Hello I thought I would introduce myself. Leon invited me after seeing some of my posts on the Indeed meatcutters jobs forum. 

I'm Jim, AKA "Jimmy the Butcher" as I was known when I was in the business. I started in 1968 working for a small independent chain in the Philadelphia suburbs. That company was bought by a larger but still small (11 store) chain of independents about 5 years later in the early 70s. I started to learn the trade in high school but was mostly part time while I went to college for electrical engineering, going full time in the summers. I dropped out of college in 72 and started a formal meat apprenticeship. Somewhere along the way I finished school and got my EE degree but the job interviews I went to paid half what I made as a journeyman meatcutter so I stayed in the trade for 28 years until 1995.  Then I changed careers and am now a senior engineering manager for a large telecommunications company. 

When I was an apprentice, we were known as "whale sh**" meaning you are the lowest of the low! My typical day started at 6 am, bring out 25-30 boxes of trim chickens and either quarter them or cut them up for parts. Then go to lunch and repeat the exercise with another 25 cases. Then clean the meat room and finish the shift at 6 pm. If you wanted to learn anything then you stayed on your own time after 6 to help the evening guy do his work. This is where I learned to break down beef, merchandise veal, cut hips for sirloin steaks, etc. And yes this was a union shop but at this independent chain work rules were not enforced. When the second chain took over I had been an apprentice for about 1 1/2 years. They recognized my abilities as I pretty much had learned the trade and made me a journeyman and "2nd man" in a dept. After about 3 more months thry made me a meat manager. I stayed with them a few more years but every time the contract came up for renewal we gave something back, Very tiny raises and we went from triple time on sundays to 2 1/2 time, then double time, then time and 1/2. Premium rates for Saturday nights and sundays also went down. I called the owner and his wife and told them I understood their situation but I oculd do better elsewhere and left, going to a major chain, PathMark which had a better contract. I did well there and was soon a meat manager. My depts typically did about $100k a week, $5 million a year, in fresh meat only. That means not counting fish, canned hams, lunch meat, bacon, hot dogs, etc. I did well there and was in the top 5 to 10 meat depts of this 150 store chain. My elbows went bad in the 90s. I had surgery on each of them for epichondylitis (tennis elbow) but it didn't help much so I then changed careers.I wish I had done it sooner. I have some good memories of the meat business but the fact is that I worked harder then, not just physically but mentally, than I do now, but I now earn more than double what I made as a meat mgr. And I do that without working holidays or weekends, and I am no longer in a 25 degree cooler at 5 am on Sunday mornings!

Jim