Usually if I have to wake someone, I try to be gentle. But, kindness went out the window the morning I opened that $300 phone bill. I marched to my son’s bedroom, yanked the covers off and harshly announced, “I don’t care what time you went to bed last night, you are getting up now and go look for a job!” Since high school graduation, he had been interfacing with computer bulletin board systems around the country into the week hours of the morning.
“Awww, Mom!”
“Look at this phone bill. It is $300 and most of it after midnight. I know you don’t have enough to keep up this lifestyle. Go find a job.”
A couple days later, he was mowing lawns with a man from our church who has a lawn service. Late nights at the computer were replaced with dewy fresh morning departures. By late afternoon, he returned, a tired, green-stained funny smelling creature who paid off his phone bill and bought clothes for college.
At the end of his first year of college, he mowed yards again. Before he went back to college that year, he said, “I do not ever want to have to mow lawns again. I’ve seen want ads for college students to work part-time at businesses around the university. When I get back, I am going to apply at some.”
A couple weeks later he called, “I have an interview to be a computer program tester. What do you think I should wear.”
After discussing various choices, he mentioned that his interview was on the 38th floor of the highest office building in New Orleans. His dad said, “Better wear a really nice suit and tie to that interview.”
Later our son called back, “They have a very strict dress code, Dad. Nobody is to ever wear a tie or suit. Most of them come to work in jeans and casual shirts. There are free Cokes and coffee at the office. I have to work 20 hours each week, but I choose the daytime hours around my schedule.”
He had entered part-time office work heaven and loved it and he flaunted it in fact. “I bought a monthly commuter’s ticket for the bus to my office. At my bus stop, I guy a newspaper and cup of coffee to drink while I read my morning paper.”
Eventually the job and commute pinched into his class time and study hours. For his last semester, he quit work and pinched pennies so he could finish, take and extra class and enjoy life before looking for full-time work.
When he came home this spring, we invited folks to visit. The lawn service owner stopped by for a few minutes.
“Hey, you going to be here for a couple days? I need someone to help mow lawns,” he teased.
“No way! Every time I thought a class was too hard, or that it was forever until graduation, I thought about pushing that lawn mower and I got busy studying. Thanks for the job, but I don’t ever want to earn my living mowing lawns again.”
“Glad to have helped you get your education,” the lawn man said and lined up my youngest son to work the next week.