ya know ive always roped, every where i went or worked i roped. but the job came first. if it came down to a good job and going to a ropin, i stayed and worked. if it was a bad job, welll lets just say that was whole different kettle of fish.
those years i worked for toveras and azl spoiled me, they furnished arenas and cattle for their employees, and were generaly supportive of a man who competed under the company name. while working for azl i qualified for the world feedlot championships twice. voluntarily we saved our vacation time for the trip to the finals. they in return would help out finacialy to some extent. they liked to brag about you doin well.
but there were a lot of feeders who took a dim veiw of such goins on. its funny but they always had the worst managed yards and the poorest quality help. they wouldnt pay good wages and whinned about everything. they would cheat the feed on their horses or had no horses at all. if they had horses they were generly the chikin feed type, cheap to buy and non productive.
i had fair job where i was, a nice comfortable house and some security. but i had gone up the ladder as far as i was gonna go. nice people to work for but due to family concerns the upper teir of jobs wernt going to be available to the hired help. well word came to me that a local cattle feeder had fired his yard manager. i knew the fired manager and knew he knew the business. but he was prone to party for days at a time, run around on his wife and was a regular rounder. he roped but was seldom in the money because he was to busy drinkin and girlin.
i put in a call to this cattle feeder. told him i wanted to apply for the job. he agreed to meet me the next day at his office. when i arrived at this prominent gentelmans office i had a couple of letters of recommendation and was dressed in my best cowboy attire. when showed into the office this gentleman rose to shake hands , then looked down at the gold buckle on my belt. his face turned red, he started shaken, froth came to the corners of his mouth .
"get out!" he yelled i was stunned, i tried to speak but instead this old man went into a screammin fit.
" you god damn team ropers all you do is get drunk, beat your horse and cheat on your wives ! get out now!"
i left, as disapointed and deflated as you could get. that night clayton ,one of the fellows who wrote a letter for me called me to see how things went. he listened quietley while i explained the how the short interview went. when i was done clayton said he just thought the guy that got fired might have ruined the deal with his antics. clayton told me not to worry because even though the job paid more i wouldnt have been happy for long. maybe there was a reason the other fella drank and raised hell so much. as time went on i saw that cattle feeder trade yard bosses pretty regular. they usually quit. so maybe that gold buckle saved me a hard lesson.
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