My father woke me up early one summer morning when I was fourteen and announced: "Get up. You're going with me to cut grass." The idea that my father thought I was old enough to help him in his business made me feel proud and excited. From sunup to sundown, my father, my younger brother and I worked in the large yards in a rich part of Atlanta, Georgia. By the end of the day I was tired out, but I felt good. I had put in a hard day's labor and had earned $ 6 One day my father found some leaves I'd missed and pulled me aside. "Clear away these leaves!" he said firmly, "and don't make me have to do it again." The message was clear. Today I value the importance of doing a job right the first time. It will never fail to impress the person you are working for. After two years, my father told me and my brother that he felt we were old enough to do lawns on our own. Every Saturday during our last two years of high school, we set out early in the morning with the same desire and drive we had gained while working under our father. Taking care of lawns was not exciting or high-paying, but that didn't matter. It taught me that any job was a good job and that whatever I was paid was more than I had before. A newspaper reporter once asked me how someone could possibly live on a forty-hour-a-week minimum pay. "My father has never worked just forty hours a week, and neither have I," I replied. "If you're only working forty hours, you probably don't want to do any better than you are doing." In every job I've held from doing lawns to washing dishes, I have learned something that helped me in my next job. If you work hard enough, you can learn from any job you do. Why did the writer feel proud and excited when asked to cut grass?
He was old enough to help his father. He became important to his father's business. He was able to take care of large yards. He could earn $6 that day.