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Fresh air, sunshine, dirt, and hard work. These are a few of the qualities that go into making the perfect summer job. To those who have spent a good part of the school year indoors, under fluorescent lights, and mostly sitting at a desk staring into a Chromebook, there’s nothing like being outside, unplugged, and getting your hands dirty.
Outdoor work opportunities abound—greenhouse, construction, animal or produce farms, zoo, parks, beach, a fishery, kayak rental, and the list goes on. For the sake of simplicity, and because of my personal experience (and because kind of think it’s the best), I’m going to focus on produce farms—though so much of what follows can be said for other outdoor jobs.
Produce farms are just about everywhere in Ottawa County. I had the good fortune of spending my high school summers working for one that grew everything from strawberries to beans to melons and everything in between. I weeded, I hoed, and I picked—in all kinds of weather. In those long days of summer, I learned to toughen up and tough it out. And in the process, I grew up a little.
You actually move. You don’t sit at a desk, or stand at a cash register, you are hoeing, or kneeling in the dirt, or loading and pushing a wheelbarrow through the dirt. You breathe fresh air all day long. When you leave at the end of the day, you’re tired. Really tired. From the heat, the work, all of it. And it feels good. It feels like an accomplishment. And the perks aren’t free fries, but rather fruits and vegetables that you snack on while you pick them. Fresh air, check. Vitamins, check. Exercise, check. Improved health, check.
Few things can gnaw at a budding work ethic like physical discomfort. Working outside helps you become resilient, or at least more tolerant, of summer weather. Your body learns to adapt again to temperature changes you don’t find in climate-controlled buildings. You work when it’s cold, when it’s hot, and when it’s just right. When it rains, you put on rain gear and learn to do your job in a different way. Memories of putting on rain suits to pick corn come to mind. When it storms, you might get a surprise day off. You can’t always say that about retail or restaurant work.
You can’t help but learn about the produce and in so doing you become a steward. Suddenly those wrinkled green peppers at the grocery store aren’t as appealing. You find yourself questioning how store-bought produce was fertilized, sprayed. You see and taste the difference. You’ve learned the importance of caring for farmland and our resources that while now might not feel significant, someday down the road you may vote a certain way because of it. And someday, if you decide to grow your own food, you pull out those skill you’ve tucked away in the recesses of your mind.
You learn a deeper sense of responsibility because if you’re late or sick, you see how that affects the farmer and even the farm. You realize this is a job where you’re counted on. It feels like you’re helping a cause, a person rather than a corporation. Your work is needed.
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If you get to go to the farmers market to sell the produce, your math skills are bound to improve. For those who find work in retail or the restaurant industry and step behind the cash register, I can’t necessarily say the same. You can blame Vimeo, PayPal, and other forms of electronic pay and the push to pay with plastic, and most certainly we can blame electric cash registers. All have played a part in having made the art of giving change increasingly harder.
My change giving skills were learned this under fire working at a farmers market. The pace was fast. Initially I could jot my figures on a notepad. But peer pressure influenced me to give that up, stack the numbers in my head. And this was all keeping the astro turf covered table stocked with produce, answering vegetable-related questions from the customers, and flirting with the farm kid across the aisle. Now granted, I didn’t have to do sales tax. I recognize percents add another layer of challenge. And also, this was in the era before Common Core math, so my mental math tends to be faster than those assimilating columns in their heads.
Even with Common Core math, not all is lost. The other day I witnessed something that warmed my hear. I was at a farm buying a few things. The farmer’s daughter, an eight-year-old, totaled my items—doing the math on paper and then, for good measure, counted on her fingers. Such great training for her.
Math is just one of those skills that you will always need but feels like we’re losing the ability to do. Like cursive. The generation that didn’t learn it has lost a connection to history. It truly is sad. How can they appreciate letters from the war, parents’ diaries, journals, family heirlooms. They’re an encryption of swirly letters in their own language but at the same time foreign and incomprehensible.
My appreciation for anything farm raised or handmade, my desire to protect our natural resources, my work stamina, and of course, my better-than-they-were math skills stem from my experience being a worker on a produce farm during my summers off from high school.
As you consider employment for your teen this summer, think about the benefits of being outside, unplugged, and feeling that good kind of tired after a day of having hands in the dirt.
Krista Yetzke is a native of Ottawa County. A jeep-driving, guitar-playing wife, mom, and everyday adventurer, Krista was raised on the love of Jesus, the great outdoors, the arts, the value of frugality, and the beauty of food as medicine.
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