Adam was 16 years old when he left school. He was in Grade 9. Adam says that when he quit school his parents were pleased that he was going to work. Adam came back to school at the age of 39. Adam says, "Reading is a problem for me. I left school at the end of the year. I had a job at a gas station. I worked there for six months. I got laid off and I went with another gas station for another three months." Then Adam went to the mainland. He says he "first worked as a material handler with an electrical company, for 10 months. I got laid off, and drew unemployment. I came back to Newfoundland. Then I worked at a grocery store, doing deliveries. I had a hard time with that. The manager's wife was my teacher and she knew the way I was at reading. The names I didn't know I'd just go ask the clerk. Some days I had to get someone to come with me and tell me the names." "I got laid off there and went on unemployment again. I went to the mainland again. I worked with a scaffolding rental company. Anybody could do it. All you had to do was count to 20, stack up the scaffolds 20 high, strap them, that was it." Adam did that job for three months. Then he came back to Newfoundland again and collected unemployment. Adam and his girlfriend went back to the mainland again, and Adam went to work with an elevator company. He says, "I was on the saw. I had to know how to use the measuring tape. I had to know fractions. That was the only stuff I had to know. They had a layoff, so I bumped over in the other plant. There I went on the paint line, just hanging up the door, putting it in a line to be painted, then taking it off, that was it. I went from that to the forklift. I was there a year and a half altogether. When I got laid off I came home again."

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