“Grape Harvesters needed. Sign up here.”
I was standing in line to buy a bottle of wine at our local winery and saw this written on a piece of paper on a clipboard.
How cool would that be? I wrote down my email and told Alan I’d signed us up to be grape harvesters. A few months later, the email came. It provided all the necessary details: when, where, what to wear, lunch hour, and pay rate. Pay rate…I thought it was a pure volunteer position. But they were going to pay $16/hour to hang out in their vineyard and snip grapes off the vine. Total bonus. I was ready to go for free.
I don’t know what it is about these types of jobs that still attract me. I couldn’t wait to be old enough to detassel corn back in Iowa, which for anyone unfamiliar with this job, you basically spend all day in the cornfields walking the rows, pulling out the tassel that sprouts from the top of the plant. Oh, and we were always in a crew of girls, which meant lots of gabbing and probably a little gossiping, but more fun than one should get paid for as a teenager.
I also eagerly signed up to pick strawberries for the local farmer. And in college, I was super excited to get the job in the landscaping department at the university so I could spend the summer outside planting, weeding, and watering the array of flower gardens across campus.
All of the jobs involved early-morning starts, lots of spiders and creepy-crawly things, pouring rain and scorching heat, and the satisfaction one only gets when they see the literal fruits of their labor. Plus, an amazing tan.
I was kind of sad to grow up and get an office job. No wonder I biked to work, ran during my lunch hours, or took many walks in the afternoon.
I think I’m addicted to the outdoors. And like any addiction, it has its side effects. I shudder remembering those scrunchy tube tops that were wrongly popular in the ’80s and were the uniform for detasseling. And I know my obsession with being outside and tan came back to bite me with serious skin cancer, but it hasn’t cured me of my problem. I just don’t wear tube tops and slather myself with baby oil anymore. (I know…just typing that makes me cringe.) Now I look like someone who could rob a bank with my face coverings and long pants, long sleeves, and gloves. But I will do whatever it takes to get my fix!
So what is the point of picking grapes in the blazing sun on a beautiful fall afternoon when I could be doing a number of other things? I thought I could write myself to some profound answer, and maybe it’s not a deep revelation, but as simple as “I love it.” I love being outside. Always have and always will. And if someone is offering to pay me to be outside…that’s the sweetest money I could ever make. But I will gladly do it for free.
Does anyone else have a job they’d do for free? Or maybe you have a job and wonder, “Am I really getting paid to do this?” Those are the best jobs.
