Monday, April 28th, 2008
Working Girl
Any time my grandma saw me in my uniform, she’d chase me around with her camera. I found this picture recently while going through her things.
When I was 16, I got my first “real” job. I wanted a car, and to have a car my completely unreasonable mother and step-father insisted that I pay my own car insurance. I’m kidding about the completely unreasonable, they were only partially unreasonable and it was about the amount of car insurance I had to pay (um, all of mine and also a portion of theirs, makes no sense). Anyway, it was somehow decided that I would apply at Safeway. I was horrified when they actually hired me as a Courtesy Clerk, I mean I had NO experience bagging groceries. Also, I was constantly I nicking my mom’s heels with the cart while I pushed when she was shopping.
One Saturday morning, my mom deposited me at “Courtesy Clerk School” where I learned never to bag butter with onions. Or, butter with cleaning products. Or, how about you just put the butter in it’s own damn bag. Again, I was horrified when I graduated from “Courtesy Clerk School” and was authorized to go work. In an actual store.
On my first day, as my dad dropped me off at work, I burst into tears, telling him, “Daddy, I don’t want to go to work.” Shut up, you would have cried too, had you known you were going to have to count rancid beer bottles. He looked right at me and said, “Rhiannon, you’re going to be feeling this way for the rest of your life.”
And, so I went in. And, I worked. I worked there for two and a half years. In that first summer I worked there, not only was I hit by an old woman’s boat of a car (bruises only), I also got heat exhaustion from carrying out groceries in the 103 degree weather. But, I made friends. And, the most annoying, I learned.
When I turned 18, I was promoted. To checker! One of my first days checking was right before Christmas. I am pretty sure I accidentally gave away several Christmas Dinners from the Deli. Oops. I prided myself in my ability to know the most obscure produce codes (Italian Parsley! Bok Choy!) I was obsessive compulsive about the way my money was arranged in my cash drawer and the way my coupons were stacked in my coupon envelope. I cringed when a child handed me a sweaty dollar bill all wadded up from their hand. I was a little sad when a family came in and paid with food stamps, and a lot angry when someone would come and try to purchase cigarettes with food stamps.
Soon, it was time for me to go off to college, and say good bye to Safeway. I stopped by to say hello when I was home from Eugene for the weekend. After a while, most of the people I knew stopped working there. And, I stopped dropping in to say hello. But, I have fond memories of my time spent at Safeway. Especially the produce codes. Sometimes, it takes all my willpower not to shout them out when I’m being rung up at the store.
I’m curious – what was your first job? Do you have fond memories of it, or just the opposite?
Comments on this post
My first job was working at the local newspaper. I do NOT have fond memories of it. I was assistant to the advertisement creator. I was constantly in trouble for trying to be too innovative with the ads. Small towns.
28. April - 6:43 pmMy first job was as a page at the public library, way back in 1989 before libraries started bar-coding their books and when they still had actual card catalogs! My main duty was to check in book returns and then reshelve them, but I also did check-outs and a few other things. The reshelving was a little tedious sometimes, but overall I loved working at the library, especially since it was the small neighborhood branch where I’d been going since I was old enough to read. I worked there for two years. I still know the Dewey decimal system pretty well, and I never, ever stick a library book on any random shelf just to get rid of it. To this day if I see books out of place on library shelves I *have* to return them to their proper place.
28. April - 7:44 pmMy first job was working in the office where my mom worked.(I was the Sumer between 7th and 8th grade) I did data entry, answered the 6 lined phone system, filed stuff, and tried to be helpful. I did well enough that they had me come back the following summer instead of hiring temps like they usually did.
My next job was a volunteer at the library and then a page position at the same library. (I consider this my second first because it was after I was 19, and had Rapunzel).
28. April - 10:42 pmmy first job was when I was 16 and it was at a daycare center. we were way understaffed and I was in over my head. but it was fun for the most part. and also good birth control.
29. April - 5:34 amlol, that was a cute story. My first job was at macdonalds during my first semester at the local university. I hated it so much, I joined the Navy right afterwards.
29. April - 6:08 amOrange Julius. it sucked BAD. free food though. :/
29. April - 6:32 amMy first job was as a hostess at a restaurant. I was 16. And yeah, there were definitely fond memories. Being asked out on by 21 year old servers, was AWESOME.
29. April - 7:00 amMy first job was working as at a grill at our local gas station, Kountry Korner…it was klassy.
xox
29. April - 8:39 amMy first job was taking orders and making pizzas at papa john’s. It was tons of fun — a lot of stoners work at pizza places, and stoners are hilarious to non-stoners. I worked there for a little over a year before getting fed up with my crazy boss and the fact that my hands constantly smelled like onions.
29. April - 10:14 amMy first job was a Payless. I have fond memories of it.
I saw your tattoo comment. I have four stars in one tattoo, it’s on my foot. I don’t regret it, maybe I will later. Who knows?
:D
29. April - 11:58 amMy first job was at a daycare center. They didn’t want to pay me for sticking around while the kids napped, so I had to leave at 2 and come back at 4 – which meant walking half an hour home and half an hour back. Every day. But I did get to watch Sesame Street at work. That was awesome.
29. April - 2:53 pmMy first “real” job other than babysitting was El Pollo Loco. I got written up for adding too many beans to a burrito. They even weighed it for official write up purposes. My mother STILL has this write up – she thought it was hysterical. Oh and also? My grandma came and watched me work too.
30. April - 12:35 pm