Random Act of Gratitude #5: Odd Jobs

This is one from the vaults. That'll happen around here now and then.

Yesterday I was talking to a friend about a job she once had. It reminded me of one of my many, many past jobs.

When I was in university, the summers were spent trying to make some money. Some years I had several jobs just to get enough hours together to help pay in the next year for textbooks, a portion of rent, or whatever.

For three summers, I spent part of my days employed by a well-off woman as her gardener. No, there was nothing Desperate Housewives about it. I didn't really know much about gardening, but luckily she had prime dirt or something because they always did well. She told me basically what she wanted planted -- be they fruits and vegetables in the back, flowers in the front, or some potted arrangements on the deck -- and I did my best to prepare the ground, plant the things, and nurture them as best I could. She even paid me to plant and preen the flowers at family graves and at the church, to whom she donated all of the flowers and my labour.

In addition to the gardening duties, however, she would sometimes ask me to do random jobs around the house. Painting doors here and there, organizing filing cabinets, even changing lightbulbs might occupy my days. Seriously. She would ask me to change lightbulbs.

Well, it didn't take a rocket scientist (which is good, because I don't know much about rockets) to realize what she was up to. She was making work because she wanted to give me some money. I needed work for money. She had money. The missing element was, occasionally, the work, so she just invented some.

I've never forgotten her kindness and still appreciate how she supported me in her round-about way.

On a slightly off-track note, I remember one spring, she said to me, "I looked out of my kitchen window and saw the back garden and thought to myself, 'That garden is flourishing!' Then I realized that I hadn't asked you to come and start gardening yet!" It took 15 hours that year just to rip out all of those weeds and to prepare the vegetable garden for the season.