On-the-job training

On-the-job training

When I was five years old my parents offered me a job. They proposed that they would pay me one cent for every ten nails I could pick up on the entire farmstead. Since I didn’t belong to a union it didn’t occur to me that I had the right to demand minimum wage and all the ice cream I could eat so I accepted their offer.

So the next day I went to work. I had job security because there were many, many nails to be found on the premises. The equipment required to do the job was a tin can to put the nails in and my own two little hands. My intention was to maximize profit by finding as many nails that I could find just as fast as I could find them. I was best nail scavenger nail on the payroll.

But then again I was the only one on the payroll because my brother was just a baby so the field was wide open. For a long time, it was fairly easy to make a good day’s wage because there a large number of nails on the surface of the worksite. I could put in short hours and make just as much as I cared to without much effort.

I wondered why the adults didn’t pick up the nails themselves but adults are not easily understood so I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and continued to do my job and to collect my wages.

But eventually, the number of nails to be found on the farmstead dwindled and I was having to put in longer hours to make the same amount of money. I decided to go to my employers and I asked for a raise of one cent for every six nails I could find to compensate for the overtime I was putting in.

The management didn’t grant my request. I guess I should have hired an expert team of negotiators but I wasn’t smart enough to think about then and I didn’t know any lawyers. My employers told me that there were plenty of nails to be found on the premises yet if you knew where to find them. I thought about that for a while. I considered making a career change but it was tough times and that was the only job I could find. I considered putting in an application to my grandparents who lived nearby but it would have been a long commute and the only vehicle I had was my tricycle. But I thought I would give it a shot anyway in spite of it being a flawed plan. Even way back then Murphy’s Law was in force and who should I meet on the road but my dad in his pickup truck. He made me peddle my tricycle all the way home.

A few days later I decided to go on foot to my cousin’s house beyond our fields but my mother who had the eyes of a hawk saw my red sweater going over the hill. In those days she could run faster than me so she caught up with me easily and gave me a spanking.

I thought this woman must not have enough to do if she spends time scanning the horizons. I decided to stay at home after that because my efforts to commute always ended badly -- into the doghouse and back to square one.

So I showed up for work the next day and surmised that if I didn’t want to put in a lot of overtime I was going to have to work smarter not harder, I noticed that more nails came to the surface after a hard rain. So I took Hawaiian vacations a lot and just showed up for work after it rained. I went on that way for a while but I began feeling kind of lazy so I started to work more often. I discovered that I could find a lot of nails under the junk pile and underneath the wooden granary.

I found some nails in the cowpens and around the perimeter of the barn. The runoff from the barn roof exposed nails that were deeper under the surface. Some nails could be found by exfoliating the soil in high concentration areas. I was really starting to enjoy myself and my job became a challenge.

My self esteem went up. I didn’t make it up to self-actualization on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but it was a step in the right direction. One day, I wasn’t feeling up to par so I decided that I would just throw in some of the nails I had already found from on the nail pile into my can. So, I had my quota in early that day and turned them in to my mother. I found out that day that not only did my mother have the eyes of a hawk but that she was clairvoyant as well. {Perhaps the rust from the already found nails on the pile was a clue.}

She said, “I think you just brought in some nails you’ve already been paid for.” I denied it but management didn’t budge, and I didn’t make any money that day. In addition, I was told that if I resorted to crime again, I wouldn’t be paid whether I worked or not and she let me go with community service of hoeing the garden.

Actually, I didn’t feel very good about myself that day and I learned that crime doesn’t pay. You can lose your job that way and it erodes your self-respect. I’d like to tell you that my behavior never fell into the gray area ever again but that would not be truthful. But I learned two valuable lessons that day. The time came when I thought that I had found all the nails on the place. I felt the pride of a job well done.

My parents were pleased with my performance as well. Much to my surprise, they said that they were going to reward my good performance with a position of more responsibility and higher pay. The new job description was getting the cows and gathering eggs for which I would be paid 25 cents weekly.

Everything I needed to know about work I learned in my first job. My parents must have learned a lot too because they seem a lot smarter than they used to be. We should all do the best we can do in everything we do because from small beginnings can come great things.

Janine Hall Pantenberg,

McCook, Neb.