Tricks of the Trade:

Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho 

It's home off to work we go

I always worked, for as far back as I can remember. Even as a kid, I was taught that anything I wanted, I had to earn myself.  We didn't grow up with much money, and my parents always worried about paying the bills.  I learned quickly that neighbours loved to give a cute little kid a few bucks for helping them out around the house.  My first jobs included walking dogs, gardening and lawn work.  I remember making fifty cents working for hours picking dandelions for a old woman up the street who liked to cook and boil them for dandelion tea.

When I got a little older I got a paper route, for awhile, I juggled two, delivering the morning paper before school and the afternoon edition when school was over.  I still worked around the neighbourhood, and spent a summer when I was 14 digging holes for frames for all the neighbours wanting new patios. The day I turned 16 however, I headed into town on the bus and within a few hours had my first official job. That first job was as a porter at Sears.  I'd take the bus in town everyday  afterschool and empty garbage cans, cleaned the executives offices and raked the rug in the office suite of the boss.

I went on to work at several stores and business's all through my high school years.  I knew my parents couldn't help me financially with University tuition and knew that I was on my own. After I graduated high school,  I started looking for jobs connected to my profession in social services.  I worked in group homes, taught afterschool rec classes to disabled children and worked as a mentor to kids at risk of going into the system.  At one point during my final year of University I was juggling four jobs, one as an overnight worker at a homeless shelter, in order not to go in debt.

Even when I finally graduated and got a full time job, I held on to some of my part time jobs to continue supplementing my income.  I always worried about giving up income and struggled to say no to any shift or job I was asked to do. 

In my early twenties, I got an offer for a better job, a supervisory position, one more up my alley and one with more responsibility and one with more money.  Taking this job meant I could leave my second and third jobs, but it also meant I had to move to a small rural community where I didn't know anyone.  I did find someone to move with me so I decided to take it.  Until recently, I never really ever looked back.

Almost 20 years later, I'm thinking of again changing gears, this time... putting things in reverse.  Although I have just 1 job, it is one with incredibly high stress.  I currently dream of moving back to the city and again juggling a couple of part time jobs with less responsibility and more flexibility to take time off and travel.  I've put off a move for many reasons, habit, and Covid, but I'm getting the itch to move again. We' will see what 2023 brings.

I have a great deal of respect for work, and for employers that value and treat their employees well.  I've worked in both unionized jobs and non-unionized jobs.  Unions are great thing, but I've also been in the situation of having to work with really horrible co-workers, some who risked the safety of others, including my own. They were able to keep their jobs by using the union and loopholes in the rules. 

We all spend so much time at work, it's essential it be a welcoming, safe space where you feel free to be who you are and express how you feel. This is especially important to people of color and members of the LGTBQ community who still, in some places, can be fired for who they are. So, to all those workers who check in and enjoy FH, whether you're a hunky homemaker, a teacher or a lawyer, a salesperson, tradesmen or a buff builder..  Whatever you do, enjoy your job, and enjoy your Labor Day Weekend!

Thanks to MichaelAndrews73a and his Naked Calendar Men, who's work provided many of the images for this Labor Day post.