Lind, whose occupation involves quality-control testing at a
Sara Lee bakery, spends his days tasting new recipes of the company’s famous
brownies, cupcakes, cookies and other treats.
“Sometimes I wake up in the morning and don’t want to go to
work, but then I remember that I taste brownies all day, and it’s hard for me
to complain,” says Lind.
Crabtree, who maintains, cleans, and transports portable toilets, shares
a similar sentiment. “Every day I think about how I am going to stare at
people’s processed brownies, hot dogs and raisins, and I wonder how I got to
where I am.”
Lind too ponders the choices in his life that blessed him
with his dream job. Towards the end of high school he had poor grades and
wasn’t going to graduate. He joined the Marines, but was dishonorably
discharged for urinating on a superior’s tent while intoxicated.
“I ended up in San Diego, walking along the beach – broke –
when I smelled someone’s brownies cooking from inside a wealthy home. I knocked
on the door and the first thing I said was ‘it needs more nutmeg,’ totally
joking. Turns out it was the head chef at the local Sara Lee bakery, and he got
me the job of treat-taster. I’ve been loving my life ever since.”
Crabtree has a very different story. He attended UCSD to
major in business and marketing. Graduating in four years, he got a job as a
data processor at an upstart technology firm with a bright future.
“When the beeper industry failed, I had to get a job just to
pay bills and get food on the table. I probably put out a hundred applications,
and the one job a temp agency could find me was cleaning porta-potties. I
planned to do it for a few days until I could get a real job, but nothing has
ever transpired.”
Both men finish their stories with “I can’t believe I do
this for a living.”
Truly inspiring stories from both men.
“Sometimes I am embarrassed to tell people what I do for a
living,” says a modest Lind, “because I just know they are going to be
jealous.”
“Whenever I am asked where I work, I lie” echoes Crabtree,
clearly sharing the same sentiment.
“I always had big aspirations,” continues Crabtree, “and now
I am the guy that dates and signs the last time a portable crapper was cleaned
at a kid’s soccer tournament.”
Crabtree, whose education cost him upwards of $45,000, is
sadly in debt and must work overtime cleaning and transporting poo while
swatting flies, but keeps an inspirational, positive attitude: “Sometimes I
wonder if I would rather die or go to another day of work, and I usually choose
work.”
Lind, who makes $175,000 yearly to gorge on chocolate
delicacies, is saving to buy his own theme park. “When I think about my
favorite things, they are food, video games, and roller coasters. I hope to get
paid for all three things some day.
Two different lives, two similar outcomes. Hard working men
whose jobs are both entirely inconsequential to the good of society as a whole,
but are getting paid to do what they love. It’s truly the American Dream.
No comments:
Post a Comment