My time as a federal employee for the FSA office has come to
a close. I will once again be working for the farm. I’m so excited to be
returning to the farm and to work with Matt full time helping him do what we
both love. While I’m not naïve enough to think there won’t be times that I will
dislike him and his father, I’m grateful I’ll be working outside and in
production agriculture with my Forever.
What have I learned about my time working for the
government? I’ve learned while I love working with my co-workers, I intensely
dislike sitting in an office all day. I enjoy working with most of the
producers, but dislike being set in a schedule of having to be at work for a
set period of hours. I enjoy having a reason to be inside out of the cold in
the winter, but honestly miss working with Matt. I’m looking forward to having
just one job rather than evenings/weekends on the farm and the rest of the time
at the “town job”. It’s frustrating not knowing what’s going on, on the farm,
but being expected to know where everything is and what’s going on.
While I’m infinitely grateful to have had this job
opportunity, I’m very excited to be returning to the farm. I took this job with
the knowledge that it was temporary. Whether that be a bad thing if I really
liked it, but couldn’t stay on permanently or whether that be a good thing if I
didn’t decided it was for me, we knew that it was temporary going in. My
official end date was originally March 21st so I made it almost a
month longer on the extension. This job gave us the chance to see if Matt and
Henry wanted to work with me like they had been for approximately a year since
Matt and I got married, or maybe if it was best if I wasn’t there all the time.
It gave me the chance to take a step back to see if I really wanted to work
with them as well. And we figured it out. They have more than plenty of work to
keep us all busy on the farm and I will be able to spend my time outside and be
much more active than I have been while sitting in a desk chair for nine hours
a day. Again, it has been an incredible experience. I appreciate the new
friendships I have made, the experience of being a government worker and being
able to test out the “town job”.
What I won’t miss about the job-having to get ready every day
and doing it on a schedule so I get to work on time, packing and unpacking
lunches, paperwork, filing, sitting in a chair 9 hours a day and not having the
spontaneity to take care of errands/clean our house on rainy days like I can on
the farm.
What I will miss about my job-the producers and my
co-workers. I have been so blessed with amazing co-workers. I’m thankful to
call them all friends now.
David, my boss,
the Master Chef. He has a recipe for everything and I mean everything! I don’t
think he’s ever had the same meal twice. If he cooks something twice, he tweaks
the recipe and comes up with something completely different tasting. He likes
to think he’s been a positive influence on my cooking skills and that I will
now be a better/more frequent cook. While I’ve cooked more while I’ve been
here, I don’t see it lasting much longer.
Kathy, the excellent cook and crafty one. No matter what the
occasion, Kathy has the perfect craft project you can do or a recipe to make
the gathering just a little more special. She has the longest duration in the
office, so I admit I was a little nervous to ask what I felt was stupid
questions. Kathy never made me feel bad about asking questions. She encouraged
questions first rather than having to correct my errors. Another mom and
grandma, she’s great about giving advice when solicited. A true blessing and
joy to work with and know.
Dara, the closest to my age and mother of three children
under the age of 5. She and Jamie are fantastic for making sure I don’t get
baby fever. They are full of children horror stories, but are always great
about ending said horror stories with “…but kids are so great and you love them
so much, these little things don’t matter.” Ummm…I think I’ll stick with nieces
and nephews for now, but thanks! Dara is a great influence in my life and I
appreciate her love. She is always willing to give a kind word and build you
up. Not afraid to share about her relationship with God and invite people to
church, she’s an amazing role model that has been placed in my life. I’m
blessed and honored to call her a friend.
Linda, the calm, cool and collected one. She’s a mom through
and through. She’s always thinking about other people and how she can help
them. She can “talk you off the cliff” like Dara says. Linda is wonderful at
making things that seem like they can’t ever be fixed, fixable. She will listen
to all your stories and problems. She has answered thousands of questions that
I’ve had since starting the job. Rather than being mean and telling me to figure
it out on my own, she has answered the same question thousands of times. Linda
is a joy and blessing in my life and I will be forever grateful for getting the
chance to get to know her better, but don’t appreciate her dyslexia rubbing off
on me!
For those that have been in the office know that we share
space with NRCS. I worked for that side in the mornings of my senior year and a
couple summers part-time. So I knew most of them, but had the chance to really
interact with them more.
Roberta, of course, is organized to a T. She keeps her board
happy and always stays super busy planning events and being involved in a lot
of statewide activities.
I worked briefly with Janice, but got to know her much
better. You can always count on Janice, not only to have delicious food on food
days, but have the fancy presentation and dishes to go with it. She has amazing
smelling meals every day for lunch and does it all without an oven!
Cecelia, I don’t remember working with. An amazing asset to
the office and to her co-workers. Very thorough in her work and a saint, like
Linda. When dealing with disgruntled producers, how they can say what needs
said, but in such a way that calms the producers down is beyond me. You can
always count on Cecelia to have a listening ear available and a word of advice
when wanted. She also makes such beautifully shaped bread, I feel guilty for
consuming it at food days.
Brad is who I spent a large majority of my time with in the
field when I worked here before. It’s been nice working in the same office
again. I gained a bunch of weight from the doughnuts he would bring on
occasional Fridays though!
Jamie was the wild card. She started working here after I
had left for college. Jamie has been awesome getting to know. Also a mom of
three young children, she has more energy and passion for her job than I could
muster with everything her kids are in. Jamie is an asset to the county. She’s
always trying to learn new things. If she doesn’t know the answer, she isn’t
going to make one up. She will search until she finds the right answer.
I’m sure you don’t really care about all the people, but
it’s important to me for them to know how blessed and lucky I feel to have had
such amazing co-workers at my town job, but also to know that I can count all
of them as friends and positive role models for me. I know I can turn to
any/all of them any time in the future and they’ll not only be there for me,
but treat me like the most important person in the world. I’m not the greatest
at telling people how much they mean to me, but I’ve been told I’m a pretty
good writer so that’s the avenue I usually choose. So thank you all for the
amazing experience. Should you ever move to having outdoor office space and not
having to sit in an office all day or deal with paperwork, let me know! Thank
you all so much!
I’m excited to be returning to the farm. With such beautiful
weather farmers are itching to get to the field to start planting as soon as
the rain stops and the fields dry up a little. My next blog will be about planting
and how it’s a lot more than dropping a seed in the ground.
