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I missed my calling

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Some of us never achieved a career.

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Most of us worked or had jobs but only some of us ever had what I would call a career.

To me a career is a profession you train for, working your way up through promotions, increasing your pay, doing what you consider your life’s work. My employment was what was available at the time, where I could earn a pay cheque.

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Over the years I worked in tobacco, printing and at the newspaper. I also made tires, false teeth, jewelry and TV components.

I always chose to enjoy what I was doing and worked hard to be the best but none ever really reached career status.

I look over each of my jobs and know I gained huge benefits from each mentally, intellectually and physically. I earned many skills and much knowledge from each position. There was always gratification in doing a good day’s work, surviving, improving, gaining speed and earning that meagre pay cheque

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The most physically taxing had to be tobacco work. It was hard, back-breaking, dirty work. Priming hit you with everything possible. There were afternoons that were so oppressively hot you thought you would suffocate. Some mornings your hands, arms and face were numb from handling the bone-chilling, ice-covered leaves. The blinding burn and unbearable sting of tobacco juice in your eyes, the endless dust clogging your nose and throat, the occasional bite of torrential rains, the bumps and bruises from banging your head and body on equipment and the smashed fingers caught between baskets were all part of a normal harvest.

We worked every day regardless of what might be thrown at us during the season, from planting to stripping.

We worked through pain, injury and sickness because that’s just what you did.

In my isolation, I am enjoying the glut of sports available on TV. I used to just watch for enjoyment but these days I seem to be paying more attention and comparing their jobs to my work experience. You know, I never had a job where I only had to work for a couple or three hours every four or five days and earn millions of dollars.

I should have been a Major League Baseball pitcher!

twocentsworth40@gmail.com

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