* Kudos if you get the reference. I think there may not be a more underrated comedy than "The Jerk." Anyone who was born a poor black child knows what I mean. "He hates these cans..."
Basically, the above paragraph was just a long way to say I have had a lot of crummy jobs. What's that? Just how crummy? I'm glad you asked. The entire list is novel length, so here are the big three:
1- McDonald's. I followed the path of many dumb 16 year olds before me into the shadows of the golden arches. I've met many people through the years who turn their nose up at this and say something to the effect of, "I would
*Two months into the job, I would fall asleep and wreck the car I was on the way to work to pay for. On the irony scale, this lands on "Most Mundane Twilight Zone Episode Ever".
Two truths I learned from my time working shoulder to shoulder with Ronald, Grimace and his honor Mayor McCheese:
A-Time never moves slower than at a bad job. The 5 to 8:30 shift was Sisyphean; I swear I left with a ZZ Top beard on several occasions.
B-For a work force consisting of high schoolers in place no one wanted to be, everyone got along smashingly well. I still have friendships with some of these coworkers. Evidently, smelling like a deep fryer is the great social equalizer.
For the first three months I worked there, I made the biscuits every morning. I don't now which is more unfathomable: Me baking or the fact McD's actually made these fresh at one time.
Dos-Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. Or 3M if you are short on time. I don't remember much mining going on there; however, I was on third shift for the majority of my stint, which resulted in a lot of stumbling around in a haze. For all I know they could have been cloning; they make everything else, are people that big of stretch?
This was a horrible match from the start-me vs. the glue factory.* The finer points include working with hazerdous chemicals (I fuly expected someone to sprout a third eye from chemical exposure at any moment), dangerous machines, overnight shifts and ungodly amounts of overtime. So naturally I worked there for seven years. I am the definition of a creature of habit. I now have three rules for any jobs: Don't work anywhere I have to wear a resperator, that has an exit plan in case of explosions and that may lead to mutation.
*Number one question I got while working there: "Where do they put the horses?" This was funny every single time. According to my confidentiality agreement, no horses were harmed in the making of any of the post it notes.
3-Retail management. I feel like an ass using the term management; it comes across so self important. Being a manager in retail is like being the attendant at the asylum: The only way to tell you apart from the patients is the big ring of keys you carry. I've worked for three different companies and had many different titles: Assistant*, Executive Assistant and Store Manager...it is a classic lip stick on a pig scenario. The world of retail is its own special level of hell. You can label it whatever you want to, but the job boils down to this: 10% of your time counting money, 15% of your time trying to organize a schedule, 75% of your time trying to catch people who are shoplifting. One of the most popular stolen items I came across: Gold or silver spray paint. Evidently huffers like to feel classy too.
*This reminds me of my favorite bit that Norm McDonald ever did on SNL: Forbes does their list of "Worst Jobs" every year, and according to Norm, the top of that list was Crack Whore. Except one year, in a stunning upset, something replaced it: Assistant Crack Whore.
There are a lot of horrible things about retail: Being open 365 days a year, 60 hour weeks with no overtime pay, taking inane complaints, dealing with an extremely unreliable work force...but there were three instances that top the charts.
A-Catching a really large transvestite attempting to shop lift. When they invented the work awkward, this is what they had in mind.
B-Getting a call that someone had attempted to burn down the store. I'm not talking a wake me up in the dead of night at 3 a.m. emergency call. This joker set fire to the lawn and garden section (which was inside) in the middle of the day, while the store was open and customers and employees were all around. This was not some middling spark either-it was a full on, get-the-fire-extinguisher-call-the-truck-and-the-dalmations-fire. The arson motivation was unclear; I like to think it was some form of protest.
C-A customer feeling the call of nature and leaving me a "blue light special" in the clothing department. I'm not sure what combination of confidence, derangement and digestive issues combine to make someone capable of this. In fairness to the customer, they did cover up the evidence with a shirt off the rack. I believe it was cleaning this fiasco up when a need to reassess my career path finally kicked in.
As you can see it is quite a list. If I ever went back in time and told 15 year old Michael Allhands that he would spend the next 15 years or so working fast food, manufacturing and retail, he would punch present day me right in the mouth (and start trying much harder in math class). Obviously, it wasn't all bad. For every burger flipped, batch of glue made or irate customer handled I have at least one solid friendship, polished one skill set and at lost at least one year off my life (I'm telling you, the chemicals at the glue factory were scary). I have a job I adore and could be very content to do for a long, long time; it just took me little longer than most people to get there. I will happily be the tortoise to other’s hare in this fable. I'm at least 73.4% convinced that has made it more enjoyable.
Having said that, imagine my surprise when one of the most unique and enjoyable experiences of my sort of short life came last year while doing a side job I took as a lark.
PART II COMING SOON
