Job hunting is a slow, miserable slog. I think potential employers know this, so in order to make themselves more desirable as an employment destination, they do all they can to spice up job descriptions.
Seriously, have you caught a glimpse of an online job board in the last half-decade? Every ad on those things is looking for “deadline-driven,” “energetic” people to work in the “exciting,” “fast-paced” environment of some “new,” “emerging” field. If the goal is to make prospective employees feel as if they’re reading a Michael Bay screenplay, well then, mission accomplished.
When I was just finishing up college and hunting for a full-time gig, I spent a lot of time scrolling down those job boards—LinkedIn, Monster, Simply Hired, Craigslist, innumerable local and industry-specific boards. Most of them evoked, in my mind at least, images of Kate Hudson and Hugh Grant clones running around New York in Gucci pumps and Armani suits. And I think that was the point. But so much of that simply did not, and does not, appeal to me.
I mean, I love a good chick flick as much as the next guy who loves his wife. But in spite of how glamorous so many employers try to make it sound, I simply don’t want to live in one. I love being a part of the agriculture industry. Ag folk seem more laid-back, more willing to live life at what the general public perceives to be a slower pace. If you take a minute to think about it, though, there’s very little that’s slow about a life dedicated to producing the world’s food.
People think a job at an ad agency in San Francisco is fast-paced? I’d wager they’ve never had to contend with a spud digger breaking down halfway through a field with a torrential downpour on the horizon. You think you can handle stress? Try staying calm when an employee breaks the news that he found a few tubers with pink rot in the very back of the cellar. Or praying that the forecasted polar vortex will hold off just a day or two more, because last year’s interminable winter pushed planting—and your entire season—back three weeks.
You think some supervisor in the mold of Meryl Streep is demanding? Try having Mother Nature as your boss. She tosses out hailstorms and droughts and 97-degree Octobers like she’s playing Skee-Ball. A job at Microsoft demands versatility? Please. I’ve seen a teenager who lives five miles past the middle of nowhere change the oil in a tractor, pull petiole samples from 11 different fields, move three sets of handlines, text his girlfriend, call his dad, and get the old Chevy stuck in the mud, all before lunch.
It takes a special kind of person to want to make a living from the soil of the earth. A grower once told me that he didn’t care whether his kids came back to the farm, as long as they found a way to be happy, because, in his words, “if you don’t absolutely love doing this, you’ve got no business doing it.” It’s one of the toughest ways in the world to make a living, a way of life that demands a lot and takes a considerable toll on those who choose to pursue it. There aren’t many dull moments on a farm, yet those involved seem to emit an air of calm and I’ve-got-this-ishness. You’d be hard-pressed to find an industry where so many people have so much reason to be stressed, yet seem to have complete control over any and all situations.
I’m grateful and honored to be so closely associated with such a variety of people who are so easy to look up to. As we welcome this new year, my goal is to be more like so many of you: poised, confident, ready to grab life by the horns and wrestle it into submission, willing and able to take on the hustle and bustle without the pomp and circumstance.
Agriculture is fast-paced, but you make it look easy.