Showing Up and the Green Beans

My mantra for grinding out the day to day.

At coffee the other day, someone said that showing up on time was the lowest cost, easiest way to get off to a good start. I have always believed in the simple mantra of “show up.”

The mantra of “show up” is really about putting in some effort. Show up mentally, physically, spiritually. Be present in the moment and do as good a job as you possibly can. Don’t worry about the end result, but concentrate on what you can do right now, today.

The core tenant of “show up” is really about putting your back into a job. If you are going to do something, do it well and take pride in it. There is no shame in showing up for work.

The results of this mindset is that the results start fading into the back. By focusing on what we need to do next, and doing a good job of it, the results will eventually come.

“Through the dry phases of calculations in her mind, she noticed that she did have time to feel something: it was the hard, exhilarating pleasure of action.” ― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

I have the utmost pride and respect for anyone who shows up for work and does a good job.

After delivering newspapers for a few years on my bicycle, my first job was at a local apple orchard. It was not a big operation, about 40 acres, but it was a family run orchard and we had 25+ different varieties of apples, plus pears, peaches, blueberries, and other items like pumpkins. The kid from across the street and I went down to the orchard, found the owner, and asked for a job. My neighbor didn’t show up the next day, but I was there for three years.

The average length of employment at the orchard was six weeks, so we saw lots of people come and go. The job was hard work, outside, and minimum wage, so the employees tended to be people just getting by, or people trying to work themselves out of some bad situation.

At the time, I didn’t have any appreciation for what these people were going through. I came from a family where my dad was an engineer and we lived a modest but better-than-average lifestyle.

My coworkers in the orchard were from the other side of the tracks. Lots of them were drunks, who got their meager paychecks on Friday afternoon and were broke by Monday, having spent it all at the local bar. There was even a legend about one apple picker who lived in a sleeping bag under the billboard outside the local bar.

The cadence of work at the orchard was picking in the fall, then pruning all winter and picking up the brush or clippings, thinning apples in the spring and summer, picking peaches in the summer, then back to picking apples in the fall.

The winters could be bitterly cold in Connecticut, with the cold, humid wind coming off the Atlantic and the heavy, wet, blowing snow. You quickly learned how to dress, with several layers of clothes, sometimes two hats, and very warm leather mittens over some gloves.

I learned to drink coffee at the orchard. Instant Folgers that was black and bitter. There was sugar, but I thought that was a sign of weakness. We had an old electric percolator coffee pot that was just for heating up water. We would trudge down the hill in our heavy boots and make our cups of coffee and sat next to the wood burning stove. At lunch, we got in the habit of toasting our sandwiches on the top of the stove.

The green beans.

One day at lunch, we heated water in the percolator and made instant Folgers.

After we all made coffee, one of my coworkers got out a can of green beans, opened it, and dumped it in the percolator. Of course, we all gave him a hard time for making a mess of our coffee water. But this was his only meal of the day.

This was all he had. One can of green beans heated up in a coffee percolator.

After he explained that he had nothing else at all, I kept my mouth shut.

There were countless people that came through there in my three years that had similar stories. Guys who had nothing – literally – but were able to show up and ask for a job. Invariably, the boss would take them on and give them a chance, even when there wasn’t much work to do. Some guys lasted a day and disappeared, but some would stick around for a while and earn something before moving on.

There is dignity in earning a living.

One thing I learned in the orchard was that everybody is making their way through life.

Sometimes life is a struggle, and a warmed up can of green beans for your only meal on a cold winter day is certainly a struggle, but there was a hint of dignity in that man. He was showing up, putting in a hard, cold day of work, and knew that payday was only a couple days away. He never came back with a can of green beans, and I never knew if we humiliated him enough that he just kept his green beans to himself.

The crew was cruel – almost savage – when someone appeared weak. But that group of rag tag guys were showing up and trying to make a go at life even in the midst of what seemed like adversity.

That can of green beans represents that even at a low point, people can still hold their heads up keep moving forward.

Any time I am driving around town, I truly admire the people who are showing up for work. It may be the college kid who works at the coffee shop or the construction laborer who is hauling shingles at a job site. I have a sense of pride because they got out of bed and showed up.

The funny thing about working in the orchard was that it was one of the best times of my life. Showing up on time for work, then putting in a hard day’s work was refreshing and felt good. As I became and engineer and eventually a patent attorney, I became much more removed from the jobs that take hard work. Even now, I am always at work. I carry my computer around in my bag, and with my cell phone, I have my entire office with me at all times.

I miss the manual labor job that you leave it at 4:30. Once you get in the car and headed home, I didn’t have to think about work until I showed up again in the morning at 8:00. It was liberating.