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Dumb Jobs I Have Had, Vol. 2
By briantologist | April 27, 2005
2. Bakery Bitch.
My very second job ever was at a small, kick-ass, currently defunct bakery/cafe that used to be a few blocks from where Erin and I live now. As was the case with the mall puppeteering gig, I got the job because I knew somebody. Or was related to somebody. My sister, is who I knew and was related to; I’ll just come right out and say it. I am related to my sister. There. I feel much better.
So my esteemed sister had worked at this bakery for years and years and years, and everybody loved her there, mainly because she’s good people, but also because she was a fine employee, as far as I could tell. So why wouldn’t her younger brother carry on her genetic legacy of fine employee-dom?
It’s at this point that, in the name of full disclosure, I should probably also mention the fact that my sister was valedictorian of the class of 1990 at our alma mater Dear Booker T. Washington High School, the Pride of the Great Southwest, and proceeded directly to graduate Greatly Cum Awesomely from an Ivy League University, and is currently nearly a capital-D Doctor, not the wussy Ph.D kind. I should also mention that I, for my own part, was ranked an impressive 246th out of a graduating class of 277, and went on to such currently defunct universities as Phillips University, Enid, Oklahoma, and my final alma mater, the University of Tulsa, which among other things had the distinction of being near my parents’ house, where I moved after leaving scenic Enid. As a direct result of my academic and professional work, I can now say with confidence that I could conceivably be hired to work unconscionable hours at the copy desks of nearly a third of our nation’s most desperate newspapers.
All of which is to say that, to put it kindly, genetics ain’t everything, and among the plethora of places this fact beore itself out was the floor at the Bakery. I don’t know what time my sister showed up for her 7:00 a.m. shift, but I’m fairly certain it wasn’t 7:30, 7:50, or the following day, as was my occasional custom. So there was that. There was also the fact that I didn’t drink coffee at the time, yet boldly stepped up to make cappuccino for the constant onslaught of customers those weekend mornings. And there was the fact that, maybe a month into my time there, I got sick when it was time to train on the register.
Not that anyone should’ve trusted me to handle one thin dime at that time, but calling in sick (“sick of showing up to work,” you might wisely posit) was the last straw, and after a little over a month, they wisely and unceremoniously shitcanned me. I’ve always been several years behind the curve in terms of actual social and emotional maturity, so at least on the surface, I was still somewhat dumbly surprised to get my ass handed to me. Really I didn’t know what the hell there was to having a job, and I can’t say I learned for several years after that.
Truth be told, I just generally didn’t know what the fuck was going on. I was a large, loafy 17-year-old whose previous experience consisted of, I repeat, a series of fairly humiliating afternoons and evenings working as a mall puppeteer. I knew that the few bucks a week I’d get in tips � over and above the princely $4.25 and hour I was already getting, mind you � was pretty sweet, as was the fact that they had Blue Sky soda in stock, and available at fricken half price. And I knew on some level that I was a raging disappointment to all who believed in me for getting fired. Lucky for me I was off to the relative anonymity of Enid.
Next: “Sitting For Dollars,” or “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Federal Work-Study Program.”
Topics: Unnatural History | 10 Comments »
April 27th, 2005 at 4:42 pm
Who are, who are, who are we?
We’re the kids from Booker T!
Sorry, I just had to say that.
April 27th, 2005 at 4:57 pm
I always heard it as:
Who are, who are, who are we?
The colored kids from Booker T.
I guess they don’t use that one anymore.
April 27th, 2005 at 5:38 pm
“not the wussy Ph.D kind”
Meh! See if I ever sleep on your couch again!
You sound like my grandmother, “Why couldn’t you be a REAL doctor?”
“Because I don’t WANT to get constant phonecalls vivdly detailing your innumerable aches and pains…”
April 27th, 2005 at 5:41 pm
Actually, isn’t it:
Hoo Are Hoo Are WE?
We are, we are the coloreds from Booker T!
We don’t DRINK, and we don’t fight…
(pause)
We just hard to see at night!
April 27th, 2005 at 5:55 pm
That’ll be enough out of you, Detective Fuhrman et al. Does Westark Community College have a chant? Just checking.
For the record, I never said being a “real” doctor was the right way to go. Ask my (D.O.) sister how many times she’s been drafted to pop the backs and necks of, like, every single family member we have.
April 27th, 2005 at 9:54 pm
Back in my day…
We had the suckiest chant ever. When my school, the Coweta Tigers (Last exit before toll road), played the Haskell Haymakers (Lamest mascot ever), we sang this little ditty…
(Spell out the first line.)
C•O•W•E•T•A
We’re from Coweta
We haul hay.
Sucks, doesn’t it?
In college I had the biggest crush on a guy who graduated from Nathan Hale. Shout out to Curtis! My husband’s best friend is a proud graduate of Bishop Kelly. See? We don’t discriminate!
April 28th, 2005 at 3:35 am
did said now defunct bakery exist on cherry street, by chance? because my very own fabulous sister worked there also at one time. Theoretically, it is therefore possible that you met her.
I just like to think that the whole world is somehow relevant to me.
April 28th, 2005 at 7:39 am
That’s the one. What was your sister’s name?
April 29th, 2005 at 4:15 pm
Are we all dancing around the name “Merritt’s” for some reason? Or is that not the bakery?
April 29th, 2005 at 9:47 pm
No, it was the Bakery on Cherry Street. It was where Tucci’s is now, between what used to be Sound Warehouse and what used to be Marilyn Ihloff. They closed when the cocksucker landlords raised the rent through the fuckin’ roof.