The Chicken Chronicles: Butch Teaches Us All About The Value of Hard Work

Please, no cheap jokes at her expense. She did not choose her name and she does not deserve your derision. I don’t know who picked “Butch” for her; one of us adults are to blame, a whimsical moment that will forever label this chicken. Sort of like the Boy Named Sue of Johnny Cash fame, this chicken has learned to adjust to the ridiculous name and thrive despite it.

Seriously, what is in a name. It is simply a handhold for us to grasp in passing, a point of reference so that we all don’t have to say “hey you” on a regular basis. It in no way defines the person, or in this case fowl. It in no way gives us insight into the character of that fowl now does it? It is no more and no less than five letters forming a sound. Butch!

Had we known the true gumption of Butch at birth perhaps we would have named her “Determined” or “Tenacious.” Perhaps our thoughts would have turned to “Reliable” or “Consistent.” Anything but Butch!

But Butch it is, and forever will be (or at least for six or seven years until she breathes her last cluck). Allow me, then, to introduce you to our resident worker-bee, our over-achiever, our quietly dependable wallflower Butch.

Let your imaginations run free for a moment and consider a chicken coop as an egg factory. Like any factory in the world, the hierarchy is established and roles are doled out. In our egg factory, we have Butter Cup as the foreman. We have Zorro as the pretty model used in our advertisements, and Regalia is in charge of marketing. All well and good but we still need someone to produce the product, and that someone, on a most regular basis, is Butch.

As I write this it is mid-December. Chickens have a tendency to take the winter months off. Hey, laying an egg the size of a future omelet is not an easy task, and doing it daily for months requires super human strength and endurance. Imagine, ladies, being pregnant and giving birth daily. That’s right, I see you nodding your heads and weeping at the thought of it all….so you all understand why these little cluckers need to take some time off.

Not Butch! December 16^th finds her in the nesting box doing her motherly thing, straining and gritting her beak to provide that “over easy” egg I will eat on the 17^th. She is the Queen of Consistency, rarely missing a day in her laying duties. She deserves, quite frankly, a mention in the Guiness Book of World Records, but fame is not her thing and never will be.

Very little as a matter of fact. Like so many workers around the world, Butch just shows up on time and delivers the product. She will never be read about when our egg factory is tallying its profits. She will never receive a gold watch when she retires; quite frankly she will probably die before retirement. Still, she is perfectly satisfied doing a hard day’s work for a good day’s pay, or in our case for some mealworms and an occasional crust of bread.

Now considering the fact that she will never know fame or riches, you would think that she would be demanding of the pay she is owed, but that just is not her style. When suppertime is announced she quietly moves to the back porch and grabs her place in line. When the mealworms are tossed she does not frantically move about trying to take more than her share; she simply stands rooted in one spot and makes sure she is not forgotten. She expects her portion to be placed at her feet; she has, after all, earned it, so why not demand that which is rightfully hers? She does not expect more; she does not expect less. Just give her what she earned and all is right in her world.

The best possible of friend and you can take that to the bank. Think of your own experience working for a company. There will always be the obnoxious ones that you work with. There will always be those who are louder than the rest, a bigger pain in the tush than the rest, the ones who believe that the only way to gain respect is to be more demanding than everyone else.

Not Butch! Butch is not showy. Butch is not beautiful, Butch is not overbearing and Butch is not a bragging fool. Butch is just a good worker and she is content in knowing that at the end of the day she has done her best.

She is supportive of her fellow workers and respectful to her bosses. She is the cog that keeps our wheel turning, and yet she never spouts superiority over the spokes.

Frightening thought now isn’t it? Let the corporate bigwigs stand up and take a bow, but without workers like Butch, those three-piece Armanis would be getting dirty in the assembly line. Let the accountants gloat for their tax-dodge schemes; let the marketing department toast their brilliance; let them all bask in their own glory, but if the truth be known….if we get right down to the nitty gritty…it is the Butches of the world that do the hard, dirty work and keep the economies of the world in the black.

So for those of you flipping burgers at McDonalds; for those of you who wait on customers in cafes; for those of you who frame houses and drive trucks and stock shelves until your backs threaten to break and your fingers bleed….for all of you, I give you Butch, your patron saint, the living, breathing, clucking symbol of the common laborer.

2013 William D. Holland (aka billybuc)

“Helping writers to spread their wings and fly.”