February 11, 2009
Wenchie's Resume 1984-1987
Well, the ax has fallen. On my life of leisure. Since the crappy economy took a huge bite out of our retirement fund, Wenchie has to go back to work fulltime to replenish it. *sigh*
(I'd like to know what percentage of my posts begin with the word "well." I'll bet it's pretty high.)
I started a new fulltime temp job on Monday, a different position in a department where I've already temped in two other positions. Guess they like me. Oh, why be modest? They LOVE me! Today is my first day flying solo, without the position's previous occupant training me.
When they post the job in March (I have no idea why they're waiting so long), I'm going to apply for it. I know I seem like a shoe-in, but one can never tell, and this is not the time to get cocky. In preparation for the competition, I'm brushing off and glossing up my resume.
*shudder*
Looking at the list of all the places I've worked is a trip down memory lane that is as bizarre as it is surreal. I got my work permit the day I turned 15, October 30, 1984. And from 1984 to 1987 alone, I had four jobs, often overlapping.
My very, very first job ever was at What's For Dinner? It was a small take-out place owned and operated by an old friend of the family. I did food prep and ran the cash register. The basic jist of the place was that it sold casseroles and salads and stuff that busy moms could take home and heat up, instead of KFC or burgers. Stuff like chicken tetrazzini and tuna noodle casserole that you couldn't get other places. I liked it.
But it was because of What's For Dinner? that I met the boy who would later become my first husband. I worked with a couple of senior girls from my Art class, and they kind of took me under their wing and invited me to a party. It was my first non-adult-supervised party, where I had my first (and last!) gin and tonic. My future ex-husband thought I was adorable and waited on the curb with me for my Dad, who picked me up at midnight.
He wanted to ask me to prom, but he had already asked the woman who would become his first ex-wife. It's a total soap opera, I know. Wish I'd never gone to that party! But, future suffering aside, What's For Dinner? was a nice introduction to my world of employment, and my first big purchase was a brown leather bomber jacket. It was the 80s, after all.
My other pre-sixteen job was working a couple days a week during the summer for a different friend of the family. He was a CPA, and I answered phones and did data entry, having to make sure all the columns added up. Kind of a yawner, but he couldn't have been a more laxidaisical boss, so it wasn't a bad job.
"Uncle" Ken would pick me up in the morning, and I'd be forced to endure opera music for the entire commute. In the afternoon, he'd put me on a train home. He was a nice man, and I miss him. I called him Uncle because, not only were our families close, but he and my Dad looked like they could be brothers.
He and his partner would often take three-hour, multiple-martini lunches, during which me and the partner's son were left alone in the office. Man, what's-his-name was cute. We never hooked up, but I always finished my work really quickly, so we had fun goofing around.
The second office I worked with was the exact polar opposite of Uncle Ken's. It was a secretarial agency run by a woman who thought I was so incompetant, I don't even know why she hired me. I think she was a friend of a friend of my Mom's or something.
This agency was about half a dozen women who did secretarial work for people/businesses who couldn't afford a fulltime secretary. I spent the first week or so of my parttime employment with an instruction manual for the electronic typewriters they used there. Apparently, they were extra-fancy because they had a little L.E.D. screen on the front, so you could type something into the typewriter and proofread it without ever using a single piece of paper.
First, I had to read the manual, front to back. Only then was I allowed to start practicing on the actual typewriter. But only on envelopes! I'd already aced my high school typing class with 120+ words per minute, but God forbid they let me type even a fucking memo!
I don't know what I did to convince the boss that I was an idiot, but I was soon demoted to mailings, i.e. I stuffed and labeled envelopes, being sure to keep them in zip code order. And even then she hovered over me and often checked my work. I wasn't used to not being trusted by an employer. God, how I hated her.
Then came the day that there was to be a huge protest at a local hospital. A pro-life protest. Oh, did I mention that everyone else in the office was a devout Catholic who attended the same church? Yeah, I'm sure my being Lutheran did nothing to foster any good will.
So boss lady told all the employees that, if they wanted to attend the protest with her, she'd pay them the same as if they were in the office all day. Now, hoping to be sexually active someday, I was pro-choice, all the way. Plus, I hate crowds, so there was no way in hell I was to go with them.
I gallantly offered to stay behind and answer the phone while everyone else was gone, but boss lady saw right through that. The next day, she called and said that there was no work for me that day, but she'd call me whenever another mailing came up.
She never called. Big shocker. I wasn't heartbroken. In fact, I was quite relieved. And I dated her youngest son a few times after that. He was a year younger than me, and I made sure she knew about us. A little revenge-dating, just for fun.
Luckily, a Pizza Hut had just opened up within walking distance of my house, and I was, apparently, the only person in my town stupid enough to apply. Seriously. Everyone else there lived in The City, including the second and third African American people I'd ever met. It was quite the education, lemme tell ya!
And you know what it taught me? That people who live in the ghetto are really sweet and supportive and fun, and the people who live in my town are rude, condescending, demanding, impatient, non-tipping assholes.
It also taught me to hate the songs "Pour Some Sugar On Me" and "Don't Worry, Be Happy" because those were the only songs on the juke box that the customers played.
It was soon after that when I went to college, moved outta my parents house and had to start working to support myself. But that's a story for another day.
Comments
Ahh, too funny! I too had a brown leather bomber jacket (one of my senior pics was taken in it), and I worked at Pizza Hut my junior year!
Posted by: Mickey at February 12, 2009 07:49 AM