Working For A Living With Labor Day Putting The Focus On That Part Of Our Lives Devoted To Jobs, We Look At Three Workers’ Days

So much of our lives is spent in the workplace, putting time, effort and energy into our projects, our assignments, our jobs.

It’s no wonder that work often shapes how we feel about ourselves and our place in the community. Take Julie Anne Linsley, a crane operator. “It makes me feel good about myself. It fills me up. It’s great having the space to learn and see what I’m capable of,” she says.

So, on Labor Day weekend, in honor of hard-working folks everywhere, this story re-creates a day in the lives of three Valley workers: Linsley, supermarket checker Judy Horwath, and Kaiser worker Randy Harris.

7 a.m.

Wearing mud-caked construction boots and a grease-crusted orange vest, Julie Anne Linsley sits high up in a juice rig, or hydraulic crane. In it, she maneuvers tons of steel around the Harvard Road bridge construction site. It’s her second assignment after completing the safety and orientation training of Local 370 of the Operating Engineers Union.

“I have alot of responsibility,” says the 29-year-old, rubbing the tattoo of a pink rose on her wrist. “Here I am hoisting things that weigh thousands of pounds with people standing right underneath. One wrong move and they’re gone.”

11 a.m.

It’s lunchtime and in just 3-1/2 hours she’ll be heading home to her boyfriend and their son, Harley. But for now, she’s aching, tired and covered in dirt from her chin to her ankles. She says it feels like heaven.

As a little girl, Linsley never played with dolls. Trucks fascinated her. She’d look at insects and imagine what piece of construction equipment the bugs resembled. Those were her summer daydreams.

“I’m kinda not used to success,” she says. “I’m learning how to deal with good rewards, to think that I’m worthy of them.”

For many years, Linsley didn’t think she was worthy of much. She got involved with drugs and spent three months in a California jail for possession and probation violations.

“That was a time to reflect and look at myself and my mistakes,” she says. “Sometimes you gotta be in a tough spot to know you’re the only one who can change things.”

And change she did.

After six years on welfare, Linsley earned her G.E.D. in March and landed her first steady job in August. She received her first paycheck on Aug. 12, she says proudly. What she grosses in one week as an apprentice operating engineer equals one month on welfare.

But perhaps most important, Linsley has reclaimed control of her life. And made her dreams of steel, of dirt and of labor come true.

11:30 a.m.

Judy Horwath whips up a casserole for her husband and son then tends to her flowers before leaving for work at the Rosauers supermarket in Millwood.

For 18 years, Horwath’s been checking groceries and scanning her way into the hearts of customers. They loyally wait in line for her and bring her yummy recipes and gifts from their gardens.

“It’s really about the people,” says Horwath, who’s 53. It’s like family here. We know the customers’ troubles, their happinesses. One old man comes here just to talk or to bring me a cucumber.”

3:30 p.m.

Despite having fibromyalgia, a painful muscle disease, in her arms and arthritis in her wrists and hands, Horwath’s very particular with her customers’ groceries. She opens every egg carton to make sure none is cracked and checks the expiration dates on all perishables.

“I wouldn’t want to go home and find something broken, so I don’t sell anything I wouldn’t use myself,” she says. “We need to make sure the customers have a good experience.”

And they do.

Mamie Banta has been coming to Rosauers for decades and always waits in line for Horwath.

As Banta pushes her cart up to the check stand, Horwath pulls it closer to her.

“What beautiful gladioluses, Mamie,” says Horwath.

“I didn’t get to grow any this year and these look awful pretty,” Banta says.

Then the two banter about what kind of berries are the best.

“You’ve never had my huckleberry buckle, have you?” says Banta. “I’ll write up the recipe for you, Judy, and bring it in soon.”

6 p.m.

Just as Horwath is clocking out, Randy Harris is finishing up supper with his three children and wife, Maureen. When they’re done, he heads out to work the overnight shift at Kaiser Aluminum’s Trentwood rolling mill. 7:15 p.m.

Surrounded by hissing steam and 100-degree heat, Harris makes his way through the maze-like factory of glowing furnaces filled with molten metal, machinery compacting the metal into solid blocks and rollers stretching the blocks, or ingots, into paper-thin, mile-long sheets. Harris will sweat his way through the next 12 hours as he creates perfect mixtures of molten metal.

Harris, who is 42, has worked at Kaiser for 22 years.

He’s a charge maker. Using what he calls his “recipe book,” he combines different elements, such as copper or iron, and alloys to form a charge, or mixture. The mixture will be poured into the massive furnaces and will be used to make a variety of items from beer cans to the body of an aircraft. “It’s a real challenge,” he says. “The job changes all the time. Seems the more you know, the easier it is.”

Kaiser purchases scrap metal for Harris to recycle and create more inexpensive charges with the scrap. He uses a computer to analyze what elements are present in the scrap. From there, Harris can reduce or increase the elemental levels in the mixture and then add in the scrap.

“It takes time to learn how to do that,” he says, pushing in the ear plugs he wears while outside the tower.

Midnight

One thing that’s tough on the family is Harris’ schedule. He works 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., three days on and then three days off. It was tougher when they had to rely on babysitters to watch their three children. Now their daughter, Emily, who’s 12, watches the younger kids - Craig, 9, and Alyssa, 4, until Maureen comes home from work at Deaconess Medical Center.

4 a.m.

From one of the furnaces, Harris extracts a sample to send to the factory lab. The lab technician analyzes the sample to make sure the element levels are precise. If they’re not, the technician calls Harris and tells him what’s wrong. Then, Harris makes the necessary changes to the mixture.

There’s pressure on Harris to get the mixture right the first time. The salaries of Harris and his five co-workers who form a job team are based on their productivity. So, if the team falls behind, even by a few minutes, their paychecks will show it. When the element levels are off, they all work together, trying to make up lost time and money.

7 a.m.

Exhausted, Harris is ready to call it a day. His work won’t be over when he gets home. He’ll make breakfast for the kids, help his son mow the lawn and run errands.

He’ll collapse into bed around the time Julie Anne Linsley climbs out of the crane for her first break of the day.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 4 photos (1 color)