Thursday Thirteen
Recently at work, we had a little contest in the newsroom. Everyone wrote down something unusual about themselves-- then we all had to figure out who was who. Out of 25 random facts, I guessed about eight correctly. Better than most-- but I've also worked there longer than most of my department, so I've had a little more time to get to know everyone (or at least observe them).
There were plenty of interesting facts I could have submitted for myself-- but most of them would have been easy guesses for my coworkers. For example, I've touched the Stanley Cup-- but I also did a news story about it.
So, my fact was-- I've had 22 jobs (I think it's actually more than that. As I write this, I just remembered one that I didn't count!)
This week's Thursday Thirteen: The first 13 jobs I ever had.
1) Hotel Maid at the Spartan Motel. Yikes. I think I got paid $30 a day-- though we got to cash in all the deposits on the beer cans left in the rooms, which earned us each about five more bucks on a good day. The Spartan was the "party" motel for all the high school kids. It's also where the carnival folk stayed when they came into town. Oh, and the hotel sponsored a kids' baseball team... "The Quickies."
2) McDonald's. Need I say more? I didn't last very long. By the way, minimum wage was $3.35 an hour.
3) Salad Bar Attendant at the Big Boy. The owner was a total bastard, but the people I worked with were a lot of fun.
4) All-Around everything at Foland's... which was a local chain reminiscent of "Service Merchandise." I worked at this place on and off for five years, until they went bankrupt. And I literally did every single job there at one point or another.
5) Cashier at a little store in the same mall as Folands, called "Kandi's Fashions." I never met "Kandi," mostly because she didn't exist. The owners were foreign, the clothes were ugly and overpriced, and there were never more than one employee in the store... which wasn't a problem since our customers were few and far between. I think I maybe sold $200 worth of merchandise in the summer I worked there.
6) Meijer. I worked the midnight shift in the toy department. You wouldn't believe the number of people who think it's completely appropriate to drag their kid to Meijer at two in the morning. The summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college, I worked at Foland's during the day and at Meijer during the midnight shift. I literally remember nothing from that summer.
7) Hudsons, which has since changed names to Marshall-Fields, and then was bought out by Macy's. Really, they're all pretty much the same. Middle-to-upscale department stores. I worked in the jewelry department of the Oakland Mall store. The discount was really good, and I had a lot of cute clothes for the next year or so as a result.
8) File clerk at the Alumni Relations office at Oakland University. It was on-campus employment, so I only did this for a semester, and I only worked 10 hours a week. I remember typing up a lot of labels.
9) Arena Hostess at the Palace of Auburn Hills. This was the first two years that the Palace was open-- and the Pistons won championships both seasons (unfortunately, they won both titles on the road). I saw a lot of awesome concerts those two years.
10) Stringer/Freelance Writer for a little fish-wrapper called "The Weekly Post." I was paid by the column inch. And I still have all of the articles I wrote, which weren't very good.
11) Public Relations Coordinator for a startup video dating service (Which, by the way, had the creative business name of "Video Dating Service.") The guy who owned the place was completely clueless, and I spent the majority of my time proofreading and re-writing his horribly written flyers. I did get to do some radio ads for it. When I went back to school in the fall, I quit the job, and the place was closed by the next summer.
12) Pizza King. What a sh*thole. I made pizzas (because they wouldn't allow women to be delivery drivers) and still have scars up and down my arms from their crappy oven. The owner was a very unhappy man-- he had been Tom Monahan's original partner. One of them went on to be a zillionaire pizza magnate. The other owned a crappy pizza place in Mid-Michgan. Their radio ads had a damn catchy jingle, though. I still remember the phone number because of it.
NOTE: I just found out-- the Pizza King burned down! Long live the Pizza King!
13) Manpower. I applied for a temp job, and I wound up actually working at the Manpower office. It was a blast. There were only three of us that worked there, so we were a pretty tight-knit group.
So, there they are. And here's the funny part-- Those jobs only span a 10-year stretch... and I had several other jobs during that same time... including an internship coaching speech at a rich-kid high school, a very brief stint as a residential maid (I got to clean Jerry Ball's house... which was a little weird.), and my grad-school teaching job.
So, how many jobs have you had?
Oh! And don't forget-- visit the Thursday Thirteen Blogroll!
There were plenty of interesting facts I could have submitted for myself-- but most of them would have been easy guesses for my coworkers. For example, I've touched the Stanley Cup-- but I also did a news story about it.
So, my fact was-- I've had 22 jobs (I think it's actually more than that. As I write this, I just remembered one that I didn't count!)
This week's Thursday Thirteen: The first 13 jobs I ever had.
1) Hotel Maid at the Spartan Motel. Yikes. I think I got paid $30 a day-- though we got to cash in all the deposits on the beer cans left in the rooms, which earned us each about five more bucks on a good day. The Spartan was the "party" motel for all the high school kids. It's also where the carnival folk stayed when they came into town. Oh, and the hotel sponsored a kids' baseball team... "The Quickies."
2) McDonald's. Need I say more? I didn't last very long. By the way, minimum wage was $3.35 an hour.
3) Salad Bar Attendant at the Big Boy. The owner was a total bastard, but the people I worked with were a lot of fun.
4) All-Around everything at Foland's... which was a local chain reminiscent of "Service Merchandise." I worked at this place on and off for five years, until they went bankrupt. And I literally did every single job there at one point or another.
5) Cashier at a little store in the same mall as Folands, called "Kandi's Fashions." I never met "Kandi," mostly because she didn't exist. The owners were foreign, the clothes were ugly and overpriced, and there were never more than one employee in the store... which wasn't a problem since our customers were few and far between. I think I maybe sold $200 worth of merchandise in the summer I worked there.
6) Meijer. I worked the midnight shift in the toy department. You wouldn't believe the number of people who think it's completely appropriate to drag their kid to Meijer at two in the morning. The summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college, I worked at Foland's during the day and at Meijer during the midnight shift. I literally remember nothing from that summer.
7) Hudsons, which has since changed names to Marshall-Fields, and then was bought out by Macy's. Really, they're all pretty much the same. Middle-to-upscale department stores. I worked in the jewelry department of the Oakland Mall store. The discount was really good, and I had a lot of cute clothes for the next year or so as a result.
8) File clerk at the Alumni Relations office at Oakland University. It was on-campus employment, so I only did this for a semester, and I only worked 10 hours a week. I remember typing up a lot of labels.
9) Arena Hostess at the Palace of Auburn Hills. This was the first two years that the Palace was open-- and the Pistons won championships both seasons (unfortunately, they won both titles on the road). I saw a lot of awesome concerts those two years.
10) Stringer/Freelance Writer for a little fish-wrapper called "The Weekly Post." I was paid by the column inch. And I still have all of the articles I wrote, which weren't very good.
11) Public Relations Coordinator for a startup video dating service (Which, by the way, had the creative business name of "Video Dating Service.") The guy who owned the place was completely clueless, and I spent the majority of my time proofreading and re-writing his horribly written flyers. I did get to do some radio ads for it. When I went back to school in the fall, I quit the job, and the place was closed by the next summer.
12) Pizza King. What a sh*thole. I made pizzas (because they wouldn't allow women to be delivery drivers) and still have scars up and down my arms from their crappy oven. The owner was a very unhappy man-- he had been Tom Monahan's original partner. One of them went on to be a zillionaire pizza magnate. The other owned a crappy pizza place in Mid-Michgan. Their radio ads had a damn catchy jingle, though. I still remember the phone number because of it.
NOTE: I just found out-- the Pizza King burned down! Long live the Pizza King!
13) Manpower. I applied for a temp job, and I wound up actually working at the Manpower office. It was a blast. There were only three of us that worked there, so we were a pretty tight-knit group.
So, there they are. And here's the funny part-- Those jobs only span a 10-year stretch... and I had several other jobs during that same time... including an internship coaching speech at a rich-kid high school, a very brief stint as a residential maid (I got to clean Jerry Ball's house... which was a little weird.), and my grad-school teaching job.
So, how many jobs have you had?
Oh! And don't forget-- visit the Thursday Thirteen Blogroll!
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