Rewards

So what, exactly, is work? According to the dictionary, it’s a whole lot of stuff! It makes me tired just reading about it. And how do we learn to work? I will segue from that to this…

My first job was my worst one! I was probably 4 years old (Don’t laugh…I’m serious.) and I had to pick up my toys and clean my room. The task reduced me to tears. Something no other job ever did. OK, so that’s usually everyone’s introduction to “work” and it’s not a pleasant one. So why do we continue? Rewards, of course. The reward for cleaning your room? None. That’s why I was never very good at it.

My first job that rewarded me in some way came along when I was about 8 years old. I was living with the Wofford family in Colton at the time. (Asthma had my family trying out different climates.) Dave Wofford worked part time at his father-in-laws print shop; Alan (his son) and I would be given money to sort the type and put it in the proper bins. It was tough work and dirty. The type was mirror image of course and so reading it required more than a casual glance. And of course the type had ink on it and there was no way to stay clean while handling it. The job had a title, “printers’ devil” and that sounded pretty cool to an 8 year old.

I should add that we would have done the job for no money at all...We had a title and we got to work in room filled with interesting machinery. What else did we need?