Charles (Chuck) Kensinger

My first job was as a fry cook at Dog ‘N Suds drive-in in Springfield, Missouri. It paid $1.25/hour. I loved it. Mr. and Mrs. Costello were the owners. Two of their three sons worked there also. They were still in school. I was a student at Hillcrest High School. This was the summer between my sophomore and junior years. Most of the other employees were or had been students at Central High School. We had a great time.

Within a few months, I was trained to do everything in the small kitchen. I learned to make root beer and cola syrups and place the containers on the drink fountains. I took orders from the speaker and even helped the carhops take orders out. I chopped tomatoes, lettuce, and onions. I closed some evenings and even came over during the school year and missed a class or two my senior year. New employees came and left. Between my freshman and sophomore year in college, I also left.

My Mom worked at the Zenith Television plant. She helped me get on. I had turned eighteen the previous summer and met the age requirement. I loved the pay. I hated the job. I was working on a final line. My job was to hang the tuner and put in three or four screws depending on the model going down the conveyor. If it had not been for my German vocabulary cards, I would have gone insane. It was dull boring work.

My first week I learned that I was not to help the people next to me on the line. There were two screws the person before me had to tighten. They were already installed. Sometimes the set was in front of me, and these bolts had not been torqued down. I was reprimanded when the supervisor caught me doing this after my job was done.

The screws I installed were the same size as the ones the next guy had to put in. He then hung something on them and tightened them down. When I picked up these screws from my bin, I might have two extra and thought it efficient to put them in when I had time. That was also a no-no. This was a union job. Each employee had their own job to do. You could not help each other. That was stupid to me.

At the end of the summer, I quit before I had to join the union and returned to college. I went to work at a restaurant as a busboy and dishwasher. The work was not hard. It also was not challenging. The pay was not as good as the factory, but I was back in classes.

The next fall I commuted thirty miles to college and the second semester I lived in a dormitory. I did not work my junior year and spent the summer working as a summer missionary in Pennsylvania. The pay was not much. I learned a great deal about Christian ministry. When I returned home, my fiancé and I started planning our spring wedding after graduating.

I took a job at a new fast-food chain that was opening. It was the first in the area. By the time I graduated, I was offered a job in the management trainee program. I took it and they moved us. I left because of problems with the management and worked several jobs before we returned to Springfield. I had worked in management at a convenience store, as a door-to-door salesman, and as a marketing director for a small company. These were added to my resume.

Back at home, I took a sales position at a retail pet store. I moved to another store as the manager and then left there to take a job for the wholesale company the owner had that supplied his stores and others in the area. I was the assistant livestock manager because I had read everything I could about the pets. When the purchasing agent left my two previous bosses recommended me for the job. They both told the owner that I could do anything they asked of me.

I have always enjoyed learning something new and taking on challenges. When I left there, I started as a parts distributor for the manufacturing industry. I was hired as the purchasing agent and became office manager, outside sales, inside sales, and ultimately operations manager. After twenty-five years I was passed over for the branch manager’s position.

My district supervisor described me as the best inside guy in the company. When I was operations manager, I worked both the office and in outside sales putting in eighty or more hours a week for the same money. For the first time in three years, we returned to making a profit for the company. I was rewarded by having a former employee re-hired and made my boss.

My next position was as a buyer for one of the companies that was a customer for the last twenty-five years. I was done with sales. I continued to work for manufacturers until I retired as purchasing manager. Each position had good and bad points and good and bad management and employees. There is no perfect job. Life is as good as you want to make it. That includes your work life. Learn all you can to be able to move to the next level. That may not be at your current company.

If your employer offers training through a local college or trade school, take advantage of it. Give the loyalty and hard work that is required for each new position. Do not stay any longer than you must when situations change from good to bad. Do not change jobs because someone has offered you more money.

There is a reason they want you and it may not be as advantageous a position as you think at first. Many coworkers over the years left the company we worked for only to return when they were terminated. I turned down jobs because God told me not to take them. Once I wanted a position so badly that I prayed for it not to be offered to me if it was not where I should be. They did not and I eventually found a better position.

I’ve been laid off, fired, and quit. I’ve lost jobs I liked and ones I hated. Bosses have liked me, hated me, abused me, and taken advantage of me. The one I have always tried to please is Jesus whom I call Lord. I work for Him and He has always had my back. That is the best advice I can give you about liking what you are doing. “Work as unto the Lord.” Colossians 3:23

©Copyright 2024 by Charles Kensinger