My First Job

This post is #2 in my September Writing Project. Details are here.

Prompt: Talk about your first job.

Well this took me back. The year was 2001. It was summer. I had just turned 16, just gotten my drivers license, and just been told that I was responsible for paying my car insurance each month. Let the job search commence!

I applied at a few places and the first one that called me back was Michael’s, the craft store. My best friend had applied there too. We interviewed and received job offers. It was a dream come true!

The job ended up being… not quite what we expected.

We applied for sales associate positions—running the cash registers and stocking shelves. Instead, we learned that our store was moving locations and we’d be helping to setup the new place. We didn’t expect the job to be glamorous, but this was a LOT more than we bargained for.

That summer I learned about planograms. I learned that if your job was to setup the candle aisle, you were going to smell like mulberry for the next week no matter how many showers you took. And I learned about how to manage people—or rather, how not to manage people.

A consultant had been brought in to help with the store relocation. I think his name was Randy and he seemed to believe that barking orders and screaming at people would bring out the best in them. He was incorrect. Everyone was miserable. 

I only lasted about six weeks there and I still remember what pushed me to quit. My grandfather had been in the hospital and was being discharged. I was scheduled to work until 4:00 and we had a family dinner planned for 5:00. Randy told us that we were not permitted to leave until we had a certain number of planograms done, regardless of how long it took. I spoke to him and explained why I wanted to leave promptly at 4:00. He told me I could leave but that I might as well not come back.

I am a responsible person so I stayed. I missed the dinner and had to be back in the store at 8:00 the next morning. When I got home that night, I told my parents how unhappy I was there. The job was not what I applied for and Randy was kind of a tyrant. 

God bless my beautiful parents because they told me to get out of the situation.

I had enough in my savings account to cover a few months of insurance and they felt confident I would find another job before I ran out of money; what’s more, they agreed to cover the payments for a few months on the off-chance I didn’t find anything else. (It didn’t come to that. I got hired at an awesome place called Kirkland’s less than a month later and stayed there for more than three years.)

I still remember walking into Michael’s for my shift the next morning, knowing that I would be done soon. When I approached Randy and told him I was putting in my two weeks, he told me to either rescind my notice or just get out now. I turned and left.

Thinking back on it, I realize I was actually pretty brave in that moment. I was a puny 16-year-old and didn’t let that dude intimidate me. It was exhilarating.

The time there wasn’t a complete loss though. Working with my best friend was pretty awesome. She didn’t have her license yet, so I drove her to work when our shifts coincided. We felt so cool. I remember blaring Puddle of Mud from my speakers as we cruised Glenway Ave. (Anyone else remember Puddle of Mudd?) We would get Wendy’s and eat it in my car on lunch breaks. After work, I’d drive her home and we’d sit in the car for another hour talking about boys and junior year and life. 

At this point, we were attending different schools and that summer helped keep us close. We now have 31 years of friendship behind us. Randy was a pain, but he was worth dealing with for that summer with her.

Epilogue: My best friend quit a few months later when Randy told her she wasn’t allowed to request a night off for her junior homecoming dance. Neither one of us are welcome to apply for jobs with Michael’s ever again.