Monday, May 31, 2004
The Workin’ Girl Blues
In my twenty seven years I have held a number of jobs. The first of which, like so many girls before me, was babysitting. I was fortunate enough to have a father who worked with a large number of new parents. Oddly enough, many of the new mommies and daddies also worked together. My dad pimped me out to everyone and anyone, never asked for a cut, and he only beat me twice.
All of the families I sat for were very good to me, and their children were unfailingly well-behaved. I did notice, however, that none of them had cable, movies, food, or anything fun to read. The child I sat for most often, Jeffrey, had a particularly Spartan abode. When he was very young it was great to sit for him, often I would get there and he’d be asleep, and wouldn’t make a peep all night. For the first month or so I had no idea what he looked like. However, this also meant that there was absolutely nothing for me to do while I was there. I certainly didn’t feel like doing my homework. So, I talked on the phone and ate raisins and Flinstones’ vitamins. I hope that eating seven in a sitting didn’t render me sterile or anything.
Over the summers I would provide relief for the day care workers going on vacation. The most memorable of these stints was for Kenny and Rachel. Rachel was a very sweet little girl, beautiful, kind, loving, and (if it can be said about a three year old), gracious. Kenny, however, tried to find as many ways as possible to kill himself in a day. The very first time I sat for them his mother came up to me and said:
“Ummmm, we had a little bit of an incident last night. Kenny swallowed a dinosaur button and seemed to have some problems getting it down. We took him to the hospital, but they said to just keep an eye out for it and see that it worked its way through. So, I really hate to ask you to do this…”
“And I hate being asked, but I’ll look for it when I change him.”
It wasn’t unusual for Kenny to make several trips to the hospital a week. Anyway, sure enough, as I was changing him for bed there was a cheerful little pink button with a stegosaurus on it nestled amongst the contents of his diaper. I’m glad that they gave me a head’s up about that because I would have been a little alarmed if I had found that in there without any sort of explanation attached. I’m sure that his parents were very appreciative of the fact that I washed the button off and kept it for them. Perhaps it went into the photo album.
I’m not too proud of the way I “mothered” poor Kenny, and it’s a good thing there were no cameras around. I once held him down in bed to keep him from getting out and running around so he’d go to sleep. I also once held the door shut so he couldn’t get out of his room when he was supposed to go to bed. On one side I was yelling “Kenny, go to bed!” and Kenny would tug furiously on the door and yell back “No bed!” This went on for ten minutes, until I tried to open the door to force him back into bed, and he used my trick against me.
Little Rachel did whatever you asked her to do, and was happy to help out in any way shape or form. My only complaint about her was her addiction to crappy movies. We had to watch Thumbelina every day, sometimes twice. This movie never received recognition from any academy, nor is the art, plot, or music worth writing home about. I wished very fervently for the summer heat to melt the tape in the VCR, but God was indifferent to my pleas.
The first non-babysitting job I had was for a video store. That was extremely short-lived. Val got me the job, and trained me for two and a half hours. The first day I was due to start work they declared bankruptcy and the doors were locked.
One of the most horrible jobs was working at a sort of country club for trout fishermen. The grounds of this place were beautiful. Gazebos dotted the lawn, the gardens were immaculate, and the trout ponds, four in total, gave a cottagey feel to the place. Working here, though, was like stepping back into the nineteen forties. This was a place for old, rich, white men to drink and talk to other old, rich, white men. Four of us served in the dining room and were meant to be seen (our blouses were virtually transparent) but not heard. We weren’t allowed to enter through the front doors, but rather the kitchens.
There were about ten staff in total and we lived and worked together. The cabin fever was tangible. Two of the guys living there insisted on watching Dazed and Confused every single day. When they weren’t watching it, they were quoting it “All right, all right, all right.” I can’t watch that movie without shuddering. We didn’t have cable, most of us didn’t have cars, and we worked every day but Monday. Kathy Lee Gifford’s kids had better working conditions. It didn’t help matters at all that our boss was a smelly insane person. She would be friendly, then very abruptly not, and she reeked to high heaven the entire day. Her hair would still be wet from her morning shower and her stench could bring tears to your eyes.
If we’d been allowed to receive tips we would have made out like bandits at this place, but unfortunately that was not in the cards. There was a tip bonus that they held over our heads, and the only way we could get it was if we worked the whole summer through. I still have nightmares, wherein I’ve agreed to go back and work there. I’ll be in the dining room again receiving my instructions for the evening and a part of me will be screaming “no, don’t do it, you HATED it here!”
The winner of the worst job ever has to be a temp job I did over Xmas several years ago. For three days, eight hours a day, I wore a glowing yellow sweatshirt that said “Cantel Amigo” in peacock blue. The going rate on my dignity at that time was fifteen dollars an hour. Three of us would stand in front of various stores in a mall and hand out cardboard flip phones to passersby. One day my two coworkers were smoking and I was standing with them when one man ran out to us, and all out of breath said “Hey, the Three Amigos! My wife just thought of that!” My coworker, Kelly, gave him a flat stare and replied, “You’re a very lucky man, sir.” He didn’t get it.
Now that I’m all responsible and adult I can be more choosey about the jobs I work. Currently this means that I answer phones, do proofreading for two companies, email my friends incessantly, and write a blog. It also means that I get to take out the garbage every day and make coffee for tout le monde. It’s not all glamour.
In my twenty seven years I have held a number of jobs. The first of which, like so many girls before me, was babysitting. I was fortunate enough to have a father who worked with a large number of new parents. Oddly enough, many of the new mommies and daddies also worked together. My dad pimped me out to everyone and anyone, never asked for a cut, and he only beat me twice.
All of the families I sat for were very good to me, and their children were unfailingly well-behaved. I did notice, however, that none of them had cable, movies, food, or anything fun to read. The child I sat for most often, Jeffrey, had a particularly Spartan abode. When he was very young it was great to sit for him, often I would get there and he’d be asleep, and wouldn’t make a peep all night. For the first month or so I had no idea what he looked like. However, this also meant that there was absolutely nothing for me to do while I was there. I certainly didn’t feel like doing my homework. So, I talked on the phone and ate raisins and Flinstones’ vitamins. I hope that eating seven in a sitting didn’t render me sterile or anything.
Over the summers I would provide relief for the day care workers going on vacation. The most memorable of these stints was for Kenny and Rachel. Rachel was a very sweet little girl, beautiful, kind, loving, and (if it can be said about a three year old), gracious. Kenny, however, tried to find as many ways as possible to kill himself in a day. The very first time I sat for them his mother came up to me and said:
“Ummmm, we had a little bit of an incident last night. Kenny swallowed a dinosaur button and seemed to have some problems getting it down. We took him to the hospital, but they said to just keep an eye out for it and see that it worked its way through. So, I really hate to ask you to do this…”
“And I hate being asked, but I’ll look for it when I change him.”
It wasn’t unusual for Kenny to make several trips to the hospital a week. Anyway, sure enough, as I was changing him for bed there was a cheerful little pink button with a stegosaurus on it nestled amongst the contents of his diaper. I’m glad that they gave me a head’s up about that because I would have been a little alarmed if I had found that in there without any sort of explanation attached. I’m sure that his parents were very appreciative of the fact that I washed the button off and kept it for them. Perhaps it went into the photo album.
I’m not too proud of the way I “mothered” poor Kenny, and it’s a good thing there were no cameras around. I once held him down in bed to keep him from getting out and running around so he’d go to sleep. I also once held the door shut so he couldn’t get out of his room when he was supposed to go to bed. On one side I was yelling “Kenny, go to bed!” and Kenny would tug furiously on the door and yell back “No bed!” This went on for ten minutes, until I tried to open the door to force him back into bed, and he used my trick against me.
Little Rachel did whatever you asked her to do, and was happy to help out in any way shape or form. My only complaint about her was her addiction to crappy movies. We had to watch Thumbelina every day, sometimes twice. This movie never received recognition from any academy, nor is the art, plot, or music worth writing home about. I wished very fervently for the summer heat to melt the tape in the VCR, but God was indifferent to my pleas.
The first non-babysitting job I had was for a video store. That was extremely short-lived. Val got me the job, and trained me for two and a half hours. The first day I was due to start work they declared bankruptcy and the doors were locked.
One of the most horrible jobs was working at a sort of country club for trout fishermen. The grounds of this place were beautiful. Gazebos dotted the lawn, the gardens were immaculate, and the trout ponds, four in total, gave a cottagey feel to the place. Working here, though, was like stepping back into the nineteen forties. This was a place for old, rich, white men to drink and talk to other old, rich, white men. Four of us served in the dining room and were meant to be seen (our blouses were virtually transparent) but not heard. We weren’t allowed to enter through the front doors, but rather the kitchens.
There were about ten staff in total and we lived and worked together. The cabin fever was tangible. Two of the guys living there insisted on watching Dazed and Confused every single day. When they weren’t watching it, they were quoting it “All right, all right, all right.” I can’t watch that movie without shuddering. We didn’t have cable, most of us didn’t have cars, and we worked every day but Monday. Kathy Lee Gifford’s kids had better working conditions. It didn’t help matters at all that our boss was a smelly insane person. She would be friendly, then very abruptly not, and she reeked to high heaven the entire day. Her hair would still be wet from her morning shower and her stench could bring tears to your eyes.
If we’d been allowed to receive tips we would have made out like bandits at this place, but unfortunately that was not in the cards. There was a tip bonus that they held over our heads, and the only way we could get it was if we worked the whole summer through. I still have nightmares, wherein I’ve agreed to go back and work there. I’ll be in the dining room again receiving my instructions for the evening and a part of me will be screaming “no, don’t do it, you HATED it here!”
The winner of the worst job ever has to be a temp job I did over Xmas several years ago. For three days, eight hours a day, I wore a glowing yellow sweatshirt that said “Cantel Amigo” in peacock blue. The going rate on my dignity at that time was fifteen dollars an hour. Three of us would stand in front of various stores in a mall and hand out cardboard flip phones to passersby. One day my two coworkers were smoking and I was standing with them when one man ran out to us, and all out of breath said “Hey, the Three Amigos! My wife just thought of that!” My coworker, Kelly, gave him a flat stare and replied, “You’re a very lucky man, sir.” He didn’t get it.
Now that I’m all responsible and adult I can be more choosey about the jobs I work. Currently this means that I answer phones, do proofreading for two companies, email my friends incessantly, and write a blog. It also means that I get to take out the garbage every day and make coffee for tout le monde. It’s not all glamour.
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