#3--Seniors--Sunlight Skating Around on the Asphalt
Ah, youth. Yes, like the narrator in The Road Not Taken, I'm at the point in my life that I'm now telling about it (my youth) with a sigh ages hence. Sighing becomes an unwelcome habit, like burping, when you've clocked 50 years or more on Planet Earth.Oh, I can remember back to my glory days. Sigh. I wasn't much unlike the cynical Sammy in A&P. I held a few boring jobs where I had to entertain myself with people watching and other more creative enterprises. Having a fairly high opinion of myself, I probably had a few real (and imaginary) face-offs with my Lengel-like bosses, too. But I never remember having the nerve to do the "take this job and shove it" (also the name of a pretty popular C&W song of the 80s) routine like Sammy.
A&P might be Updike most enjoyable story; Sammy's "true-to-life" talky narration delights with every wry comment and misplaced modifier. And believe it or not, the sexual language in the story, just plain tame and mildly suggestive today, was titillating for the polite reading crowd of 1962.
But the story is infinitely more complex than just a humorous rendering of a a teenager's foolish and stupid gesture. In fact, one might question whether Sammy's gesture is foolish and stupid. Should we or should we not applaud Sammy for shedding the apron and bow tie and marching out, even if not triumphantly, into the rough reality of adulthood, where the sunlight was skating around on the hot asphalt?
The story prompts me to offer these prompts for your journal. Choose one of the following:
1. Tell me about a situation that occurred to you at work that might be woven into a short story
2. How you ever had to do something at work or school (in a position of authority) that you didn’t want to do? Did you do it? Why or why not?
3. When you aren't busy at work, what do you do to pass the time? Feel free to tell me of the silly games you play, the silly conversations, nicknames, etc.
4. For those of you who don't work or would rather write about something else: tell me about a decision that you made that upon making it, you REGRETTED it immediately (like Sammy).
5. For those of you who don't work or would rather write about something else: tell me about a decision that you made that upon making it, you were immediately proud of yourself.
posted by JTF @ 10:06 PM
19 comments
19 Comments:
Since I have yet to find a job(I'm trying, I swear. >> ), I'm going to write about number 5. I was walking through the lobby at school and, lo and behold, there was the director of my grade school drama club. He saw me and came over to talk to me about the musical that had gone on a couple days before. He said he was upset that my mom's name hadn't appeared in the program(she had told me about it right away. She hadn't been happy at all.). I just uh-huh and yeah'd my way through the conversation, something I was immensely proud of because I have a tendency to say the wrong thing no matter how hard I try to be tactful. Thus, I was quite pleased with my decision.
2. How you ever had to do something at work or school (in a position of authority) that you didn’t want to do? Did you do it? Why or why not?
When i saw this question I immediately remembered a situation from when I worked at Capriotti's. While I worked there the number one thing I hated about working there was doing the dishes. I absolutely hated getting assigned to go and wash dishes. The first time I was assigned to go and do the dishes I assumed that I would just have to fill up a dishwasher with the dishes. I thought wrong. Washing the dishes consisted of picking up all of the dirty dishes that were covered in scraps of leftover foods that were left in the metal containers and spraying them with water. The absolute worst was the mayonnaise containers. They containers would have mayonnaise stuck to the bottom and it would get everywhere when it was scrayed with the water. After the containers were sprayed with water they would be brought over to a sink where they would be dunked in soapy water. Then, they were washed off with water yet again. The last part, putting the containers back in their spots was always hard for me since I would have to stand on my tippytoes to reach the shelves. Another reason why I hated washing dishes was because it took me FOREVER. It took me around a hour to get all of the dishes washed. Maybe this was one of the reasons I was "in training" for so long. I did two different things to get out of washing the dishes when it was time to clean up at the end of the night. The first option, which I would do many times was to go in the dining room area to vaccum, wipe down the tables and to refil the napkins. I liked doing the dining room because there were not many ways that I could mess it up. The other option would be to refill the conatiners of the spices. This was pretty tricky and a few times i would dump the whole container of spices on the ground. I would hope that my manager was too busy doing something else, to notice what I had done wrong. If she did notice, she would give me an evil eye and yell at me.
There was one night that was pretty busy so there were two managers there. When it was nearing closing time one of the women that works there who was in her 30s was assigned to wash the dishes by one of the managers. This girl had started working at Capriottis for a lot less time than I had. Then somehow I got assigned to do the dishes by the other manager while she & the other girl got to just stand there and talk! She wanted me to do it because she never liked me and she was friends with the girl in her 30's. I thought to myself that it was totally not fair for me to have to do dishes when the other girl was assigned to do them! So when it came time to do our jobs i quickly ran to the dining room and started vaccuming the floor. I wanted to hide out in there until they realized that i wasn't doing the dishes. About fifteen minutes went by, and I was like "Hey, I think i pulled it off!" Soon enough the manager I was scared of entered the dining room. She said, "Janna you were supposed to be washing the dishes, go and do them now!!" I reluctantly went into the kitchen and tried washing the dishes as slow as possible so that someone else would have to help me. I worked extremely slow, and soon enought I got help with the dishes since everyone wanted to be able to leave. That was the last time I had to do the dishes since I quit soon after. Although I hated working there,it made me appeciate my education and that I would not have to work at a place like Capriottis as my full time job like many of the workers there.
- I have been a working girl for almost two years. My first job was at Regal Cinemas selling movie tickets to the thousands of people who some how find it possible to turn an evening out into a $100 affair. Many of the people that walked in and out of the doors were pleasant and friendly, but there were those select few who decided it would be entertaining to give the employees a hard time. I have encountered two amusing situations during my days at Regal. At first, my one situation, at the time, I would not have called it thrilling, but now looking back I was the kind of situation that made a boring day interesting. When a theater is sold out there are really a quarter of the seats left, however people tend to enjoy their own personal space, taking up an entire row. On day this lady came in trying to get tickets to a sold out movie, claiming her husband was saving her a seat. When she heard the theater was sold out, she was not a happy movie goer. She needed to be in that theater at that time. This crazy lady decided she was not going to settle with the answer, “The movie is sold out. You can get tickets for the next time.” This woman full out blew up and started yelling at me. Being the sweet, innocent girl that I was I could not be mean and talk back. My eyes filled with tear because I have no idea what to do and I was not use to people talking to me ion the tone she used. So, I call my manager to the box office and got the joy out of him tell the woman the same thing I said ten times. People can be so irritable. The second situation was even more amusing. This time I had to close my register because I was laughing so hard. The way this situation started was the exact same as the first, the movie was sold out. There is a little secrete, when a movie is sold out a manager can still make a sale to a particular move until there are absolutely no seats left. I had this one manager who had a joy in arguing with people. He found it entertaining, and his arguments entertained the rest of the employees also. My manager was full out arguing with this stubborn lady for almost a half and hour. An easy solutions could have been to just sell the woman a ticket and let her get on her marry way. But seeing a woman fuming made the long work nights more interesting. Customers could be so irritable at times.
I can relate to Sammy in a pretty similar way. Having worked at The Fabulous Bagel Boys for over three years now, I have become fairly close to the people I work with. We hang out outside of work even though our ages range from sixteen to twenty eight. That is beside the point. All different types of people come into the bagel shop including the “cash-register-watcher” who thinks that us younger crowd is always out to get them, especially with money. They always find something wrong, with the price. Even after going over it on the calculator and showing them exactly what you rang them up for, they still want to see someone older, like a manager. Similar to Sammy when a good-looking guy comes in we use code words that lets everyone know there is a potentially hot guy coming in. It might sound crazy but instead of whispering and trying to make eye contact, making it obvious, we just say one simple word and everyone knows. Also, to make the day a little more interesting we made up a game called “Which one would you rather?” One person picks two people in the shop (both could be really ugly, both could be good-looking, young or old) and you ask who would you rather kiss? Then you answer the question with one or the other and than your turn to pick two different people. This too sounds silly but hey you leave four girls working together all day you know your going to have to have a little fun.
I work at Marble Slab Creamery, which is a chain of ice cream stores similar to Cold Stone. We don’t get much free time because my boss is obsessive compulsive about cleaning everything possible in the store. However, on a slow night when she is not there, we entertain ourselves by having weird contests. We’ll play “chubby bunny” where we try and shove as many marshmallows into our mouth as possible. Whoever can fit the most, wins. Another contest we have is everybody will send a text message at the same time to one of their friends. Whoever gets a text back first, gets to keep all of the tips for the night. We also love to dip different things in the melted chocolate, then freeze and eat them. The most delicious thing I have ever made was chocolate covered Oreos. These random activities help a slow night go by so much faster.
I don’t have a job yet, and I can’t recall a decision I’ve made in the past that I regretted, at least not immediately. One moment where I was immediately proud of myself, however, I do recall. It was when I applied to the University of Delaware. It’s not as if it’s my dream college by any means, since I don’t even have a dream college, but college is something that seems to loom over students towards the end of their high school life, and it was a huge relief to have that taken care of. I got the paper to give to the guidance counselor, and my two teacher recommendations, and now it’s just a waiting game. As someone who often finds himself procrastinating, it’s always a huge relief when something’s done & over with, and I was proud of myself for getting this out of the way at a fairly good time before the deadline. Some might be even more anxious after they apply, because now they’re wondering if they’ll be accepted or not, but my philosophy’s always been not to worry about things out of your control. I applied, my grades are pretty good, and now it’s up to them. Nothing I can do, so I just keep on keeping on until I hear back from them. I’m proud of myself not because it’s a big step in my life, but more because I got it done & over with. I often find the longer I wait to do something, the harder it is to finally just sit down and do it, which just makes me take even longer, and well you can see how that can get out of hand.
When I’m not busy at work, there are lots of things I like to do to pass the time. When it’s a school night and I don’t have a lot of time to get into something really involved, I do online Sudoku or read a magazine. However on Tuesdays, watching House is a given. Also, on school nights when I have free time I call my cousin, Nicole, at Virginia Tech to catch up. I have many things I like to do in my free time but before them all, and weather permitting, I’d go for a run. If I can’t go for a run, and I do have extra time, I go to the gym.
On the weekends or a day off when I have a lot of time, there is simply nothing better than hanging out with the family! Of course if schedules conflict and we can’t be together, I love going shopping even if that just means looking at and trying on all the cute new clothes in my favorite stores.
3. When you aren't busy at work, what do you do to pass the time? Feel free to tell me of the silly games you play, the silly conversations, nicknames, etc.
I work after school at Perkins Restaurant. Contrary to popular belief, Perkins is not just a breakfast place, it’s open lunch and dinner also. So, let’s just say I have a lot of free time at my job and me and all the lifers have to find ways to pass the time. Most of the time, I just listen to what all the thirty-something waitresses talk about. They seriously have the most interesting life stories. They have done most of the things that my parents warn me never to do in life so I love it whenever they want to give me advice or tell me a story. They are career waitresses so I never take their advice to seriously but what they say sometimes sounds like it could be on a sitcom.
For the most part, Perkins attracts the older crowd of restaurant-goers. So, when someone under the age of 40 comes in, it’s something to talk about. Like the shoppers in the A & P, observing people at a restaurant is very interesting. But it’s different, it’s more of watching human interaction. Sometimes, my co-workers and I like to try to figure out people’s relationships. Like if a pretty young girls is a daughter or a gold-digger on a date with an older man. Also, when strange pairs come in we often wonder if they are out on a lunch date or social services meetings. It may seem like I am making fun of all these people but it’s all in good fun! Basically, I find free time at my work so interesting because all of the people are nothing like anyone I spend my free time with. There is rarely a day I don’t have a free moment laugh at something or someone at Perkins.
I can still clearly remember the situation I had to deal with at my previous job. Last year I began working as a tanning consultant for The Tanning Boutique. At first I really enjoyed working there a lot. My hours were a little difficult but hey, I was making money. When I first applied for this job I made it clear to my manager of the certain days I would need off for proms and my two week family vacation in June. I even put it in writing on the application. She was well aware of when I would be absent from work. She allowed me to take off for both of the proms I attended with no fuss, but when that two week vacation came around things were different. She started to give me a hard time since she doesn’t usually allow her employees to take off for two weeks. She kept getting on me about it for a few weeks. She even told me that the other employees weren’t happy about this because no one else gets to take off for that long. I did not think this was fair. I don’t understand why she had to go and talk about me to everyone else. It’s not really their business to know. She put my in a very difficult situation. I felt like she was mad at me and all the other employees hated me. My nice work environment slowly changed into one I dreaded going to. I was unhappy where I was and she wasn’t treating me fairly since she knew about the vacation when she hired me! I had a hard decision to make, but I did it. Sure enough once I decided I was quitting, I left. She told me I had to give a standard two weeks notice but I just ignored her and kept going. She didn’t show respect for me so I didn’t want to give her any in return. This was not an easy thing for me to do because I don’t normally like upsetting or letting people down. This was just something I knew I had to do for myself.
As you know, this past summer one of my jobs was to lifeguard old geezers. Now this was sometimes a good time. We shared some laughs by the pool under my umbrella and I learned a few things about older people that encouraged me to love them! It was a particularly sunny day in late august. It would be just a few days before the pool would close. There were a good number of people by the pool. I'd say around 15. That's a lot for this pool. I was enjoying myself- soaking up the last rays of the summer. I remember walking into the lifeguard room where there were extra chairs, a refrigerator and a water dispenser. I was charging my phone and wanted to check the time and of course, see if I had gotten any messages. With this being said, I took my eye off the pool for a matter of a minute and I look up and see an old man in the doorway. I am speechless and I can not hear what he is saying. Then he points to his leg that is (dare I say) gushing with blood. I am shocked and I can not handle human pain so I am just staring at him. I then, fumble around for the first aid kit. I get him a chair. I wrap him up and he says thanks and is on his way to get cared for by the medical staff inside the building. Oh, my! He then left me with the remains of his incident when he was coming out of the pool. Even though I could hardly look at the gash, I had to deal with it and help him out which I did! I felt like a real lifeguard after that!
I used to work at mcdonald's. Its not a job to really brag about but it was a good experience. As a freshman and early sophomore it was a good first job and i made a couple friends and make a decent amount of money. At first it was pretty fun, it felt like everyone around me was on a different level than i was and everything seemed to be so fast pased. But, like anything i do, i eventually picked it up and it all started to become second nature. I am an ambitious person, and after a year i felt i should at least be a "crew trainer", which is in-between employee and manager. I had mastered all of the positions and knew a lot about the positions and most importantly, i was smarter and flat-out better than the people around me and even most of the managers, though i never said this out loud. I also knew that mcdonalds was their LIFE and for me it was just a step to a better place in the future, but i still wanted to move up in the company, i would have got more money and more responibilty. The job was also getting really boring and way too easy and i felt i was going to quit anyway. One day, i am working on fries, which is simplest, yet most demanding job. Its constant moving and its really hot and pretty much the whole store depends on the fry person. I am doing pretty good this day but i was getting really frustrated due to the lunch rush and i was doing my job. I wanted to start going ahead and finish the job but there were some fries on the floor. The manager whom i hated the most (she was an unintelligent, unathletic, and unsocial person and had nothing on me) wanted me to stop what i was doing and pick them up. I told her i was busy and would do it later. I guess she felt i was ignoring her authority (in which her "authority" was nothing more than experience, which was due to the fact she was a mcdonalds employee her whole life and wasnt going anywhere so they made her a manager) and she snapped on me to do it now. I had a lot to do and basically told her i would do it later, when it would make sense. So she told the other manager to send me home and she fired me when i wasnt there. I was mad and relieved at the same time to not work there but it was a good experience. It was and still is a perfect example of my personality though, because it showed how i react to most situations of power/responsibilities. When it seemed hard at first, i worked and got to the point where it was easy. When it became easy, i just lost interest and focused on the next challenge. When i was better than someone of higher authority than me, i went after their position. Due to the fact that it was mcdonalds i didnt get it because i would not have been a long-term employee i didnt get that position. And when someone of a lower potential at a higher power tried to make me do something that made no sense, i was too arrogant to follow their direction. But hopefully in a more advanced company, whatever i want to do in life, i will have the freedom to work hard and have a fair chance of advancing myself. Mcdonalds really showed me ALL of my important traits: Ambition, determination, work ethic, ability to keep moving forward, and my two worst qualities, pride/arrogance and impatience, which i think will be the most important things i will have to learn to control.
Whenever I am not busy at work I have no problem figuring out what to do. The people I work with are very funny and we keep each other company. We do anything we can get our hands on to keep us busy. For example, one day we were really bored and had a lot of shredding that was piling up so we decided to make the shredder into a monster named Oscar and “fed” him lunch. Watching him eat was very entertaining! Other times we will gossip, check e-mail & such, go on youtube, and just talk. There is one lady at the front desk that no one can stand and she comes off as thinking she is better then everyone else, and is always very grouchy. Sometimes we “immitate” her, but make certain that the announcing arrival microphones are turned off, we learned that one the hard way. We do spend a lot of time making up names for people. There are those who come regularly, some come once-in-a-blue-mood, some come off as really big creepers, and others very nice, but they all have nick names. Its really a treat when there is a Burst Test going on, which is basically a test that uses an electirc shock to measure your muscle strength. The best is when it is a new patient’s first test and they have no idea what to expect. They always seem to have the same scared/intimidated look on their faces, especially if it is a younger child. We watch every second of this “show” and good-naturedly pick fun at each new contestant (behind their backs of course). Occasionally you will even get someone who cries! Along with all of this we are scavengers. There is always good food to be found, you just have to know the right places to look. Some examples of our daily routes we check include, a random stash of good candy on therapists desks, (so you constantly have to be on the look out), the boss always has the best mints, there is a filing cabinet in the back that no one really knows about that is always stocked with huge bags of candy from Costco, and patients randomly bring in good treats on the day they are discharged. There are usually conferences around the building at lunch times, for which they get catered food (most often subs as far as the eye can see!!!). All you have to do is try to look as grown up as possible, while still trying very hard to be invisible, and pray no one will say anything. We have a lot of rules at work, but one of the main ones is…never pay for food… EVER!
There’s not much free time at the place I work, mostly because if there is, my boss will give me something to do. Whenever that happens, I go at an extremely slow pace so I’m not given another tedious task such as peeling straws. On the days my boss is not around, there’s plenty nonsense that goes on. I work at Caffe Gelato, where I serve gelato to customers. It’s pretty tempting to have 24 gelato flavors in front of you and not have any. Whenever the restaurant is slow, my coworkers and I make the oddest milkshakes. When I say odd, I really do mean out there. We’ve created a peanut butter and jelly milkshake by mixing peanut butter and strawberry jelly which actually taste like the real thing. Then we have also made normal creations such as pina coladas by mixing pine apple and coconut, though I’m not too fond of that. Basically, free time at work, means gelato time.
On my first day at work as a lifeguard I was very nervous. I was the guard for the bottom of the slide. One of the little kids decided it would be funny to pretend that he was drowning. When I jumped in he popped his head up and gave me the dumbest look, like what is this crazy girl doing in the pool. Not only did I not save anyone I was soaking wet. To make the day even better another boy pooped in the therapy pool. The head lifeguard told me to close the pool and clean out the poop. I closed the pool, but I did not clean up the accident. I told him that was not my job requirement. So the head lifeguard did it himself, even though he was pretty perturbed. The hardest part of the day was explaining to the very angery members why the pool was closed. Even though I told them what happened they were still made at me. I didn’t poop in the pool. I learned that no matter who did it or how it happened, it is always the lifeguard’s fault. You just need to let them complain and just try to get them to understand that everything does not go perfectly. I think that Updike could take a story from a day in the life of a lifeguard and turn it in to a masterpiece. You never know what is going to go down in the pool or on the pool deck.
When I'm not working or at a school I am normally doing one thing, hanging out with my best friend Courtney Frink. When the two of us get together we never know what is going to happen. We might watch a movie, go to dinner, or go to the Super Walmart in Elkton. Things are never normal with us. One night we were driving around as we always did and I was telling her about a wonderful movie that I watch in english class, Life is Beautiful. After this Courtney forces me to call her Principessa. So from now on every time I pick her up I greet her with a loud Bonjouno Principessa. There is never a dull moment when we get together, I love when I get some free time because I know for sure that the two of us will hang out. One of our favorite things to is to go to McDonald's and order a milkshake and sit there for hours and just talk, we really enjoy each others company. That is what I do when I get free time.
My days spent at the Surf City 5&10 though most monotonous, and the worst of my life, there were those few days, that made it all worth it. Working at a beach store allowed me to meet many interesting, crazy, rich, annoying, scary, and fun people. I have a few experiences that I have to say I might never forget, and that my parents suggest I should write a book about. I would come home everyday with some sort of story about the goings-on of the last 8 hours at work. Perhaps my favorite, yet creepy customers were the husbands coming in trying to buy clothing for their wives. No offense to men, but they are no judge of size of clothing for women. I had many a husband come up to me and ask me what size I was because they swore up and down their wives were exactly my size. I would inform them that I wore a small in the sweatpants and tee shirts, and I liked a medium in sweatshirts because I liked them big. They would buy the size small tee shirts, then a couple hours later, them and their 300 pound wives came in to exchange it for an extra large. I don’t know whether to be insulted, or just amused at the fact that they believe that we are both the same size, as many of them asked me to try said clothing on for them. I never failed to be entertained by the clueless men that walked in my store. Also another favorite was a little old man that used to walk in everyday, buy some sort of hardware ( my store was one of those everything beach stores) and make a creepy comment to me. My favorite had to be “ Darling, did you know that with your cheekbones, you could be my model? You have no idea the things I could do with you on a canvas!” Though extraordinarily weird, it was funny, and something that kept me from killing those spoiled kids that screamed for candy every time they walked in the store. Another favorite two days, were when I rung up Ray Romano of the popular show “Everybody Loves Raymond” and John Stewart. I have seen Ray the last three years at my beach, and I still am in awe every time I see him. Call me star struck, but that is pretty cool.
I work at the YMCA as a lifeguard. Easy money, right? Well, its not hard, but it is possibly the most boring job of all time. In the summer at the outdoor pool, we get breaks almost every 40 minutes, so that is fine, but in the winter at the indoor pool, we never get breaks. I worked a six-hour shift one time and the only break I got was a five-minute bathroom break. It was horrible. Our job requires us to always be alert. We have to be ready to save someone at any moment, but keeping someone on the stand that long becomes extremely boring! I try to stay focused, but I always dose off with my thoughts. So, a couple of weeks ago I was tested while working. They drop a baby doll into the pool and a guard has to get it within 30 seconds. Now, they don’t tell you that they are putting it in there, so I had no idea. I know I should have been paying more attention, but it was during swim practice, which is always more of a break because they can all swim. So needless to say, I failed the test. I get two more chances before I am in any kind of trouble, but still. I am actually afraid to go back to work. It made me feel horrible failing. I mean what if I missed areal baby! Well, I’m not sure if I am keeping the job. It’s good money, but a little too intense for my liking. I guess I will just see how I do on the next test.
While working at Acme for the past two years, there have been many things that I did not want to do. As you start to get to know the place and the people that work there, you start to know how to waste time. You start to learn how to make a simple task, such as bringing a can of soup back to where it was, into a long, drawn out process. One particular thing that I was required to do, but really didn't want to do was to get the new box of spices from the back room and take the old ones down and replace them with the new ones. On my way to get the spices from the back of the store, I didn't hesitate to stop into the produce section of the store and talk to some of my friends who work in that department. After we talked for fifteen minutes, I slowly walked to the back of the store and made some phone calls and checked my working schedule for the next week, and by that time, it was 5:30 PM and I was done work, so I clocked out and went home.
I work at a structural engineering firm called Baked Ingram, and Associates. I work for five structural engineers, which are very diverse in every aspect of there work. A typical workday would be answering phones, filing, doing invoices, and matching up proposals to jobs. As you can see at times it gets a little boring. When I’m bored and have nothing left to do, I typically text throughout the day, and playing any and every game I can find on the computer. Games like solitaire and pinball keep me entertained and busy. The engineers tend to not be bothered by anything I do, they laugh and reminisce about when they were younger and how they could and would never be able to just sit at a desk and do work., and how they can barely do it now as adults. My job is fun and quite a learning experience, but I do not think I would get through a day without an intense match of solitaire or an high score game of pinball
Post a Comment
<< Home