I gave this topic to Tom out of interest and he did not dissappoint. I love the perspective that he brings on what “gratifying” really means. -Julia

Most Gratifying Moment in My Career

When assigned the task to write about my most gratifying moment in my career, my first thought was along the lines of how difficult it would be to choose just one. Now that I sit and contemplate the subject I am having the opposite problem: finding a most gratifying moment.  Let me explain.

It’s not as if I am totally barren of such moments in my years of earning my keep.  I have had quite a few wonderful times to reflect upon, and I plan to have many more such opportunities as well in the future!

Hmm, most gratifying? As in the absolute-best-ever-in-the-world-no-way-it-can-be-beat type of moment? That is a tall order! It will take some thought, so let me beat around the bush first.

I think I can remember the first time I ever made money working. It started at a very early age for me. Not counting getting paid to do some chores around the house, and leaving ineligible the personal start-up businesses like corner kool-aid stands and lawn mowing jobs, perhaps my first professional debut came when I was around five or six years old. My two brothers, a couple of neighbors and I teamed up to put on a show in the back yard. I think it was kind of a three stooges like clown act, but I can’t be sure of that detail. I also can’t recall if we charged a nickel, dime, or quarter, but nevertheless, it was a paying gig. I don’t recollect a standing ovation or even a request to do another show, but that is probably due more to my poor memory versus the likelihood that the requests did not come to us.

Perhaps my most difficult elbow grease moment came when I took on a job in my early teen years that was posted in the newspaper advertisements. A lady wanted someone to dig a one foot wide and two foot deep trench across her back yard. It didn’t sound too hard of a job, and I needed the money anyway, as is the normal rite of passage for a teenager.

What the advertisement did not say was that the trench was REALLY LONG, the ground was REALLY HARD, and the weather was to be REALLY HOT that day. To add insult to injury, I had no working gloves, since digging trenches was not my usual forte. I recall her paying me for 10.5 hours of work. She could have given me the extra half hour to make it an even number, but noooooooooo, she even gave me two quarters and did not round up to the next dollar. I had eleven blisters on one hand and I can’t remember how many on the other. I was one big grungy ball of dirt from head to toe mixed with the sweat which made me one big grungy ball of mud in some areas. I was so sore it hurt to think. After paying me, the lady asked f I wanted to come back the next day to work. I declined. I am sure my schedule all of a sudden had become quite full.

So there is the first and the worst, but what about my most gratifying? Hmm…

I recall the time I got fired by my best friend. Yes, I was a teenager here as well. We were putting together the erector set type of steel shelves for a small warehouse. The head Fred, a guy name Hugh, was one of those people of whom when he laughed you could barely see his eyes because his eyelids would shut almost completely. I had to get my wisdom teeth removed, and while recuperating at home, he gave my check to Jerry with the instructions to not come back again. That was the first time I ever got fired from a job. Maybe I was not the best teenage worker? Is the phrase “best teenage worker” oxymoronic?

So now it is truly public about the first time I got fired, and that is probably not what I can claim to be my most gratifying moment, is it? Didn’t think so. Darn, why is this so dang hard? Let me digress a little more…

I remember the lowest paying job I have ever had. I worked during the summer after graduating from high school as a Baskin Robbins scooper. I cannot recall the official title of the position, but if the starting pay is $1.65 an hour with an increase of $.05 after your thirty day training period, then perhaps there should not be a title. I more than made up for the lack of pay with the friendships I continued to spawn with my liberal friends discount policy and the points I scored by bringing home a pint of ice cream after work. The owner no doubt so his profits increase dramatically after I left for college.  So I guess you can call that the most dishonest I have ever been in a job. Guilty as charged, and I can only hope the statue of limitations has run out now. I would say that teenage status and low pay were a bad combination at that time in my career. 

Aside from eating ice cream like there would be no tomorrow, I can’t really call that my most gratifying either.

Here is my problem. I am a classic, hard working, over achiever where the end result can always be improved. If I reach the goal, then before I can really enjoy the achievement, I am already on to greater heights. I doubt that I am the only person like this. Maybe Da Vincci was that way and when he finished the Mona Lisa, he just said, “Eh, it will cover that mark on my wall in the living room”. Perhaps Abe Lincoln only spoke for two minutes at Gettysburg because he really just could not think of anything to say. You have heard of writers block.  He had speakers block.  Was Neil Armstrong really that thrilled with his vacation to the moon? He had to really tire of his two co-pilots asking how long it would take until they got landed.

Alright, alright. I’m wasting your time, I can tell by that look on your face. Truth be told, I can’t identify just one “most gratifying” moment in my career, and maybe that is a good thing.  It either means that there have been so many good ones that I can’t possibly say there is a best, or perhaps the best is still yet to come. Or, just maybe it is the combination of both. 

Now that is a most gratifying thought.

-Tom