As you get older and hopefully a little bit wiser, you tend to also become more cynical. Perhaps because you have been around the block so many times, your feet are stuck firmly in a rut. Today during an idle conversation with an old and dear friend, I found out something that as the day progressed I thought about more and more and have decided that I really do admire the person who was the subject of our discussion. I have never even met the man.
I have known my friend for over 40 years and had lost contact for a good many years. During high school we were best of friends but my friend married shortly thereafter and as time would have it, we drifted apart.
I moved several times over the 40 years and my friend did the same with both of us leaving our home towns. I married and had two kids, my friend married and had kids as well but the marriage did not last. My friend struggled for years raising the kids and earning a living for them. Eventually my friend met a new beau and they married. This one was a keeper. My friend brags all the time how hard he works, how dependable he is and so on. He helped her raise her kids and did such a great job they call him Dad. What a great compliment.
Together they bought a home, raised the kids and settled into a somewhat smooth position in life. They are both savers and saved as much money each month as they could from their checks. They like many others have felt the pinch of this terrible economic down turn that is affecting so many people. Their kids are grown and gone with families of their own so staying in the New York Metro area with all its taxes and charges was no longer so important. My friend's job with a large foreign corporation was being downsized after 25 years. Her husband's job was tenuous at best as a salesperson for a large company in New Jersey. They decided to make a move.
Their daughter lives in North Carolina near the beach so they decided to take a look in that area for new home. They liked the area on previous visits and decided to take a trip south to do some house hunting. They looked at dozens of existing homes but decided to purchase a new custom built home instead. The months it would take to build the home would work well with selling their existing home and doing all the things need to make a move 1500 miles. Not an easy step.
The ensuing months were spent packing, sprucing up their home, listing it with a real estate agent and doing countless other tasks that had to get done. Finding a good agent was no easy task as well. The first was terrible and never showed the house. Six months later they moved on to another more aggressive young fellow who really seemed to want to make a sale. He did just that in short order and for more that the asking price. Now the time clock started. Could their builder finish before they had to close on their existing home? What to do with all their things if the answer was no? They were both holding on to their jobs as long as possible to amass as much cash as possible for the time that would occur during the move and looking for new jobs down south. Packing and yard work had to be done at night or weekends as time allowed.
Each week my friend's daughter who lived close by to the new home would take progress photos and email them north to keep them aware of what stage the house was in. The builder also provided weekly updates as to the homes progress and projected completion date. The builder was very aggressive in completing the work on time and in fact missed the completion date by only a few days. Far less then the bad weather days he experienced during the work. As late August rolled around the new buyer of their home here in the north wanted to close and the house in North Carolina was still not quite ready. That meant packing and storing al their belongings and living out of suitcases until the new home was ready for them. Luckily they had access to a small log cabin nearby they could use rent free for a few months. Still close enough to commute to work each day but much, much less space than they were used to having. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, they made the move to the cabin and settled in for the wait. The wait was a short one. Within a week or so they were both down sized from their jobs of over thirty years each. Now it was time to go south.
As luck has it, only a few short weeks later the builder called and said the new house was ready and they could close anytime. A quick trip south over a weekend to do a walk through of the new home and prepare a punch list was done and the date was set for the move. They said the home was almost perfect and the builder had done an outstanding job.
They moved along with all the normal things that happen during a major move of the sort, they quickly settled into their new home and began enjoying their new life in the south. Much less snow and cold weather, close by to their children and grand children and only a few minutes from the beach. The first few months were spent setting up the new house, installing ceiling fans as they found ones they liked, and all the other odd things that needed to be done in a brand new home.
My friends husband was constantly searching for new job but the job market was extremely poor and the south ever poorer. The closest thing he found that even partly resembled his line of work was a job that was over a two hour commute each way each day. Four hours travel a day was just not going to work. He kept looking and looking. Newspapers, ad agencies, unemployment offices and the internet all offered very little hope of anything even close to his sales job type of work. So he did what many men do when they need to support a home. He took a job at a local supermarket bagging groceries for barely more than minimum wages. It was a job and brought in at least a few dollars each week.
His first job bagging didn't last long as the store saw he obviously could handle much more difficult work and could work alone so they assigned him to the gas station portion of the store. He did it but was really unhappy just pumping gas. Without complaint he showed for work each day and pumped the gas as he was paid to do. The fact he was earning a day what he used to earn an hour bothered him but he took the job seriously as it was after all, a job. Within three weeks the store again decided to move him inside to run the produce department as it required keeping track of daily sales, orders, unpacking produce and the like. A lot more work with the same money. It didn't matter to him as after all it was a job. He of course wanted more money but the job market just wasn't there. He went to work each day doing what he was paid to do and then a little more. His work ethic was above reproach not because he thought there was any advancement or for that matter ever going to be any more money, it is just his way. Do it right and do it well.
As he settled into the job he found that often there simply was not enough time allowed to get all the work done that needed to be done each shift in the few hours they gave him each day. As with many companies today, they allowed only a 28 hour maximum work week so as to not pay any benefits to their employees. He tried his best to finish the work each day but it became harder and harder on busy shopping days. He often found produce was not unpacked and placed in the refrigerated areas for storage and so on. He stayed to finish the work but the store manger instructed him not to work past his allotted hours each day. No exceptions would be allowed.
I found out the other day during a chat with my friend that her husband is still working at the market for the same pay, for the same amount of hours but when his shift is over, he clocks out and then returns and finishes the work. I am not kidding. If you looked up the words "work ethic" in the dictionary, this guy's picture would be right there. Big as life.
Not important? Not a big deal job? Not going to change the world? You are correct of course, but if guys like this were held up as role models, think how much better things could be. I finally found someone I can admire in this day and age and he is not a sports legend or scientist or teacher. He is just a regular Joe with a terrific work ethic.
Pete Ackerson
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