My Job at H&H in a nutshell.

How I got the job at H&H Ship Services was a unique story in itself and has written a few times in the past in this Blog. The gist of it was that I had been asked by my friend Joshua B. who lived then on the corner of Haight and Ashbury in the basement garage of  a building which was converted into a single room apartment. I was on the verge of being homeless after being asked to leave Green Gulch Zen community for my less than good conduct, perhaps one of the few students to be kicked out of a Zen monastery. Can't say that I blame them for I brought it upon myself through my old bad habits especially when it came to women. After a week of sleeping on the floor and under the kitchen table of his home, Josh arranged for me to work at his friend's home in Oakland, cleaning the yard. I was to meet Will Harris Jr. at his office on the water front of downtown San Francisco. The office was located on Third Street and China Basin which today has been turned into a Baseball Field for the SF Giants,
# USTD facility. Hazardous Waste Management. H&H Ship and Environmental Services.

I arrived at the office at seven in the morning and met with an African American gentleman, bald headed and had blue coveralls on. Later I learned the  Mr. Cleveland Valrey was the dispatcher for the company. There was no one  else except for the President of the company Mr. William Harris who was in his office. Upon explaining my purpose of being there i was introduced to Bill senior or late known to me as Big Foot. Big Foot told me that his son would be in perhaps in the afternoon if he does made it to work. However upon having heard my intention, he offered me a job to clean his yard instead which was the company's yard. I accepted and started my work the following morning. My job was simply as a sweeper and everything else that goes with. It was an easy job for me as I had spent almost two years doing exactly just that in a monastery and was not getting paid a dime for it. I did my job happily and within a year became the Yard Superintendent answerable to the president. In one year my salary was doubled and I was given the use of the company's pickup truck.

My promotion to become the 'Yard Boss' put me in charge of the Underground Tank Disposal operation which was at the time I was the sweeper, was going through a litigation involving the death of the supervisor due to an explosion of a six thousand gallon fuel tank that he was suppose to cut. This incident placed the operation under tag and lock by the Coast Guard Authorities and I learned about this a week into my  employment with the company. I observed and learned about what was going on and later decided to take it upon myself to run the yard myself as it all seemed simple yet being turn into a mess due to negligence and what was known as a 'fly by night operation', attitude of the management.

It so happened that one morning I noticed a Chinese gentleman approaching the front office and I intercepted him and upon inquiry learned that he was an official from the Department of Health,(DOH) about to shut down the USTD operation for good. I practically begged him to give me a chance to make things right no matter what it took and somehow he agreed to give me the chance to proof myself and left without going up to the office. He told me that if I needed his help in any way all I had to do was to call him. I told very few of my fellow employees of this incident and vowed to carry out my promise to this  Chines gentleman.

    
In less than a year I was able to make sure that everyone working in the yard had seven pairs of coveralls to wear along with fresh gloves and breathing respirators when handling hazardous waste. The company started employing a lab for testing toxic waste that came through the facility and that all employees went through a rigorous Health ans Safety Training carried out by various agencies such as DOSH, EPA, The Fire Dept. and even the Dept. of Transportation. The following year the company made a profit of two million dollars and the rest was history. H&H was the sole company that handled the USTD facility in almost the whole of the Western seaboard of the United States. It was the longest time i spent on any single job in my life; six years total.