To Be or Not To Be Gainfully Employed....that is the question!

So I am sitting in a Burger King (that has electricity but no wi-fi - thanks, Benevolent Employer, for the wireless card) doing some work as I wait for my car to be serviced. As I sit at the window glancing out over the strip mall parking lot, one of the restaurants' suppliers drive up in their delivery truck to deliver the various bread products Burger King uses with its sandwiches.

It is fascinating to watch this one dude (while not good at this - I would say this gentleman is at least in his mid-50's if not a little older) and I am just entranced by watching him do his job. First, he has to go to the back rooms behind the grills and stuff (ever wonder what was back there? If any of you worked at a fast food joint during high school or college like I did (love Wendy's), it brings back many memories. Some good, some...not so much). I digress.

So the delivery dude goes to the bac and pulls out at least 2 stacks of 26 custom baskets which hold each individual bun, croissant and other bread product. These stacks are at least 6 feet tall and he is manuvering them like a pro. Then he has to restack them by a certain color coding system (at least, that is what it looks like to me), and then pulls the stacks (which now have some weight to them) with a metal tool onto the hydraulic lift of his truck bed to get those into the truck. Then he has to manuver those empty plastic baskets/trays into the truck and then comes back out with new trays full of the bread products. And he has to manuver those trays a bit more careflly so that the plastic wrapped bread products don't fall out of the trays. Once he gets those onto the lift, back down he goes to then pull all of this stuff into the restaurant backroom storage and fridge areas.

And he does all of this with.....well, while it's not a smile, it is with a pleasant demeanor and definite efficiency. So as I watched him (because I did not want to do the paperwork ad the financial estimates I am working on at the moment), I wondered if I would like doing something like that. Not sure - there is something to having a routine but I think all that manual labor might wreck the nails. And if that's all I did 3 or 4 times a day, that might get boring.

Then I also got to thinking "Thank Goodness this is a job that gets to stay in the US and cannot be outsourced or automated." With so many of my friends out of work and trying to figure out Part II, III, IV or V of their career track, I look at the bread delivery guy in awe and am happy for him that he still has his gig - especially at his advanced age. And he is in pretty decent shape from what I could tell.

It's interesting to consider all the different possibilities in the world of work. And do you want to be an employer or an employee? Many of my friends do not like their jobs....but they pay the bills so they keep on plugging away. Sometimes, though, it makes one stop for a moment to say "Is this job really worth it?" What do you think?