I’ve worked in my office for about 10 years now and small town life is beginning to fit like a well-worn shoe. Growing up in a fairly large city I wouldn’t have believed that working in a community like this would bring the fulfillment that it has.


Things apparently look much different at age 40 than at 20 or 25. Is life supposed to be coming into focus in a clearer way the older I get? Or am I seeing my preconceptions turning fuzzier? I’m not really sure. Maybe both.


At any rate, what is enjoyable about working in a small town is small town people. They’re just different than people in big cities – not always in good ways, or bad ways, just different. I think it’s that way a lot of times, with jobs and places and circumstances, that the people involved are a key part of happiness.


I’ve had jobs where the work and the money were good, and some where both those things were lousy. And it’s a cliché, but people – both customers and co-workers – have always played a bigger part in determining my level of enjoyment and fulfillment than the money or benefits.

Or even the type of work involved.

The first real job I had was working for a small regional grocery store chain in the meat department. In our stores, like many others I suppose, you worked one of two jobs in meats – either you worked the counter, where customers would pull the little white paper number tab and wait their turn to tell you they needed two pounds of ground beef and a chuck roast; or you worked with prepackaged stuff.


For the most part, I worked prepackaged. This meant you worked a lot of the time in a huge meat locker opening large boxes of chicken and pork and then using a shrink wrap machine and labeller to put the meat into smaller packages for people to buy.


And this was the first job I actually had to apply for.


Before she retired, my mom used to work for a government agency that matched the unemployed with employers looking for help. She was always getting me temp jobs – day stuff, mostly, that usually paid in cash. But the summer I turned 16 I actually applied for the job at the grocery store.


I filled out a standard government application and I got dressed up and everything, even wore a tie. I was expecting the formal questions that I thought you always answered during an interview (‘tell us a little about yourself,’ that sort of thing.)


Instead, I showed up at the grocery store and was directed to see Helen. She was the supervisor of prepackaged meats. As she walked me to the back of the store I was incredibly nervous. I’d never done ANYTHING like this before. I’ve been hardwired from a very early age to always aim to please other people and I think that if I hadn’t gotten the job I would have been incredibly depressed with myself.


As we approached a room toward the back, she took an apron off a nail. “Well, you’ll need this,” she said or something like that. I don’t really remember exactly because I was too nervous to hear much of anything. My mind wasn’t comprehending what was going on. Nervousness turned to shock, however as my presumption aboout the way this was all supposed to work wasn't matching what Helen was saying or doing. She was explaining where I would need to stand, introducing me to the 2 people I was going to work with.

There would be no interview, apparently. I had a pulse, I spoke English with reasonable fluency, therefore her assumption must have been I could work. Standing there in dress slacks and a shirt and tie, I looked around at everyone covered in the sight and smell of chicken blood.

And I was hired.

Or, more specifically, drafted.


I hated this job almost right from the start. Helen was a terrible boss, and it was apparent from day one that everyone around her learned to endure rather than admire her. She was competent, don’t get me wrong. But she was just very, very cranky.


And the work itself was terrible too. I was always cold from going in and out of the meat locker and my hands were always lacerated because we’d have to open up huge boxes of chicken leg quarters and break off the ice they were packed with to get to the chicken.


One night I was working alone packaging leg quarters again and the skin on my knuckles felt like it was on fire. I already had band-aids on several fingers, because the way my job worked was this:


I’d pick up a forty lb. box of chicken, drop it back down on the pallet to break most of the ice free, and then take the top off the box. To separate out the chicken I had to push my hands into the loosened ice. It felt like I was sorting through a box of shattered glass, tiny cuts covering the backs of my hands. I’d then drop the chicken pieces into a large plastic tub and when the tub was full I’d haul it into a separate room to be shrink-wrapped, weighed, and labelled.


I’d been doing this for nearly an hour when real tragedy struck.


I was alone in the meat locker and after opening what must have been my third or fourth box of chicken, I decided to catch my breath for a moment. The heavy lifting involved was another aspect of the work I had grown to hate, and I knew I’d have about a thirty second window to rest in the cool air before I’d start to feel cold again.


Leaning on a crate of packaged meat, I looked down at my hands. The skin was chafed, too pink and raw. But then I realized…


I was supposed to have THREE band-aids on my hands. I was sure of it. I had one spot on one knuckle that had split open and I looked with horror at TWO fingers with band-aids and one now band-aid-less finger wondering how long it had been since the band-aid had come off.


It was nowhere to be found in the meat locker and the only other place it could be was in a package of chicken – one of the maybe fifty or so that I’d already packaged, sealed, weighed and labelled.


Some of them were already on the shelf.


I pictured myself like someone in a B-horror movie kicking open the meat locker doors. “BACK!” I’d yell. “THIS ISN’T SAFE TO EAT!”


But that isn’t the sort of thing I was capable of, at least at that age. Instead – me, aiming to always please, remember, not wanting to rock the boat – frantically pored over package after package of chicken, turning each one over and over in a fruitless attempt to find a ¾ inch wide bandage.


Fifteen minutes of searching yielded no results. I never did find the thing.


Which means…


But no one ever complained. No customer, to my knowledge, ever returned to the store demanding to know how something like this could happen. No lawsuit was ever filed.


I could say the most important thing I learned from all of this was not to worry so much about the small things in life – but is finding someone else’s band-aid in your packaged chicken a SMALL thing???


But the bigger thing I saw was this: I hated the job, the actual work involved, but it would have been endurable had I not been working with a boss that stressed me out all the time. I really hated working there because SHE was there. She’d watch over your shoulder correcting every little thing you did, the way you did every little aspect of your job, the way you’d lay something down on a table next to you (Not there, keep that stuff out of the way! she’d gripe at you.)


And I finally got up the courage to quit. Sort of. When school started back up I finally went to her and said I had to leave. The schedule was just too much for me. I couldn’t do BOTH work and do my best in school, so there you go.


But every once in a while, I think about Helen and the other people I worked with. And it’s really kind of sad, that the thing I liked the least about the job was her. I can only hope there isn’t anybody out there thinking that same thing about me. If so, I guess ignorance really is bliss.


And I guess that I hope my wife and I will be able to teach our kids just how much you really can affect other peoples’ happiness.