Hire the Boy
The boy has been looking for a summer job. He’s applied to a dozen jobs and had a few interviews. In the meantime, he’s done several odd jobs including babysitting, lawn mowing and, perhaps the coolest of all, assisting Sean Tubbs with recordings for the Charlottesville Podcasting Network. These are all great jobs to have, but too few and far between to assist him with the pain of his oncoming life as a poor college student.
He interviewed for a sales job, which turned out to be that time-honored appointment-driven scheme to sell Cutco Knives. What funny about this is that in 1989, my husband had the same interview, was presented the same earning structure, had the same “convincing” conversation with me about taking the job. He sold knives to several friends and we still have his sample set; the best knives we own. The boy made a list of all the people he could imagine coercing to buy knives from him. He came up with 10 names. Then he decided he’d better let that opportunity go.
He’s a good kid; smart, reliable, has his own wheels and is willing to work hard. For money. That’s the important part. Let me know if you have a dog sitting, lawn mowing, filing, binder assembly, podcast recording, ditch shoveling, telemarketing, table-waiting, coffee-fetching or other menial job for him. You’ll be saving his hide because his dad’s going to wring his neck if he doesn’t get a job soon.
I hope he does get a non-terrible job, although I think everyone needs a truly awful job at some point, hopefully early in their career. Everyone needs one demoralizing, insulting, disgusting, offensive job to reminisce about when their work-life improves. Think of the opportunities to play that negative one-upmanship game comparing past work lives with current coworkers.
My friend Jim had a bad job when he was in high school. He worked in a pickle plant, driving a forklift. It was hot and smelled to high heaven of pickle brine. Just talking about it, his nose wrinkles with the memory of a smell he was not rid of from May till August.
One of my husband’s first jobs was in the Chrysler plant, attaching hood ornaments to minivans, working on the line during the night shift. The plant was hot; the work, mind-numbingly boring. Charmingly, he presented me with a hood ornament in lieu of an engagement ring when he popped the question. Luckily, a ring came later.
I worked as a waitress for two weeks; till a construction worker slapped my butt and my fellow waitress creeped me out by reading the Satanic bible and telling tales of her extensive drug use. I also worked at a mall McDonald’s and vividly remember scraping off the remains of a cheeseburger that had been plastered to the wall.
Everyone needs THAT job, the one that makes you never go back, to work hard, study harder and believe that there’s a better place for you one day; that you deserve it and will do anything to get it.
What was your worst job?
My first job was at McDonalds. For 2 years. At a “training store” where new managers were taught cooking and cleaning procedures as if Jesus Christ himself had preached them to the crowds at Galilee. They didn’t want workers with any previous work experience because folks who had worked elsewhere knew that food service really shouldn’t be so military.
Every job I’ve ever had since was colored by those years at McDonalds.
“You got time to lean, you got time to clean!”
“It’s a towel, not a rag!”
“Every customer has the right to an appetizing looking product.”
“Moving a mop across the floor does not equate to mopping!
I did a year as a lumber dog in a now-defunct Big Box hardware store to put myself through Grad School. That was hell. I still shudder at the smell of a hardware store when I enter. I think about all my friends going to Forest Park for a picknik and snogging on a beautiful spring day while I was walking through the doors of the lumber yard, knowing I had a long ten hours of sawdust and loading bags of concrete ahead of me.
But head-to-head? McDonalds had a greater impact on me. McDonalds is that really REALLY hard job I remember most.
I got sucked into the Cutco knife scam too! I came home and told my mom that I’d gotten a really great job selling knives that could slice pennies and she had to tell me that No, it was not a great job. I did not report for work.
Early in my professional career, I was hired to be a fundraising assistant to a director of development who gave me nothing to do. He was on autopilot and didn’t do much himself, so why he thought he needed to hire me is unknown. I knew the first week that the job was a bad fit, but I stuck with it for a year before I started interviewing and left a couple months after that.
Is he 18 yet? If so, have him apply for the temp pools at UVa. They hire people for short term assignments and it probably pays more than he’d get at McD’s.
Probably.
What about Parks & Rec? They usually have many summer jobs. Not sure if they are already filled, but may be worth a shot.
My worst job was reading meters for the electric company. Pouring rain, running house to house. Or in the heat. Or going down into some yucky boxer short-clad guy’s basement. Definitely some interesting situations.
My worst job was as a maid (now a “housekeeping engineer”) at a Howard Johnson’s motel off the interstate. We had to be there at 6:00 am. I remember working with Frances with no teeth and Flossie in the laundry room. Less than 2 years before I had stayed at the Greenbriar in luxury. I remember watching the wedding of Princess Di and Charles during breaks. It was VERY humbling.
I did the stint at McDonald’s, too, but remember it fondly. As MJ well knows, I went to an all-girls school, which was mostly great, but you had to work harder on the male-female interaction, which I regret, as I wish I had learned more about boys by being around them every day. Mickie D’s was eye-opening, and spawned many dates for me, and tho’my first love went to our brother school, we worked together at Mickie’s and that is how we met.
The worst was probably the couple of summers I spent working for the IL Dept of Transportation testing rocks. I spent my beautiful summer days locked away in a room with no windows with an 80-yr old man who had yet to retire placing rocks in molds like puzzle pieces. Once cast, we had to scrub the extra cement away with wire bristle brushes then test them endlessly while I recorded numbers which would eventually tell us which materials offered the best traction, etc. But, I was paid $9/hr, and minimum wage was less than $4, I believe.