Working sucks. Just kind of in general. The whole idea isn't a fun time, which is why everyone tells us to find something we love to do so we'll never work a day in our lives and all of that.
That's all well and good, but the thing about it is that then we end up not really knowing why it's so good that we're doing something we love other than just that sheer fact. And really, that's enough sometimes. But one of the most valuable things that my parents ever told me was that if you don't spend some time doing something you'll never want to do again, you won't love what you do nearly as much when you finally find something that you do love.
They were absolutely right. I worked as a janitor in a factory, a fire and water clean up grunt, and in a retail store. Every one of those jobs gave me both massive respect for the people who do them and actually helped me develop skills that have become increasingly useful as time has gone on. But really, above all else, what I took away from every job was the absolute certainty that I would never want to do that job again. I always could if I needed to, but really if I could avoid it I would.
First up, the skills. Being able to ring people up at a cash register or stock racks both seem like generally useless things outside of the store, but they help you with math and organizational skills. Carrying fans around and loading trucks are a workout, but you figure out the right way to check for moisture damage and how to repair leaks in pipes. Janitorial work just speaks for itself, you pick up how to paint, clean, and what kind of products you should have around whenever you need to.
The most important thing to come from each experience was definitely the humility though. It's hard to have a ton of pride when you're on your knees scrubbing the floor of a packaging factory. But that's the beautiful thing about it, you learn to appreciate a lot of the smaller things because you were one of the people that set a lot of those things in motion. It's amazing to see exactly how much actually goes into everything.
On top of that, you get to see how a lot of things end up working, which is a huge bonus for people like me who love to poke at and take things apart.
So to try to sum all of this up, we all just want to do what we love, and in the end we can. The best way to get there though is to go through the grunt work and appreciate the process that happens. People say that everyone should work in retail or service once so they know what goes on on the other side. I just say we should do at least one thing that we never want to have to do again.
