What Picking Cucumbers Taught Me!

I remember picking cucumbers as a boy in the fields of the Pee Dee region of South Carolina in the summer. It was hot. The kind of hot where the ground sweats and gives off steam. I have no pleasurable memories of this experience! Except, that a good memory doesn’t have to be a pleasurable memory. Infact, this singular experience of picking cucumbers with my two elder brothers taught me, perhaps, one of the most valuable lessons about work I have ever learned…

In fact, if memory serves correctly, my two elder brothers (Aaron and Elliott*) and I worked for over 8 hours and picked over 1100 lbs. of cucumbers—just the three of us. Black sap tar covers your hands, insects, humidity, sweat dripping in your eyes, dirt, rotting cucumbers, vermin, more insects, bending over all day, sorting under prickly leaves barely begins to describe how hard it is to pick cucumbers. However, that day probably marked my work ethic more than any other single day in my life.

Why?

Somewhere during the day, I had to ask myself over and over again, “How willing are you to continue?” Eventually, I stopped asking myself that question and resolved that I would finish what I had started. The questions of “should I finish?” and “when will I finish?” turned into the single question of “how will I finish?”

The Apostle Paul makes reference to finishing as he is nearing the end of his life and he writes to his young protégé, “ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).

My dad took us to the field early in the morning introduced us to the sharecropper and left us there. We didn’t have the foresight to bring any form of hydration and our father just said, “you’ll be alright, I’ll come back later and check on you.” My anticipation of earning some money turned to the frustration of reality. There really was a full day’s labor of back-breaking work ahead of me, and my only way of escape just drove away with a massive smile on his face. Now, honestly, I was glad I was there with my elder brothers—their confidence, their resilience, their optimism was a needed boost to my spirits. But it wasn’t their boost that kept me working that day—it was my resolve to finish what I started.

Here’s the funny thing, we didn’t even know how much we were going to get paid! Apparently all that was “worked out” before we were dropped off! So we worked as many people have over the centuries of this earth—with our hands in the dirt, our only tool being the 10 gallon bucket to put the cucumbers in.

After several hours waiting to see what we’d get paid, my eldest brother walked out of the counting house with $24 dollars! Split three ways, we each went home dejected, depressed, and disappointed with eight dollars! But, I finished.

What a $1/hr. picking cucumbers taught me:

1-Work until completion, your resolution is to finish and finish well

2-Your work doesn’t define you, you define your work

3-Work for eternal rewards, not temporary rewards

4-Working hard is better with others

(*The work ethic hit them too–one is in management for a major pharma company, the other an orthopedic surgeon.)