The three sayings you learn right off not to ever use!!!! I mean NEVER! There is no such thing as I can't, there is I won't, I don't want to, it is to hard etc. but never and I mean NEVER use I can't if my dad is in the hearing range of your voice.
Later in life this saved my butt so many times it isn't even funny especially in emergency services. I never used I can't, I used this is going to take a while but I always got done what I needed to do. I remember one time especially as it was on a fire call and a man was on fire and the fireman had ran into the building to get people out and here I was with a fire truck that I did not know how to operate. I looked at all the gadgets and said "Linda this is not a fire truck but an irrigation pump" What do I need to do first "I know prime it, yep there is a button that says prime" I started my irrigation pump and instead of watering the field I watered the man saving his life for a few weeks but sad to say he finally lost his life to his injuries. I think he just gave up from all the pain involved and the system just shut down.
The other saying "I don't know how" in my dad's hearing meant you might be up all day researching or him teaching you but you learned real quick to figure out a way to learn how. I have been saved by this for more times then I can say. It made me a very good reader. I found that if you did not pay attention to the way something was done and you knew how to read you could find out how to do it and save all the lessons of not knowing until you could do something with your eyes closed.
I'm bored was the worst one of all. If you said you were bored on the farm it meant many hours of labor as he always found something for you to do. In my jobs through the years when I got done with what was expected of me I found projects that I could do before the boss found something for me to do. I always liked what I found a lot better then what they would find for me to do.
My favorite story on that was when I worked for the Alaska State Troopers. If you had your work done the boss would let you do something like read etc. but if he found your work not done and you doing it you can bet you had a 3 day unpaid vacation, 2nd time a weeks vacation unpaid and the 3rd time you were looking for another job. One winter which was always a really slow time for us I decided I would bring music tapes out and put them in the Dictaphone to transcribe the words for one of the Sgt.'s that had a country band that played around town on his days off and in Alaska sheet music was hard to find.
Our Captain came from the Juneau post and he loved to just drop in unexpected to check up on all of us, days, swing or graveyard you never knew when he was going to walk through the door. Little known to me one day shift he went into my Sgt.'s office and him and the Sgt. walked back out to where I was busy transcribing music off a tape for the other Sgt. and unplugged my earphones and out comes this country song. The Captain says "well at least she knows how to look busy like a good state worker". He had been in the Sgt.s office telling him what a worker I was, that no matter when he showed up I was always busy even in winter. He had said he did not know what all I did but I was the busiest dispatcher he had ever seen. The Sgt. smiled and did not say anything he just walked out and pulled the plug........lol
Three things dad thought me have served me well
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