I had a job once hauling building
foundation forms

I liked the exercise
but it wasn’t the right job for me

I worked some construction too
but that was a worse fit

the worse fit of all was stocking
shelves in a grocery store

too mindlessly repetitive for me
found zero satisfaction it in

worked once part time as an
office building cleaner

wasn’t the right fit for me
either but I liked the work

the best fit for me
that took fifty years to find out

was working helping others

Bob Boyd

This poem is about my struggles to find a job that was the right fit for me, and sometimes, perhaps often, getting stop gap jobs until I found the right fit. I didn’t find that right fit until age 50. I was working in retail jewelry and came to a crossroads where I felt compelled to find a job where I could make a difference in this world by helping people for a living.

With no experience or education in Human Services, I got a state job as a Veteran’s Rep that I later parlayed into a job with a nonprofit helping the elderly for a living. And that was the perfect fit, which I worked at for over 20 years until I retired.