Considered Opinions

Growing At PATCHEN

For me, moving to Patchen did not include any ideas of growing things of any kind. I knew I didn’t like living in the city and this looked like an opportunity to get away from the asphalt, fire plugs, car horns, and airplanes^[i]Our previous house at 620 Pine Avenue, Sunnyvale, was right in the landing pattern for the P2V sub-chasers at Moffet Field. constantly overhead.

But as it turned out, the old town was a great place to grow thousands of Christmas trees^[ii]Other choices I considered at the time were wine grapes and Kiwees. I still think we made the best choice.. It also became a place for me to grow in so many ways, but most importantly it was a wonderful, safe, and peaceful place for our kids to grow up. What I didn’t understand until much later was that it could be a place where I could influence hundreds of teenagers in learning the values of working hard, the discipline needed within organizations, and some basic principles of business. For me, nothing approaches the value of the direct family benefits, but I sometimes think of the experience with all those teenagers^[iii]more on teenagers here as a sort of extended family experience.

In recent years we hire 15 to 20 people for the Christmas tree-selling season. I like to include a few adults in the mix but it usually turns out to be mostly high school kids, and a few college students, home for their Holiday break. The youngest of them are often not ready to benefit from the experience, while those beyond 18 are often very productive, but the 14-17-year-olds are at the ideal age to learn.

• • • We have had a couple of 12 year-olds that did well, but most kids that age are more interested in running in the trees, throwing rocks in the pond, and teasing the girls.
    • At 14 they can discriminate “work” from “play” and like to actually earn money.
    • By 16 they usually understand that they are here to work, and are ready to learn the importance of, (a) showing up on time, (b) being helpful, and (c) following the rules.
    • At 18 years old, most of them have those basic things down pat and are ready to learn why this place is so popular and how the business works.
    • If past the age of 18, they are not showing promise, offering them an opportunity is not enough. I work extra hard with them but sadly my efforts don’t always produce results.

 

Even though my efforts are not always fruitful, I can count those exceptions on one hand. My encounters with these young people have brought me a lot of personal satisfaction and I can’t help thinking that most of them are richer for the experience. They learned a bit about being respectful of customers and coworkers, being responsible to an employer, and understanding the meaning of the word “Deportment”.^[iv]a person’s behavior or manners.

It is hard to match my joy of having one of those teenagers come back to tell me how much Patchen has helped them “Grow” in their professional life.

By: Jim
Written: 2017-2021
Published: October 2021
Revised:
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