Plague Journal, Work In Retrospect
I am not sure when I learned to work. Learning how to work, is open ended, a quest that one pursues over the arc of years until one no longer has any curiosity, or the will to expend further energy. Work is the expenditure of energy in a focused fashion to achieve a more ordered environment. As disorder is a “natural” state of things, there’s always a need for work.
Work is not simply about money. Money is a useful medium of exchange by which we acknowledge our need for food, for shelter, for clothing, for ideas which others are prepared to offer… Our dollars are meaningful tokens of appreciation for what others do for us. That is my viewpoint. No man or woman is an island, — by ourselves as individuals we are insufficient, incomplete, needful of a place within a larger community. Others are essential, together we are able keep the fire going.
I am unsure when I engaged my first lesson about work. I have a dim memory of being handed a mop by my father, and instructed by demonstration in the use of a mop to clean the floor of my room. I learned under my father’s supervision. I can recall many additional lessons learned in contexts of formal employment, for which I am grateful. That lesson of how to hold and wield a mop served me well when I worked part time for a Winn Dixie food store as a high school student. I worked late hours, mopping the tiled isles of the produce department, housewares, etc. Those were good lessons. I remember my boss-teachers, Mr. Win and Mr. O’Brien with gratitude. They were hands-on businessmen.
Prominent in my recollections of work are the two years that I spent in a laboratory for Monsanto Chemical Company. I learned to meticulously record test results from the big Instron tensile testing machine. And there were the hours spent in a darkened room with the technician observing test samples with a GE scanning electron microscope. I learned close observation skills, and how to write up test result reports. The hours spent in collaboration with individuals smarter than I, was an example which served me well for the rest of my professional life. Monsanto has was sold to and absorbed by 
Bayer AG in 2018.
On the evening of Christmas day, the chaos of opened gifts, a carpet strewn with wrapping paper and discarded cartons, was cleaned up at last and we relaxed together in the living room. Our grand daughter of 13 months of age, having 
recently mastered the difficult skill of walking developed an interest in several objects which had been stocking-stuffers. The objects were 3 miniature bottles of Rum Chata and 1 bottle of Trader Joe’s Habanero Hot Sauce. One by one she carried these miniature bottles, which were sized to comfortably fit her small hands, to place them at the far end of the sofa. She would then retrieve the bottles and bring them back to me. The activity with the bottles captured her imagination. She felt pleasure in transporting them. After this back and forth a few times, finally she dropped all four bottles into a large size cardboard box.
Would I characterize this activity of a thirteen month old child as an early lesson in work? I would. I am confident that she is in process of discovering the pleasure and the routine of work. Keep in mind that she has yet to master the beginning of speech, the skill of using language to organize her world.
