gratification and balance

Over the years, when folks have asked me what my favorite jobs were during my varied and winding road of experiences, I found that I have a few that stand out. And they have nothing to do with marketing or writing or anything relating to the very expensive college I attended. No, when it comes down to it, they were jobs that required me to think on my feet (literally), and work with my hands.

So, what are these mystery jobs? After I graduated college, I was flailing. Wildly. What do you do when you go to school and come out with an English Lit degree but have no desire to teach? Well, you do a decent chunk of freelance writing (both paid and unpaid) and you are most definitely required to have side hustles that pay the bills so you can subsidize this quest to be a sometime music journalist and promoter of indie music.

I worked throughout high school and college in food service. I spent many years at a local franchised restaurant in my hometown - Dairy Queen. It was actually run by a family who somehow managed to employ spectacularly hard-working people. We had fun - I learned a lot from that experience, and truly enjoyed my co-workers. Because I'm such an introvert, I preferred my time as a line cook/grill person and prepping more than talking to people. But it also helped me come out of my shell a bit, and that was a good thing. It may have actually been the first experience that gave me the ability to compartmentalize and find ways to talk to people confidently when it comes to my job, even if the art of "small talk" in personal interactions still escapes me to this day.

I worked at a bar in college (that will put you to the test, mixing drinks, slinging beers and cleaning up after peers you have to see in class knowing that you remember more of their night than they do). I also worked as a line/prep cook at a restaurant and grill cook at a marina, where I cooked everything to order (and took the orders) for customers on an early weekend shift. I managed a coffee shop in my early twenties, and my favorite times of day were opening and closing, largely because of the prep work and inventory of it all.

The prep work…oh the prep work! I LOVE chopping vegetables, cleaning produce and breaking down ingredients. Only people who have worked on a line or have had kitchen experience will truly understand this. I find it calming in my own kitchen now to do all the prep - I love seeing it all sitting and waiting on the counter before I magically combine everything. I LOVE going to produce stands, bakeries, butchers and grocery stores, which is what makes this current situation the most stressful for me - I don't like it when other people pick out my groceries and I can't see/smell/feel/taste what I'm buying. I know. Most people complain about having to go to the store; and I actually enjoy it. Weirdo, party of one.

The thing about working in a restaurant or bar that always struck me as satisfying was this: after an onslaught of customers and a hectic shift, I could look at what I'd created that day, see happiness on people's faces shortly thereafter, and know that I contributed to it. I carry that with me. Immediate gratification is a powerful thing. And it's another reason why I have a soft spot for servers, cooks, customer service workers and small business owners in that space.
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One of my other favorite jobs - ever - was working at a greenhouse. I worked at May's Greenhouse in Bloomington, Indiana for a longer stint than I intended. It was hard work, and at times very physically demanding. During colder months, I worked in an outbuilding where all the soil was stored. There was a gigantic raised work table that we'd open up bags of soil into, spread it around and break it up, and then we'd find out what we were planting that day. Every day, something different - vegetables, herbs, flowers, groundcover, all kinds of plants for all kinds of use. Sometimes it was seed, and sometimes it was teeny baby starters that had to be re-potted to grow big and strong for sale later in the spring. We'd go through hundreds of plants a day, and then when the flats were full and stacked up high, we'd take turns transporting them to each greenhouse dedicated to different species and temperatures/conditions.

It was cold in the winter, my back would hurt at the end of a shift, and most often, I'd make futile attempts to get all the dirt out from under my fingernails every night. And I fucking loved it. This job had it all - immediate AND delayed gratification. Every day, I would have a little time to myself to walk through the greenhouses. I'd walk the rows and see the progress of what I'd helped to plant. Literally watching ornamental grass grow. And it was satisfying. Seeing the labor pay off. Learning about plants. Taking something from seed to maturity. Being present for each stage of that. I got my green thumb from this and from watching and helping my dad work in his garden every spring and summer growing up.
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Sometimes it's difficult to work and work and work like we do in our adult lives when the gratification is less tangible and/or visible in fields where we don't see the immediate fruits of our labor. Hell, sometimes we never see all the delayed fruits of our labor because the setup doesn't pay off until much further down the road than we're there for. I think there's room for both. That both instant and delayed gratification are necessary for self-motivation. The trick for me was really finding out what makes ME tick and what motivates ME and finding ways to create goals (immediate gratification) to strive for successful results further down the road (delayed gratification). Understanding my own relationship to both immediate and delayed gratification is essential to finding contentment when starting something new or letting something else go. And not being surprised at my own answer when someone asks me what my favorite job was and being able to identify the real reasons behind it.







Or maybe I just have too much time for my mind to wander these days.