Work conjures visceral love/hate responses. It shows off our strengths, reveals our weaknesses, and pushes us resistant, and sometimes kicking and screaming, into unknown waters to sink or swim. There are things in jobs we love and things in jobs we hate but at the end of the day, we get something from them—even if it’s nothing more than a hairnet line or aching feet.

Oh, I have worked lots of jobs over the years, everything from cleaning the neighborhood pool area (basically chair rearrangement) when I was in junior high, to endless babysitting at $2 an hour (don’t get me started on the recent inflation in babysitting rates—that deserves a whole post!). There was TA-ing for a religion professor, wedding catering, teaching Jewish history at a private school summer camp (the perfect job for a Mormon girl), floral designer (I can boutonniere anything), and many more. Each experience taught me something—a skill, a habit; each one exposed me to new things, new people.

I don’t think I ever really realized before how important these sometimes menial tasks were in my development. The mastery of those Eriksonian conflicts of identity and generativity were woven into these “contributions to society” or these things I did for the noble cause of cold hard cash.

I’ve worked part time, I’ve worked full time, I’ve worked overtime, I’ve worked no time. Not all work is paid work, as many thankless interns and volunteers (and mothers) can attest. Some of my best work experiences have been unpaid. Working for money makes you think about money in a new light and consequently all the things you spend it on.

So indulge me as I glance in my rearview mirror of work gone by:

First grade teacher, circa 1996, rural Virginia. Lesson: I learned how to think on my feet. How to survive in only the company of a couple dozen kids all day. It taught me to be spontaneous: I can make a puppet of Kermit the frog read books amazingly well. Rewards: Those kids have permanent residences in Miss Whyte’s heart and I experienced the very genuine warmth of a small southern community. And my copy machine skills are cracker-jack.

Teaching at the college level, circa 2000,  BYU/Bay Area, CA. Lesson: I got assigned to teach a six-hour college lecture course (yes, they were exploring alternate scheduling). That pretty much helped me overcome any fear of speaking to a group for any length of time. I had to learn how to build a class from the bottom up and deliver a few times a week interesting, meaningful content. I had to supervise people old enough to be my mother and grandmother. Reward: A twenty-minute sacrament meeting talk doesn’t make me bat an eyelash.

Special Events Artist, circa 1995, Provo, UT. Lesson: I became a master with butcher paper, pastels, and sharpies (probably lost a few brain cells along the way due to permanent marker fumes and helium) and it taught me to think creatively. I had the job of transforming hideous large commercial spaces into things festive and holiday-like with the help of hundreds of helium balloons, lots of paper, and streamers. I concocted life-sized suspended ice skating Santa mannequins and enormous cereal bowls of Cheerios made out of baby pools and bagels. Reward: It was where I met my college boyfriend, but I didn’t wind up marrying him, so scratch that. The skills do come in very handy for PTO and church functions!

Child Life Specialist, circa 1999, Downtown San Francisco. Lesson: Well, I overcame any fears of navigating public transportation. As a professional necessity I had to learn to talk to everyone; there was no room for shyness. You got a patient census and had to meet them, assess them, and plan for their needs. Reward: Competency in my profession, confidence talking to anyone, and the most exquisite memories of watching the fog roll in on the Golden Gate Bridge when I would work into the evening.

Artist, present, Massachusetts. Lesson: Has made me have faith in entrepreneurship, my own dreams, and the power of creativity. Reward: Umm, I get to paint for money. Does life get much better than that?

Medical Missions, circa 1999-2010, lots of countries. Lesson: Well, I have got rustic world travel down. I’ve mastered the art of occupying hundreds of kids for a week out of what I can pack in one suitcase. I am now very adaptable to culture and clime and exotic foods. Rewards: A passport full of stamps, thousands of smiles, thousands of friends the world over that all manage to fit inside my heart, and the constant realization that the world is actually very small.

I am thankful for work! My life is so much richer and fuller for all those experiences.

What about you? What type of work experiences have you had along the way? What lessons or skills came from them?

Related posts:

1. When I grow up I want to be a…
2. Boy jobs vs. girl jobs
3. How Do We Know?

In the early summer of 1991 we thought we had the world by the tail.  My husband had just finished his first year of law school and had been accepted to study international law for the summer in London.  Hooray! I’m no fool; I quit my job to spend the summer as his “kept woman” in a top-story room in a long-term hotel in Pimlico.  We pushed the twin beds together, made simple dinners on the room’s hot plate, and shared the bathroom down the hall with the other two rooms on our floor.   We had enough to spend about $10 a day but we were in London, in love, and in luck.

Greg had studied hard all year, treating his law school gig as a full-time job and then some.  Everything hinged on the high stakes, end-of-the-year exams—all of that work boiled down to one set of tests, which would in turn determine internships, Law Review placements, and (it felt like) the future.

In July my mom phoned with the results. We huddled with the public pay phone on the stair landing as she read off the grades.  Torts, good.  Criminal, good. “What about contracts?” He was particularly fond of that course and had worked especially hard.

“Umm….plus”

“What? A+?!!”

No. When she repeated the grade, he was silent, stunned.  A grade in the basement of grades was what he got.This may seem like a small blip but Greg was bewildered and devastated.  He spent the remaining weeks in London going over what might have gone wrong.  Apologizing. Regretting. As soon as we arrived back home he headed to the law school.  The professor showed him his exam, where he had aced the answers in the first two blue books but the last few were missing completely.  Greg was sure he had done them (and pointed out his titles “1 out of 5,” etc., on the blue books) but, at that point, it was done.

. . .

Our culture places a lot of emphasis on achievement: grades, rankings, titles, money.   Lately, though, I’ve been much more interested in stories of failure. What do individuals do in the aftermath of failure?  Give up? Laugh? Charge forward? Avoid trying entirely? Recently I read about a Stanford professor who assigns students to create a failure resume, a description of every personal, professional, and academic failure and what was learned.  What an intriguing (and painful) idea!  She says that our failures are just as important as our successes and are indications that we are growing, challenging ourselves, taking risks, and expanding our skills.   Since there is a fairly predictable ratio of successes and failures, if you want to have successes, you’re going to have failures, too.

I use Greg’s experience here (with his permission) because it felt big and changed our path.  I have a long failure resume of my own that includes things great and small:  failing in a calling and learning how to ask for help and look beyond my own discomfort, flopping in giving a lecture and learning to have a back-up plan and ask better questions, and failing spectacularly in the stake musical by forgetting to wear bloomers for a kick line and learning to laugh at myself, be more organized and, well, wear bloomers in a kick line.

As for my husband, he got back on his feet, worked hard for the next two years, and graduated at the peak of a recession.  With no job in sight, he joined the Air Force JAG Corps and eventually landed great jobs in the private sector–in contract law, no less. We have been able to live in interesting places and meet some wonderful people.  The “failure” ended up opening up many more possibilities & blessings than we had dreamed for ourselves.   We’re left with a deep feeling of gratitude for that grade.

. . .

What failures have helped inform your life?

Is it easier to learn from certain kinds of failures than others?

What lessons would be on your failure resume?

*Have you read Hugh B. Brown’s The Currant Bush lately?  I love its message of the potential blessings of failure and setbacks.

Related posts:

1. Living By the Rules
2. My Mother is Better Than Your Mother
3. Finding my inner backbone