My Low Wage Life

6 days a week I would drive 5 minutes from my house to the local golf course. “Twin Rivers Golf Course” the sign read as I drove in the entrance to the run-down golfing spot. Every day when I get there I go to the barn that is barely standing due to the immense mold on its 45 year old sides. I go inside to find my punch card and clock in for the day. After I do that I turn around and go open all the doors to the massive barn, allowing the tractors and gators to be released form inside. Then I walk around to the cart shed and pull out all 28 carts and drive half of them over to the pro shop so they can be rented. Then I proceed inside and ask if they have any special tasks for me to accomplish. I fill the ice buckets and help pull out some food for the restaurant inside. I do some small chores for the people inside and help the guys behind the desk with anything they need. I then go grab the coins from the ball machine and give them to the guys at the desk. Ed, the friendly one always lets me keep a couple for myself to hit some balls with later.

I then go grab a gator , climb inside and hook up the machine to the ball-collector. This is the worst part of my day, as I sit inside a caged gator and drive at slow speeds meticulously grabbing the balls with the long arms attached to the sides of the machine. When it is busy, I get pelted with balls left and right, the occasional one comes straight at my face and startles me a bit, but now I have come to be accustomed to it and don’t jump anymore. After the buckets on the arms are filled, I drive back to where I started, empty the buckets, then start again. After the whole green is pretty much clean, I empty all the buckets into the ball machine, cleaning each ball along the way. We usually pick up around 2000-3000 balls a day and each one is dirty due to the wet weather and long grass.

After this part of the day is done, I go grab carts that have been rented out to golfers. The used carts have garbage, usually beer cans, chew, and cigars. There’s the occasional bag of candy or something left unopened that I can keep, but it is rare. I clean the cart, which takes about 10 minutes per cart, then stow it away in the back. On busy days, like fathers day, memorial weekend, labor day, or nice weekends, we’ll rent out each cart twice, and this means I have to stay deep into the night cleaning them after everyone has gone home.

When I’m finished with all the carts, I grab a gator and two trash cans and gloves. I put the trash cans in the back and head out onto the course. I ride around and empty the course garbage cans into the ones in the back of my cart. This is a dirty part of my job, as the cans are usually filled with beer, which drips out all over myself. I do this for 18 holes then head back in. By now, it is usually about 9-10 O’clock and almost time to call it a day. I empty my garbage cans, then head to the pro shop, which is now vacated due to the sun going down the horizon. I go vacuum the floors, and empty the garbage cans for the people inside. Then I lock up, head to the barn, put the tractors an gators back, then lock up, clock out and head home.

This 9 hour day nets me about 59 bucks after tax, and I do this about 6 days a week, not all the days are equal in hours worked, because weather plays a heavy part in how busy the course is. This work leaves me extremely tired and dirty as I have to lift things and work on machinery all day. But at least its money, and time spent earning money is better than time spent doing nothing. This is my low wage life.

~Ryan Herman