(I took the header picture of a Common Loon resting on a pond in Utah on its way north in June of 2015. It was in transition from winter to summer plumage.)
Translate - I dare you. Then make a comment on the funny errors the translator made.
I've done manual labor (worked at a government tree nursery, picked apples,packed pears, and a few other assorted things.) I've worked in an I.T. department at a corporation and currently do computer tech support for a small company.
Give me physical labor jobs, any day, any time. I'd be tempted to try my hand at packing pears again (a piece rate job), if I were younger. Your mind is your own. The job ends when you clock out. No one comes up and asks you to work some wacky shift or be oncall at the middle of the night. I've seen nothing in corporate jobs that I like as well as I did back sorting fruit. And frankly, the current job doesn't pay all that much better.
I sometimes strangely and fondly remember my time working in a pizza restaurant in my early post-college drifter years. How much I liked my co-workers and the equalizing force of being together in a kitchen all night in the middle of a dinner rush. The odd feeling of despair about my worth per hour, but, as you mentioned, the greater sense of accomplishment, in some strange way, of seeing it spelled out in this measurement. At the end of a long shift the kitchen floors would finally be hosed down and the drawers counted out, and the labor and its result were plain in a way that corporate computer based jobs never really reflect. Ah, I am romanticizing it. It wasn't that great.
Hi Charles, I hope you're having a wonderful pregnancy! ;) As for manual labor, I suppose many academic types have gone that route on their way to something more, ah, academic. And with a baby coming, you are on your way to discovering womanly labor, a very different beast.
That low pay is a kick in the teeth, but you build muscles as well as character and you are probably being prepared for parenting in ways you won't realize for a long time to come. Take good care of your family and yourself. Lora
I'm a server administrator and make what this small-town prairie boy considers an obscene amount of money for clicking a keyboard. But there are days I would do anything to be back working my old college job in the greenhouse, covered in dirt and dripping sweat for minimum wage. There was honesty in that backbreaking work.
I often catch myself getting nostalgic about the custodial job I had in college. Night shift, cleaning toilets, collecting trash, setting up furniture. At the time I enjoyed parts of it - mostly my co-workers and being in an empty building at night.
I'm working at a worse temp assignment now, but that's another story . . .
5 comments:
I've done manual labor (worked at a government tree nursery, picked apples,packed pears, and a few other assorted things.) I've worked in an I.T. department at a corporation and currently do computer tech support for a small company.
Give me physical labor jobs, any day, any time. I'd be tempted to try my hand at packing pears again (a piece rate job), if I were younger. Your mind is your own. The job ends when you clock out. No one comes up and asks you to work some wacky shift or be oncall at the middle of the night. I've seen nothing in corporate jobs that I like as well as I did back sorting fruit. And frankly, the current job doesn't pay all that much better.
I sometimes strangely and fondly remember my time working in a pizza restaurant in my early post-college drifter years. How much I liked my co-workers and the equalizing force of being together in a kitchen all night in the middle of a dinner rush. The odd feeling of despair about my worth per hour, but, as you mentioned, the greater sense of accomplishment, in some strange way, of seeing it spelled out in this measurement. At the end of a long shift the kitchen floors would finally be hosed down and the drawers counted out, and the labor and its result were plain in a way that corporate computer based jobs never really reflect. Ah, I am romanticizing it. It wasn't that great.
Nice post.
Hi Charles,
I hope you're having a wonderful pregnancy! ;)
As for manual labor, I suppose many academic types have gone that route on their way to something more, ah, academic. And with a baby coming, you are on your way to discovering womanly labor, a very different beast.
That low pay is a kick in the teeth, but you build muscles as well as character and you are probably being prepared for parenting in ways you won't realize for a long time to come.
Take good care of your family and yourself.
Lora
I'm a server administrator and make what this small-town prairie boy considers an obscene amount of money for clicking a keyboard. But there are days I would do anything to be back working my old college job in the greenhouse, covered in dirt and dripping sweat for minimum wage. There was honesty in that backbreaking work.
I often catch myself getting nostalgic about the custodial job I had in college. Night shift, cleaning toilets, collecting trash, setting up furniture. At the time I enjoyed parts of it - mostly my co-workers and being in an empty building at night.
I'm working at a worse temp assignment now, but that's another story . . .
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