Perfection – A Myth
#bfrdpwy #aginternship #RightRisk
With the last week of the internship underway, I wanted to make sure I did what I could to leave the ranch a better person than I came. As such, I fully invested myself into each task we worked and tried to do what was required of me to make it a success.
The first task of the week was to finish replacing the water tank that Patrick and I ripped out a few weeks prior. To do this, we had to haul four trailer loads of shale and six railroad ties to build a hill for the cattle to access the tank. After that, we pounded steel posts from which we could weld bars across to keep the cattle out of the tank and away from the spigot. Additionally, I was tasked with fixing the wooden fence around the tank, which had been knocked down previously. This task took about four days in total.
After the tank was set and ready to go, we focused on getting rid of the last of the roofing tin in the barn we had ripped the tin off. To do this, we had to MacGyver a system wherein my host pulled the tin out with a chain wrapped around a section, a tractor, and eight steel posts (used as rolling logs/elevated resting points). Once the tin was out from under the barn, my host came back around in the tractor to pick it up while Patrick backed the flatbed trailer underneath it. My job during the first part was to keep the rollers under the tin; during the second, I was tasked with guiding Patrick and my host in getting the tin on the trailer. The process took some jerry-rigging, as one section of tin was too heavy for the tractor to lift all the way up, but with some smarts and a little bit of muscle, we got it done.
Saturday was an easy day, finishing off the week with some heavy duty weed spraying from the flatbed-mounted sprayer.
Mixed into the week were a couple smaller tasks, like weed-whacking by the loading chute, shoeing the horses, and gathering a singular stowaway heifer out from a pasture and herd she wasn’t supposed to be in. Additionally, Andrew was kind enough to take the time after work and teach me how to rope on Tuesday, something I’ve been itching to learn for a long while now.
The big lesson from this week was found in how one should leave. With it being the last week, I knew that this was something of a summary and I really wanted to leave in good faith and show that I had grown as both a person and a worker. It wasn’t screwup free (I’m starting to learn that screwing up is a part of life, and even when you think you’ve got it figured out, you’ll still find a way to mess up here and there), but even with those I worked to be better. Realizing how I messed up, how to handle myself in response to that, and how to take the criticism that followed, all lessons I’d been slowly learning, all lessons I tried to make good on.
As much as some professions would like to convince us of it, you don’t make a professional in ten weeks. You can familiarize someone with an awful lot of things, from roping to manual transmissions, to working cattle, to brandings and geldings, and everything in between, but you won’t make an expert. That really shouldn’t be the goal in a 10-week program, I’ve learned. Trying to hold myself to a standard of perfection in such a short time frame actually wound up hindering me—oftentimes, I was so fussed about getting everything right that I hyper focused on the things I was getting wrong and allowed what I was doing right to crumble.
Perfection is a myth, and my viewpoint has changed on it significantly; before this program, I used to think that even though perfection is unattainable, one should strive for it anyway. Now, I can say with confidence that all that does is lead to burn out and a lasting irritation. You have to give yourself slack to tie a knot, and you have to give yourself slack to get better. Going forward, you can bet that I’ll be giving myself a lot more mercy.
Submitted by: Leigh Stockton
Edits by: GrowinG Internship Team
