Some of you have used your blogs to talk about your first jobs. Most of my non-professor jobs have been English-related (tutoring, teaching reading enrichment, supervising writing centers, being a teacher’s assistant, etc.) However, there were four other random ones along the way:
Bagel Me
My very first high school job was at a place called Bagel Me. Bagel Me was like Jamba Juice with food—we sold smoothies and bagel sandwiches. My job was as a cashier/waitress, and I remember that I had to wear a cute green apron. I would enter the customers’ orders into the computer system, make them their drinks, and serve them their food. It was just a part-time thing after school and in the morning on the weekends, and I totally sucked at it. The location that I worked at was in a rather wealthy area, so the patrons were super entitled and treated me and the other employees like dirt. Suffice it to say, I quit after about six weeks because I hated it so much.The Coffee Grove
My second high-school job was at The Coffee Grove. It was actually right across the parking lot from Bagel Me. It was a little mom-and-pop coffee shop. I remember that when we took customers’ drink orders, we didn’t enter anything into the cash register or write anything down; instead, we were simply supposed to do everything from memory—which proved pretty challenging when people would order multiple drinks. Again, it was just a part-time gig, a couple of nights a week and on Saturday/Sunday evenings. The girl that I worked almost all of my shifts with was really cool, and we had a lot of fun together. But, I didn’t stay there for very long because I moved onto a job where I could get paid more/work more hours.
Curves
I left The Coffee Grove to work full-time at Curves while I was going to school full-time for my BA in English. For those of you who don’t know, Curves are all-women’s fitness centers that offer a “30-minute, total body workout” (if I had a dollar for every time I used that line over the years!). According to the official website, there are now almost 10,000 locations in 85 countries and over 4 million members. I was at Curves for over four years. I started off as a lowly “fitness technician” and membership salesgirl, but I became the general manager of three OC locations by the time that I was 19. I am grateful to Curves for offering me so many amazing opportunities at such a young age. Overseeing thousands of members; dozens of employees; and all of the scheduling, training, hiring/firing, finances, etc., gave me invaluable experience.
DC Motors
After getting my BA and teaching reading part-time for a while, I decided to leave Curves. I ended up working at an exotic car dealership called DC Motors full-time. My official title was the “assistant to the president,” but I also acted as office manager/inventory manager/receptionist. At Curves, I interacted with hundreds of women on a daily basis, so it was a bit of a change working at DC where the mechanics, car salesmen, and owner were all men. I was only at the dealership for a year and a half during grad school, but--while I was there--the employees became like family to me... and I learned an awful lot about fancy cars.
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