What about your job on the corner? I think any job that makes $25 a pop and has to do with phallic pieces of candy has to qualify as random and bewildering.

You would know.

I convinced my mom to buy a vacuum once from a door to door saleswoman. One of those nifty ones with the 12,000 attachments that also has a built in carpet cleaner. I was fascinated by her demonstration. My mom still has the vacuum. Everytime I try to use it, I can’t figure it out. I hate it.

I couldn’t figure it out, either, and I was selling it.

My second stint at hostessing lasted a record 2 weeks. Pay check? $96. Waste of a W-2. I think I’m a bit too “square” to work in the service industry. Apparently it was a-ok that my underage “colleague” had shown up to work drunk and was drinking at the host stand. So when I complained to the manager and was looked in that “…and?” kinda way, I knew it was time to go.

That and the fact that I don’t do copious amounts of illegal drugs kind of disqualified me, as well.

People tell me I’m actually a 60 year old woman with my distinct lack of coolness. I’m working on it.

You could get a job at Wal-Mart as a greeter with those qualifications.

I also tried and failed at the service industry. Failed mostly because I hate having to be an ass-kisser to rude people to get a better tip. This was the same reason I gave up on a career in PR very quickly.

After working two years as a waiter, I determined that there is NO good way of predicting a tip. Rude customers, though skewing cheaper, might in fact give you a 20-25% tip while the nicest ones, though generally generous, might stiff you. So I realized I might as well be myself. I found NO change in my tip percentage.

At least you didn’t end up living in a van down by the river.
Oddest job: Paint salesman at Sears.

My first job was working in the Sears hardware department, right next to the paint department. I was 16 and didn’t even know what a ratchet was. But I DID get to mix the paint sometimes. Fun.

I worked as a waiter at Chili’s for around…oh, 14 minutes.

I actually almost applied to be a Duck Tour driver in Boston when I graduated from college. Someone told me that was the best way to use my history degree. And look at me now. Getting another useless degree unrelated to my job.

You’re well on your way to dedicating your career to academia. Congratulations.

Why only 14 minutes?

My best were hardware salesman at Sears, which lasted until I was screamaed at by a woman before Xmas b/c she waited until the last minute and we were out of something…and I screamed back and got fired…and I was one of the first Saturn salesman, too. But you went door to door? You win.

Wow, you, Twoste, and me all worked at Sears. I actually was the youngest person at the Canoga Park Sears to win employee of the month at 17. I sold the most table saws and unnecessary warranties.

You mean Maintenance Agreements. (shudder)

Oh, yeah…

14 minutes was how long I was able to keep the argument going when the manager told me to take out my eyebrown ring. Like a hoop in my face is going to stop some fat slob from ordering his baby back ribs. Chiliiiiiiiiiiiiii’s baby back riiiibs.

What about your tongue ring?

I worked at a deli for a summer. I hated it! The deli manager was such a twat … I was fixing the display near the counter where the cheeses are and stuff and came across these tofu packages that had expired. I let her know and she told me to take the expiry date off so that people wouldn’t know!!! She was wacked … another time when I was slicing some deli for a customer, she shoved me out of the way to take over because the manager of the store was making his way to our section and she was just standing there examining her nails as usual. Beyatch.

As an aside I worked at the Bay (Canadian equivalent of Sears) and got yelled at by a customer because we didn’t have what she was looking for. Just before she left she told me that she was going to Sears (which was on the other side of the mall) because they had better customer service. I quit that job a few months into it.

Good to know there are so many conscientious workers in the food industry. I could tell you some crazy stories of working as a pizza delivery boy.

Eyebrow ring. But I do have brown eyes…I totally understand that typo.

Baby Bien,
I, too, had the bit “eyebrow ring” argument with my manager at Fridays. He said i could cover it with a band-aid… because apparently have a thug hostess who looks like she got in a fight on the corner, and lost, is better than having one with an eyebrow ring.

i used to be a lifeguard from high school thru most of college which was awesome, but it doesn’t get warm enough to go in the water until at least mid-june. so the first year i came home from college i was bored after a week so my dad suggested a temp agency… i ended up completely dressed up and supposed to do customer service for a sears autoparts place. not a good fit. i lasted until 11:00 am when they suggested i change oil and made a rude remark to me about not knowing some car part thing. i went to my car and called my dad crying. my dad called the temp agency and they called sears to let them know i would not be coming back inside. turns out i had to go back inside to get my bag, talk about awkward.

Wow, the Sears horror stories are mounting.

Did you at least learn how to change the oil?

I once worked in a video store that was celebrating the VHS release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I had to dress up in a Donatello costume and take photos with all the screaming children. I have a polaroid of it somewhere, somewhere very well hidden.

I was Super-Server, though, in that I cared DEEPLY about service quality. So much so that a coworker once said, “We’re not saving lives, K. We’re serving drinks.”

You MUST find that Polaroid and show it to me. You can trust me with it.

I worked in the “deli” at a gas station one summer. Gas station deli means pretty much frying foods left and right. I had to take apart 3 deep fryers every night, and clean up the bucket loads of grease and chicken parts that had accumulated in the fryers. I also came home every night smelling like grease and with grease burns on my arms. That job only lasted one summer.

Wow, I’m surprised it went that long. I’m sure the “deli” passed some pretty stringent health codes.

Coming from the man who was going to charge me 35% interest? Nice try, Jack-0. I’m going to send it to my new Nigerian email buddy, along with the certified check I’m mailing out to him. See, he really cares about me.

But seriously, it was hot. I was fierce in those green tights and plastic codpiece. Yowza.

I’ll knock your interest down to 30% in exchange for the picture. Or go with the Nigerian, he sounds trustworthy.

nope. the oil was the final straw that day, as soon as they mentioned it i excused myself and went to my car.

but i did get a check for a full day of work and an apology from the temp agency for placing me there. poor sears, they messed with the wrong girl.

Sounds more like they messed with the wrong girl’s dad.

They didn’t care about the tongue ring. They said it “wasn’t part of my face”.

But I did have to take out the eyebrow ring for the Princeton Review. They had a one facial piercing rule. And they counted the tongue as part of my face. Smarter people there.

Wow, companies actually make policy based on facial piercings. Good to know.

I was the bird at Red Robin - remember? But it was a strategic move - I really wanted to be a waitress there, but since I was only 15, it was the only job they could offer me.
But minimum wage was $4.25/hr, and I made $6.50/hr as the bird… so I was a smart business woman even at such a young age. It also allowed me to buy that CRAPPY Subaru when I turned 16. Those were the days…

Yeah, but remember how awful the Valley summers were on you? Didn’t you nearly faint one day wearing that heat trap?

I’m glad you listen to what I have to say, babe! Love you, too!

I did inventory for years in grocery stores and gas stations. Basically you just count every single thing the store has–which is not as easy as it sounds, I swear. I also made circuit breakers for a year in a factory. That was kinda cool.

I totally picture you looking like Laverne and Shirley when they worked at the beer factory; did you get to wear one of those attractive smocks?

along the vein of fried products, I stopped at a gas station past Hagerstown one night and they had Thrashers so I had to get fries. The lady running the fryer and the cash register was in her regular work uniform, standard curly mullet, and acrylic nails at least an inch long. so long they CURLED. running the Thrashers counter. At a gas station.

I used to work at the Melting Pot and while the canola oil that’s used for dinner is great when you’re dining, it makes you positively reek. I was banned from going out with my friends after work unless I went home and showered first.

Wow, so many of us had jobs that left us stinking worse than a litter box. I guess we all paid our dues.

baby bien - that’s b/c it was *Princeton* review that they were smart enough to count your tongue as part of your face. Wicked smart.

My first job was at the evil McD’s. (I’m too ashamed to even mention how long I stayed there…) Yes, I smelled like ass when I went home. There was a layer of grease on my skin and in my hair, too. Yum.

The strangest (and shortest-lived) of my many employment ventures was definitely acting as a “Secret Shopper.” I got one of those DVD display stocking gigs through the same organization. I spent like 4 hours one day at the local grocery organizing the DVDs and doing inventory. Those jerks never paid me, either. Ugh.

I too had to be confined in a costume for only one day in my entire Chick-Fil-A career during high school. I was “Doodles” the chicken and had to walk around the mall for an entire day with an escort. I had kids coming up behind me and snapping the tail on me. I do have a picture, but it can only be released for the right amount of money.

My worst job was my Junior year of high school during Christmas time back at “homecountry A”, where I lived with my mom.

It was a department store of sorts and I was assigned to the toys section, especifically the Barbie section. We had to wear high heels, mini skirts and pretend that we really cared about the dolls. We were bullied by the management, who assumed nobody spoke English (a few of us did) because lots of the girls working there were of low-income families.

My two worst moments were when I followed company policy in refusing to open a Barbie box to show the girl all of the details of the doll (you were supposed to just use the display one for that kind of stuff). The girl’s parents complained and the owner chewed me up without even listening to my side. Nevermind that I was doing what SHE had told me to do. The second story is the one that really made me hate them. We got called in for a meeting and on the way out, I wound up in front of the owner’s son and his girlfriend. They were speaking Spanish and then switched to English to say something like how stupid and simple we employees were and how they hated those meetings with us. I wanted to turn around and chew them up in English too. Owning a BMW and speaking English in a Third-world country did not make them better than the people who were working for them. Assholes.

Years later the store started to go out of business due to some financial problems and eventually burned down, I think. I was not sorry.

I spent a summer working at Chuck E. Cheese. Not as a server, thank god, but in the kitchen (making the pizzas, washing dishes, etc).

Oh, and putting on 15lbs of plastic and polyester fur and wandering out into a crowd of rambunctious 8-year-olds. Sure, they let the parents have beer, but none for those of us stuck inside that rodent monstrosity (granted, I was 16, but you need a drink after that kind of experience, you know?).

Fortunately, there are no pictures (sorry, k).

I once DJ’d dances at a Mormon Church in Michigan. It technically wasn’t a job, as I wasn’t paid, but I used it to fulfill my community service requirement for graduating high school. I was tasked with playing “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit’ It” and other squeeky clean pop music while Mormon teens awkwardly danced with the opposite (and ONLY the opposite) sex. I was once reprimanded by a female elder church member for playing the song “Love Shack”, as it is apparently about “a couple of unmarried youths going to a shack and engaging in lustful acts”. If she only knew…

I was a waitress at a retirement facility where Pat Riley’s mother was a resident. It involved plenty of people older than my grandparents, a lot of false teeth, and a lot of being called “hey girl”. I got fired. And upon the firing, I cried. Seriously. Even though I hated every single minute of it.

The only good moment was when Pat Riley came in. Though I had to resist questioning him about the Knicks.

my first comment on your blog. oooooh! excitement! nice to meet you.

I’ve worked in so many random jobs that it’s almost humiliating. The most random was at this restaurant where I was on trial for one day. When the ultra bitchy manager who spent the entire shift telling me how to cut cheese (literally, not figuratively) asked me how much I enjoyed my first day, I told her with a big smile that it “certainly wasn’t the most enjoyable job I’ve ever had.” I was never given another shift.

I’ve also worked getting donations for a dodgy well-known charity, slopped pasta onto plates, and cleaned toilets at a very busy McDonald’s.

Oh, I also worked for my Dad but he sacked me for having a fight with my sister whilst we were on holidays. Nothing to do with work. I bring that up every time he claims not to have favourites!

i worked for a few months at Freshens Yogurt and it was hell on earth. in addition to yogurt we would make smoothies and people would crowd around and order 15 at a time and then get mad the smoothies were not ready in 2 minutes. i would leave there sticky and smelling like rotted bananas and assorted tropical fruits.

I’ve had an assload of jobs as well. I remember this one I had to “try out” for and we had to go door- to- door trying to sell tickets to baseball games or something. I can’t remember. Whomever was driving me around lost me for like 3 hours in the early Spring cold. I don’t think I sold anything or even went to any houses, I just chilled out at a park and then wandered around.
I didn’t get the job and even if I had been offered it, I wouldn’t have taken it.

Does panhandling count as a job? I’m really good at that and it comes in handy when you’re broke and living out of your car.

Ok, this is kind of weird, but I just remembered that I worked on an assembly line in a “perfume” factory in Budapest. It was an apprenticeship kind of thing we all had to do in ELEMENTARY SCHOOL! I kid you not…they made our whole class work there once a week for two weeks and I think they even paid us like 50 cents and a couple of free bottles of “perfume”. Perfume is in parentheses because it should never have been called that. It smelled more like dog pooh.
This apprenticeship must have been part of a communist propaganda (this was in the 80s when Hungary was still behind the Iron Curtain). If I remember correctly I was 12 years old and my job was to glue labels onto the boxes. After that, all my shitty jobs in America seemed pretty luxurious.

Sounds like great career choices

I role played at a police academy. It was not the good kind of role playing. I had to stand on some random corner with a fake rubber gun and giggled manically the whole time I was being “arrested” by a not-so-amused police academy cadet. Apparently I was wanted for an armed robbery.

I was hired to work at the “Seafood Counter” in a Winn-Dixie one summer. I went in for my training, and was told that I was personally going to be responsible for cleaning and cutting up fish for customers. I walked outside for a smoke break and I never went back.

Dude, I’m like 12 years old and I’ve probably had more jobs than you have. Don’t even get me started on the bullshit I’ve done in my life.

And, to be perfectly honest, this post just makes me think that you’re very lazy and give up on shit quickly. I mean, come on, how many jobs have you quit in the first week?