I got a job

I got a job when I was 13 working for a tree farm in Idaho. Child labor laws be damned. I worked for two months that summer. 40 hours a week in the sun weeding seed beds and enduring racist Native American remarks from the inbred mountain idiots that I had for coworkers. My Dad would drive me and drop me off at 6 in the morning and I rode my bike the 3 or 4 miles home down the gravel canyon road at the end of the day. I sat in the dirt and drank Gatorade from my giant cooler jug. For lunch I ate the Frito's and PB&J sandwich that my Mom packed that morning. When I came home from my first day I collapsed on the living room floor and slept until I had to go back. The farm owners were indifferent to the needs of their employees, clearly possessing a much deeper fear of not paying their bills. The solution, overwork and micromanage their employees to be triple sure they are all working, all the time. And we did. I saw people being fired on the spot a number of times for simply not being able to keep up. We kids worked alongside migrant workers who were getting paid less than us to do even more work. They were happy enough to be employed despite the endless harshness bestowed upon them by both fellow workers and supervisors. A mental lashing for being born on the wrong latitude in the wrong time. It took one serious shower every day to get the layer of dirt off. The best part of the day was the end. I would ride down that canyon road as if I were flying, at the bottom of the long winding drop through the trees the road turned to pavement and I swear I was the God of speed and Lord of the wind. There are times I miss riding home like that. There are times I miss it all. By any standard it was a rough job, especially in our new age of hygienic cubical isolationism. Maybe I just miss being a kid, with loving parents and a good home, having a terrible job I knew I could quit at any time instead of having no choice but to find a good job that I can't leave. We're never really happy until we accept that life is pain.