Last week, I wrote about a TV show I’m obsessed by, The Bear. I’m obsessed because the show is about creating art out of trauma, and that trauma often finds itself represented through the metaphor of the chaotic workplace—the kitchen—with people trying to exist and be creative and be human in the trauma of this maddening (yet somehow wonderful) workplace.
Loved all your jobs! It's what makes us interesting. I babysat until I was 15 when worked in an ice-cream parlor next to a movie theatre. My second day, I was left on my own, the summer blockbuster let out and a line formed down the mall. A man ordered a Reuben. At the ice-cream store! I knew it was corned beef on rye with Swiss cheese, but I couldn't remember that last ingredient. I called my dad as the impatient crowd grew restless in line. He couldn't remember either. Needless to say, the poor man never got sauerkraut on his sandwich. I learned you don't have to be perfect to make people happy. Just do your best with a smile and make 'em laugh if you can.
That's such a great (and harrowing) story. I don't know why, but your reuben is a metaphor for working in a restaurant. You're always improvising, sometimes with a line out the door, sometimes with someone asking where their sauerkraut is while you're on the phone with your dad, etc. And as you say, you have to just do your best and smile and make 'em laugh and be thankful for those who don't complain about not getting sauerkraut on their ruben.
The ice-cream job didn't last long. I moved up to McDonalds and worked there all through high school. Worked as an RA in the dorms in college and then became a film editor. After six years signing on two TV stations, I burned out. I quit my career and got a job at the local Mexican restaurant. Spent two weeks as a hostess and was promoted to waitress. Now my only experience was counter and drive-thru. Within three months, I dumped a burrito on a man's head, a pitcher of beer in a woman's lap (she was wearing a pink suit), and I ruined every article of clothing I owned. Those tray are heavy. It was then I decided I needed to get back to the editing thing, where I was left alone in a dark room and couldn't hurt anyone but myself. I'm a great tipper btw.
Haha, I met someone at a party once who remembered I'd waited on her, and she told me I spilled some drips of coffee on her. Another time my experience was more like yours, a tray of beverages tipped the wrong way, and a hot chocolate landed right on a woman's white sweater.
I did three days at McDonald's, but, fortunately another job came my way. I still remember the training video, though. And that I had to look busy even if there was nothing to do.
It's all good training to be a writer in strange ways. Even the spilling. Because sometimes our stories might spill as well.
Excellent plan. And we should set it up like coaches' jobs, where you get a bazillion dollars to leave if you fail. The Nap Ministry is a delight to me. Thanks for that. I'm a gifted napper myself.
IOWA! You brought back memories of waking up in Ames at 4:30 am, and then being driven by my poor dad (who had to shovel the driveway first) to the high school, where our before-school gymnastics practice began at 6:00. Nothing hurt worse than falling across that wooden beam in the frigid gym. But I actually won a contest for worst job in the Orlando Sentinel: In the 1980s, I was a camp counselor and aerobics instructor in LA for Camp Camelot, the "premier weight loss camp" for kids. I spent the hottest summer in decades chasing chunky 7 year olds around Disneyland and Magic Mountain. We were give baggies of turkey slices and celery sticks for lunch, but the sweet-starved kids would run off to buy and gorge on anything they could get their hands on. We counselors were no different. The older kids would order pizza at night, running over the hillside at night to meet the delivery drivers. We would wait until they had paid and then confiscate the pizza from the panicked kids. At the end of the summer, the running joke was that the average camper had lost 10 lbs, and the average counselor had found them.
Haha, my dad was also up early because of my jobs—either to wake me up or to drive me on my paper route early on an Iowa winter morning. I see Camp Camelot as a movie, so you should write it! Sounds hilarious.
Thanks, Grant. I remember thinking at the time that the experience should be a movie. I still wake up there in dreams, chasing kids. By far the most scarring part was the awful music the kids blared: "You spin me right round baby, right round, like a record baby, right round round round!"
Oh jobs, yes. I've always loved work but some jobs were instructive, some yielded good stories and writing, others were painful. My favoritie job was as a nude art model in SF Art Academy when I moved to SF in the late sixties as a young 21 year old. I was waiting for my ship to come in as an actress and needed to pay my part of the rent. So I put my dance and acting training to use and projected more than a body in my poses. I loved it because while I was holding challenging poses, I listened to the instructor and learned a great deal about visual art.
On a break one day, I walked around the students work stations in my bathrobe and saw so many different viewpoints of me and realized, "I am created partly in the mind of the beholder and not alone by what I express or present. And as a writer, I learned that there will always be versions of characters as seen by the other characters in the story. Art is partly about what a person selects to see, and that is fascinating in the diversity of viewpoints that can bring about.
Art modeling was way beyond the body poses for me, it was a way to connect with the viewers: to inspire, to move beautifully, to express life in a body that was in no way a cage. Susan Stroh
What a great mini essay, Susan. You should write it up. There's an interesting irony in that you were completely exposed, nude, yet the "truth" of your representation was connected to others' interpretations, which are like clothes they dressed you in. Thanks so much for sharing.
I worked my first job in an ice cream parlor when I was sixteen. It was brutal. Demanding parents, impatient kids, a lot of yelling. The high-backed parlor chairs were so high that I had many near misses when lifting my tray loaded with banana splits and chocolate shakes up and over onto the tables. (i'm short with even shorter arms) We pooled tips. It was my first life lesson of unequal work for equal pay. Julie worked the bathroom mirror with primping most of the night while I answered her tables. She got paid the same amount in tips as I did. Life just wasn't fair! I chuckle now to think of the memory, and why I remember some of those details.
"Pooling tips" was always chancey. I did it once because the restaurant was so damn busy that we had to have a team approach to make it all work. Fortunately, my fellow waiter didn't primp, but he was a charismatic performer who would go up and sing with the band. I covered the tables. I hoped his performance brought in more tips. Who knows.
I wonder what has happened to Julie. Your experience sounds like it's worth a personal essay.
I wrote a bad poem a few years ago about my detasseling experience in Illinois in the early 1980s. It recalled the early mornings, working rain or shine, and how when my head hit the pillow at night and I closed my eyes, all I could see was the green of those endless rows. We wore long sleeves even in searing heat to protect our arms from those leaves that cut like razors. Yes, it sucked, but damn it was memorable and they let us wear a Walkman so the soundtrack was good. (Devo, New Order, and the Gang of Four.) Our foreman once gave me and my friend some telling feedback when we diverged from our required task and tried to explain why: "This is Dekalb. You're not paid to think." That's one for the ages.
Haha, perfect description of it. I remember keeping my long sleeve shirt on as long as possible, but it always got too hot eventually. I started with a little AM radio that could barely pick up a signal. Wish I'd had a Walkman, but they came out a few years later. And ... your Dekalb foreman sounds familiar. The foremen used to lie to us mercilessly. I think there needs to be a "Detasslers' Recovery Conference" or something like that in the Midwest.
One of my oddest moments re: detassling came when I interviewed at Oberlin, which was then my first choice. The interviewer asked me why the corn needed to be detasseled. I had no idea. I'd never thought to ask. I had no curiosity about any of it. I just wanted to earn my $2.20 per hour and $3.30 on July 4. I was so embarrassed I didn't apply. Hence Grinnell.
I keep meaning to write an essay about it all, so I hope you revise your poem. Or make a movie: I like the image of a teen detassler going down a row with Devo blaring...
Ha. I was still detasseling between my freshman and sophomore years at Grinnell. I bought a lot of "new wave" records with that Dekalb cash. It felt like big money at the time.
Terrific, Grant! Like you I had multiple jobs that I hated... from a banquet waiter to a hair salon manager to a delivery driver for junk yards. And like you I've taught writing for almost three decades (screenwriting in my case). Unlike you, though, I couldn't get into The Bear -- I've given it five episodes of my undivided attention. I thought it wears its trauma too prominently on its sleeve. But I want to give it another shot. Most of my writer-friends love the show.
My first job was in high school at the TG&Y. A 5 & Dime store with a bit everything, books, makeup, toys etc. My dad called it "Toys, Guns & Yo Yos." I got a poem out of it though, one of first published poems.
Love these posts about how we starving artists try to hold our financial selves together! OK- so, I'm an old person; have a huge resume of work experience and am still doing billable hours work while I grow my portfolio of rejection slips. Here are just a few jobs from the food service industry. I started out at the Magic Pan in S.F., cooking crepe's over an open flame in the dining room at the Ghirardelli Square restaurant. Had to wear a drendel ? and wooden shoes which I kept falling out of. Next came BBQing chickens in a store front window at a Stockton St. Market. One day I forgot to secure the chickens to the spit; swung it to load the oven & 4 raw chickens flew into the produce section. Next came working at Hoff Brau in Squaw Valley where a crazy BOH dish washer came after me with a meat cleaver. However, I survived and managed to finish out my ski-bum season adventure. LESSONS LEARNED? If you come across an editor who takes a meat cleaver to your work, don't take it personally. (P.S. I'm almost certain we crossed paths, Grant. I do recall running into an elevator operator in a cowboy suit once upon a time in San Francisco. )
In college, I was an RA (resident assistant), and I had to create social events, be available for counseling and drama, and enforce the rules. It was a challenge to get the girls to follow the rules and still feel they could talk to me. And I saw all kinds of problems, ridiculous and severe. But it gave me insight into character, how people are in the day versus late at night, alone versus with their clique, and so on.
Total aside, Grant, but I got to sit in on that conversation between Molly Giles and Jane Ciabatarri a couple of nights ago and your name (and thoughts) were mentioned with love. Cheering from here.
Loved all your jobs! It's what makes us interesting. I babysat until I was 15 when worked in an ice-cream parlor next to a movie theatre. My second day, I was left on my own, the summer blockbuster let out and a line formed down the mall. A man ordered a Reuben. At the ice-cream store! I knew it was corned beef on rye with Swiss cheese, but I couldn't remember that last ingredient. I called my dad as the impatient crowd grew restless in line. He couldn't remember either. Needless to say, the poor man never got sauerkraut on his sandwich. I learned you don't have to be perfect to make people happy. Just do your best with a smile and make 'em laugh if you can.
That's such a great (and harrowing) story. I don't know why, but your reuben is a metaphor for working in a restaurant. You're always improvising, sometimes with a line out the door, sometimes with someone asking where their sauerkraut is while you're on the phone with your dad, etc. And as you say, you have to just do your best and smile and make 'em laugh and be thankful for those who don't complain about not getting sauerkraut on their ruben.
The ice-cream job didn't last long. I moved up to McDonalds and worked there all through high school. Worked as an RA in the dorms in college and then became a film editor. After six years signing on two TV stations, I burned out. I quit my career and got a job at the local Mexican restaurant. Spent two weeks as a hostess and was promoted to waitress. Now my only experience was counter and drive-thru. Within three months, I dumped a burrito on a man's head, a pitcher of beer in a woman's lap (she was wearing a pink suit), and I ruined every article of clothing I owned. Those tray are heavy. It was then I decided I needed to get back to the editing thing, where I was left alone in a dark room and couldn't hurt anyone but myself. I'm a great tipper btw.
Haha, I met someone at a party once who remembered I'd waited on her, and she told me I spilled some drips of coffee on her. Another time my experience was more like yours, a tray of beverages tipped the wrong way, and a hot chocolate landed right on a woman's white sweater.
I did three days at McDonald's, but, fortunately another job came my way. I still remember the training video, though. And that I had to look busy even if there was nothing to do.
It's all good training to be a writer in strange ways. Even the spilling. Because sometimes our stories might spill as well.
Now that's funny! Being remembered by someone you spilled on! HAHA Thanks for the great memories. Looking forward to your next Substack.
Excellent plan. And we should set it up like coaches' jobs, where you get a bazillion dollars to leave if you fail. The Nap Ministry is a delight to me. Thanks for that. I'm a gifted napper myself.
IOWA! You brought back memories of waking up in Ames at 4:30 am, and then being driven by my poor dad (who had to shovel the driveway first) to the high school, where our before-school gymnastics practice began at 6:00. Nothing hurt worse than falling across that wooden beam in the frigid gym. But I actually won a contest for worst job in the Orlando Sentinel: In the 1980s, I was a camp counselor and aerobics instructor in LA for Camp Camelot, the "premier weight loss camp" for kids. I spent the hottest summer in decades chasing chunky 7 year olds around Disneyland and Magic Mountain. We were give baggies of turkey slices and celery sticks for lunch, but the sweet-starved kids would run off to buy and gorge on anything they could get their hands on. We counselors were no different. The older kids would order pizza at night, running over the hillside at night to meet the delivery drivers. We would wait until they had paid and then confiscate the pizza from the panicked kids. At the end of the summer, the running joke was that the average camper had lost 10 lbs, and the average counselor had found them.
Shawna Carpenter
Haha, my dad was also up early because of my jobs—either to wake me up or to drive me on my paper route early on an Iowa winter morning. I see Camp Camelot as a movie, so you should write it! Sounds hilarious.
Thanks, Grant. I remember thinking at the time that the experience should be a movie. I still wake up there in dreams, chasing kids. By far the most scarring part was the awful music the kids blared: "You spin me right round baby, right round, like a record baby, right round round round!"
There's your opening song!
Love this post. I totally get the rest thing. I am the worst rester, ever.
We should start an org dedicated to rest, Barbara. I'm sure we'd work hard to make it a success, haha.
On a side note, did you know there is a Nap Ministry? I might not be a good rester in general, but I am a good napper.
As writers to be humble with our wisdom and always curious….
It’s amazing that we survive the teenage worklife or should I say preteen?
Great story, a bit corny.
😉
Haha, yeah, a bit of a cornball story! Thanks so much, Prajna.
Oh jobs, yes. I've always loved work but some jobs were instructive, some yielded good stories and writing, others were painful. My favoritie job was as a nude art model in SF Art Academy when I moved to SF in the late sixties as a young 21 year old. I was waiting for my ship to come in as an actress and needed to pay my part of the rent. So I put my dance and acting training to use and projected more than a body in my poses. I loved it because while I was holding challenging poses, I listened to the instructor and learned a great deal about visual art.
On a break one day, I walked around the students work stations in my bathrobe and saw so many different viewpoints of me and realized, "I am created partly in the mind of the beholder and not alone by what I express or present. And as a writer, I learned that there will always be versions of characters as seen by the other characters in the story. Art is partly about what a person selects to see, and that is fascinating in the diversity of viewpoints that can bring about.
Art modeling was way beyond the body poses for me, it was a way to connect with the viewers: to inspire, to move beautifully, to express life in a body that was in no way a cage. Susan Stroh
What a great mini essay, Susan. You should write it up. There's an interesting irony in that you were completely exposed, nude, yet the "truth" of your representation was connected to others' interpretations, which are like clothes they dressed you in. Thanks so much for sharing.
I worked my first job in an ice cream parlor when I was sixteen. It was brutal. Demanding parents, impatient kids, a lot of yelling. The high-backed parlor chairs were so high that I had many near misses when lifting my tray loaded with banana splits and chocolate shakes up and over onto the tables. (i'm short with even shorter arms) We pooled tips. It was my first life lesson of unequal work for equal pay. Julie worked the bathroom mirror with primping most of the night while I answered her tables. She got paid the same amount in tips as I did. Life just wasn't fair! I chuckle now to think of the memory, and why I remember some of those details.
"Pooling tips" was always chancey. I did it once because the restaurant was so damn busy that we had to have a team approach to make it all work. Fortunately, my fellow waiter didn't primp, but he was a charismatic performer who would go up and sing with the band. I covered the tables. I hoped his performance brought in more tips. Who knows.
I wonder what has happened to Julie. Your experience sounds like it's worth a personal essay.
Yep, and I only realized it after I wrote the comment! Thanks for the nudge.
I wrote a bad poem a few years ago about my detasseling experience in Illinois in the early 1980s. It recalled the early mornings, working rain or shine, and how when my head hit the pillow at night and I closed my eyes, all I could see was the green of those endless rows. We wore long sleeves even in searing heat to protect our arms from those leaves that cut like razors. Yes, it sucked, but damn it was memorable and they let us wear a Walkman so the soundtrack was good. (Devo, New Order, and the Gang of Four.) Our foreman once gave me and my friend some telling feedback when we diverged from our required task and tried to explain why: "This is Dekalb. You're not paid to think." That's one for the ages.
Haha, perfect description of it. I remember keeping my long sleeve shirt on as long as possible, but it always got too hot eventually. I started with a little AM radio that could barely pick up a signal. Wish I'd had a Walkman, but they came out a few years later. And ... your Dekalb foreman sounds familiar. The foremen used to lie to us mercilessly. I think there needs to be a "Detasslers' Recovery Conference" or something like that in the Midwest.
One of my oddest moments re: detassling came when I interviewed at Oberlin, which was then my first choice. The interviewer asked me why the corn needed to be detasseled. I had no idea. I'd never thought to ask. I had no curiosity about any of it. I just wanted to earn my $2.20 per hour and $3.30 on July 4. I was so embarrassed I didn't apply. Hence Grinnell.
I keep meaning to write an essay about it all, so I hope you revise your poem. Or make a movie: I like the image of a teen detassler going down a row with Devo blaring...
Ha. I was still detasseling between my freshman and sophomore years at Grinnell. I bought a lot of "new wave" records with that Dekalb cash. It felt like big money at the time.
Wow. Love this.
Terrific, Grant! Like you I had multiple jobs that I hated... from a banquet waiter to a hair salon manager to a delivery driver for junk yards. And like you I've taught writing for almost three decades (screenwriting in my case). Unlike you, though, I couldn't get into The Bear -- I've given it five episodes of my undivided attention. I thought it wears its trauma too prominently on its sleeve. But I want to give it another shot. Most of my writer-friends love the show.
My first job was in high school at the TG&Y. A 5 & Dime store with a bit everything, books, makeup, toys etc. My dad called it "Toys, Guns & Yo Yos." I got a poem out of it though, one of first published poems.
Love these posts about how we starving artists try to hold our financial selves together! OK- so, I'm an old person; have a huge resume of work experience and am still doing billable hours work while I grow my portfolio of rejection slips. Here are just a few jobs from the food service industry. I started out at the Magic Pan in S.F., cooking crepe's over an open flame in the dining room at the Ghirardelli Square restaurant. Had to wear a drendel ? and wooden shoes which I kept falling out of. Next came BBQing chickens in a store front window at a Stockton St. Market. One day I forgot to secure the chickens to the spit; swung it to load the oven & 4 raw chickens flew into the produce section. Next came working at Hoff Brau in Squaw Valley where a crazy BOH dish washer came after me with a meat cleaver. However, I survived and managed to finish out my ski-bum season adventure. LESSONS LEARNED? If you come across an editor who takes a meat cleaver to your work, don't take it personally. (P.S. I'm almost certain we crossed paths, Grant. I do recall running into an elevator operator in a cowboy suit once upon a time in San Francisco. )
In college, I was an RA (resident assistant), and I had to create social events, be available for counseling and drama, and enforce the rules. It was a challenge to get the girls to follow the rules and still feel they could talk to me. And I saw all kinds of problems, ridiculous and severe. But it gave me insight into character, how people are in the day versus late at night, alone versus with their clique, and so on.
Total aside, Grant, but I got to sit in on that conversation between Molly Giles and Jane Ciabatarri a couple of nights ago and your name (and thoughts) were mentioned with love. Cheering from here.