A cherry picker. Not me.

Picture a forklift with a really high mast, so that its forks are up about 25 feet in a warehouse. There’s a four-foot platform between the forks and the mast. See the little guy waaaaay up high on the platform, pulling boxes off of the pallets in the shelves? Yeah. That’s me at work. Hello down there!

Interestingly, this job has given me a few lessons you can apply to life. Here goes:

Bring together all the resources you need: The boss man wouldn’t like it too much if I came back with only half the boxes I was supposed to be picking. Besides that, what would the store in Kalamazoo do if they didn’t have their weekly shipment of laptop coolers? Make sure you have all you need to complete any project you pursue.

Face your fears: Believe it or not, it’s a wee bit frightening to look down from a few stories up. At times I was scared stiff — yes, sometimes literally; I froze high in the air, hanging on for dear life as the platform swayed back and forth. Panicking isn’t fun at 20 feet. Eventually, though, I got used to it (Hint: Don’t look down!), so that sky-high box is almost as easy to get as one on the floor. I couldn’t have gotten to this point if I hadn’t mastered my fears.

Aim for the sky: Anybody can pick the low-hanging fruit. It takes a special kind of person to go past the low places where the crowds are, climb higher, and pursue the top eschelons. That’s what gets the client, the promotion, the medal. And hey, even if you don’t make it all the way up, at least you’re at the fourth-level ink cartridges. Or something.

Just fake it: It takes a while to master a skill. I had to force myself to keep going up, even when I was afraid to put my foot way out far on the pallet to get that last box on the top level. Picking for ten hours a day gets you used to it real quick, though, so it’s not too big a deal anymore. I would have never been able to succeed at my work if I hadn’t worked up the courage to go for it time and again.

Go for the peanut butter fudge: It may not be related, but it’s still good advice, nonetheless. Yum!