Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Be a Ditch Digger

My dad always told me "I don't care what you do honey.  Be a ditch digger.  But be the best damn ditch digger you can."  It was usually said in response to my angst about not knowing what to do with my life.  Don't get me wrong.  This is the same dude who would also try to convince me to drop out of school, get married and have babies as a career option.  Between the two extremes, there's not really much in the gamut of career choices he put forth.

Bereft of parental input, I did what every college student does.  I postponed deciding.  I went to grad school.  Cuz school I knew.  School I was good at.  But eventually I couldn't put it off any longer.  Grad school was significantly less satisfying than undergrad and I was forced to live on $6K a year which was less than when I was an undergrad.

I feel really lucky.  Incredibly lucky.  OK.  I feel like a savant.  I backed into a career that I loved.  One that fed me in every way for 25 years.  I would listen to my friends talk about their jobs and wonder why they did them if they hated them so.  It took me years to comprehend that I had been given an extraordinary gift.  I had, in the words of my dad, "fallen into the shitter and come out smellin like roses."

When I started working full time in research the people around me were creative, smart and goofy as shit.  So while experiments were cooking, there were chair races in the hall (one that nearly put me through a plate glass window on the 7th floor), unicycles to attempt, people to kill in effigy, booby traps to lay for unsuspecting lab partners.  There was so much laughter and some really great science in those days.

I'm not sure when that changed.  Maybe it was when my employer decided to become the number one pediatric hospital in the US.  Maybe it was during the first (repeated again in the second) Bush administration that strangled funding for research.  Hell, maybe it's as simple as we all got older.  All I know is that the light went out of the research as it became more and more corporate.  It stopped being fun.  The people around me became increasingly buttoned down and tedious.  That is just a bad combo.  Researchers work best when they are allowed a creative and open environment - kinda like artists only they work with DNA and stuff.

Anyway - that part of my life is over.  Maybe I will go back to it, maybe not.  Until then I am puttering.  Started work today as a cleaning lady.  Not quite the ditch digger.  Probably closer to the married with babies.  The thing is - that I liked it.  I mean really liked it.  I KNOW.  I was as surprised as anyone.  It was dirty and really hard work.  But I have had a job with lots of responsibility, stress and requiring LOTS of thought.  Cleaning a dirty toilet, while it isn't exactly smelling of roses, doesn't create stress.  I mean, no one's gonna die or lose funding or get fired if I don't clean it exactly right.  And if I daydream or scheme a bit of plot in my head who cares?  Who would even know?

I am not above hard work.  Everyone should have a job doing physical labor at some point in their lives.  If for no other reason than to make you more aware of the people serving your food, picking up your trash, hauling your packages cross country and, yes, even cleaning your toilet.  And at the end of the day I know I worked hard, got done what was expected and still had lots of time for poetry.  There is a respectability in working hard that lets you sleep well at night.  Enjoying it - that's just in my DNA.

1 comment:

  1. Well, if you're looking for more customers - sign me up! And I agree - focus, intention, awakeness, the now - they're all present in excellent cleaning! And the joy that produces the good sleep. xoxox

    ReplyDelete

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