My only summer job

I've never had a summer job as a teen. My only summer job came about just after my sophomore year in college. Art college is a very pricey prospect, so my parents needed me to help any way I could. At this time I hadn't fully grasped the concept of living away from home just yet so I spent that summer at home despite the fact that I had an apartment of my own.

The catch-22 of getting a job without any sort of experience led me to a grocery store which was conveniently a few blocks away from home. The owner's son gave me a call one day. All that I can remember from that call was being a bit confused when he called to say he needed someone to paint signs. It's not what I expected to hear so I said something along the lines that I could 'probably' do it. But that wasn't good enough. He wanted to know that I could definitely do it. Even at nineteen it just seemed like semantics to me.

So there I was, a freshly hired 'sign painter' for a grocery store. It wasn't really what I wanted to do, but it was in the vaguest sense along the lines of art, so I justified it in my mind that way. As soon as I was going around meeting everyone I already felt uncomfortable. There wasn't anyone I could relate to among the employees. Most of them were middle age people who couldn't really get a proper job or actual teens that weren't very interested in their choice of summer job. I was very much the outcast. But little did I know that for whatever reason, this grocery store already had someone who painted signs for them. It's been so long ago, I can't possibly remember his name- let's just call him Jerry. It was very awkward when every time I was introduced around, nine times out of ten, someone would say “Oh, are you replacing Jerry?” My response was either a shrug or a “Huh?” I should have asked then and there what was going on, but I didn't know any better.

Upon getting my first task, I also didn't know any better. The signs I would be painting are the ones they have up in stores stating the various prices and sales for each item. Obviously I should have made some attempt to make them look good, but all I remember doing was writing out in black paint as if I was merely scrawling a note out. After doing a few in this manner, nobody said anything, so I kept it up.

My mother, though I know she meant well, was always interested in seeing my 'work', but really, it was just words on a sign in a grocery store. It's not like it was my artwork being displayed in a prominent gallery. There wasn't anything to see.

Almost immediately, I made my first enemy, the manager of the produce section. I handed off a sign to him and as I was walking away he yelled out to me.

“Hey, you didn't put everything on this sign.”

I walked back. “What?”

“You forgot to put two lines down.”

“No, that was everything that was on the index card. If you wanted them you should have wrote them down.”

“Don't talk back to me! Now go fix this sign.”

I don't remember the exact outcome, but I do remember being right. He didn't write it all down. But of course it didn't matter, I was still 'wrong' because I was young and a brand new employee.

After about a week, the owner's son pulled me aside and asked me to print up the signs on the computer from now on. He must have been a genuinely nice guy to not just come out and say “Your signs look like shit, so do them on the computer from now on.” So that's what I did for about another week.

Then Jerry came back. I had no idea if he had been on leave, if he had been on vacation, if he had been in the hospital or anything along those lines. Nobody would tell me. With the original sign painter back to work, my position seemed pretty redundant. I talked to the owner's son asking him “Why am I here if you already had someone to paint signs?” He seemed to be at a loss for words and then happily offered a job as a bagger to me. I accepted.

I would soon learn that a bagger job is lower than the lowest man on the totem pole. Customers treat you like shit. Management treats you like shit. The pay is shit. But I had to keep the job. Right away I knew I would never say the cliched line of “Paper or plastic?” I would cleverly say “Which bags would you like?” so as not to seem totally pathetic.

Almost off the bat I got yelled at for not wearing an apron while on the job. This had been news to me so I politely told my superior “No one ever told me I had to wear them.”

“Yes, of course you have to wear them, we told you on the first day.” Nope, never was told that. So I had to pull one of the nasty-ass aprons that all the baggers have to wear from their storage closet and put it on.

And thus started my stint as a grocery store bagger. I could tell this job was not going to be a good one for a few reasons. The customers never seem to think you know how to stack anything properly. I'm smart enough to know that bread and eggs don't go on the bottom, thank you very much customer X. Also, the customers never really acknowledge you. The only person they really have to acknowledge is whoever's at the cash register. Lastly, and I should have realized this from the start, we were responsible for cleaning up spills and messes as well. That last one would get me in the most trouble I ever got at the job.

I was called into the office of the big boss one day, not having the slightest clue why. Being so long ago, there's no way I could remember the conversation word for word, but the gist of what was said was clear.

“Jason, do you know why you were called in to my office?”

“No, what's wrong?”

“I was told you used both a paper and plastic bag to clean up the mess in aisle four.”

“Yes, that's right.”

“Do you have any idea what these bags cost? They cost fifteen cents each, you can't just waste money like that. What the hell were you thinking?”

The conversation was basically like that. All the while my boss was getting angrier, and all the while my expression grew more puzzled. Fifteen fucking cents? My boss is chewing me out for wasting fifteen fucking cents? The whole time I'm thinking “If I didn't need to keep this job, I'd fish fifteen cents out of my pocket and throw it in his face, yelling 'Here's your fifteen cents. I quit!'” I couldn't make something like that up if I tried.

Basically I fake-smiled and ambled my way through the job, not really caring if I made any employee friends or customer acquaintances. I was only there to make money, no matter how small the amount. Luckily there were some positive instances I can remember as well.

Obviously, everyone's had a job where they've had unruly and/or stupid customers. The most memorable one for me, though not directed at me, was particularly funny. A customer was getting belligerent about the fact that he was charged a few cents more for a Vidalia onion despite the fact it was a regular ol' onion. His reaction after this was to point at all the staff saying “You're wrong! You're wrong! You're wrong! And I'm right!” and then storm off. What is it about money denominations under a dollar that ticks people off so much?

The customers in general were always a strange lot, who could range from the suspiciously nice to the ridiculously angry. It was rare to get tipped, but I actually did, upon carrying groceries for an old lady to her car at one point. Another that stuck in my mind was a customer who stared daggers at me because he thought I packed his eggs badly and they fell over. It was actually the girl who was working the register who packed it that way, and afterward I asked “What are you, trying to make me look bad?” She ignored me.

The time finally came to quit since college would be starting up again and that was that. No teary goodbyes, no going away card, nothing. No one that worked there would likely remember me a month later, which was perfectly fine with me. I was glad to be done.

I know that everyone has there shitty jobs, some far worse than mine, but I could merely chalk it up to work experience. I got through it, and I'd learn a thing or two about what it was like to have a job.

Strangely enough, come next year, my parents would urge me to look for another summer job. They figured I could get a job back at the grocery store. With an uneasy feeling in my stomach, I looked into it. I went in and noticed the owner's son was there. Walking up to him, I asked if there were any job openings. He said I could have a cash register position if I wanted it.

I probably thought about it for a good five seconds before answering “I think I'll go find a job somewhere else.” I had no intention of working again at the grocery store, even if it was a slightly better job position. I just didn't tell my parents they offered me a job or they would have yelled at me for sure. I didn't find a job that summer.

There's no way I could ever work at a grocery store again, not only for the fact that I have a good job right now. It's also that I have zero tolerance for people in authority who think they're better than you and feel the need to belittle anyone beneath them, which is the sense I got. I may have been lucky never to have worked in fast food, but working with food in general still fucking sucked.