Jobs, from tweendom to fifty two

            If I could have advised my 18-year-old self, I’d have set myself on a path with more reading, writing, traveling, and languages. I’d have studied abroad, or at least studied more. I’d have applied for the Peace Corps. I’d have been a journalist for the BBC, a photographer for National Geographic, a sailor, a musician, a midwife, a chef. In a magical twist, I’d have personally raised my children, and started a business. I’d have spent more time with my three brothers and interviewed my grandparents. 

But what 18-year-old listens to a 52-year-old? Not me. (By the way, I’d have also sought more reliable mentors.) Apparently, I learn by following the very next step I see, however small, however regretful. The strategic plan of two inches ahead.

My education was born blue-collar, from a family who can fix, shift, drive, grow, fly, build, heat, cool, plumb, drain, install, replant, operate, renovate, generate, alleviate, overhaul, jerry rig, electrify and pretty much make something from anything. For example my three brothers all constructed their own houses from the ground up (two of them with their own labor) while also working full time and raising kids, working early mornings into late nights. You get used to working those hours.

If you ever needed to pick someone to be with stranded alone on an island, pick anyone in my family of origin but me. I’m the oddball out in the handy department with a 25 percent success rate in turning on the TV. But dayam, I can type. I bet I could keep up with any of those lower rung secretaries on Mad Men[i].

I’ve actually had a couple of similar jobs, one office located on Park Avenue South in Manhattan, which runs parallel to Madison Avenue, the setting for Mad Men. I had another clerical position, phones and filing to be exact, in a far-flung neighborhood in upper Queens (not the setting for Mad Men). Both were temp jobs. I was fortunate in that both wanted to hire me for good, but I could only pick one. See what I mean? I have the soul of a secretary. (The white collar version of blue collar.) I commuted for six solid years in the NYC subways, thoroughly exhausted in the end, but also knowing that millions of people do it their whole life.

My DNA is working class through and through, thus I measure myself by my labor – how much and how hard. Whenever I change jobs I get philosophical, and with an employment transition at hand, I felt compelled to list all the jobs I’ve ever had. A complete catalogue of all the paid positions, in order, from tweendom to fiftysomething, in as much as I can remember, follows:

babysitter

short order waitress

babysitter

gymnastics teacher

babysitter

short order cook

agricultural rock picker

dinner waitress

short order cook

babysitter

janitor[ii]

janitor[iii]

resident assistant

choreographer

camp baker

publicity assistant

camp counselor

fast food cashier

legislative intern

fast food cashier

fast food grill worker

cocktail waitress

camp cook

bistro waitress[iv]

cafeteria dishwasher

dinner waitress[v]

church youth director

substitute teacher

senior citizen bingo caller

ice cream server

gymnastics coach

reading tutor

summer program director

environmental education director[vi]

warehouse receptionist

administrative assistant[vii]

secretary

communication associate

speakers bureau and study tour coordinator

global education manager

summer arts camp coordinator

adjunct English instructor

freelance writer

communications manager/office manager

grant specialist[viii]

director for communications and marketing[ix]

Please note that this does not reflect how many times I’ve revised my resume, applied for a job, checked job boards, scheduled a networking meeting, and interviewed. I used to keep count, but I lost track. Sometimes I wonder how things would have worked out had I been brainier in my approach to work, as per first paragraph. But how does one do that? All I know is to look for the next step (often taking years to discern) and move forward, even if by minutia standards.

I used to think work was all about hours and sweat. And I’m embarrassed to admit that when I transitioned into the white-collar realm and saw how other people got there, I resented my peers who took a smarter approach, those who had a plan. The irony of my envy, of course, is that my lovely daughter now fits the profile of the person I used to begrudge: the pastor’s daughter, no God issues, no class issues, no man issues, no confidence issues, access to private school, entrée to perceived big thinking, blah, blah. (Hopefully I didn’t inadvertently push my daughter into my former dream.) While I love both her and her opportunities, I’m not proud to admit that I’ve been jealous of my contemporaries who did the same. It was a grass is greener kind of thing. 
As my favorite author Mary Karr said: “ . . . don't make the mistake of comparing your twisted up insides to other people's blow dried outsides. The most privileged person . . . suffers the torments of the damned just going about the business of being human.” (Mary Karr commencement speech, 2015, Syracuse University.)

I like to imagine that I muscled my way through, the hard way, but of course the reality is I got by with a lot of help from my friends and family. But for the 1970-something green Buick my parents bought me for a high school graduation gift (my mother even rigged up a giant red bow to put on top of the car), I’d have been hard pressed to actually transport myself to college and to all my adventures in South Dakota. I depended on that car for four years, up until student teaching when another car made an illegal left turn and totaled it.

Some people get reflective when they’ve changed boyfriends or husbands or cars or cities. I get contemplative when I change jobs. It’s my working class DNA. Or maybe it’s my white-collar insides trying to fit into my blue-collar outsides. (Wait, is my blue-collar on the inside or outside? Confused.) I want my job transitions to mean something. Hourly wage philosopher. Time clock theologian. I’m the one who can get the job done on time under budget, and then deconstruct it for the following decade.

It’s probably also ironic to note that in my failed student teaching semester, part of my job was to teach the novel “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair to a high school social studies class in suburban South Dakota (yeah, that exists), about the meat packing plants of the early 1900s and how their horrors led to the labor unions in the U.S. (Resulting in, say, bathroom breaks, weekends, paid days off, child labor restrictions, fingerless ground beef, etc.) I should re-read that book, in my 30-year-older skin. While, I’m not sure of the impact that book had on my students, I know it left a deep impression on me, the student teacher, the one who would never go on to a full-fledged teaching career because of her negative review from the supervising teacher (note to self: choose mentors carefully). Who cares about a bad eval? I still list teacher on my LinkedIn profile, in the spirit of calling yourself what you want to be.

Maybe my doomed teaching career was karma for all the people to whom I’ve been despicable, before and since. If so, well deserved. (P.S. I don’t believe in karma, which is the opposite of grace, except for myself. Working on it.)

Speaking of, my husband has suffered much for my angst of the so-called career. The first thing I did when I got the new job at hand, was call Bob to thank him because it hasn’t been easy for this man. I am forever thinking and plotting and planning and wondering about what my next two inches of movement will look like, since I can’t feasibly retire which is what I’d truly like to do. Volunteer. Travel. Write. Hike. Help people. I’m pretty sure my so-called vocation is to be on perpetual vacation. (I say so-called vocation because I’m not sure I believe in it, either. For another blog post.)

Bob is awesome.

So, I guess this is my very long-winded way of saying that I have a new job, and that I’m so very grateful to all the people who held me up along the way. There are so many. And even at my age, I plan to work my eyeballs out to meet and exceed the job goals. I will tie my personal worth to the values of my employer. Because I’m blue collar at heart. And a bleeding heart to the core.

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[i] For a while, I couldn’t watch Mad Men because each female character on the show pushed one of my insecurity buttons. A mini onset of PTSD came with each drama episode. But I’m over that. Now I can watch Peggy, Joan, Betty, and the others as an objective observer, even an admirer, rather than a direct participant or possibly, as a victim. Yay me.

[ii] This job entailed cleaning the floor bathrooms during the weekend in a boys’ dorm facility at the University of South Dakota, where I was a student. I wasn’t very imaginative with my employment choices at the time. A friend told me about the position and I thought, why not? I was advised to clean very early, like 4 a.m., to avoid running into college boys needing to pee or shower. This time frame mostly worked, but I found that this was also the hour where college boys needed the bathroom to puke after partying the night before. My mother recently reminded me about this position.

[iii] To be clear this was actually a second janitorial job, cleaning an off-campus county extension building. I think I got this position through the same person who referred me to the bathroom cleaning career path. As I look back, this must be the point where my networking skills really took off.

[iv] Yes, they called themselves a bistro, 1985, Vermillion, SD. They decorated with old movie pictures from the 40s as a nod to a more glamorous time. This job was where I learned the old adage: if they can’t pay you, quit immediately. Just because they say they’ll pay you next week, and could you please work a big drunken party for their friends, and truly, you will get paid after the party, seriously, don’t do it. Leave immediately. Keep hounding them for your paycheck. Get another job. At this point, I was in grad school, and my one and only other co-worker was a high school boy, the cook. We spent a lot of time together, and honestly, he was probably my best friend, seeing that all my college friends had left town, properly graduated and all. Together we tried to understand the news reports about HIV/AIDs, which had just started to be a big deal in the mid 80s. I remember that he invited me to his spring prom. At once, I was insulted and flattered. He had red hair and a football player physique. He was actually pretty cute and was definitely thoughtful for his age, probably a reader. I can still see the crushed look on his face due to the speed for which I said no to his prom invite. It was out of the question. I had to save what little pride I had left. At age 22 and a grad student, I couldn’t possibly attend a high school prom (which I didn’t do even when I myself had been in high school). But I’m pretty sure he was being sincere in his asking, as we were sincerely friends, an odd-ball couple spending a lot of time together in that stupid, tragic bistro with no customers. I’m pretty sure he didn’t get his last few paychecks either. When the place shut down, the day after the drunken party, we were never in contact again.

[v] I’ve blogged about this position. It’s here.

[vi]This position was at Outlaw Ranch in Custer, South Dakota, nestled in the ponderosa pine in the southern Black Hills. It’s the job for which I was least prepared, and most miss.  This was my job when I met Bob (who was there for a conference). He thought I was cool. But then he learned the truth about me.

[vii] I worked for Dr. Worm and I’m not making that up. It was the perfect case of name matching personality. The office was on the Avenue of Americas, a fairly nice building on a pretty depressed street in southern Manhattan but not quite in the financial district, like it was trying too hard to be fancy. Dr. Worm was an upper echelon dentist who provided executive health care consultation to the political higher ups for the entire state of New York, according to her. I lasted one and a half days in that office, walking out for lunch on day two and taking the first train back to Brooklyn in the non-rush hour of midday. With my die-hard working class ethic, I’d certainly never done that before. And I’ve not walked out on a job since. (Whoa nelly, I’ve wanted to.) Dr. Worm was so mad at me. She and her paid head-hunter kept leaving me angry voice mail messages saying I’d never work in New York City again. They thought since I was a naive Midwestern girl I’d easily accept an abusive boss style, which was partially true but in Dr. Worm’s case, not true at all. They didn’t know that I’d rather waitress or clean toilets.

They also didn’t know that on the very day I walked out of that office, I came home to a message from Ann Fries, the human resource director for Lutheran World Relief, where I would go on to work for 17 years in five cities (eight years in the office and eight telecommuting). Apparently, Ann Fries was the one person in NYC who had not received my blackball notification. (Ann and I are still friends to this day, and I love her much. My initial connection with Ann came with thanks to my lovely and ever so networked, sister-in-law, Lorraine.) To Dr. Worm and her paid head-hunter I say: Na, na, na, na, na.  If I could make it in New York, anyone can make it anywhere.

[viii] Departing with much gratitude for my fantastic colleagues.

[ix] Thrilled and humbled.