I swang on a hammock enjoying the ocean breeze.
If one observed me, they would probably think I did not have a care in the world and things were going smoothly for me.
That could not have been further from the truth. Working as an air conditioning expert was fun, but my ruse had come to an end. The air conditioning business I worked for somehow discovered that my immigration papers were not legit. I was no criminal, and all I wanted was to earn an honest living. Being a cooling workman was easy since I had worked as one in my home country, but it paid better here than it did there. I remember the first time I came across cooling tech. He was friendly and recommended me to his workplace. At first, they gave me air conditioning tune-up gigs and air filter replacements to see if I was up to their standards. After two months of nothing but air conditioning service, I made it to the higher leagues. I handled air conditioning repair and joined the team during HVAC unit installations. I was unfamiliar with all the air conditioning installs, but I knew most of them. The first solo job I did was installing an indoor air cleaning system. It may not be much to someone else, but it meant the world. When I got into central air conditioning systems and all other cooling products, the immigration issue came up. The company did not rat me out, but they had to let me go because they did not want to get into trouble with the authority. The house I was living in belonged to a lady whom I helped with her quality air conditioner and who had allowed me to stay when I shared my story.