It is now the middle of the summer. What would it be for a nine year old boy if he didn’t have his first job? Max was approached by our next door neighbors to see if he would be willing to water their plants and vegetable garden while they were away.
His answer? “Well, duh!”
Not really, he said he was interested.
“How much would you like to be paid?”
“Ummm, $2.00″
“Okay, we were thinking of paying you $2.00 per day. That would be $20.00. Would that work?”
“Yes, Yes!” And the deal was set.
The job was not a surprise to me. They had come over originally and asked me if it would be okay to hire him. I thought it was a great plan. It is time that he started learning about working and paying jobs.
Just before they left they dropped off a map of their yard and a schedule. Hmm, more complicated than I thought. But really, the first part was simple: use the sprinkler on one section of their lawn every other day. That’s easy enough.
On the other days the vegetable garden gets soaked three times; each flower bed in the front, back, and side yards get watered twice and the 3 potted plants get simple sprays.
Max was excited; he was now going to be earning money for doing work in the neighborhood. He is already planning to open a landscaping company…when he is ten years old. The new company will water plants and trim lawn edges.
The first day was easy; all he had to do was set up the sprinkler on one section of lawn and let it run for twenty minutes. Instead of going off to play he stayed and danced through the water. You can bet Mom made a rule that from now on he had to wear a bathing suit when doing this job.
The next day was not very difficult but it was very boring to a nine year old boy. He had to soak seven separate gardens in the yard by hand. When completed he had to do it all over again a second time. The vegetable garden actually got three separate soakings. But he managed very well.
Day three was the sprinkler again so this went well. It was the following day when things really fell apart. This was soaking day again. He started out okay but it was late in the day and he was losing control.
It started with distraction. He became absorbed with changing the settings on the hose nozzle over and over again. He started with “mist” which was a very light spray and moved up through each until he got to “jet” which just pounded water out of the hose. This would have been okay if he hadn’t been pointing directly it at the vegetables at the time. Deep ruts started appearing in the ground and leaves were crushed.
I now had to guide him over to the plants but he couldn’t keep his mind on the job. He kept flipping the water over his head and at his mother. It all culminated in him dropping the hose and scrambling up the lone tree on the front lawn in the dark. While his Mom finished the watering I spent my time talking Max down and leading him around the yard in an attempt to settle him down.
Every once in awhile he would remember that he had a job to do. He would run over to Mom and wrest the hose from her hand and continue watering. But this wouldn’t last very long before he would be off in his head again.
On the plus side, by the time the day’s job was done he had calmed down and was ready to go on into bed.
These people have two driveways, one on the front of the house, and the other on the side. Two days later at Max’s watering time we discovered the front drive being paved. This meant that there would be no watering that day. And he had just done the back the night before so this was out.
The next night he was able to start over again but had to adjust the schedule to make sure the garden and plants got enough water. Then the side drive was completed and more planning had to be done. The paver knew that he was cutting into my son’s schedule and therefore was losing money. He hired Max to do a little paving with him. He paid him $2.00 per driveway covering any lost wages.
For the rest of the days Max watered everything and did his best to get on schedule. My neighbors arrived back last night so he hasn’t had time yet to settle up with them.
Except for the one day when his ADHD and Bipolar kicked in Max did an excellent job. But I think it also gave him a chance to start learning what it will be like in the real world when he gets older and needs to earn money.
