Steve from Akron saw this hashtag on social media the other day, #firstsevenjobs, and sent me an email wondering if I could remember (yes, I can totally remember my first jobs, STEVE. Geesh!…just don’t ask me what I had for dinner last night), and he wanted to know if I would be willing to share.
I was a bit curious at first as to why Steve was asking?
Did I owe him money?
Has he seen me naked?
Did we belong to the same circus as teens?
But since I pretty much share everything with y’all, I have no qualms about this in the least. Maybe it will prompt you guys to share your first seven jobs with me. (Notice I said ME, not US. When I say US everybody suddenly becomes pathologically shy.)
1. Babysitting— Yep. People let me near their small children. They obviously had a lapse in judgment. They needed their mommy-daddy time. I earned a few bucks doing this as a teenager and I did it all the time for my parents—for FREE. Let me be clear, I was NOT the baby-whisperer. It was very much like herding cats for me and I’m sure, looking back, that it cemented my decision to remain childless.
2. Box girl/supermarket checker — Since my dad, uncle, cousins, and everyone else who shared my DNA worked in some way, shape, or form for the VONS grocery chain, it was considered our family business. The day you turned sixteen you got a job bagging groceries after school which I have to say instilled a great work ethic in myself and my siblings. When you turned eighteen, you could ditch the stupid apron and man the cash register which felt like a very big deal at the time. I learned to check on one of those registers that looks like a toy and goes Cha-ching! every time you push the buttons. A few years later, after electricity was invented, they installed scanners and barcodes, and since those of us who actually knew math became obsolete, I started to look for a “career” where my other skills besides a fluid arm motion, were not only appreciated but rewarded.
3. Buying and selling vintage clothes at the flea market— I had an eye for one-of-a-kind stuff and the skills for buying and selling, oh yeah, and math. These all came in handy for my part-timey, only on Sundays stint at the flea markets in my early twenties and kinda paved the way for what would follow. I was ripe to leave my job standing behind a cash register like some kind of she-bot with mall bangs and ONE giant earring. (Old ladies, who were probably my age now, would lean across the counter and express their concern, “Oh, sweetie, you lost and earring” to which I would reply “It’s fashion, grandma!”
I know. It was time for me to go.
4. TV commercials— I did plays and musical theater on the side too. It was LA, who didn’t? I was in school majoring in Theatre Arts and commercials paid the bills. Oh! I was also a part of the burgeoning 80’s punk music scene that was lighting up LA and was in three bands at the same time. Until I got divorced. Then I quit everything to work full-time.
Fun Fact: I was actually approached by an agent from William Morris while plowing head-first into a giant ice-cream Sunday with my sister to celebrate my divorce at twenty-six. True story. Ask my sister.
The agent’s opening line? “I like your look” I swear to God. It was so Woody Allen/Annie Hall.
5. Melrose Antique Mall— This was my transition job out of the market and into the antique business although I never in a million years thought I’d end up in fine jewelry! Since I wasn’t sure I should totally give up my highly lucrative ($300 a week), job at the market, I did both for a year. I worked 10-6 at the Antique Mall and 7-midnight at the market. For three months that summer, I did a play two nights a week.
I should have been exhausted but instead, I felt exhilarated! So much going on! So many choices! Ah, youth.
6. Estate Jeweler— The year I turned thirty I got a real grown-up job. Excalibur Estate Jewelry at the Antiquarius. It was fashioned after it’s counterpart in London with at that time, about twenty of the cities finest estate jewelry dealers all under one roof. One of the dealers at the antique mall was looking for someone to run his store—I was his second choice. FATE intervened. I quit VONS and the Antique Mall and even shot my last TV commercial to show them how serious I was about this “career” I had stumbled into. The owner, myself, and the employees that were added as the years went by built it into a multimillion-dollar family owned business. I’m really proud of that.
I stayed eighteen years, left on good terms and opened my own store, ATIK and well, we all know how that turned out.
Now I write.
Nothing up until now has lead to the writing.
Do you see anything in all of this that says, in your fifties, you will write? Yeah, me neither.
Isn’t it curious where life leads you? I always had fun when I just went with the flow. As you age you get stuck and the flow feels… scary, out of control. So it stops. Or you build a dam.
I have found that all of my pain in life has come from the struggle to be somewhere other than where I was standing. Fuck that! Not anymore!
Thanks Steve for this little trip down memory lane. I wouldn’t have done this if you hadn’t asked. I haven’t thought about this in ages and it was fun for me!
Carry on,
xox
