Well-Seasoned Woman’s Work
One thing Yvonne Knox intuitively understood well was the difference between her job and her work.
Laid off from her job as a professional educator and with bills that still needed paying, Yvonne took a “filler" job at a local McDonald's restaurant, where she immediately recognized that the leadership qualities, organizational practices, and people-skills she had developed as a teacher & vice principal were badly needed in this new setting. Although her entry-level job duties most certainly didn't include “snapping everyone into shape” and coaching/mothering her mostly adolescent coworkers into an efficient, competent, morale-boosting team, that's exactly what she did. People noticed, and Yvonne quickly rose from shift workder to store manager to eventual owner of her very own McDonalds (the very first Black woman in Michigan to do so!), ushering in a whole new professional chapter which continued until she sold the restaurant in 2016, 34 years after this life chapter began..
Job vs. Work
Your job involves the organization/system/business for which you receive pay/benefits. When you leave that job--whether voluntarily or involuntarily--whatever belongs to the organization (your desk, company files, corporate policies, your duties as assigned, etc.) stays there.
Your work, on the other hand, is a collection of skills, character qualities, connections, and relational abilities that you CARRY WITH YOU coming and going. Let's think about our WORK as our very own snail's shell, one that travels with us, from job to job, life chapter to life chapter.
My Aunt Sharon, another long-term Michigan educator, shared the inspiring story of Yvonne with me when I shared with her the intent of this newsletter last week as we sat around her kitchen table in Georgia.
Sharon: I mean, back at that time, so very many educators were being laid-off right and left in Michigan. I remember, a lot of those laid off relocated to areas like Wyoming to find a teaching job of any kind. But, [Yvonne Knox] was unique in that she discovered a way to grow into a completely new job-field, based on the work skills she'd already developed in the world of education.
2 Well-Seasoned Take-aways
#1: Living our lives with a clear understanding of the differences between our job and our work provides us with a much CLEARER & BIGGER frame for living more fully into each of our life's chapters.
Love your job? Hate your job but don't see an out yet? Either way, don't get confused between what is needed to fulfill your job obligations and what opportunities surround you to GROW YOUR WORK (i.e. enrich your very own “workish” snail shell). Stay clear and stay present and stay engaged. Nothing goes to waste--unless we let it. Don't let it.
#2 We aren't meant to hide our work-light under a bushel basket; instead, we're meant to let our work SHINE out & be shared.
Speaking of how she chose to implement her own WORK priorities during her time with McDonald's, Yvonne commented: "Since being a part of this organization, I've had the ability to provide so many jobs and opportunities and make a difference in the lives of so many people. And I can't express how much that means to me.”
Our work might connect with a million people or just one. What matters is that we are showing up to grow and share our work, our mothering, and our seasoning with those we love, with our communities, and thereby with the greater world.
xo
