Peas Please
How did I get from sitting in a freezer watching out for baby mice on a conveyor belt of frozen peas, to leading projects and departments in organisations all over the world? From pea factory to leader?
Where You Start From
A quick disclaimer. I’m lucky enough to have been from the right side of the tracks, with a middle class family in a safe stable country. Not a rich family but one with the education and experience to show me the world and its possibilities. That’s been a great starting point and I’ve then worked hard and persevered and grabbed opportunities. But I know the advantages I had, which is partly how I ended up at the pea factory.
Back to the 90s
I’ll take you back to the 90s. Meet me, a university student, skinny and socially anxious. Choosing a summer job before my final year. Not my first job, as I’ve had jobs since I was 16, in cafes and hotels and betting shops. I was fired from my first job. But that’s another story…
Freeze Frame
It was being a rebel that put me in the freezer. Most people’s expectations were that it’s best to get a sensible job that looks good on their resume, and one that’s near their parents so they could live well for the summer. The joys of central heating and unlimited pasta. Instead I chose a factory job and staying in Edinburgh in my freezing student flat. The factory job would help me save more, would give me independence and would improve my skills.
So there I am watching frozen peas and broccoli go past, wearing a big coat in a big freezer. I did 12 hour shifts, took two buses each way, got up very very early. Not an early bird me! There were advantages I could see at the time. I had no time to spend any money, the second half of the shift was paid at a higher rate, and a couple of good friends did it too. And I could go on my first ever overseas trip by plane at the end of the summer, to NYC.
Learning to be Kind
Looking back through a Kindly lens, I can see that I wanted to learn about life, what it was like for people with fewer advantages than me. To help me be compassionate with others, to stop judging. I was trying to be compassionate with myself, making sure I had support and friends with me, as I knew it would be a challenge for me.
(N)ice Benefits
What benefits did I get from my stumbling along a Rebel Kindly path? Learning, self-awareness and resilience – these kept me there all summer. In retrospect, they are things that have served me well in life.
Learning new skills
An office job or a laboratory job would have looked better on my CV. But for me, I needed confidence and to lower my social anxiety. That meant practicing talking to all sorts of people. It meant getting on buses to places I didn’t know. It meant getting up really early every day, as I didn’t get paid if I was late. It meant practicing asking for help, doing new things and accepting help. It meant learning time management so I could get everything done even with 14 hour days, so I still had food in the house and clean clothes. It meant pushing on through when I could easily have given up. Nowadays, the ability to talk to just about anyone is one of my favourite learned skills, though I often wish it was innate!
Self-awareness
I’ve always been self-conscious, but working in the factory helped me tone that down. Accepting teasing about being a student and a vegetarian helped me get clear on my values. Was I willing to stick up for being a vegetarian, ask for my roll without bacon in the canteen? Yes I did actually think about giving in and eating bacon to avoid the banter, but I didn’t. I was starting to realise that I was tough, as well as small and quiet. And that I could chat to anybody, if I really tried. A move towards a glimmer of self-awareness.
Resilience
Nobody thought I would stick with that job all summer. Did I mention I’m not a morning person? I’d left jobs before as they were not quite right. It always makes me laugh looking back – how exciting could a cafe dishwashing job be – and seeing how choosy I was. One of the main reasons to do the pea factory job was to prove to myself I could stick it out. I chose a tough job for me to keep to, but I also set myself up with some ways to keep myself there. Friends, keeping the end in mind and knowing I’d get a bonus if I stayed all summer.
Defrosting
And there was a hidden benefit. I didn’t realise until much later that the focus on getting along and adapting to different types of people had tapped into another skill. Learning to tell stories, make people laugh, draw out the similarities between people. That’s a skill to make life better everywhere, from job interviews to talking to parents in the playground.
So that’s how I got from my pea factory freezer to working all over the world, leading people and change. Use your rebel passion to get you the skills you need. Be kind on your journey, to yourself and to others. Reflect on what worked and what you could do differently.
All of which make for a better and more interesting work and life.
