After reading Riva’s Escape (a side story of Revin’s Heart), one of my beta readers commented about how they appreciated the way my writing recognized the value and significance of work. In the scene, Revin (who has just transitioned) is pressed into service working in the kitchen of a restaurant washing dishes. This got me thinking about how my own experience with work has impacted how I write about it.
I started working on a farm before I was legally old enough to work. At age 15, a friend and I were hired to bale straw. We rode on a wagon behind a tractor grabbing bales of straw that emerged from the baler — a complicated machine that was powered by a shaft from the tractor. We would take turns carrying the bales back and stacking them up until the wagon was full. It was hot, dirty, and dusty. Looking back, my current lung condition probably wasn’t helped by breathing all the dust. We would often work until it was starting to get dark. I remember coming home in the gathering dark, taking a shower with the sluicing off me, closing my eyes, and feeling like I was still bumping along on the wagon. Years later, I tried bailing hay. As an adult, I was hired to work by myself on the wagon (ie, working twice as hard) and lifting bales that weighed twice as much. I lasted one day.
I spent two summers as a high school student working as an animal caretaker in a toxicology laboratory. It was a bleak, proletarian existence. You were required to punch a time clock within seven minutes (five minutes before the hour or two minutes after) to punch in, then punch out before legally required breaks and lunch, punch back in afterwards, and then punch out at the end of the day. I was on the “large animal” team that cared primarily for beagles. Other teams did mice, rats, rabbits, and monkeys. The entire windowless facility had tan walls, gray floors, and unfinished ceilings with black-painted duct-work, pipes, and wiring. The animal rooms had two banks of stacked cages with a big floor sink at the end. I would go into a room, clean and fill all the water dishes, then pull the trays under the cages one after another, wash them in the sink, then replace them. Finally, I would recheck the water dishes and clean/refill any that were empty. (Some dogs, desperate for stimulation, would dig in their water dish as soon as you filled it.) It became so routine that I could daydream during the process to the extent that, when I got my schedule out after leaving a room, I sometimes had to check to see if I had just finished a room or just arrived.
I worked for a year as a busboy at chain seafood restaurant. There, I had perhaps the worst boss I ever had as an employee. In the restaurant, there was a lounge attached to the restaurant with an entrance for patrons and a passage containing the busboy station near the ice and soft drink dispensers for waitstaff. The boss would walk through those entrances in a big circle and every time she came around, I was doing the wrong thing. “Why are you bussing tables! The floor is dirty! Sweep the floor!” So I’d carry my tub to the dishwasher, get the sweeper and start sweeping the floor and she would return, “Why are you sweeping the floor! There are tables that need to be bussed!” She was pure evil.
I worked for a while as a gas-station attendant. When I was in middle-school, they had kids take the “differential aptitude test” — one of the many standardized tests used for nefarious purposes by educators — that included a component that was supposed to help you identify potential career options. I knew that I wanted to be a field biologist, so I tried to pick options that I thought would be aligned with that goal: Yes, I liked working outside. Yes, I liked working with numbers, etc, etc. Eventually, the computer spat out an answer: it said I should be a gas-station attendant. So, when I actually worked as one years later it was a more than a little ironic. I actually liked it quite a bit, though it was not a particularly good choice as a career, with poor pay and limited options for advancement.
I had a lot of different jobs over the years. I was a dishwasher in a college cafeteria. I worked as an archeological faunal analyst. I was a Spanish-speaking bilingual teacher’s aide for a migrant worker education program. I was a substitute teacher for a time. (That was horrible.) I did scientific field work in many different contexts: catching birds, lizards, mongooses, etc. For several years, I was an “edutainer” traveling to elementary schools to teach about science. I visited hundreds of schools in a dozen different states.
Eventually, I returned to graduate school. I pursued a PhD in Science Education. (I also got a Masters in Earth Science studying wetlands hydrology). While I was doctoral student, I got tasked with setting up a computer lab and then the Internet happened. These experiences led directly to my career as a faculty member serving as the Director of a computer center at an R1 institution. In this role, I performed a vast number of teaching, research, and service activities. (My curriculum vitae is more than 20 pages long.)
These work experiences have all informed my writing in multiple contexts.
I find that “work” is actually a somewhat loaded and conflicted word. On the one hand, it can mean the drudgery you are required to perform. But it can also have the connotation of your calling, your “life’s work,” which for many people becomes nearly their identity. Some people detest work while others strive for the ideal of “do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” I have deep respect for the work that people do in all walks of life. And I was pleased that this was reflected in my writing to the extent that someone noticed it.
