Jan. 11/14 – Remembering my first job brought me back to my childhood…
Strawberry picking was my 2nd job. I was only 11 years old then. This job was offered every summer to everyone but mostly, only students or seniors were interested. My sister and I would sign up. I remember being picked up by a big van and brought to the farm to pick strawberries. The farm owners gave us a card and for every 4 liter-sized bucket full of strawberries we picked, we would punch 1 hole on the card and when the card was full of holes, we could exchange it for cash. There were 40 holes per card. Each hole was worth $1. I averaged 10 to 13 buckets on an 8 hour day, depending on how hard I work that day meaning I made $10 to $13 per day.
The bonus is that we were also eating unwashed strawberries for free, secretly though. We didn’t want to be caught!
However, by the end of the 2 summers, I was already pretty strawberried out picking and secretly eating strawberries!
I remember the time that I lost my card when it had 36 holes punched already. I was so upset because I didn’t get paid for my hard work. My back was very sore every day from kneeling down to fill those 36 buckets of strawberries since they were so low. Then, I wouldn’t get paid for it only because I lost the card!
Ever since then, I learned to guard all important things such as cash, IDs or credit cards with much care. And ever since, I have not eaten strawberries!
