Satisfaction

Another day at work. And it went great. Banter with the guys in the finishing room. Bonding with some of the guys. My work continues to impress.

It's so cool. I feel like I never had a job before. Not a real job. The other things I did for money were basically play-acting, pretending to do things. Making up things to occupy your time. This is so real.

I feel like I've joined some special fraternity, some brotherhood. Joe Lunchbucket. I'm one of the guys that Bruce Springsteen wrote all of those songs about. We're guys who work. Most of the vehicles in the employee lot are trucks. With National Rifle Association stickers on the back windows. We like beer. We like weekends. We're the backbone of America. We're what makes this country great.

There may be woe and trouble in the great wide world, there may be war and uncertaintly, the world may be a ball of confusion, but we know one thing for certain: we do damn good work. We work hard. Sometimes, break a sweat hard. We bust our asses.

It's amazing when the bell sounds indicating that a break or lunch, and everyone stops what they're doing, just drops whatever tool is in his hands and heads out. If it's lunch, we head to the timeclock and punch out. We sit. We grab coffee from the break room. We step outside to smoke in the parking lot. We sit in our trucks and read the paper. The tne bell sounds again and it's back to work. Back to busting our asses. It's poetic. Like in a boxing match when the bell rings and fight ceases. And there's an air of contest about the whole thing. But it's a team sport, shared struggle.

I stopped at Starbucks after work today. I was wearing my Carharrt carpenter pants. My flannel shirt was blotched here and there with maple stain I was working with today. There was a fine wood dust all over me. "Yeah, I've just put in a hard days' work. Did an hour of overtime." Can you blame me if I had a certain swagger?

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