I took a job in a factory when I was 19, sweeping floors among other tasks involving labor and maintenance. I actually liked the job, most people were easygoing and the company provided a free lunch each day to all the workers. I still remember two older women who were particularly friendly to me and we sat together at lunch most days.

But there were two older guys at the factory who had been there over 10 years each, also basic laborers who had never moved up in the ranks, or didn’t want to or weren’t invited to. They were not happy in their jobs and their lives, and they made my life as difficult as they could.

I would sweep a section, for example, go and sweep another section and when I came back to the first section, I would see that they’d dumped the debris I’d just swept onto the floor anew.

I tried to avoid them but it was hard because there were two of them. I was a kid and did not yet know how to stand up to bullies in the workplace. These men were also much bigger than me, I should add, meaning they were tough, drinking, smoking, haw-haw types. I was just out of high school, a musician who weighed about 140 pounds, not a tough guy by any means. My father was a combat vet, a lieutenant in the Air Force and I was taught to respect my elders.

The one bright light was that I discovered the two guys were into the same Frank Zappa album as I was, “Over-night Sensation,” and we got along for the next 5 minutes.

But I started dreading coming to work because of them and eventually complained. The management brought all three of us into the office and gave us a talking to. We all went back to work and they started right up again. Going into my locker and leaving the door open, when the doors were supposed to be shut at all times. Hiding my backpack. Just really juvenile stuff.

A short while later I was involved in a collective screwup involving a bunch of product that ended up having to be destroyed and cost the company some money. It wasn’t directly my fault, although I had my part in the process of oversights leading up to it.

The manager said “I’m sorry, someone has to take the blame for this and it’s you. I gotta fire ya.” It was right before Christmas, I remember, and it was minus two degrees out, Fahrenheit.

It was a minimum wage job and I didn’t really mind getting canned - I could get another job somewhere else, and the guy was nice about it instead of growling. I thanked him and went out the back door.

As I was going out, I saw the heavy winter coats of my two tormentors hanging on hooks.

I grabbed both coats, walked out the door and threw them both in the dumpster. I am quite sure I felt car keys in one of the coats.