dan said to me yeterday that he wished he was "gainfully employed." i understand this issue because he's been looking for a long time and being more and more frustrated by what he's found--about zip, right now. i'm a practical person by nature; i would rather work at a job i dislike than go without funds for bill paying, food purchasing, book buying, etc. but lately i can see his point.
my dad's been gainfully employed for 30 plus years of his life with the same company. what has he gained? a house, a truck, retirement eventually, part of all of his childrens' college educations, funds for my sister's wedding. every payroll he STILL puts a dollar into an account for all four of us kids. the man is my epitome of a good man, and i'm SO blessed to have such a loyal and patient man as my father.
but then turn the tables. what has he lost, what has he sacrified for this company, in order to remain "gainfully employed." he lost a lot of time being my dad. he lost time being my mom's husband. he gained stress that added to his heart disease and eventually pushed him over the edge and into 6 bypasses, and a change of life involving exercise and diet that was, in a word, radical. i remember when mom turned 50 dad got her a snowmobile suit. they don't snowmobile. he got it for her because she's always cold, and he inevitably was away at school in canton, oh, during every massive blizzard we ever had.
i just got an email this morning from dad. they've changed his schedule again; now he's supposed to have weds and thursday off, instead of his normal sat/sun or sun/mon. recently his schedule was "revised" due to the doctor's note requiring him to work no more than 50 hours a week--his new schedule is 11-8 monday thru saturday. it's ridiculous for a man who's up at 5 and feels the day is "wasted" if you haven't done anything by 8 am. it's hard to change this many years of habit. so he's already stressed about that. my mother apparently has had enough. she wrote a scathing (for my mother, it's scathing) letter to dad's immediate boss at work, one that hopefully will change something. dad's retiring at the end of june, and it's not a moment too soon, but maybe, just maybe, they'll see that they need to accomodate their employees.
who wants to be gainfully employed like that? no one i know. i feel lucky to have the job i do--i dislike it a great deal of the time, but when i think about dad's job, and how they've yanked his chain over the years--it makes me sick. dad was raised in a time when you stayed with a company for your whole life, when they cared for you when you retired, and where you were loyal beyond a thought.
times have changed; dad's morals have not. he is still the patriot who risked all in vietnam. he is still the dad who wept at my sister's wedding. he is still the husband who is proud to be with his wife. he is still the loyal employee who doesn't look for recognition or accolades at work, just wants to be appreciated enough to have his views and his needs be taken into account. he smiles when he could be frowning, plods forward when he could allow life to drag him down.
i always think about how my childhood would have been different, if he'd been a dad who came home every night before we went to bed, and if he hadn't been gone for a few months of the year training, and if he hadn't been on call every other weekend. when i was a kid we always took two cars everywhere, not because we couldn't fit in one, but because at any given time, dad might have to leave.
gainfully employed. i think about those words, roll them over a few times, and shove them out the door. employed is what most people are. gainful employment implies that you are getting something out of it other than a paycheck. for most of the world, that's just not true. you muddle through and you dislike your job, you pay the bills and fund your retirement, you buy your own coffin. along the way, at some point, dad had to have decided that the sacrifice he made for his company, to be employed, was gaining him something. i am sure and certain that dad saw putting food on the table and roof over our heads as more important than anything in the world, a gain that cannot be measured.
i just wish that he hadn't felt he had to do that.
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