The morning routine at the D.G Larson farms in Lake Park, Minnesota, was dull, monotonous and a waste of time. David Larson, an old 70-year-old farmer, would lose his keys to his cars, tractors, ATVs and padlocks every day. He tried to keep them together in a tin coffee can, which he would lose almost right away. So, every morning, my grandfather and I would set out looking for that elusive coffee can filled with keys.

This was a real problem! Half the time, we had to give up. We started cutting the padlocks, or get new keys made. David would visit the Chevy dealership so often for new keys that those guys started keeping an extra set of keys for the Monte Carlos at all times.

We tried suggesting to David that maybe he shouldn’t remove the keys from its slot at all. Thefts rarely happen in the country, and he’s spending a lot of money just to replace the keys he’s lost. But David was confident that he was the target of a band of thieves that prowl the night, and that if he doesn’t remove the keys, they will be stolen. In hindsight, David is right. The vehicles were never stolen… but driving was always a pain in the butt.

Another task I did was moving equipment around to its proper place. Maybe a tractor had to be in the shop for some repairs, or in the shed for winter storage. Practically every time I was asked to move some equipment, it was because David moved it out of its place to begin with. He’d move it around for a plethora of reasons. Maybe he thought it needed to be washed again, or maybe he just wanted to drive his tractor from the farm to his house for a fresh pair of socks. Whatever it was, it almost always had to be undone.

That was my first job. I undid whatever my boss did, and I got paid for it. But sometimes that’s how jobs go. Do what you're told, even if it feels like a waste of time. There were several different hands that were hired to work on the D.G Farms, and most of them felt like they were wasting their time, regardless of the generous hourly wage.

While searching for the keys each morning, we occasionally received a phone call from another farm hand, telling us that it’ll be a few hours before they can come in, if they come in at all. David would grumble, saying something along the lines of how people don’t like to work anymore. Even though our mornings were always spent in the futile search for David’s missing keys, showing up to work on time meant that we respect the jobs given to us. Employers value the lazy employee that shows up on time every day more than the hard-working employee that shows up whenever he/she wants to.

At the end of the day, after looking for the lost keys and moving around the equipment, we would close everything up. The last thing we’d do was close the heavy sliding doors to the quanset, and lock the padlock. The feeling of working a full day, regardless of what it was, always felt good, like an accomplishment. Sometimes, it isn’t what a person does during the day, but the fact that the person did it, which makes for a good day at work.