Work and Story-sharing

Yesterday I was outside for a large part of the day, doing hard physical work with groups of people. In the afternoon my Tools class, led by Adrian, drove down the road to a section of the Outdoor Center's ski trail that needed maintenance. We dug trenches in wet lowland areas to allow for water drainage, and we located, cut, dragged, and stacked logs to make primitive bridges across those areas. Then, after dinner, I went out (with a new group this time) with Rick to dig the potatoes in the potato patch. As I squatted there, bent over, with my hands in the dirt and my clothes covered in mud and dirt from both jobs, I looked around me and realized what wonderful groups of people that I was blessed to have worked with that day.
And it dawned on me how important story could be for communities who do physical labor together... Sharing personal stories to connect with others, telling work-related stories to connect with the job or task, and creating new stories to pass the time.
It is unfortunate that so many modern jobs do not allow for or support this kind of communal work and story-sharing.