A Good Job

When I was a student at Princeton, I spent Thanksgivings at my grandparent’s house in Gilford, NH, rather than suffer the long trip home to Florida. Gilford is a picturesque New England village near Laconia, complete with a white steepled church and village green. And Nana was a far more accomplished cook than my Mom. I’d take the orange and black Suburban Transit bus into NYC and travel the rest of the way with my Uncle Roy.

Roy and I were walking through the village to fetch something or other from the Village Store, when we walked past a man laying brick at the side of the Town Hall. Roy surprised me : “Now there’s a man with a good job.” Very funny, I thought, coming from a Madison Avenue veteran to a soon-to-be big time lawyer. I was half way through the Yeah-sure-right eye roll dance when he stepped in front of me. “Listen to me.”, he said. “Most days, when I come home from work I have almost no idea what I’ve accomplished. Even on a good day, all I can say is that I wrote a research report that got Phillip-Morris to place 500 transit ads on City busses.”

“At the end of the day, that man will collect his tools, turn around and be able to see exactly what he did today. And 30 years from now, he can walk by this spot and tell his grandchildren that Grampa built that addition to the Town Hall.” I just shook my head and continued on to the market. Only a high school dropout would lay brick. I had no idea what the Hell he was talking about.

Today, I do. There is an immense satisfaction in doing what I do; building and repairing things for people. Diagnosing and solving repair problems is just as good as solving a case on CSI for me. And working with my hands keeps me agile and fit. Then there is the hero aspect. Someone has a problem and the friendly neighborhood maintenance guy walks in to save the day. I’ll never forget the night, during the ’98 Big Sur El Nino storm, when Peter Littlejohn and I spent part of the night on the roof at South Coast, wrapping tarps over holes where skylights had been blown out in gale force winds. The looks on the faces of the folks inside was worth any risk.

John Soper at Esalen, talked about “Quality of Life”. And how we should always try to improve the quality of life, for ourselves, family, friends, the planet and its passengers. Manual labor is good for the body and easy on the brain. And a really good job.