Day 46 – The Value of a Job Well Done

Have you ever stopped by a youth car wash to get your ride cleaned up good all while supporting a good cause? Yes, me too. And then after chatting it up and giving a nice donation to the group to get home and find out that only about half of your car actually got washed? Yes, me too.

Ahhh, the life lessons that can be learned at the car wash. We practiced this life lesson at our own home today. 😛

As a teen I would wash my old 1976 Mustang II before heading into town to cruise the loop. I would spend a good hour washing and waxing and treating the tires to make it all shine. Ironically, I lived on a gravel road. So all that hard worked lasted a few minutes before the dust took over again. Each week I would repeat the cycle. Like the Karate Kid, wax on and wax off – do the job well.

In 5th grade, our neighbor friend and farmer would hire us kids to pick rocks from the fields. We would meet at 7 am and walk the 80’acre plots of land. If you saw a rock you picked it up and threw it on the flatbed. We would fill several of those a day and dump them all off alongside the fence line on the corners of the field. We never knew what the corn or soybean yield would be each year but we knew that each field had flatbeds full of rocks to be picked. You could say we were successful rock farmers – ha.

The value of that work was obvious. You see a rock you pick it up. That rock doesn’t break the combine or planter. It was an important job and one that needed to be done well. The farm owner would be the one driving the tractor and pointing out to us if we were ignoring parts of the job. If the job was worth doing it was worth doing well.

The same was true when we were hired to spray the bean fields. The chemical had a purple dye added so that as we rode that bean bar down the field and sprayed the weeds you could see if you were doing the job well or missing most of the work. If one of us 4 were slacking the farmer would slow way down or come to a screeching halt before reminding us what we were hired to do. I learned that in both of these jobs it was obvious to all whether you and the crew had done well or not. You can’t hide the results.

This carried into other jobs I had as well. Cleaning the bulk tank and milk room when we ran the dairy farm. The inspector would either give a thumbs up or down on cleanliness and that meant selling the milk or dumping it down the drain. Feeding the calves and keeping them healthy. The herd and the farmer depended on you doing that job well. Running detasseling crews for Pioneer Seed Company. After you had made your passes through the field an inspector would do a field test and let you know whether you needed to do the whole field again or whether you had passed the required percent. Passing meant a good hourly wage and failing meant repeating the work that should already have been done and thus barely making a few dollars and hour. The choice was ours. Do it right and do it well or spend your time repeating the task. Working on painting crews and making clients happy over the results of the job. You can’t hide a bad paint job. We were counting on each other to do our part. Our boss would remind us often, “Any job worth doing is worth doing well!”

Just like the car wash. In the moment it all appears clean. Give it a little time to dry and it will be obvious how much of that car was actually scrubbed down. Did we give it our best or did we pretend our way through the job? In the moment we may not know but in the end the results will be obvious.

Cheers to those who give it their best shot and don’t just go through the motions of their work. We see you. We thank you! Your work speaks volumes to the heart you put into it.

“Well done,” may just be the best compliment to ever receive.

Those are words I hope to hear from our Lord and Savior one day. “Well done good and faithful servant.” In the meantime, let’s put those wash rags to good use and be janitors for Jesus in this world.