My career as a builder

I want to tell a short story of my very first job that my then-parents found for me.

My Motivation

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I was a teenager, 14. It was my summer holidays and they thought it’s a great idea to find me some job, so I’d know what it is, to work.

For some reason, they found me a job… as a builder.

It was the time I had my first¹ interactions with the computers, so doing some retrospective later, I thought why oh why didn’t they tried to find something I was actually interested in doing in my life, with computers. Why this? What for?

To give you more context, I was a kind of person who was just very bad at doing something by hands. But their motivation wasn’t me getting better at it. Their motivation was for me to taste the hardships of life early.

As if my childhood was one big holiday.

They wanted me to taste how hard it is for them to work. How hard it is to earn money. Their argumentation was to give me this ‘what it is to have a job’ feeling. They saw me as a lazy and careless person, who needs to taste life.

As in ‘Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.’

I didn’t need motivation for work. I never needed that. I am a fucking workaholic, and it’s the tremendous issue in my life. There’s no way anyone can say I’m not motivated. There are just different tasks and jobs, some of them give me yawns, some of them wake me up in the early morning with the feeling of excitement.

They never knew me and never understood me. Nor did they do at least the tiniest bits of efforts to change that. They only forced me to fit into their understanding of life. It’s a miracle I’ve managed to stay creative.

Predictably, I absolutely hated that job. I just started to realise these are random people in my life. I didn’t choose them, nor did they chose me. It all just happened to them and me.

I was too young to have that experience. The whole context was killing me, and I simply didn’t understand what was happening. Nobody cared enough to explain me something, to motivate me. It was just ‘you have to work’ treatment.

I don’t know if that was actually legal for a school kid to work on a construction site. Although, the parents managed to put me there without any documents regardless. I don’t think they cared.

The Job

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I was a handyman, kind of. I have no correct word for that. I was just a person whom they asked to do various things extra hands would do. ‘Go there, bring that, go away.’ That was my job. Actually, it wasn’t too bad. I was a part of a construction site for a medical laboratory, two storeys, with the location not in the busy city, but among the trees. It was wonderful.

I hated the job not for that. It was miserable, and I wasn’t ready for it. Nobody prepared me for that, nobody even tried. It was like ‘go to work,’ like ‘go away or else.’ It was an ultimatum, for no particular reason. Neither the family needed those money that much, nor my salary would be huge. It was about $200 a month, eight hours a day, five days a week. About $1.5 an hour.

My life become like that:

• The job started early mornings, I won’t recall the exact time, but it was about 6 or 7 am. I had to wake up at 5 am, so to eat something; walk about half an hour to a distant bus station where the special bus was collection the workers; and it took us about 20 minutes by the bus to arrive to the construction site.

• They had some kitchen in there, as part of the complex was constructed already. We worked half a day, then we had one hour break, to eat something and rest. I remember me falling on something horisontal and sleeping the rest of that hour. It wasn’t even some power nap, I was exhausted. Then, I managed to survive the rest of that workday somehow.

• I was coming home at about 3 pm. It was a lunch time in our family (the parents were farmers so always at home, and I had an older brother at summers, he was studying in his university many miles away). I remember me skipping the meal, to get some rest before that.

• Then my brother was waking me up.

  The next morning.

I spent two weeks in that hell, then I came to the parents and made my ultimatum: I’m not going there any more. Full stop. No more conditions.

Honestly, I don’t remember whether we had any conflicts and all the details, but I’ve never visited the site since then.

I hated it for not the hard work it actually was. I hated it for my parents never even trying to understand me, and help me achieve something in life. They wanted me to know my place, and not be the smartest ass with my harsh comments (they were tired of).

I’m not even asking about them helping me to achieve something in life by doing what I love doing. That’s too much of a miracle.

Conclusion

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That job didn’t help me in any meaningful way. My boss was a wise person though, once he said that phrase: ‘look kid, to not work like that, you have to study well.’

I never studied too well at school (meaning marks). But I always followed my interest, which helped me to learn most complex things in life.

I earned $100 or $80, I won’t recall the correct amount. I gave my money to the parents, since I didn’t need them. All the pocket money they ever gave me, I didn’t have that feeling they are mine. As I had no means for investments, I just collected them. When they needed money (which was happening sometimes), they asked me for money, and I gladly provided. So, this time, I just gave them the money. Money themselves never motivated me. I needed interest in the first place.

Money are just numbers, aren’t they?

When I’d have my own kids, I’d love to help them find some meaningful job early in life. To introduce them to some interesting things to do.

I will appreciate whatever profession they’ll chose for themselves.

And I won’t force them to be whatever I want them to do, that’s for sure. I’m going to appreciate them as they are. And teach them to be honourable people.