Classification Essay

Picking From The Picking Crew

Harvest on our farm has changed a lot since we first started.  We haven’t always had a harvester to do most of the heavy potato lifting.  Way back when, about ten years ago, you would have seen my family and me out in the field with a two row potato digger and a team of roughly 15 middle school kids.  They were our harvesters back then.  We would show them how to pick and what types to pick from, and they would bring the full buckets over to the collection trailer to be marked down and get to a fresh bucket.  It was simple piece rate work that brought out a wide variety of kids, all with some very different ideas of what work really was.  

First you had the suck-ups.  They are the epitome of teacher’s pet, and just couldn’t leave you alone if you worked on the collection trailer.  Now, they weren’t poor pickers by nature, and they got alright bucket scores when it came down to it, but they spent a lot of their time trying to get a job on the cart, hoping to get paid hourly.  They would take a few minutes longer when they went to pass their bucket in, tending to chat up the hourly workers on the cart. They would help bring some of the other kids’ buckets over when we were busy, and brought back empties on their way back.  There were always a few that made it their goal for the season, to get an hourly job for next year.  And the best way I can describe those individuals, is persistent.  And sometimes, it even paid off for them in the long run. 

The dilly-dalliers, boy were they trouble.  They sure weren’t trying to get any promotions down the line.  They were content to sit and lounge all day, relaxing and farting around, and possibly picking a bucket or two.  The biggest problem this type of picker poses?  Their attitude.  It becomes almost contagious under the right circumstances.  Occasionally we would have groups of three or four pickers gathered in a circle, and just not get much of anything done.  If one of the main crew would go try and break it up, about 15 minutes later the goof-offs would be circled around again, exchanging fart noises.  It must have been more of a social club for them.  How else would you explain sending your child in to a workplace where they spend a whole day, and they come home with at most half of the pay of the other kids working? 

Lastly, you had the over achievers.  These guys would always knock it out of the park.  They would go all out, all day long, pushing to get to that hundred bucket mark.  Because they knew that if they did, there was a 25% increase for every bucket there forward.  It was just too sweet an offer to pass up.  Some would get family and friends to come and help, or get a friend to help and share some of their buckets with theirs.  But the ones we really looked for were the solo acts.  The ones that busted all day long by themselves, and could walk away with 150 -175 dollars a day.  Those were the employees that we generally chose.  They were there to score high, and if they stayed, most got a job working hourly later in the year. 

The suck ups and the dilly-dalliers.  Lazy among cunning, but don’t forget the over-achievers.  With such a wide variety of pickers we never knew what to expect.  Each year brought a new round of problems and answers, and we dealt with them as required.  As time went on we used the harvest season more and more to pick and choose who we would hire later in the season to help package and ship out all of those vegetables.  A lot of the pickers knew, and those that acted in accordance got a leg up.  I’d say our selection process was a success, although it sure didn’t help our population of suck-ups from hanging around and giving everyone a headache.