stations offer free air. Well, that's a little harder for me to do. You know, I was in the army for five years. I lived on base. I lived on base. I worked on base. And it's weird to me that as a veteran, it's not easy for me to go back and on base.

I get it in a post 9 11 world and security and stuff, but I would I would love to be able to tour for well, I'm sorry for Kavazos one more time before I eventually leave Texas. See how it's changed. See if I see what I remember, you know? I lived there from 18 to 22? I don't know, I lived there for a long time, three and a half years or so.

I wonder if it's so different now that none of it would look familiar. Like, are my barracks still there? Is my headquarters command still there? Are the buildings the same? Are all the, are all the stop signs and street signs still painted sand colored

because General Leporte took over and didn't like that they gleamed in the sun and he thought they were distracting so he made us paint all the, all the top sign and yield sign backs and poles sand colored. Like is that still the case? I'd love to know.

Anyway, I could go on forever, but I should probably wrap it up here. I do wanna say, I was sitting at a spot yesterday where sometimes I go, more of a weekend spot for me than a weekday spot yesterday at a coffee shop and a little taco trailer. But I was in the area and I just thought I'd drop in and get a coffee and I had some some notes I wanted to bang out real fast.

And while I was sitting there working on SA2, a guy walked by and he said, hey, Jeff, and I was like, hello. And he goes, love the podcast. And I go, thank you very much. And I just assume he means regulation or maybe and but usually it's regulation or if they they'll say, like, love the chief hunter or roosterteeth or red versus blue or whatever. But he said specifically the most recent episode of Saw Right.

I was just listening to it. It's great to see you. And I thought, oh, wow, that's my first so all right mention in public, I think, at least that I can remember. So thank you, sir, for saying hi and mentioning so all right as I was sitting there doing literal so all right work for this episode. That warmed my heart and it was nice to say hello to a friendly face in a coffee shop.

Going back to it, drive me an email with what you think your best job was and why. I'd love to know. I mentioned earlier, my best job was a video store. I guess I'll talk about it in a future podcast. Maybe we'll drag this out a little bit. I really, really, really just. Was in the right place in my life, around the right people, with the right level of stress

and ability, and it was just that perfect job, nighttime job, I was working in the Army at the time, and then I got a second job as so many soldiers, sailors, and airmen, marines Marines and Coast Guard service members have to do to make ends meet. I got a job my last year in the Army working at a video store in Eaton Town, New Jersey, where I met the guys that ended up being my very best friends in New Jersey, who I did so much stuff with.

The guys I met the view, skew people through and how I got my job PA-ing and just how I learned, how I really got into surfing with my friend Rich who worked there. And it was just a really fantastic place. Had kind of a dark end in multiple ways. We'll talk about that in the future. But right now, let's talk about a song of the episode, huh? Let's go with Time to Lose by the Thermals.

Check it out. Let me know what you think. My email address is eric at Jeff's Boss dot com. And like I said, I'd love to know what your favorite job, your best job was and why. Mine was a video store. You'd think it'd be Rooster Teeth or Mine was a video store. You'd think it'd be rooster teeth or. P.A. on movies or roading for a band or even being an army journalist was exciting, but it wasn't. Those are all good jobs. This is a good job. Podcasting is an amazing job that I feel lucky to get to do every day of my life.

But by far the best job I ever had was renting VHS tapes. All right. far the best job I ever had was renting VHS tapes. Alright. This is the end of the show. Mwah!