DAY 1: SPRING WORK: Watch out. A harrow can bite you.

I don’t like it when signals don’t work correctly. And I’m not talking about turn signals or hazard lights. I’m talking about signals a boss gives an employee. I have not been an employee for nine years now. And just to clarify for the sake of my blog, the definition of an employee is a person who works for another for financial or other compensation so please don’t try to placate me, or deviate from my intent here by trying to apply the Rosen/Romney standard to my plight.
Now back to my original comment: I have not been an employee for nine years. Back in the days when I was an employee there as one thing I appreciated in some bosses –even the ones I loathed – their ability to give good directions. If they did not give clear directions, I was not the best employee.
Yesterday, DAY 1 in my new job, the signals did not work correctly. It started out like this:
It was a nice sunny day. My boss – who I have already decided is not my husband when I am on the ethereal clock – told me that since there was little wind that day he needed to “spray.” In this case he needed to round-up our fields to prep them for planting. However, since it was a nice day he wanted to take a couple of hours to move my tractor out to the field that I would be working, and teach me to harrow. After that, he would spray and I would be done for the day because he did not want to leave me in the field alone on my first day. That makes sense to me!
By 7:30, with four kids fed and off on the school bus, I had our lunches made and was gung-ho -ready to show him that although I had no farming skills – and I mean none – I still learned a damn lot about listening and following directions, and I knew from my previous employment that I could learn fast.
So, we move out to the field and he keeps saying how important it is that he spray – right now. Living in eastern Washington, most of you know as well as I do that days without wind are at a premium around here and when you get one you better use it wisely. So, I ask him how long I will be out here. I have a reason for this, but I don’t want to tell him yet – even though it directly affects him.
To add one note, when the boss asked me to work for him he said it would be insane, asinine, crazy, and downright irresponsible for me to work after the kids get out of school. I agreed. Besides, after school, I spend most of my time moving tractors, sprayers, trucks and running for parts – so, right, I should not work. Okay, I know, I just applied the Rosen standard myself. That is called comic relief because I’m not laughing later.
Therefore, he does the math, which I swear all farmers spend have the day doing. And at this time, he is being good as gold and patient as can be with me.
“Let’s see,” he says. “It will take about two hours to teach you, but then I do need to get spraying.”
Cool, I think. Home by noon so I can do that thing I have to do this afternoon.
Now all employees know that their first day on the job they are expected to listen and not give advice, so I nod my head, look at the clock and say, “Okay. Sounds good.”
We get to the field and the boss teaches me how to start the tractor, warm it up, and lay out the harrow, which promptly gets tangled. A harrow is a series of long bars with big spikes set along each bar that when folded up can tangle like a pair of arthritic hands folded in prayer. So, we hop out and start yanking and pulling and the boss says to me, “Watch out. A harrow can bite you.”
So, I move out of the way as he starts yanking and pulling, leaving me to stand there and think, what am I going to do if he’s not here. Call him on the radio to help me unkink my chain. Hell no!

I wouldn’t hire me to stand around.
So I grab a spike that I think poses the greatest threat to our tangle and he smiles approvingly at the gesture. Let me just digress to say that men as strong, and my husband is damn strong after years of pulling harrow. So as I am holding, and he is yanking hard, hard, harder. The harrow pulls free, and promptly slams my hand between it and the harrow bar. Luckily, the spike missed my hand.
But as I am trying not to scream, throw up, pass out like a baby, my boss – who let me say has a bit of affection for this employee – rushes back to me, pulls the harrow bar out and starts apologizing. I say I’m fine and pull away, not wanting to have to press sexual harassment charges the first day on the job and all. I turn away, look down and see that between my pinkie knuckle and my ring finger is a bump with a purple bruise, not on one side, but on both and my rolling stomach tells me that it bruised all the way through. I chalk it up to lesson learned: Watch out. A harrow can bite you.
Finally, we get to the lesson, and it goes as expected. I pretty much suck. But hey, I’m not going to let that stop me. It’s my first day. So I learn and he still maintains a good attitude about it and then we stop to get him off to his sprayer and on the way back he says, “I wish I could just leave you out there.”
It is now noon and that is when I pull out the trump card that farmers are not concerned with in the heat of the move.
“I have to get our daughter from school at 3:30. I can probably go another hour.”
Once again, he’s doing the math. Keep in mind that he said I should never work after the kids get out of school, and that we were only going to be out here just to teach me and then he needed to spray.
“Damn,” he says. “This just isn’t going to work.”
“What?” I say. “Me?”
“Yeah,” he said. “There is no way you are ever going to get anything done if you have to leave early.”
I take a deep breath and remember that I hate when signals don’t work. Tell me what you want. Tell me to dig a six foot hole, two feet wide, and I will do it. Don’t tell me to dig a six foot hole, two feet wide and then three feet in act like I should have known that you wanted and 8x6.
So, being the first day on the job, I take a breath, nod my head, realize that I – as the newbie – must have missed the signals, and vowed to listen better tomorrow.
Just wait until tomorrow…it only gets better.