American Workers Talk About What Drives Them

Work defines us. It shapes our days, fills our hours, gives meaning to what we do and who we are.

For some, it’s a profession, a career, a calling. Others see a job as a necessity that allows them to do their most important work: raising a family, building a community, pitching in to help others.

This is the work that has built America. This Labor Day weekend, we pause to praise the American worker.

‘There Ain’t No Quit in Me’

Farrier Robb Hoffman thinks a lot about the state of America as he drives between commercial horse operations and backyard hobby farms throughout North Florida.

His “office” is a small, white pickup with a mobile workshop in the bed, filled with tools for trimming horses’ hooves and shaping horseshoes.

For job security and because he has five grandchildren, he hopes the next president will bring about “a good, strong economy and a strong border,” he told The Epoch Times. “That’s more conducive to business.”

Without those things, “the people start to suffer and they start to cut the fat. They start to do away with things they don’t need, like horses.”

Hoffman, 59, hopes the upcoming election will put someone in the White House who is “for the people, and for our country. They’re Americans first, and they’re politicians second.”

“I can tell you straight up, there’s been many a day that my wife and I have ate less, so our kids can eat more. And I think all families go through that.”

Horses’ hooves continuously grow and need to be trimmed and balanced about every 4-6 weeks. Some need shoes that must be customized for each hoof. Some need corrective or therapeutic shoeing in order to move freely and without pain.

Hoffman went to farrier school out West to become certified in his craft. Then he apprenticed with pros near Ocala, Florida, said to be the horse capital of the world.

To make ends meet, he often works 12- to 16-hour days, sometimes six days a week. It’s the kind of bent-over work that makes a guy’s back, legs, and arms ache.

Between each horse, he rests a bit and takes a few sips of water he keeps in his truck.

“If you don’t like hard work, and working when it’s 105 degrees, or working when it’s pouring down rain and all your tools are getting wet, it’s just not a career somebody would want to pursue.”

So why do it?

It’s simple, he told The Epoch Times.

“I love horses, and I love people.

“Plus, my dad instilled in me a work ethic that, no matter what, you don’t give up.

“He used to tell me all the time, that there’s nothing more important in your life than your job … you always provide for your family. You feed your kids, you clothe your kids, and you take care of your kids and your wife.”

Hoffman has had “a lot of health issues and a lot of debilitating things”… “but I just don’t quit. There ain’t no quit in me.”

He works wearing therapeutic shoes and leg braces.

“I just don’t look at it like a disability. I just look at it like, this is the cross that I bear, and I’m gonna do everything I can to do everything that I do well.

And he doesn’t see his work as just providing foot care for horses.

“I’ve tried to use this as a ministry. Sometimes that has to deal with Christianity, and sometimes people just need to talk, to get things off their chest, like therapy.”

One client calls him a “farr-apist.” It’s a moniker he’d like to put on a hat some day.

The Value of Work

Darryl Burkett doesn’t fit the stereotype of a CEO. With his ball cap cocked back on his head, he contemplates the grease under his nails, takes a break from restocking his truck with plumbing supplies, and opines about why he’s proud of his work in Durant, Oklahoma.

Since 2009, he’s owned and operated KD Plumbing & Construction, LLC., a business that has grown to employ 14 people in a warehouse near the airport. He figures the keys to his entrepreneurial success are his dedication to his family and his community and an education that extends beyond classrooms and lectures. His most skilled instructor, he says, was his father.

“My dad told me that if you learn how to do everything and you’re willing to do anything, you’ll always make a living. You make yourself valuable,” he told The Epoch Times.

Like most ranchers, tradesmen, and blue collar workers in this Southeast Oklahoma town, Burkett has amassed a variety of skills. He welds, fixes equipment, repairs plumbing, builds things, and operates all kinds of vehicles.

“There’s nothing that I’m scared to do.”

He played some baseball in college, then went to work at the Choctaw Casino & Resort-Durant. But realizing he “was not an inside guy,” he moved on to work with his father, who taught him valuable technical skills.

But more importantly, he said, his father taught him the value of work.

Eventually, he bought a truck, gathered his tools, and opened his own business. But it’s the work ethic, taught by his father, that has kept his company open and his family fed, he said.

“I like to work with my hands. I’ll get down in the hole like anyone else.

He refuses to give up that freedom.

His main goal as a doctor is to help people improve their health and quality of life.