The First Day of My First Job

Beeeep. Beeeep. Beeeep. Beeeep. Clack.

I smacked the alarm to disable that horribly annoying sound. It read six o’clock; way too early for the first day of summer, especially when you’re a fifteen year old.  If it weren’t for the anxiety over the day ahead of me, I think I would have hit the snooze button at least ten more times.  I got up, showered, dressed, ate breakfast, and was out the door with my dad by 6:30.

                On the way there, my dad asked if I was nervous.  Naturally, I hid any indication of fear and told him that it couldn’t be that bad. When we finally got to the ranch at around seven, my boss and presumed coworker were waiting for me outside the barn.  They spent a couple of minutes showing me around the ranch, introducing me to the horses, and talking about various projects I would be working on throughout the summer.  After the brief tour, I was immediately put to work.  My first task for the day and for everyday from then on was to shovel the stalls of the five giant horses housed in the barn.

My coworker informed me that the horses were just babies.  Being a Clydesdale mix however, they were already larger than your average horse, and ate enough for two horses.  When we entered the stall of the first horse, the smell nearly blinded me.  I pretended like it didn’t bother me and watched observantly as my coworker showed me how to properly shovel a stall.  While it seems like a trivial task, anyone who has shoveled stalls before will tell you that it is somewhat of an art, except with a pitchfork in place of a brush.

  After watching him complete the first stall, it was my turn to take a stab at the second.  With pitchfork in hand, I tried my best to successfully locate and remove all of the horse dung without wasting any of the seemingly priceless hay.  Despite giving my best efforts, my inexperience was apparent and I was criticized. After a few more stalls worth of practice however, my coworker gave me the stamp of approval and allowed me to finish the remaining stalls alone.

When the stalls were dung free, I reported to my boss to get instructions on my next task. He disappeared briefly before returning with the most industrial looking weed-eater I have ever seen, complete with handle-bars and a harness so you can strap it around your shoulders. It was the Harley-Davidson of weed-eaters, the end-all, be-all of weed destruction.  

My boss showed me how the machine operated and pointed at a massive dirt mound that was infested with overgrown weeds approximately as tall as me. He looked at me and said, “The mower can’t handle that so I need you to. Don’t stop until it’s finished. “I swallowed. I knew that that mound would take all day, maybe longer, to finish.

 I immediately got to work and hated every microsecond of it.  It was well over a hundred degrees that day, and the resulting sweat caused all of the particles of weeds and dirt to stick to me as though I was being tarred and feathered.  It was unbearable. My ears pleaded with me to stop the constant beating they were taking from the engine of the weed-eater. My skin sautéed under the sun. My muscles ached.  Alas, I trudged on, slowly hacking away at the weeds. I contemplated giving up at least a thousand times, but I didn’t. I kept at it.

                By the end of the day there wasn’t a weed left on that hill, and there wasn’t a clean spot left on my body.  I never had to undertake such a horrible task for the rest of the summer, so I imagined that it was some sort of sick test my boss had thought up to determine if I was worth keeping around.  I’m glad I passed, but even more glad that I never have to do it again.