Of all topics to come up at a Christmas eve-eve party, first jobs seemed to be the “hot-topic” of the night. I sat with several of my neighbors and friends, and we chatted it up about our first jobs over gin and tonics, wine, and a delightful mixture of Jack Daniels and ginger ale. First jobs ranged from picking fruit, to planting cabbage, to removing mortar from bricks. A common thread amongst all of our stories, real or embellished, was that first jobs generally suck, requiring a substantial amount of work for a minimal amount of pay. After pondering this for a while I came to a conclusion; this equation: (hard-work + minimal-pay) = ? equates to one of two thing for most people.
1) an utter distaste for all things work related, or 2) a great appreciation of hard work and a true sense of the value of a dollar.
Most of the people in our impromptu discussion fell in the 2nd category. First jobs which involved very hard work with a minimal amount of pay, made us appreciate the value of a dollar, and generally resulted in us being thankful for the jobs we have today whether they require us to use or minds or our backs.
I would like to make it very clear that I highly value manual labor and in no way diminish the need for work which involves our backs and hands. Having spent innumerable hours picking fruit, digging ditches, building fences, re-roofing houses, thinning forests, cutting wood and the like, I completely appreciate the need and benefit of what I consider hard work. But I also appreciate that God has blessed us with minds that we can use to earn a living, create and invent, paint, write poetry and the like without ever breaking a sweat.
In the end we do what we love to do, and what we are good at. One writes beautiful prose, another assembles a wall of brick and mortar, and another creates a song that we cannot get out of our head. All of these require talent, training and a mind. Thank God for our minds.
What do you do for a living today? What was your first job? Did your first job(s) make you love or hate work? Is it time for a change of work, venues, or careers?
