by Zoë Pollock
Readers chime in on those nostalgic/ shitty first jobs. This one's first job signaled a life change:
During my early high school career, I was a bit of a screw up. My eighth grade educated father did me the greatest favor that he has ever done. He got me a summer job at the trucking company where he worked. It paid minimum wage and it had me doing all types of hard manual labor. During the heat of a Virginia summer, I mowed a couple of acres of grass, pulled weeds, cut brush, swept the dock, cleaned up fuel spills and waxed the trucks. I also helped re-stack overturned shipments in the back of the brutally hot trailers. The boss-man micromanaged (yelled at) me a fair bit too. As such, my grade point average went from less than a 2.0 during my freshman and sophomore years to honor roll for my junior and senior years.
I ended up getting into the local commuter college where I was on the dean's list for my 4 years (and I graduated in 4 years…all while working 30 hours per week at a library). After working in government for a decade, I then went to graduate school and am now an assistant professor. Despite obtaining 3 graduate degrees and holding some fairly demanding jobs over the past 20 years, I feel that I've not worked a day since the summer of 1984.
Another learned how not to pick up girls at a bar:
I worked in a disco in college, and it made me a better middle-aged man. Every night, drunk middle-aged salesmen would come in to try to pick-up college girls, buying them drinks and hoping to get laid. I watched those men make fools of themselves, spending a bunch of money on young girls who had no interest in them at all. Eventually the girls would go to the bathroom together, the salesmen would slap each other on the back and celebrate how lucky they were going to get, right up until they realized the girls weren't coming back. I watched it over and over and over.
Today, I'm a middle-aged man who travels. I occasionally find myself in bars where younger people gather. Every time I think the flirty young woman I'm standing next to might be interested in me — balding, pot-bellied, achy old me — an alarm goes off in my head. It reminds me that I'm now one of those middle-aged men that I used to pity, and the only thing keeping me from being pathetic is treating the women politely and maintaining a certain distance. … The pay helped me get through college. The lesson helps me get through life.
From a reader who manned the hotel front desk:
Traveling businessmen want their porn rentals going directly onto another bill. One-hit wonders opening for established acts can be incredibly entitled (cough-cough-Amanda Marshall-cough), Dick Vitale is as friendly and loud in real life as he sounds on TV, and the Alvin Ailey Dancers love a good drag show. Most important, when adding a wing onto a hotel, always add another hot water boiler.
And the moments that make it worth it:
As mind-numbing as hours upon hours of folding khakis can be, there were a few times when someone would come into the store who generally needed help. I ran a small men’s clothing store in a rural Middle Tennessee, and every now and then there would be a gentleman who would come in who’s never owned a suit and tie in his entire life, but would need some clothes to attend the funeral of a loved one. It was that opportunity to help someone at their time of genuine need that made the constant garment folding worth it.
The Dish 