In 1974, when I was 18 and it was easy to find unskilled jobs with acceptable pay ...
I had just finished my final A-level paper and was walking in to Coventry city centre when I spotted a small factory unit with a sign on the front saying "VACANCIES: apply within", so I DID. I walked in to the office to see if they had any labouring jobs. They said that they did and asked if I could start the next morning. I said that I could, but then I found out that it was a 6 am - 2 pm shift!
Oh well, it would only be for the summer before I went off to do my degree. I soon got used to getting up at 05:15 and my dad got up 30 minutes earlier than usual to give me a lift there.
I've mentioned a few things about that job in the past such as unloading lorries by hand and carrying 50-75 kg of bags plastic granules on my shoulders up flights of stairs, nearly getting chomped by a plastic recycling machine which had a good go at dragging me inside ... I don't think that I have mentioned the saboteur snails before though ...
The plastic extrusion machines in our department used water cooling systems. Without a constant supply of cold water, things went wrong very quickly and we couldn't churn out our products (curtain tracks, plastic pipes etc.).
One Friday afternoon, the machines all started going wrong so we had to stop production. The foreman asked if I would come in for some Saturday overtime to help him sort the problem out. I agreed and turned up the next morning. He had started very early and had already disconnected a few water pipes in the roof of the factory above the machines. As expected, there was not much water getting through.
We systematically worked our way through the piping until we eventually found our first snail! There was a juicy big one stuck in the pipe. Then we found another, then another ...
We got hold of a ladder and clambered up onto the flat roof at the back of the factory where there was a big water tank which fed the cooling pipes. As soon as we lifted the lid off the tank, we found that the water was heaving with snails! We had to clear all of them out and then blast dead snails from practically every length of water pipe in the factory. It took us most of the day, but eventually we got the water supply sorted out ready for the early morning shift on the Monday to restart production.
I think they put some kind of, er, snail retardent in the water tank after that. Oh, and they put a mesh screen over the outlet pipe to catch any snail or other object that might have caused similar problems in the future.
It was a pretty mindless job, but I quite enjoyed it. I kept fit and made myself useful. I loved finishing work at 14:00, especially getting my wage packet on Thursday afternoon and walking down to the city centre in the summer sunshine. I'd go to HMV or Virgin Records and buy 2 or 3 albums (old skool vinyl LPs in those days), have a bag of chips, and then catch the bus home.
I walked that way on a recent visit to Coventry and found that the factory area no longer exists. The industrial buildings have all been demolished and replaced by housing.