Potato Field Trip

Despite the publishing date this was written on or about Thursday, May 2nd, 2024. 

Today we got to go on our first field trip! It was a good day for a trip because it was almost 90 degrees, so it was a real treat to spend 45 billable minutes (each way!) in the unbelievably cold cab of my boss's F-150. We were going out to Verona to help plant potatoes on a property he seems to co-own with a man I'm not sure how he's connected to. 

We got there and started on cutting our 750 lbs of seed potatoes, using the tailgate as a table and knives that were dangerously dull considering they were brand new. After a little while, a woman arrived who introduced herself as "Kathy. Aunt Kathy." Exactly who's aunt she is, I still don't know. Also pretty immediately she told us she usually doesn't wear her hair so short but she's going through chemo right now. Aunt Kathy would continue to employ this radical candor approach for the rest of the afternoon. We got to hear a lot of deep and personal details about her and people I didn't know and will likely never meet. 

Once the potatoes were cut, my boss's friend finally rolled up. This man was described to me as "a douche, but in a good way." (Seems like an oxymoron, no?) The two of them were wearing matching Pioneer/Corteva Agriscience blue shirts the color of highway signs and expensive looking straw hats. (Later this man's two kids would show up after school, also wearing Big Ag hats too big for their little heads. These kids would also be better at driving the side by side than me or my fellow adult coworker.) The men got the tractor set up with the potato planter which everyone was very taken by. While setting up the pesticide they'd be pumping directly into the soil the friend gave us very stern instructions to "not drink out of this hose," to which my thought was, "it never would have occurred to me to drink out of that hose." 

After some frustrations, the tractor was finally set up and the men got to planting. Us women were just loosely instructed to follow along in the side by side, occasionally fetching more potatoes or running various errands like getting people water. During this time we saw lots of pictures of people related to Aunt Kathy, and some photos of birds, cows, etc, and heard some stories about what it was like to grow up in the valley (sounds like shooting stuff was a big part of it). Mostly she was a good hang, and she gave us a loose invitation to a picnic by the creek sometime. She doesn't seem to know our names or have our contact information, so it feels unlikely to ever happen, but if I get that invite one day I would probably go. 

The trip ended with the kids throwing all the potato scraps in the creek for some reason. Well, by "for some reason" I mean the adults said to do that, but I just don't know why. Notably, the creek was pretty shallow and seemed to be a nice spot to hang out until it got a bunch of rotten potatoes dumped in it. 

Overall it was a strange afternoon that felt very Big Ag, with the terrible looking exposed soil, singing the praises of the tractor, talking about the new pesticides, improved potatoes, and developing drone technology, etc etc. I can admit that this was a very efficient way of planting that many potatoes, and there is some virtue to that, but I can't go much further than that. If I'm being honest, I'm having a pretty hard time working for someone who's values seem so very contrary to mine. Also, my boss bragged this week about getting to give Luna a belly rub and I didn't see it and I don't believe it. Anyway, that's enough boss slander for one post. I will end it by saying something nice which is that he did treat us to Dairy Queen after our afternoon of potatoes. 

In the original version of this post (5/2/24) contained an additional section with the clickbait subtitle "should I quit my job???" where I laid out my case for wondering if, well, I should quit my job. This section has since been removed. I have nothing else to say about this at this time.