Searching for a job is anything short of demoralizing - seems like a harsh description but believe me it is challenging and I can't think of a better way to describe the process.
I am 50 years old. I have been working since I was 15 - by that I mean I have been working in exchange for money since I was 15 prior to being paid for work I provided free-labor. It wasn't child labor - it is what you do! I grew up on a farm. My father was the jack of all trades and we were his helpers. Our farm was 320 acres. The actual arable land was 100 acres the remainder was a hillside of sedimentary rock. We lived in a valley with the Rocky Mountains in the back drop. It was a beautiful.
Farming in British Columbia is not for the faint of heart. It is a way of life - a passion - at least in my opinion it has to be because the revenue from the farm wasn't enough to raise 5 children as a result my father worked full-time for a transport company. When we moved to the farm (my parents purchased it from my grandparents) I was 7 years old. The fields needed to be plowed and planted. I remember my father planting the fields by hand: round and round he would go turning the wheel of the hand-seeder. I recall picking rocks from the fields he plowed. Hours and hours of work in the hot sun - the days seemed like an eternity. It was a difficult task physically and mentally because regardless of how many rocks we picked there always seemed to be a thousand more waiting to be carried away. Just when we thought we were free he would turn the ground again. One summer I remember spending the day picking rocks with my older brother. We could see the heat waves dancing above the ground - enticing and taunting us - all we could think of was plunging into the lake. It was all we talked about: how good it was going to feel to rid our bodies of the heat that had consumed us for 10 hours. But as the day came to an end the clouds rolled in as we looked overhead we knew our hopes were being swept away by the storm that was willfully finding its way into our sleepy hollow with the first lightning strike our plans were derailed.
But plowing the fields and picking rocks was just the beginning of summer work project because once the planting was complete it would have to be irrigated. Every day we moved sprinkler pipes and once a week we disassembled the irrigation system, loaded it onto a wagon and hauled into the next field. Several weeks would pass until harvest time which was an emotionally charged time on the farm because the crop had to be cut when the weather was good. If the crop got rained on it was ruined and all that hard work was for not. Our mother would agonize, worry and predict the worst outcome. At least once a season the crops were rained on which is another reason that farming has to be a passion because growing oats, alfalfa and barley certainly wasn't deemed as a cash crop but it did pay for the equipment. Seems rather strange to me now that most of the crop's proceeds simply paid for costs of doing business. That is how we spent our summers.
But the end of summer didn't mean the end of the working season because adjacent to our farm was a 3000 acre woodlot or as we called it: a Christmas Tree permit which explains why to this day that the smell of sap and pine needles brings back memories of work not magical moments of red suits and cheer. Prior to beginning the harvesting of trees we would dig up the 5 acres of potatoes that my parents planted and move them to the root cellar. In many ways there always seemed to be a master plan: keep working. The weekend after the first frost which was usually in late September or early October my father, grandfather and uncle loaded their chainsaws into the back of their trucks. We spent every daylight hour trekking along the mountainside searching for 2 foot, 4 foot, 6 foot, 8 foot, 10 foot and 12 foot trees to cut. My brothers and I were the 'haulers'. The trees were dropped and it was our job to drag them to a designated area for collection. At the end of the work day all the trees would be loaded and transported to the tree yard where the trees were bailed into bundles. The only part of the job I enjoyed was tagging each tree. It was an easy job that required a stapler but that job was usually given to one of my younger sisters.
There were times when we threatened to strike but my dad was always a good sport about our mutinous behaviour. He tried to make it fun - he would laugh, tell us how great we were and then raise the stakes! It was hard to quit when we knew he worked hard but the year that we cut 10,000 trees was over the top. I guess if we had been paid by the piece there might have been some incentive but our incentive was the personal satisfaction and gratification that comes with an honest day's work - I suppose. We were rewarded with a family vacation to California: 24 days on the road in a station wagon but that's another story.
Then when I was 12 years old he decided to build a butcher shoppe. I don't know why - I guess it was founded in the rational of trying to get by. He taught himself how to be a custom-cut butcher. If I remember correctly it was 12 months after he had purchased 14 cows. We were so excited when he brought home the calves. We rushed to the barn with eager anticipation ...... The meat cutting commenced when he slaughtered the calves. Initially, the meat cutting was conducted on the kitchen table which would explain why the butcher shoppe was built a few months later. Again, it was a family business.
When I was 16 I thought the way to escape work at home was to get a job; a plan that quickly back-fired because what I failed to factor in was the fact that the work day doesn't end at 5:00 not for farmers. So by the time I was 16, I could run a tractor, chainsaw and a band saw; I was competent and well-versed but more than anything I understand first hand the meaning of hard work.
Over the years I managed restaurants, owned my own business - twice, worked for a large grocery retailer as the Health & Safety Co-Chair, worked as a sales rep for a manufacturing company, event manager, fundraiser, administrative assistant and volunteered extensively; I was the chairperson of the Parent Advisory Council, representative of the School Planning Council, fundraising chair of a variety of associations, art director and set design, publisher, want-to-be writer, author of several fundraising strategies, secretary and board member of the BC Brain Injury Association and the Brain Injury Association of Canada. I have managed campaigns, ran for city council, been actively involved in politics. I have been a speech editor and a speech writer and in my spare time I am a painter, plumber, electrician and carpenter. I am competent in many ways. I finished a bachelor's degree while raising 3 children and working 30 hours a week. I have an endless amount of energy. I am fearless but unemployed.
I have applied for 50 jobs in the last 3 months. Searching for work is an onerous task and yes, a demoralizing one!
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