Oct 18 2008
Crummy Jobs, I’ve Had A Few.
Well, who hasn’t? Maybe folks that have never had to work for a living. But just about everyone else has had a few dog positions, that they were happy to leave or even get fired from. One of my first worst was collecting shopping carts together from the parking lot of a grocery store and forming a long line of them and wheeling them back to the outside front of the store, so customers could pick them up before heading inside to shop. And when these customers were done shopping and had wheeled their carts outside and put the groceries in their car, I would pick up the carts and the whole process would start all over again. Sort of an early circle of life experience.
The grocery store was located in northern Jersey, so winter time was the worst. It got cold out there at night, and you had to wear winter boots to keep the old toes a little toasty. These were the days of the plain old metal shopping carts, no plastic. If you had a helper you’d line up twenty-five or so carts and one fellow steered and the other pushed. If you were on solo, fewer carts to wheel on each trip.
The job did keep you outdoors in the fresh air, and even better, you could wander around the lot and get lost, on purpose, for a few brief minutes, before it was back to work. There was a poorly lit area on the extreme back side of the store that was also a good hiding place, just in case you needed a longer break. Nobody from the store was too eager to go out in the cold if you weren’t gone for too long. One learns many things on these types of jobs, and goofing off in the correct way is one of them.
It was really just a typical dead end teenage job, some poor slob of a kid has to do these things, and I was it. I’d tell some horrible boss stories, but I don’t even remember who the boss was, so he couldn’t have been too bad, and I doubt the bosses thought too much about the kids who collected the carts. We were pretty near the bottom of the organizational pyramid, if we were on it at all.
I was only there for a few months anyway. I just probably should have picked a better time of the season than most of the winter. I don’t even remember exactly why I left. I think I just got tired of the whole deal and quit. When you’re a teenager working just for some spare change, you can do those things. And the best revenge is dredging up memories of these jobs for even a little cash; and I when I go shopping now, I return my cart neatly to the designated place.
