8 years ago...Suburbs of Philadelphia, PA... I am a 27 year old man with a wonderful wife Cherakee at 28 and 2 beautiful children, both boys, Jason Jr at 7 and Joshua at 2. My family hasn't had it easy so far, my youngest son Josh was born with a heart condition so every year we pray for overwhelming good news about his condition but live in fear everyday fearing about his health. All I beg for is a happy, healthy family that loves eachother. I am struggling working as many jobs as I can to support my family as a roller hockey referee, also a Paver and Wallstone builder at my own company. I am an avid hockey player as well but do to my current situation having to work so much I must put this aside to try to play hockey when I'm not working at my Paver Wallstone company or reffing. I have come to realize that without an underpaid workforce I can no longer compete with these other companies underbidding me. So I must find or do something else to keep my family afloat.
I recently have searching the papers for something I can do or learn fast without putting my family on the street. Finally I come across a job starting at decent pay...$13 an hour with the ability to get overtime and advance higher. So I come home from another regular hard 12 hour day from laying block on one of my last jobs and talk to Cherakee about this opportunity. She's skeptical, saying this job with Western Fumigation sounds dangerous, she didn't like it. It was a perfect fit for me a hard working young man who loved to get dirty and work long hours for a decent pay. So desperate to make sure my bills were being paid and my family did not go hungry I jumped at this opportunity not knowing it might have been the worse decision of my life.
I called to apply for the technician job at Western Fumigation. They asked me to come in and pick up the papers. So I didn't waste anytime as I was finishing up my last Paver job (where my wife was running pacers back and forth from the saw to the walkway in her nice clothes...team player...got to love her) leaving right from there to get the papers. As I walked in they saw a sweaty, dirty, built man and smiled as they gave me all the papers. I wasn't sure at the time why they smiled but soon to find out I knew exactly why, they were looking for big guys who loved getting dirty, bingo. I turned my papers in, went to my physicals, waited patiently by the phone as I was unable to land any more jobs at my company. Finally the phone rang, an arrogate deep voice at the other end of the phone said "Jason, you don't do drugs and haven't robbed any banks lately so your hired!!!" it was Mike the manager at Western Fumigation. I said "Thank you" he said "you start next week". I was excited, finally there was light, even if it meant a very hard strenuous job that didn't pay that good there was room for improvement and it was steady pay. I immediately called Cherakee to give her the good news. We celebrated as this was what we thought was a huge break for us. Yeah!!!
