The Passion of Work

Finding a job is tough work in these trying economic times. No, don’t worry, Dear Reader, I’m not leaving this job anytime soon, but a lot of people are looking for jobs. My daughter is one of those people.

Macy, my daughter, is on break from college and she has spent the last few weeks looking for work. I’ve given her plenty of advice for looking for work because I have held down plenty of jobs in my adult life.

My first job was working for my grandfather in the summers hauling hay and doing chores around the farm — my grandpa has a different story of what I did that summer, but I digress.

I spent most of that first long, hot summer on the back of a hay truck with my cousin Jerry and our supervisor, Bill McClure or as we called him Doc McClure because this man knew everything about farm work. He also drank hot coffee in the summer time, which always drove me and Jerry crazy.

“It’s better to put a hot liquid in you on a hot day,” he would tell us. We would never believe him. We continued to drink our Cokes and eat Twinkies like they were going out of style.

I think I wound up saving a little over a thousand dollars that summer. I made enough money to make several big purchases, including a 1974 Buick Century and a concert ticket to see The Commodores back when they still had Lionel Ritchie singing those great songs like “Easy,” “Three Times a Lady” and the best Commodores song ever, “Brick House.”

That was a great summer.

After that summer, my dad hired me to work in his general store. We sold everything from sodas to cigarettes to sandwiches to, my favorite, Twinkies and other snack cakes. It was a great job and I brought home $40 a week, which during the 1980s afforded me plenty of cash for necessities like, gas, oil and the occasional trip to the movies. It was a good thing I got all the Twinkies I could eat for free as part of my compensation package.

My first job out of college was working in the computer industry. My official title was Customer Service Liaison, which could have been more correctly titled, You’ll Do
Whatever I Tell You and Like It, Flunkie.

I loved that job for almost a full six months.

I have also worked as a  soldier, security guard, warehouse worker, delivery driver, salesman, unemployed housewife, print supervisor, youth minister, Baptist song leader, sports writer, newspaperman, salesman, kid’s show producer, security system technician and the award-winning columnist that you know today. I also worked at Taco Bell, but that was just for a day. I would have went back for the second day but my pants were dirty and I had plans.

It should be easy, but it doesn’t seem that way all the time.

Someone once told me that you should do what you love to do and the money will come eventually. I have to admit I tried that once. I love to sit on the couch, watch the Price is Right and eat Twinkies all day. I’m good at it too. Unfortunately, I haven’t found anybody willing to give me a decent wage to do that.

One day, Dear Reader, one day.

Until that day, I will continue to churn out award-winning columns and offer advice on an as-needed basis.

This looks like one of those as-needed basis right now.

I do believe that we should   all find a career that we are passionate about.

My daughter is passionate about movies. She wants to work in the film industry and enrolled in college to figure out more about how to do just that.

She is headed for Hollywood.

In the meantime, she is going to work and do whatever it takes to pay the bills and earn a little cash. She’ll be ready in a couple of months for the move to Tinsel Town.
The job she has right now isn’t necessarily something she is passionate about, but I told her that she should work at it like it is a high calling. It isn’t the thing that she wants to do and went to college to do, but it is helping her reach her dreams.

So go to work every day and act like your job is one of the most important jobs in the world and treat others like they are the most important people in the world.
My good friend Zig Ziglar always says, “You can have whatever you want in life if you just help enough other people get what they want.” That is true.

The Universe is waiting to gives us a passion and provide a way for us to fulfill that passion.

I wish I would have known how the Universe works when I was working in those hay fields. I would’ve probably worked a lot harder. Although I still probably would have left that Taco Bell gig. I just couldn’t be around all the delicious food every day.