When I was in junior high and high school I worked for my dad. While other kids my age were making $3.25 an hour working at McDonalds or a grocery store somewhere I was making $7 an hour as an gofer for my dad. Dad was an electrician and would bid jobs in our area. At the time is was nice money just working a few of hours a night a few nights a week after dad got off his full time job. I learned so much working on those jobs.
One of dads big things while doing new work was stapling the romex wire straight and tight. I spent hours on so many jobs untwisting that wire, pulling it tight, and stapling it up so it was a nice straight line. There were a couple of reasons that dad had me spending time on a seemingly trivial task of stapling wire. We were working on a house that belonged to dad’s cousin and I was doing my thing pulling wire to where we were going to put outlets when he told dad, you don’t need to make it look nice besides all that will be covered with drywall. Dad explained to him that it was a matter of saving him money on supplies because we use less wire when it is pulled tight. For me it was kind of a “ah-ha” moment, we are saving money that is why I spend the time to pull it tight. Later after we were done for the night and were heading home dad told me the other, and to him the more important reason, for the extra effort. Dad liked his work to look neat and orderly. The fact that all his work will be covered and no one would ever see it didn’t matter. He explained that just because people couldn’t see the work that we did didn’t mean that we shouldn’t do the work right. It is easy to take the easy way out and do things half way when no one is looking, dad taught me that I need to work hard and do the right thing especially when no one is looking.
Looking back now I see it less as an after school job and more as a time that I got to just be with my dad and soak up all that he would teach me. We worked so many jobs and I learned many things from dad but this small thing was a defining part of growing up for me. I think that it is the little things that dad didn’t even realize he was teaching me that has meant the most to me in my life.
