Blue Collar vs. White Collar Work

Well, it has been a while since I have checked in with a new blog. Truth be told, I have been busy. Some of the journey's life takes folks on are well beyond what one might think could happen. I was met with a short curve in the road in the form of an opportunity. I was needed by someone and I wanted to help them out.

Since leaving my position as a Special Education Director, I have been working through some thoughts about the future. Some have been emotions that are a bit of excitement as to the "what next" will be and quite honestly, a bit scared as to the "what next" will be. It was time for me to leave and move onto something different. I needed a change. I needed to process, and got some of that during the Summer of 2021. I worked hard on our property, trying to get things looking good. I spent some time reflecting on life in general and working through memories of the past thirty two years of service in public education. It had been a good run and I know I was able to touch many lives in positive ways.

Towards the end of the Summer, my wife and most of my friends (all being educators) started to head back to school. I had a sense of panic sort of set in as this would be my very first year in 32 to not be getting ready for a new school year. For educators out there, I think most of you will understand once the calendar moves from July 31st to August 1st, it hits! A great instinct that we need to start thinking about school once again. There are classrooms to get ready, planning with teams to happen, copies and schedules galore. I did not have any of this.

Then, all at once, opportunity came knocking at my door. I have an acquaintance who owns an ice distribution business. He needed help delivering ice to stores but they were unable to find anyone to help. Truth be told, they were getting somewhat behind and couldn't seem to catch up. For a month, I was helping deliver ice. The principle is straight forward. Fill up the truck with pallets full of ice, drive to stores inside and out of the community and fill the ice machines. When the day is complete, you come back with little to no ice and several empty pallets. There is an art to filling the machines by the way- level, even rows so the bags do not slide out onto a customer. Yet I digress. At 57 years of age and in good health, I figured I could make this work for myself for a bit and help someone out at the same time. The days were long, 11-12 hours when I first started as the temperatures were hovering between 100 to 106 degrees. The obvious summation of hot weather in combination of a plethora of rivers and lakes in our region equals picnics, boating and drinks needing to be cooled. Ice sales were out of the world. The reality for myself was I was throwing 10 or 20 lbs of ice into ice freezers multiple times each day. Again, although my body was completely exhausted by the end of each shift, I was thankful I was healthy and had the stamina to complete these tasks without collateral damage.

Looking at this from another lens, this job helped me feel as if I had purpose again. You see, manual labor is a great way to focus on generalities when your body is being pushed to the brink of what it is capable to being able to do. Another bonus of this job was I had a genuine opportunity to see how many others made a living in our region. Education is a challenging field to say the least but the vast majority of the people I witnessed living their day in and out lives were delivering goods to stores. Within the stores, workers were moving produce and products to their designated spots. I saw some customers give store operators a hard time (sorry, the customer is not always right) and the workers took it in stride while attempting to remain positive each day. I saw how retail operated from a level I would not have been able to see if not for this temporary job.

All in all, this was a good thing for me. I never would have seen myself operating power jacks, pushing ice into refrigerated trucks, pulling them out and throwing ice into machines on a daily basis. It was good for my body as well as my soul. The perspectives it gave me I believe, helped strengthen me as a person and helped me do some personal healing.

Blue collar work is different than white collar. There are positive and negative elements to both yet, they are very necessary beings that keep our country moving. The next time you open one of the freezer boxes and grab a bag of ice, please give a mental thank you to the people who put all of that frozen water inside. They deserve a shout out!

Until next time, I hope you have an amazing day!

Jon