This is me, fresh out of high school during the mid-90s, washing machine parts for my mom's employer. I think they were for oil rigs. Who knows, who cares? That place stunk, even with a respirator. And the chemicals burned through my apron and gloves.
Worst. Job. Ever.
Anyway, that summer, I worked weekend overnights at a local Tejano radio station playing music in Spanish but talking in English (God bless Texas). But during the day, I went to school and cleaned machine parts.
Working a dream gig while working the worst job ever was...hard to handle.
Now to my mom...
She was the HR Director and could have gotten me a cozy job as an errand boy, but she chose the hardest job in the building for me.
Why?
She didn't want to play favorites. And she wanted me to learn a lesson. That I'm not above hard work.
I internalized that message. All of it.
So much so, I managed to build a career and harden my feelings in such a way that I can do hard things, ridiculous things, things that nobody wants to do. Things that may (or may not) work because they're so outlandishly hard.
Here's to hard work. The struggle will always be real but the results are never guaranteed.
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