2012 in Review PT 2: “For jobs, I grew up in the best of times”

[“2011 is gone and forgotten. Gone because 2012 has lurched into the room in soiled pants and most people can’t look away. Forgotten because there are many growing trends - all too familiar - to keep us fully occupied.” G. Harrison, 2012 in Review PT 1, Friday, Jan.6]

Many Canadians will lose sleep as the erosion of good jobs becomes an ongoing occurrence in our country.

Thoughts like “My job may be next!” and “I’m just a pay cheque away from tough times” will become common place.

While good jobs continue to disappear for a variety of reasons (e.g., down-sizing, right-sizing, corporate greed, weaknesses associated with the free market economy, short-sighted government policy, etc.), I must admit that, as I look back on my job history, I grew up in the best of times.

In small-town Ontario, 16 miles south of Woodstock and the 401 highway and 40 miles north of Long Point and Lake Erie, jobs grew on trees - or tomato vines - as far as I was concerned as a ten-year old. I had my pick of part-time jobs helping local growers bring in their harvest of tomatoes, asparagus, apples, strawberries, green and yellow beans, bales of hay and a variety of other crops.


["Jobs grew on trees - or tomato vines...": illustration GH]

At such jobs I not only earned decent pocket-money but learned valuable life lessons as well.

For example:

Cutting asparagus hurt my back

After picking tomatoes I could quickly wash my hands by squishing a ripe (but marred) tomato between my fingers

Wear a long-sleeved shirt when tossing hay bales

Ask for help when throwing a 50-pound sack of green beans onto a truck

If I saved up, tomato money would last until Christmas.

Full-time or year-round jobs didn’t grow on trees; one had to be in the right place at the right time.

In my case, I was offered my first year-round job while bouncing a tennis ball off the back wall of the Norwich public school when I was 10 -11 years old. Francis Webber saw me there, noticed I had nothing better to do than chase after a ball, stopped to chat and soon asked if I wanted his London Free Press paper route. 40 customers. $4.00 per week. Back home in less than an hour.

I took it and soon bought - out of my earnings - my own large metal carrier for my red CCM bicycle (the carrier was the perfect size for 40 copies of the Free Press and a complimentary canvas bag) and in good weather I could finish my route in 30 minutes and be back in bed by 7 a.m. Easy - kapeasy!

Why, I was earning almost 80 cents an hour without even breaking a sweat!

Stay tuned for more of “the best of times.”

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Please click here to read 2012 in Review PT 1: Good jobs will continue to erode

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