My first job out of graduate school was as something called an "oil scout" in southern Indiana. No, I didn't get to wear a cool helmet or boots or anything, or even visit the seemingly numberless oil and gas wells that dot the Hoosier State. My job was to telephone well operators and get the latest weekly results of drilling, then collate the results, and write the newsletter so that operators might have a clue where to drill next.

The first thing I learned was that operators really, really hate to be get telephone calls when they're trying to get a job done. "I don't have time for this [expletive deleted] nonsense" seemed to be the most common response. Concern about being a success on my very first "real" job kept me from responding in a similar fashion.

"Why do you want to know that?" - in a suspicious tone of voice - was a popular second in the "why-I-hate-to-telephone-peopl e-I-don't-know" sweepstakes. "Because you subscribed to the [ED, "Expletive Deleted"] newsletter, and it's a [ED] condition of the [ED] subscription, that's why, you [ED], you!" (And then out loud I would say, "I'm sorry, sir or madame as the case may be, I'm gathering the information for the newsletter. When would be a good time for me to call back?")

Then I found out why some of the operators might not be too friendly. The boss/owner had a habit of being a trifle flexible with the truth. Not lying so much as bending it into convenient shapes. I was told I was to be paid biweekly. No ... "I meant twice a month," i.e., I stood to lose between two to three week's pay each year, depending on the vagaries of Julius Caesar and Pope Gregory.

Going to the Boss's Office for help - BO? That was an appropriate acronym, by the way. He owned the building and did very little maintenance or set the thermostat above 60 degrees ... and So. Indiana can get COLD ... although his office was sweltering, probably accounting for the smell and the fact that he managed to sleep through most of the day. If you managed to wake him, he simply said, "Do what you want," and snooze off again ... until he examined your work and decided that you had done it all wrong.

Still, it was my first job, and I had already ticked off the employment agency by turning down a previous job offer that didn't have the right "feel." (The company later got into some serious trouble, so it seemed my gut instinct was right.) I felt I had to stay until I had at least paid off the employment agency's fee in

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