Saturday, January 15, 2005

Job History Part II--Record Store, Sundance, the Hospital

After babysitting and leatherworking, I was ready for a real job. Fortunately for me, my older sister was the manager of Pegasus Records and she hired me--effectively giving me the coolest job I have ever had/will ever have in my life. Pegasus used to be an independently owned record store over in the plaza behind Panda Express. I worked there from about the age of 15 until I graduated from High School and started college. During that time our Pegasus was sold back to the chain and we moved over to the University Mall. It was next to Meier and Frank and I think there is some sort of scuba store there now. It was a sweet location--especially at Christmas time when the Talking Christmas Tree was soliciting customers.

At any rate, this is the job I held during my formative years. We sold records, not cds (in the beginning) and looked up artists in a HUGE book at the back of the store. There was no computer. The most complicated mechanism in the store was the honor box full of nut rolls. It was a magical time and everyone loved my sister because she knew everything and had the power to "special order" anything. We just threw away the "special orders" that were lame. Our mailman, Cam, had long hair, always wore shorts, loved the Ramones and would spend hours on the Fed's dime chatting it up and going for Spicy Enticers from Sensuous sandwich.

At times it was heartbreaking: charming long-haired boys turned out to be shoplifters, Christmas was exhausting (how much Narada can a person stand?), and the move to cds was difficult. But for the most part it was the stuff dreams were made of: a handsome customer had flowers delivered to me (said customer turned out to have a lisp), a singer in a local band bought me a puppy and wrote a song about me, the owner of the store was in the U2 video, Where the Streets Have No Name. Dreamy, yes--but every word of it true. And the icing on the cake: promos, posters, concert dates. The bad news? Every job since then has been severely disappointing.

From there I went to Sundance Ski Resort. This was during the Ghost era for Demi Moore. I followed suit and cut my hair very short. And so began my granola period. I worked as a busser in the Tree Room--a pretty good gig, but very hard work. And that buffet on Sunday--I hadn't counted on working every Sunday. Sundance is a beautiful resort and you should visit if you can, but the restaurant was an unsavory environment. It has been my experience that restaurant people usually are unsavory. There were a few decent "career waiters" but by and large I worked with losers who got wasted every night and delighted in their attempts to get me wasted. Don't worry, except for an accidental swig of Jack Daniels in my coke (whoo! they yucked it up over that) and the spit-out wine Carly's grandma tried to force on Heidi and me at the cabin once I have always remained true to the faith--at least that I can remember the next day.

In the end I realized that trays are heavy. So I quit. In an incredible turn of events on my last day of work I cut my finger open and ended up receiving workman's comp. It was my index finger, and it is still disfigured. I had to have physical therapy just for my finger. I would go in, get it massaged, soak it in the whirlpool, stick it in the warm wax for a while. It was ridiculous (as am I). In fact, I am so ridiculous that I talked the therapists into letting me put my feet in that wax. Then it would set up, and I would peel it off and put it back in the big heated container--all with their blessing. Note, they reuse that wax over and over and over. It is my general practice to leave things just a little better than I find them, or soil them by sticking my feet in.

Having regained my strength and mobility, it was time for a new job. I was fresh from food services so I decided to stay in that field. But it occurred to me: there's no way I could ever have as cool of a job as Pegasus or Sundance, so why even try? And so I took a job at the hospital. I started in catering, but quickly moved into being what was essentially a full-fledged lunch lady. I was a college student at this time and I worked 20 hours a week but only on the weekends--my shift started at 5am. If you know me, that alone is funny. Let me add this as well: I wore gray elastic-waisted pants, your basic lunchlady shirt, and a blue hairnet.

I worked with handicapped people. A boy I was dating at the time got me my own little razor blade knife for use in opening huge boxes from Sysco. I spent much of my time in walk-in freezers and used machines to grate enormous piles of cheese. I made up trays of food for people with diabetes, (which is a lot of pressure!), and made Jello cubes by the 30 x 45 inch panful. I also stocked all the freezers and pantries from a warehouse. I don't know what they were thinking when they gave me this job. You wouldn't know it now, but I remember a time when I did not weigh enough to give blood. This was during the time I worked at the hospital. I had a hydraulic-type dolly to transport flats of soda, huge bags of flour, and various canned goods. This dolly is the sort of thing you see them using at Cosco to move goods up and down off the shelves. When the shelves were stocked and I was waiting for the next mealtime rush, I would go into the warehouse, lock the door, curl up on a big bag of flour and go to sleep. (I know it sounds like I made that up, but it's true.)

I have many vivid memories of the people (all of varying mental capacities) and the machines. In particular, I'll never forget when my gross boss told me intimate details about herself, her on again off again boyfriend, piles of laundry, and their love life. At the time I remember thinking, "Wow. When I'm older that will probably seem normal to me." It's not. Of my time at the hospital all I can say is, I can't believe I did that.

After tiring of the 5am shift and actually pretending to forget about daylight savings and going in an hour late and acting like I thought I was on time once a la George Costanza, I realized I couldn't keep it up much longer. And still, though I was done by early afternoon and could go to church, working on Sunday sucked. Stay tuned for the next installment in this series.

23 comments:

  1. Yeah, I know how you feel. My old boss at Mcdonald's would always tell me every excruciating detail about her love affair with affairs with several piles of laundry. It wasn't all bad though. While she was distracted with her stories, it gave me time to steal more Mcchickens and/or McFlurries. Oh, how I miss those days.

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  2. Yeah, there's nothing quite like dishonest employees in the workplace, and Matt was their king. I would drive through and pay for a small order of fries. When I drove away I'd also have a Spicy McChicken Sandwich and a Coke.

    Steve told me once of how he drove through, ordered a burger and then listened to Matt say, "Don't worry, I'll hold your pickles." Those were the good old days.

    What I don't miss about those days is when Matt, not having a car because he stayed out until 2 the night before, would call me and ask me to come pick him up. I guess the free Spicy McChickens made it all worth it.

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  3. My first "real" job was at the Broadway (like J.C. Penney only then it was more high-end) during the holiday rush in 1962 - what a drag - I have studiously and religiously avoided anything remotely related to retail ever since - and interestingly enough all of my children have too. And maybe retail is not so bad anymore - maybe it's even cool and fun. How we impact the future - it's scary!!

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  4. You used to be a real sweaty. Please tell me you're planning to blog about Waterford sometime soon.

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  5. It's alright, I used to be a real sweaty too. But then I discovered the Gillette series Clearstick (flavor wild rain). It's worked wonders for me.

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  6. During my stint as a temple worker, I have been sent to work in the kitchen twice on occasions when they were short staffed. The first time it was fun, just making delicious kabobs. The second time, I was the lunch lady with the hairnet serving up dinners for all the old folks, as well as my ward members. The problem is, you can't really steal any delicious cookies or kabobs and feel good about it in the temple. The other problem is, I work at the temple right now--meaning this job isn't history I look back on but could really happen to me any Friday the kitchen staff comes up short.

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  7. Can there be a cooler job for a teenager than working in record store? I don't think it could be the same nowadays. I love that there was no computer. I remember going to Newbury Comics in Boston and spending minutes (not hours really) flipping through LPs. I really wish you had a photo of the lunch lady uniform. Elastic waisted pants? When was the last time I wore those? Oh yeah, for a fahion show...

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  8. After having been in the Tree Room kitchen, and seen the prepares of the food there, how could you even dare serve it to people? Plus they have always attracted the druggies of Utah County. Most of them RM's.

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  9. Despite the fact that I lived in the next room during this time in your life, I never remember you waking up at 5:00 am for anything other than to tape old Monkees reruns on MTV. I was too busy, perhaps, sneaking into your bedroom in the wee hours with a flashlight, rummaging through your closet for some clothes to steal to notice that you weren't even in bed, that your lunch lady uniform was conspicuously missing. Shame on me.

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  10. The Monkees was the worst and yet the best show ever to appear on television. I like the episode where Peter Tork makes a pact with the devil to be able to play the harp, and every time it shows him playing the harp, it just shows his hands, and he has woman hands.

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  11. Yes, Alex, that was disturbing. But it's so worth it for the madcap fun and crazy gags. Gags like biting into an apple and saying in a British accent, "Is the fruit rubbah?" Everyone should do a Monkees blog, just like "The Quiz." I will get you started: "The Monkess are WAY better than the Beatles because. . ."

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  12. ...they got their own cheesey sitcom, for one thing! Also, Mike Jones was dreamy.

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  13. Are you saying that Ringo wasn't dreamy?!

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  14. I meant Mickey Jones. And no, Ringo doesn't even hold a candle... Paul McCartney on the other hand... I have to confess here that while I watched The Monkees religiously after school each day, I did also write my first research paper (10 pages!) in 6th grade on The Beatles. Both good.

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  15. I really don't have an interesting work history...GOOD HEAVENS...I AM SO BORING!!!!!!!

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  16. Dude, I hate to be the one to say this, but it was Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith, and Peter Tork--and I should know because I saw them in concert at Lagoon. Of course, Mike (the cool one) wasn't there, to my great disappointment. Micky (my favorite because we share a speech impediment) was pretty fat, Davy (the cute one)was 4 feet tall and Peter(the lame one)was exactly the same. But it was my first concert and it was magical.

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  17. LIVE @ Lagoon? No Way. Too cool.

    Pegasus? Oh the envy!

    Sundance… Boo. Been there done that, BUT I did get to propose to my dear Nicholas Cage (that was when I was in love with him for his part in Raising Arizona)…

    And the haircut thing… thanks a lot Demi. I only cut mine because you cut yours and now to discover that you only cut yours because Demi cut hers. It has taken me until … um… TODAY to get it back to how log it was before the Kacy/Demi cutting stint.

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  18. I think you had short hair before I did, Becca. And I LOVED your short hair. Cut it again. I will if you will. That's funny because it implies that cutting my hair would be to give something up, to do something crazy when we all know that I have nothing to lose and everything to gain from a drastic hairstyle change. Instead of waiting to ask the inevitable, I should just answer this question now: What am I thinking? Ahh, me.

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  19. "Davy"! I knew that "Mike" and "Mickey" thing weren't sounding right. I really did watch, I swear! I even made up a tap dance to "Daydream Believer" on my driveway with my cousin.

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  20. Anonymous9:21 AM

    Tap-dancing to Day Dream Believer? You ARE a fan. Davy does a little tap dance when he sings Day Dream Believer (written by Neil Diamond, of course) but I think what he does could better be described as "soft shoe."

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  21. The Monkees are way better than The Beatles because The Monkees TV show was WAY funnier than "A Hard Day's Night" or "Help!", and the Beatles could actually play their instruments, and who wants that?

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  22. Anonymous8:43 AM

    I knew a waiter at Sundance. He said they used to keep a side of beef on the floor in the walk-in and regularly cut off chunks of meat, cook them up and serve them. I was wondering if you could corroborate this. It always sounded a little fishy, or beefy, to me. Also, those hospital cafe shakes were some of the best around. I wonder if they still are.

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  23. Sorry, my non-disclosure agreement with Sundance prohibits me from discussing that. Regarding the hospital shakes: Yes, better even than Granny's of Heber and without that urine odor.

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