What Kind of Work Did You Do?
Dylan has a new job. He’s been begging for a job for years. He loves to work, even if it’s just volunteer work. Over the years, he has had his own petsitting business, sung at a nursing home, and worked as a scarer at a local Halloween trail. He’s done odd jobs for my parents, too: shoveling their driveway, weeding the sidewalk, etc.
Dylan now has a real job. He had to fill out tax forms and sign up with an online payment company. Dylan is not allowed to broadcast the venue, but – since music is his biggest passion in life – he is working at an outdoor concert venue this summer.
It is work, but he is happy. After spending several hours on his feet, reading and re-reading people’s ticket stubs and showing them to their seats, then waiting for the entire venue to clear out, he climbed into the car, exhausted.
He still doesn’t drive, so someone has to take him to/from his job – which is fine.
Anyway, he climbed into the car, exhausted.
“How was it?”
“It was fine,” he said. “I’m really tired, but it was fine.”
“What kind of work did you do?”
“Inside the pavilion,” he said. “I looked at people’s tickets all night. I got pretty good at it, too. I started being able to remember their faces because the same people would, like, leave and then come back.”
“You checked their tickets anyway, right?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said.
There was a bit of silence while he rested for a moment.
“And you know what?” Dylan asked.
“What?”
“After six hours, I made almost as much money as I made shoveling my grandparents’ driveway for ten minutes!”
I laughed.
“There is a chance,” I said, “that your grandparents slightly overpaid you.”