New Job...for real?

[Highway Star]

I don't think I've mentioned much if anything about it, but up until this week, I've been out of work for the last two months. The contractor I was working for...well, we finished the job. I had been working with them for about 4 years, and always seemed to land on big projects, behind a desk, in the "trailer", working with numbers and materials, and such. I'm decent with a computer, I have a good memory, attention for detail, etc. Right?

Anyways, they cut me, and about 200 other well-qualified, tenured (some more than me) people together a few months ago. All of the contractors are doing that around here, all disciplines, crafts, what have you. The company I worked for, last year this time, had 5 or 6 jobs staffing 200 or more people, in the refineries and chemical manufacturing facilities up and down the river around here.

I am close to running out of bread, and have been banging on doors looking for something... anything, I guess. There are a few people interested in me from engineering firms and such, but once "things pick back up".

I replied to an ad on craigslist (of all places) for a job, get this...assembling bicycles. Turns out the company contracts with sporting goods stores and such to handle all merchandise assembly for the bikes, bbq grills, outdoor furniture, exercise equipment, etc. I did work like this when I was in high school, and in college, and it was half a joke. It isn't that funny right now, let me tell you.

Work is monday to friday, the hours are at my discretion (unwritten expectation is 8 hr a day), maybe more around holidays

I get paid by the piece. There is a flat rate for each bicycle, and all of the other items, I get a %age of the actual charge from my company to the store. I found out after he fact, that I was hired at the maximum rate, even more than the person (8 yr. company dude) that trained me for 2 days. Some of the larger items have a few bucks attached to them, and I like work that is structured like this, where the more you do, the more you make.

I can put some of the bikes together in 4 or 5 minutes, and there are others that take about 20. There is potential to make decent $, and I already see that there is some growth opportunity on a regional level if I can figure this out so much that I am like a machine that spits out bikes. Plus, the people I will be working with every day, are of a different "caliber"...to be polite.

I could go on, this has consumed me for the last week. I woke up thinking about this job last night. I half can't believe this is what I am trying to do for a living, I half can't believe the company I was working for trashed me, that I can't seem to land anything else, etc.



Guys, am I nuts?