JOB ONE: LANDSCAPING
One summer in high school this hippie landscaper hired me and paid me under the table. At first the idea was that I'd be his assistant in all things landscaping related, but early on it became clear that I was terrible at even the simplest forms of manual labor, like digging holes, so he sentenced me to plant watering. It was boring, but it was easy, and I got to be outside all day.
The other two guys on the landscaping crew: another hippie who I guess was friends with the boss, and some kind of convict who was on parole or something. The convict had to have the hippie landscaper sign some kind of piece of paper at the end of the day for his parole officer. He was a lot better at digging holes than I was.
JOB TWO: MOVIE THEATER
Next I got a job at a new 8-plex they were building in town. The idea was that my friends and I would get in on the ground floor and then rule the place. We helped with the construction of the place, which was fun, but soon the place opened and it stopped being fun as soon as the customers showed up. I was banished from concessions for being bad at handling money and sentenced to the door post. Ironically, this was a position I preferred.
The people who ran the theater had a hard time keeping a janitor on the payroll, so there was a period where they made the closing crew do the janitorial work, sometimes lasting late into the night. One New Years' Eve, my boss let me leave early due to lack of business.
"So, if I'm leaving early, that means I'm not part of the closing crew, right?" I asked.
"Yes," my boss said.
"So, that means I don't have to come back and help with janitorial, right?" I asked.
"I guess not," my boss said.
So, I left. Next day I found out I had been suspended by the assistant manager for not coming in to help with janitorial. I was suspended for a period of several days, and I asked the assistant manager if this meant literally that number of days, or the number of shifts, since I often went a day or two without working.
"Number of shifts," she said.
"So I could be suspended for like two weeks?" I asked.
"Yeah," she said.
"I quit," I said.
JOB THREE: GOLF COURSE GROUNDSKEEPER
My dad got me a job watering the local public golf course. When I interviewed for the job it sounded great.
"Well, you let the sprinklers run for about an hour," he said. "Then you go move all of them. Then you let them run for another hour. It's a lot of sitting around, doing nothing. You can bring a video to watch if you want. You start around sunset and leave as soon as you're done. I think the guy who has the job now usually leaves at 2:00."
The hours were weird, but I liked the idea of getting paid to sit around. So, I showed up, and the guy who worked there and would be my partner showed me the ropes. The fun part was that we drove around in a Gator. We drove from hole to hole, inserting sprinklers into pipes in the ground. It took about an hour to go all the way around the course, and by the time we were done setting up all the sprinklers, it was time to start moving the first ones we had set up. So we'd start over again in an endless cycle, going around and around the course, setting up sprinklers, moving them, etc.
As night fell I began to notice bats swarming every time we stopped the Gator to jump out and move the sprinklers. It was like the TEMPLE OF DOOM. As the night progressed we eventually broke a sprinkler and sent water gushing, turning the fairway into a muddy swamp. My partner and I tried everything to fix it, including dragging a generator and pump out of the shed and attempting to pump the water out. But, no dice. So we had to call the real groundskeeper, who was on call, but who was not happy to come out and help.
By the time we were done, the sun was coming up and it had been about 12 hours. We reported to our bosses, who scolded us for calling the groundskeeper to bail us out, and commanded us to report for duty later that night.
Needless to say, I immediately quit.
JOB FOUR: VIDEO STORE
I worked in the worst video store in town for about one month. The idea was I'd work there while I was home from college for winter break, then come back in the summer and have a built in job. One time, I was supposed to open the store, and I slept in. So the owner called to ask where I was. Oops. Oddly, they didn't need me when I came back for the summer.
JOB FIVE: WRITING TUTOR
In college I worked in the tutoring center. I was terrible at it. Let's not talk about it. I did get lots of homework done, though.
JOB SIX: COFFEE SHOP
For two summers during college, I worked at a coffee shop. The owner got sick of me moping around there in between looking for summer jobs and decided to hire me. At first I was worried making all the crazy coffee drinks would be difficult but then I learned that they're all the same, so I chilled out. Still, judging from the customers' reactions, I must not have been very good at it. A lot of bikers hung out there. I was never sure why until I realized they were all in AA. Coincidentally, they always ordered the most extreme drinks -- iced quad shots, etc. So, their drinks were already terrible, and then they hated the way I made them. Go figure.
A lot of loser kids used to also hang out there and come in asking for water. The owner got sick of it so she said they'd have to start paying $0.25 or something if they wanted water. I decided not to charge them, but I'd tell each one who came in what the deal was and asked them to please not rat on me. Of course, one of them did, so no more free water for them.
The owner eventually sold the coffee shop and the family who bought it didn't hire me back. So, there went all my free coffee. And cookies. And Sobes. And pizza from the restaurant on the corner.
JOB SEVEN: ANOTHER MOVIE THEATER
One summer when I was home for college I got a job at an older theater about a half hour away from my parents' house, in Salem. My old boss from my first movie theater job was running it and was willing to hire me, and I was looking forward to "working" there and not having to do anything based on my familiarity with the boss. There were a few other dudes in assistant manager positions who I also knew, so I just got to sit around in the box office reading. Additionally, we got to talk on walkie talkies all the time, so all in all it was a great experience.
I assumed all the other workers were roughly my age until one day one of the guys was really excited about getting his drivers' license.
"Dude," I said. "You're just now getting your drivers' license?"
"Uh, yeah," a hot chick I had previously assumed was 21 said. "He's 16."
"Oh," I said. "Oh!" I thought. I looked around at everyone. "How old are you?" I asked the chick.
"16," she said.
Turns out they were all high schoolers. Fuck me, right?
JOB EIGHT: THE JOB I HAVE NOW
Oh wait. I can't write about it. I read on CNN where you're not supposed to talk about your job on the internet or you'll get fired.
THE END
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