Compensation in the form of commission has always motivated me to work hard and deliver a quality product and experience.
Likewise, ‘commission’ taught my 4 year old daughter how to work hard.
We were visiting my dad’s farm in North Dakota over Father’s Day weekend. My sister, her husband and their 4 kids were visiting from California as well. This was the farm I grew up on, we go back a few times a year but this time with all of us there it brought back so many memories. Memories of how many days we spent working so hard on various jobs to keep it running smoothly. We were a team. I loved the reminders.
Aluminum Can Troughs
The trees behind the house held a huge trough overflowing with 10 years worth of aluminum cans.
Behind that trough was another, an even larger one, filled with scrap glass and steel. We would clean those troughs and sell the scraps to recycling plants. Cleaning out those troughs was one of the worst jobs on the farm; even worse than cleaning grain bins. Inevitably, we always ended up waiting until it was 90 degrees outside, high humidity and it would take us days to muster up the energy to get through it all. It was awful.
Our mindset was anything but positive when we were tasked with cleaning those troughs.
On Father’s Day weekend, my Dad, a true farmer and entrepreneur suggested that the grandkids clean out the aluminum trough. We hesitated right away, knowing we would have to be heavily involved in the worst job on the farm again. Or…maybe that was just me hesitating.
Yet, he knows us and knows how much we enjoy passing those lessons onto our kids. There is no better place to learn hard work and how it pays off, than on a farm farm. He coached them to put the aluminum cans in bags and then put those bags into the cattle trailer. His plan was to then haul those bags to the recycling plant and he would take the earnings and split it between all 6 of the grandkids.
My 4 year old daughter became disinterested within minutes.
As I was entertaining our 2 year old, I took her aside and explained the plan to her. I detailed out how we were picking up all of the aluminum cans and would then sell them. She became a little more interested and I continued explaining that once we sell them, we will get money for them and the money would be split between all the kids that worked together.
I emphasized that if she did not help, she would not get a portion of the money.
I barely finished talking and she was walking back to her cousins who were bagging the aluminum cans. Her attitude was completely different and she was excited to be helping. I stood there a little shocked that she was participating and so happy about it.
Unlike when we tackled this project as kids, it was fun! There was so much joy and so much laughter.
It was a gloomy 60 degrees, Grandpa threw all of the cans in a huge pile and the little ones wore gloves to protect their hands. I shoveled the cans and put them into the bags to make the project go faster, and they tried counting them all while losing count and laughing. It became a game that everyone was having a blast with.
At the end, my little hard worker sat in the lawn chair and said “I need a rest, Mama”.
They helped bag 316 pounds of aluminum cans and ended up with $20 in each of their pockets.
Now, she gets to spend $10 of those $20 on anything she wants. She will give $5 to a charity of her choice (which I can only assume will be an animal shelter) and save the other $5 in her bank account.
Most of all, I love that we spent quality time together sharing in the same farm experiences that shaped who I am today.
XO,
Angel
