Air Traffic Control: Summer Week #2 – 6/12/24
Air Traffic Control
Starting in March, I begin seeding plants and tending plants in the greenhouse. During March and April, I spend long, quiet hours, carefully seeding the baby plants that will eventually nourish all of you.
It is repetitive work, and it allows my mind room to roam. For hours I stand in the same spot, running a machine that helps me seed our transplants. I listen to podcasts. I sing when no one else is there. I practice my Spanish speaking audio lessons. I listen to audiobooks.
Fast forward to June, and my work days couldn’t be any different.
My job in June is to train, direct, guide, and keep my team moving in multiple locations – both the farm at my house and the farm at Michael’s house. Changing weather conditions and the dynamic aspect of changing crops in the field requires flexibility and adjustments of plans. Constant communication between myself and Michael, and between myself and my team leaders is necessary. Planning with specificity can only ever be done the night before – any attempts to make a plan sooner will only be thwarted by the weather or a change in a buyers order.
Some days lots of my coordination is needed. Others not so much.
When it’s intense, it’s like this… Last Friday I wanted to listen to one song through my AirPods that a friend had sent me. Just one song. At 7:45 am, after getting the crew going, I tried to listen to it all the way through to pay attention to the lyrics. Between crew texts, radio calls, and phone calls I kept pausing and unpausing the song. It played over and over in my ears, but in bits and pieces. By 10 am I realized I was still trying to play the same song to hear it all the way through just once. Now it was a game. I then purposely tried to hear the song for the rest of the day. It was not until 2:10 pm that afternoon that I was successfully able to play a 2 minute and 47 second song without communication required of me.
On the face of it, being an organic farmer and being an air traffic controller seem really different. But I think if I sat down for a beer with air traffic controller, we would have LOTS in common to talk about. Both of us are coordinating others in a fluid situation that is easily affected by changing weather conditions. We have to be calm and decisive. We have to communicate clearly. Our brains are asked to pivot frequently and handle interruptions and changes. Any air traffic controllers out there?
The best part about being a farmer is that I have huge seasonal shifts in my day to day work demands. I love love audiobook season in the potting shed, where it’s me and the soil and the seeds. AND I love early high season when the whole team is getting trained on and my job is to keep it all going, controller style. AND I will love it in mid July, when my crew is trained up and things get easier, and sometimes I can get out of the air traffic control tower and let my mind roam again.
