Third Shift

 

                                 

In 1972 I went to work for Mueller Company in Chattanooga.  Mueller was an iron foundry and the work was hot and hard, but it paid well.  I had this theory:  if the work paid well, I could wash off the dirt and grime all the way to the bank.  After my month of probation at Mueller, the moved me to third shift.  This wasn’t my first encounter with third shift, but it was the first time working third shift while married.  I had a wife and a new baby in a forty-foot trailer, so sleeping in the daytime was a challenge.  We had a big window air conditioner in the living room, but I bought a little one-room air conditioning unit for the back bedroom.  It kept the room cold AND it made noise to let me sleep.  I hung a dark towel on the window, and I slept great … for about five hours.  I would get used to working at night and sleeping in the day, but after one night’s rest on the weekend, I was over it.  I didn’t work third shift because I enjoyed it, I worked third shift because I enjoyed the money.  David said in Psalms 128:2, “For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.”  When we work, we enjoy the fruit of our labors.  When we sweat, we are satisfied because we are earning our way.  Even if it is from 11 to 7.