Work is love is dignity

2023-06-27

Dear reader,

Rusted nuts or stripped bolts aren’t my element. When it comes to working with sheet metal, I’d rather avoid it and keep my knuckle-skin whole. My dad showed me once how he changed the oil, but I didn’t find any more joy in it than he did.

On the other hand, I love the writing process, even when I hate it. Not because it’s all fun, though I do love to sit for hours and type out fresh paragraphs. But revising isn’t fun at all and that’s what I spend most of my time doing.

To get to the essence, I take every sentence and see if I can get rid of it. The frustration over going over a paragraph 40 times to turn it into one sweet wisp can make me as heated as if I were standing next to an evaporator. But I keep at it. The more I can sugar off, the better.

I noticed that I enjoyed this particular challenge at a time when I wanted to heal a wrong. I wasn’t happy in a prior job, an emotion I didn’t feel alone in. Most professionals I talked to about it were burning out at the same rate. 

I felt grumpy, but that wasn’t my main worry. There's lots of hard work to be done in Vermont, and not enough workers willing to do it. The power has shifted to employees as wages and flexibility increase, but there isn’t enough money in the world to go this way forever.

What if we went in the other direction?

Joy leaves clues. One person who taught me about love of hard work is Dave at Sonny’s Auto Service in Brattleboro.

When people ask me where to go for a mechanic they can trust, I often send them to the corner of Canal and Birge and into the care of Dave Slyk.

It’s not just that Dave seems to always fit me in when I really need it, even though he’s a sole proprietor and the sole mechanic.

I love how Dave never fails to include show-and-tell in the transaction, showing pride in what he’s done. He doesn’t complain about mud season when changing out my snow tires for summer. He shows me how I’ve set a new record for depositing gravel on his floor by pointing to the pile he’s swept up.

Dave doesn’t tell me it's good I asked him to change the cabin air filter. He brings the used one out to the waiting room and shows me how the old one is clogged with dust, leaves, and more. 

Dave doesn’t just push over the receipt for me to sign. He double-checks his math, smiles, and asks for my “autograph” with a pen in the shape of a wrench. He likes fixing things, keeping time at his desk with a clock made from used parts by a customer. Like me, he finds joy in gleaning, sending me off with half a bucket of fruit from his yard in pear season.

Dave’s fair but not inexpensive. I go to him when I can because through his actions I feel that he’s working for me, not for the money. He brings me under the lift to show me where the plastic engine cover is shredded and how he’s going to zip-tie it together again for now.

I’m grateful for Dave in part because of how much I’m grateful anytime I can get help with mechanical work.

But when I need it done, I’d rather take it to someone who answers the phone and who cares.

Dave’s in it with me for the long haul. He’s 68-and-a-half and shows every year of the wear-and-tear. The job has taken a toll on his whole body. But even when I sense the strain in his gait, I don’t feel bad for him.

Dave never fails to take my car in with courtesy and humor. About retirement, he says, “If I still feel good, I’ll keep going.” 

With the trust Dave has earned, I once considered how easy it would be for him to retire a little sooner if he sold me on extras I don’t need. Instead, he rotates my tires while informing me I’ll need a new pair of rear brakes this fall, and that I should plan for new tires in the spring.

I always come home with a story. As I was typing this column in the minivan bucket seat that sits in Dave’s waiting room, he asked me for a hand.

“I missed one,” he explained, asking me to hold a front bumper cover while he unscrewed one last bolt. “Oh come on,” he said a moment later, using a phrase I associate with frustration. But as he told me, he likes a challenge. When a bolt won’t come, he has his methods to try, one after another. He had it off in a minute with a quip about the cheap plastic cover. (Quality manufacturing is a value Dave bemoans the loss of.)

Finding joy in good, hard work is a kind of blessing I want for more people. In my experience, where there is joy in achievement, it’s not because it fill’s one’s cup of self-worth. It stems first from love for the work. Feeling engaged, and useful. I think that’s inherent in us—not something to be instilled, but something to be inspired by the right match of the challenge to the person.

Watch a baby. Humans are born explorers. We’re born to do, and to find satisfaction in doing together. Let’s do away with whatever’s getting in the way of that.

What if, instead of turning “work” into a four-letter word, what if the words we tied it to were “love” and “dignity”?

Plenty of hard jobs need to be done for our society to function, and those jobs seem to never pay enough. What if, along with valuing hard work with fair wages and equity, we celebrated more the joy, and the healthy self-love that arises, in rising to challenges?

As Dave might say—that could work.

Warmly,

Tristan Roberts

Quill Nook Farm