It wasn’t long after I first put on my pleated uniform pants, golf shirt, and visor that I learned two very important lessons:
I am very, very good at upselling pies.
I am very bad at doing anything I don’t care about.
I could distract angry guests with jokes, I could crack up a dad in a minivan, but night duties like cleaning the grease off the fry cart or topping up the milkshake machine were doomed to failure. Mainly because I failed to even try. I was busy flirting with the guy who liked my impression of Chandler Bing, and it’s hard to look sexy in tapered trousers while spilling sweetened milk all over them.
My incompetence understandably became a problem: I talked too much, I leaned too hard (“If you have time to lean, you have time to clean”), and, at one point, I had my shirt untucked. But, like Wolverine, I’m a survivor. For every write-up or verbal warning I accumulated, I’d one-up my own pie sales record and prove that if I really wanted to apply myself, I could be marginally employable.
By the time my first anniversary approached, I’d become less a shining paragon of pastry sales and more one of the most annoying people in the restaurant. I began waxing poetic about how little I needed my job (not true) and how over the whole “scene” I was (I’m so sorry), and I began bragging about my impending interview at a major clothing chain. I confidently gave a shift away on the day of the interview, threw on my most business-appropriate logo T-shirt, and prepared myself to meet destiny.
As I sat in the small fluorescent-lit staff room interviewing with hopes of becoming a bona fide Old Navy sales associate (with a reasonable discount), I got too bold. Too comfortable.
“And do you like cleaning?” my lovely and kind interviewer asked. “Because a big part of the job would be keeping your section clean.”
I laughed like Jeff Goldblum introducing chaos theory in Jurassic Park. “Oh,” I said, leaning back in my folding chair, “I love cleaning.” A pause. “I love all that shit.”
I didn’t get a call back.
Thanks to a friend with an in, I ended up with a part-time job at a bargain discount shoe outlet. I took to ICQ and announced the second phase of my career: retail. Which lasted 15 years.
I didn’t complain right away. Now earning $7/hour, I made peace with the fact that reorganizing shoe displays was the glamorous step I’d need to take to earn cash shift responsibilities. I could roll in wearing knockoff Doc Martens and Dickies pants and lean for hours, discussing hangovers with my coworkers on the sales floor or smoking outside on the front curb if there weren’t any customers around.
But the sheen wore off within weeks. On top of our store only providing us with two three-hour-long CDs to play over the course of the year, I realized that I didn’t like selling shoes nearly as much as I liked buying them. So I did what I’d come to do best: stop trying completely until I abandoned ship altogether.
I’d broken my McDonald’s record and lasted a year and a half at the shoe store. It was time to move across the parking lot. An electronics box store hired me at a whopping $8/hour, and soon I was a pair of khaki pants and branded denim button-up away from leaving footwear behind for DVDs, CDs, and video games.
I ruined everything in a week.
One evening, the night before one of my first shifts, I celebrated with a bottle of wine and whatever else my friends’ parents had. My equally drunk friends and I took to the streets for a brisk stroll and some casual flashing. I managed to roll my ankle three times before falling down and limping back to our friend’s, where I plopped down on the curb, called my dad to pick me up, and cried wine tears until I passed out.
I woke up the next day nauseous and determined to reclaim my dignity and independence. Fueled by the belief that I’d broken a bone, I took a cab to the hospital and limped to the registration desk, convincing myself that my ankle had only begun to feel better because it was somehow getting worse. I had to call in sick for the night.
“Hi,” I said to my manager, making sure to sound like I was also fighting off consumption. “I can’t come in tonight. I’m [dramatic pause] at the hospital.”
“Oh,” he responded, clearly unmoved by my plight. “Are you sure you can’t make it? We don’t have anybody to close tonight.”
“I am,” I said stoically. “It might be serious.”
“Okay,” he sighed. “Get better.”
And I did. Within hours. By the time I was diagnosed with a minor sprain, the excitement of maybe needing a Tensor bandage had given way to an even more important realization: that even though I could totally make it in to work on time, it’d be much more fun to just go to the movies.
High on knowing we were seconds from watching an accented Harrison Ford in K-19: The Widowmaker, my friends and I walked into the theatre with the confidence of knowing nothing could possibly go wrong. Which was when I saw my manager.
It’s hard to regain passion that never existed, specifically in a professional relationship. A mediocre employee who’d already earned the nickname “Chatty,” I was branded the store’s weakest link and told by my manager that if I called in sick again, I’d be fired on the spot.
I sat there while he lectured me and smiled while nodding robotically. I’d been lectured and written up in the past, but I’d never actually been fired. I felt like I’d been caught passing a note in class. I felt my heartbeat in my ears. I knew my cheeks were bright pink, and I apologized, scared that I was going to get fired and have to explain to my parents that I was a fuck-up. As if this were the first time I’d acted unprofessionally at work. I swore that I’d never call in sick again. I was always happy to rebel until I got caught.
Less than a month later, I started feeling sick at work. My throat was sore, and my head was pounding, and the crispness of my wrinkled denim began to hurt my skin. I told myself that it was normal for my bones to ache and for the fluorescent lights to be so bright that I had to keep closing my eyes.
I had been handed my fate and would die next to the copy of Bubble Boy I was too tired to label. “She loved movies,” my family and coworkers would say. My manager would break down. “She was so strong,” he’d quietly weep. “She saw K-19 despite nearly dying.”
But death wouldn’t come easy. The manager’s assistant denied my request to go home to die, believing I was faking — like a better-accessorized version of the Boy Who Cried Wolf.
To survive, I needed to circumvent him — literally. Watching him take laps around the store, I timed out his route and began crawling through the CD and DVD aisles, curling up amongst the understock and resting my eyes before battling the fluorescents again. “You look really sick” became the chorus of my fellow employees. I made peace with the fact that I’d be the first person to die next to a Nickelback display. I heard my manager approaching, but kept my eyes closed. He couldn’t fire a dead person, and I was excited for my ghost to haunt him.
“You can go,” he said, chuckling. The store was closing in 15 minutes. I looked out into the dark parking lot and saw the headlights of my dad’s car waiting for me. I scraped myself off the floor and vowed to burn the store to the ground.
Instead, about three months later, I started work at a steakhouse, where I promised myself I would never make the same amateur mistakes again. If I could care about one thing, it’d be table numbers — well, and shifts that came with complimentary bread.
My first shift was on August 13, 2003 — the day of the massive eastern seaboard blackout. I showed up anyway because I’d learned from K-19. The managers asked why I was there and told me to go home. The dawn of a new day.
At 18, my only plans in life were to marry Jimmy Fallon and kiss the server whose chinstrap beard I’d opted to overlook. I didn’t care about how naïve and young I seemed to grown-up guests willing to shell out for lobster and steak, nor did I care about how unprofessional I sounded doing impressions of Robert Goulet at the host stand. I cared
only about righting the wrongs of my previous job, so I refused to call in sick under any circumstances.
I went to work with no voice, with a migraine, with food poisoning. I went to work when I had fifth-period English, and I went to work on Valentine’s Day for a 10-hour shift with only one break to eat the free bread. The day my dad’s appendix burst and he nearly died, I rushed into work five minutes after my shift started and apologized profusely, explaining myself to a chorus of “Don’t let it happen again.”
I wouldn’t.
I told myself this is what adults did. That if I forced myself into this industry, I’d force myself into caring about a career.
The thing is, by this point, I did like working. I liked feeling responsible and, since I was flailing in school, like I was actually good at something. And while I may have gotten in trouble for being too casual or greeting adult guests with a loud “Hey, guys!” I thrived when we were busy and the staff was on the verge of implosion. I memorized my table numbers, learned how to properly project wait times, and bonded with the manager everybody else was afraid of. (She was blunt, and I respected that.) I liked feeling near-panicked and under stress. Drunk on this realization, I’d ask to work when it was busiest, thirsting for nights when I’d be the only person at the host stand, stuck doing the jobs of three people, getting high on my newfound sense of purpose and the myth that if I wasn’t there, the whole operation would come tumbling down.
I ignored how upset it made me when the owner got angry about me standing up to a group of men who’d sexually harassed me, and I smiled when male servers chose to communicate solely through inappropriate comments about me, my coworkers, and any aspect of our female bodies. Because for the first time since being an adolescent babysitter, I was finally good at a job, and nobody was going to fuck it up for me.
The problem was, I worked at a restaurant. And to succeed in the restaurant business, you have to not actively hate it. And hate it I did.
Not that I was unique in that hatred. Ask any teen how they feel about their part-time job, and most will tell you that they can’t wait to quit. (Ask most adults how they feel about their full-time jobs, and many will probably give you a variation of the same thing.) So instead of doing what I tend to do when unhappy (flee), I resigned myself to the fact that all I could aspire to was not wanting to smother myself with complimentary bread whenever I got to work. Five jobs in, I just assumed that regardless of industry, everyone was destined to hate the place they worked.
~
The first time I hated writing, I was home sick with the flu and had a hard deadline. I lay in bed at my parents’ house and started to cry about having chosen a job that hinged on my work ethic and not on set shifts or hourly rates.
One year earlier, I’d finally quit my job as keyholder at American Eagle to focus on writing full time. And despite being ready to leave after four years of balancing registers, making sales goals, and folding jeans, in my sickness haze I couldn’t believe I’d once hated a job that let me work with my friends, take structured breaks, and give up my shifts if I was at death’s door. I complained to my mom that I didn’t know how good I’d had it, that I’d made a mistake venturing down the path of self-employment and self-sufficiency, and I pined for the days I could get paid for hanging out amongst flip-flops, eating snacks. I couldn’t believe there’d been a time when I’d hated retail. Especially since, unlike in freelance writing, at least in retail my managers would reassure me of my strengths with employee reviews or overtime shifts. I always knew where I stood, how I could improve, and what I was good at that I’d never thought I would be.
I hated writing again this week. I was tired. I got stitches in my finger. My booster shot made me so sick, I had to call my parents to check in on me. I emailed my editors to ask for an extension on this godforsaken book, and they very kindly and professionally explained that outside of a two-day grace period, I’d committed to the hand-in date. I cursed my stupid decision to be a writer. Writing was the worst, and only an idiot would commit to writing a book in the first place. I wept for how brave I was to keep working despite being gravely ill.
But such is (working) life. I don’t know a single person who loves everything about their career all the time because no aspect of life is perfect all the time. No friendship, no relationship, no family dynamic, no outfit, no movie ending. No job.
My serial employment wasn’t a straight-ahead “career path,” but, aside from funding vital parking-lot parties and baby tee acquisitions, it helped me figure out a lot about how I work (or don’t). I learned I needed a job I believed in enough to offset my own restlessness. I learned that I needed fresh challenges and credit for what I do. I learned that I needed a job where I could work for hours on end when inspired, but could also seek solace in a Harrison Ford movie if my brain needed a break. I learned that if confronted by angry strangers, I could stand my ground and say things like “I don’t like your tone” (or, most importantly, “never @ me”), and that I was capable of being responsible and could thrive under pressure. And while my jobs taught me that money was important, I learned that no amount of it could make me love a job I hated.
But maybe most importantly, I learned that there’s always something else to try. Even if, like teen me, you are trying everybody’s patience. Or barely trying at all.
Failing Upwards
I wasn’t ready for college, but my high school teachers and guidance counsellors thought I should be.
There was really only one sanctioned path to follow after high school: post-secondary education led to jobs and opportunities and a bright, sparkly life. Without it, you’d be left stunted, unfulfilled, and generally fucked.
I certainly didn’t seem like college material. I’d spent four years of high school dodging deadlines and classes. I failed twelfth grade and had to repeat it. But then I was shaken by the fear that my life would be over before it had begun, so for my second act I swore I’d do better — that despite not connecting to most subjects or knowing what I wanted to do, I’d turn over a new leaf and at least give myself options. I even applied to college — lack of interest in anything it offered be damned — because I didn’t think I had a choice.
But between my lust for PG-rated rebellion and my inability to admit how scared I was in the wake of my existing failures, my newfound scholastic fervor didn’t last long. Instead, I refocused on social currency, desperate to be accepted and interesting and equal parts unique, badass, and totally cool.
Somehow, I was accepted by a few colleges. I chose the one closest to home and told myself the stakes would be higher when tuition was involved. A career in journalism would be a fresh new page, and I was already the master of reinvention.
The first day was a disaster.
Thanks to the combination of rain, traffic, and my own inability be on time, I was so late for my first class that instead of charging ahead to forge a new life phase, I dejectedly turned the car around miles from campus and came home to cry in the kitchen and call my mom, who urged me to go back and “just see.”
And did I ever: I attended all the rest of my classes for the first week, which gave me plenty of time to realize that a life in traditional reporting wasn’t for me. But instead of dropping out and getting my money back (or sticking it out to see what I could learn), I readopted my too-cool-for-school persona. I skipped class, didn’t hand in assignments, and didn’t study for tests because I hated my program. But college professors aren’t like high school teachers. They don’t want to hear about why you can’t make it to a lab or lecture — they just fail you. So in December, I dropped out and announced plans to work full time at the hardware store I’d been a cashier at for the last couple of months.
It wasn’t glamorous, but adulthood didn’t seem to be, either. I spent hours ringing in pressure-treated wood and garden soil and was surprised by how much I liked it. I didn’t have to be so formal, to seem “ladylike” or grown-up
(when I obviously wasn’t), and I was shocked at how efficient I could be during busy hours. My supervisors noticed: more hours led to more money and responsibility, and I began working my way up the ladder. Only a few months after leaving college, I was promoted to full-time cash supervisor with benefits and a guaranteed 40 hours per week. And I didn’t need a degree to get there.
But within weeks of being promoted, I knew I needed another change, because High School Anne had made a triumphant return: I morphed into an apathetic supervisor and a disastrous customer service associate, and I wielded my power to do absolutely nothing outside of drink coffee in the cash supervisors’ office. I talked back to customers, didn’t listen to my managers, and certainly didn’t deserve to have full-time hours. I was too proud and scared to admit that I needed to step down and sort out my future. So I just came in to work, fucked around, and cried when I didn’t think anybody could see me.
What made it sting more was that I’d begun watching my friends start to build their own lives at school, mapping their goals and dreams. I was jealous: their stories of dorm mishaps, test cramming, and roommate debacles overshadowed my tales of contractors I had to yell at, career shoplifters, and the 60-something employee who’d killed himself after getting fired for stealing. I still believed that academia was the only viable way forward, so I saw everything I was doing as proof that I wasn’t good enough to make it academically or in general. School was supposed to be the goal, but I hated being there. I was a prisoner of the myth of convention, too scared and sad to begin thinking unconventionally. My life was over, and I would never be happy.
~
One day, a coworker cut her hand in the lumber department and I handled it quickly and without balking at the blood. Someone joked that I should be a nurse and, desperate for a way forward, desperate to be anything, I agreed. That night, I signed up to begin upgrading my high school marks under the belief that they would lead me to the safety of full-time work in a field everyone seemed to admire. And, for the first time in nearly a decade, I was actually really fucking good at school.
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