March 20, 2008
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What was your first job?
When I was 13 my grandmother offered me a job helping her make beds at a motel on Saturdays for $1 a day. A guy who lived there paid me $5 a week to clean his apartment. Eventually I was working both days on the weekend for $2 an hour (under the table) until I could get working papers. Then the owners hired me and paid me $1.25 an hour (minimum wage at the time) and my grandmother supplemented it so that I was still making $2 an hour. I continued to work there throughout high school. Working there gave me a good sense of the value of money and I had to buy any “extras” that I wanted. So working there paid for me to take a trip to another state to meet my pen pal, allowed me to take our 10th grade trip to Cedar Pointe (amusement park in Ohio), paid for my yearbooks, school pictures, and senior trip to the Bahamas. I bought a nice stereo and had an extensive vinyl LP collection (what I wouldn’t give to have that collection today!!)
My grandmother ended up managing the motel starting the year I got working papers while the owners converted three rooms into a corner apartment (the motel was L-shaped). My grandmother retired the same year I graduated from high school and the owners offered me the job of running the motel. It would have included an apartment with all utilities paid, as well as a salary. However, I turned it down because I saw how confining it had been for my grandmother, and I wanted more freedom to come and go.
I have since worked for a tattoo artist, in a head shop, as a cocktail waitress, as a bartender, as a cashier, on the assembly line at a Pontiac Motors plant, housekeeping in a hospital and later in an office building, as a programmer, trainer, tech support, customer support for an online community, web developer, office manager, mail-order clerk, Information Technology Manager and Director of Technology. (Those are the ones I *remember*) Jack of all trades and master of none.
Those don’t include my stint in the Navy – where I was discharged during the 5th week of boot camp because I had a bad knee.
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^^