Shit jobs and stubbed toes...
When I was young people would tell me, “You gotta get a good job.” when I asked what made a job good they said, “They pay you a lot and you love what you do.” and that made sense to me because why would you have to pay someone a lot if they love what they do. I'd think you'd have to pay more to get people to do things they don't love to do. This was a childish take on the topic, but the people talking to me when I was young were often very childish.
If a young person asked me for job advice at this point in my life I wouldn't even know where to start. The best advice I think I could get anybody starting out working would be: Find the shittiest jobs you can and do them hard until you learn something.
What I mean by this is that on my first day working retail at a craft and fabric store, the manager sent me to organize the bead aisle. The whole thing. By myself. When I walked into that aisle it looked like Las Vegas had puked all over it. Four hours later it looked like Piet Mondrian's christmas tree. I also knew where everything was in that display.
I assumed that the manager sent me there to give me something frustrating to do to test my resilience and how I might handle frustration and unsupervised work, and also to give me a crash course in understanding. Turned out she was just trying to get me to quit. That's cool. I took the first lessons from it and grew and thrived in that environment.
Once I've successfully done the worst task in a job, I know where the mud is. I know how deep the mud is. I know when to ask for help and when to delegate help. And ever after, every task I do is either, “This isn't as bad as sorting out the bead aisle.” or “Whoa. I have a new metric of suck that surpasses the bead aisle.” Either way, I win.
I'm thinking about this today because last night I tripped on the wire gate we use to keep the puppy confined to half of the living room. It was the middle of the night, Spouse, puppy, and cats were all asleep. I got my toes tangled in the top of the wire gate and my options became A. Fall on the piano. or B. Step down on the tangled foot and accept acute physical pain free of any late-night family drama.
I cromched the foot. I sweared silently and at great length. I untangled myself and got over to a chair.
Then I realized that it wasn't that bad. There is probably a bone bruise in one spot or a very minor fracture. The skin got scraped but not badly enough to bleed. And the pain passed very quickly.
Then I realized it's because I've already got a metric of suck for toe pain that is so much greater than a little mashing, that in comparison this is a love tap. When my gout is flaring up, a baby kitten kissing the tip of my toe can leave me crying like a little lost lamb. It's bad. It's really bad. It's so bad. And compared with days of throbbing, burning agony that keeps me awake and makes walking to the bathroom a world of horror, a little bruise and scrape is ephemeral and soon released to the past.
Now, this is the point at which my father or uncle would turn this into a lesson that everyone needs to suck it up and drive on when things are hard and when something hurts. “Rub some dirt in it and get back in the game!” Fuck that.
My lesson, what I take away from these experiences, is that things are going to suck. Some jobs are going to suck so bad that you need to leave. Some jobs are going to be things that you have to get done but can't complete alone or all in one go. All of these experiences are rich and fertilize our lives.
Now when I'm given a stupid-ass job to test my capacity, I involve others, ask for help/advice, consider if the hazing is proportionate to the esprit de corps. When I have a job I can't do all at once, I do part of it, or I half-ass the job and come back later to do some more on it. When I run into something that hurts, I find a different way to do it.
Yeah, it was nice that my previous experience of foot pain made this experience seem trivial by comparison, but I have learned to walk to the edge of the gate and move it and walk around it instead of stepping over it.
I wonder if people who never do shit jobs or people who've never had sports injuries or disabilities (temporary or permanent) are missing out on how bad things can be. Do they know that rushing a shit job often leads to having to do it again? Do they know that healing and recovery take a lot of time and pushing the body and mind to heal faster prolongs the process and can result in lasting issues?
And if they've never had to consider these situations and the consequences of those decisions for themselves, are they going to be capable of recognizing the experiences of others with compassionate awareness and patience?
Universe grant me the wisdom to avoid falling into the, “I did the shit jobs/worked through the pain and I turned out alright, you'll be fine.” because I did not turn out fine and there is not a bit of moral value in being fine or not fine. Each of our metrics of suck SUCK. Pain is not something that can be compared objectively.
And yet... we each have our own experiences of suck and pain that can help us learn things and find ways to work toward less suck and pain. If my experiences of suck and pain have not helped me become soft and gentle about your suck and pain, then I've missed the biggest lesson of all.