This isn't weird.

An Investment

 No one was more surprised than Ben by the speed and enthusiasm with which he took to his new work. There had been, initially, a great deal of dread about the prospect of working with power tools—or maybe just tools in general—but Dustin spent his entire first week of training focused almost entirely on safety protocols, impressing upon him the dangers of mishandling the tools, cutting corners, neglecting to wear proper protective gear, keeping disorganized workspace, becoming distracted...

Dustin seemed prepared for every conceivable danger, and quizzed him constantly until he was sure the correct procedures were burned permanently into his brain. By the time Ben started doing actual work, he had acquired a great deal of confidence that he wasn't going to accidentally sever any important appendages.

It had been so long since he had taken the trouble to really learn a new skill; he hadn't realized how starved his newly rehabilitated brain was for the stimulation, and working with his hands gave him a sense of satisfaction he hadn't anticipated. His efforts yielded things that were solid, tangible, real, things that he could look at and hold in his hands. Every advancement in his competence was measurable and objective. It was a far cry from filling out tedious spreadsheets that disappeared into the ether the moment they were finished. And while he did find himself filling out the occasional spreadsheet, it proved to be far less mind numbing when he actually cared about the business.

Though he had at first agreed only to part time hours, by the third week, he volunteered to move up to full time. There was more than enough work to keep them busy—it still confounded him that Dustin had managed to bring in so much business through word of mouth alone. He didn't even have a website, for god's sake, though that was an issue they both agreed needed to be rectified posthaste. Dustin had the technical skills to build it, but relied heavily on Ben to write the actual copy.
"I can't write for shit," Dustin insisted, urging Ben toward the keyboard. "You gotta make me sound like I know what I'm doing."

"But you do know what you're doing," Ben pointed out.

"Damn right I do," Dustin replied, "and I know how to explain things in person, but that doesn't mean I can write it down in a way that makes sense to anyone else. I've got the writing skills of an eleven-year-old caveman. Caveboy? Whatever—this is your element, dude. You know how to be all charming and witty and still sound professional."

"I am highly motivated by compliments," Ben admitted.

"I know," Dustin said, grinning. "And you could work on that stuff at home, if you want—get a break from the shop here and there, or pick up some overtime. Just log the hours and send them to me."

The new responsibility came with a modest raise, as did every new responsibility that he was given. It wasn't long before Ben was in charge of nearly all of the work that took place behind a keyboard—invoices and spreadsheets, as he had expected, but he was also handling most of the correspondences with both clients and suppliers now, putting Dustin's designs into words, slowly building the business an online presence, calculating quotes and reasonable prices—well, somewhat reasonable. His aptitude for negotiation and upselling was yet one more surprise. He took great pains to brand their products as high end luxury items, a status symbol of sorts, and he quickly learned that cat people were willing to burn through an absurd amount of their disposable income on their precious pets.

At first Dustin had balked at his business plan, but he was ultimately forced to concede that with just the two of them, they were limited in how much they could produce; they needed high prices to actually turn a profit. He agreed (on the condition that a small percentage of each sale would go to the shelter where he volunteered) and gave Ben a substantial raise.