Giving credit where credit is due

Jim would talk to a fence post if he thought it was listening.  That was a talent he had mastered over 20 years as an insurance salesman traveling over eight or ten counties.  His older son and my middle daughter were classmates in school and active in the same 4-H Club. His son, Justin, was a Junior in high school when I hired him to work with me on surveys on Saturdays and Sundays.  His first day on the job was tough for him as his FFA Club had held a lock-in the night before at the high school and he stayed awake the entire time.  As we headed to the first job site, along with another worker, he fell asleep in the back seat.  Upon arrival, he worked hard learning what we were doing and why.  After lunch, we headed about an hour distant to the second job site.  Justin slept for the entire trip.  Once again, he worked hard at the second site, learning the artistry of handling a shovel.  As we headed to the office, he was out like a light as soon as the door closed.  When he finally arrived home to help Jim with farm chores, he bragged that he had "got paid to sleep".  Jim promptly said, "I need to get a job like that."  And, four years later, he did.  Seventeen years total of surveying with me.

Here's the thing.  Few people could do what he could do.  In those first four years of survey work, Justin had gone from low man on the totem pole to being very capable at sniffing out monuments, listening to the reasoning of boundary establishment and became adept at being the instrument man.  When I hired Jim, his role was that of the low man on the totem pole.  I experimented with sending Justin and Jim out without me on certain jobs, with Justin being in charge.  Jim accepted that situation and learned to take criticism from his son when appropriate. They were both great workers.  Jim, however, was quite content with what he was called on to do, but, had no interest in climbing the proverbial ladder.  He had his own businesses to run and he was able to spend travel time and down time on his smart phone wheeling and dealing for himself.

Several years later, Justin took his skills to the next level and went to work for the Natural Resource Conservation Servce branch of USDA.  Jim kept working for me until he got so busy with his own business he had to move on.  Justin would still work some Saturdays and Holidays for me.  I then hired his high school-aged daughter to work with him.  You might say she took over for her Papa.  Three generations, one family.

Jim died yesterday.  Cancer made this past year difficult.  I had watched his own father die of cancer in 1983 when my family and I were renting the big farm house that had been home to Jim's grandparents.

Every survey company should be so lucky as to hire the "Jim's" of the world.