let 'em work, let 'em live: a poll

in college, my friend's older brother worked as a roadside construction guy. not even that. he held up the STOP/SLOW sign that guided traffic. he did this for months, and i would've felt bad for the guy if he hadn't been such an ass to me when we were kids.
i don't trust people who have never had god-awful jobs. they build character, assuming you don't have to stick with one for too long...assuming, also, we're talking jobs that are legal.

i worked at the same bar for seven years, beginning as a hostess the same month i turned fifteen. by seventeen, i had taken shots of bourbon off the hot food line and directed patrons to their seats by imitating an air traffic control guy, using rolled silverware in lieu of flashlights (precisely the reason my children will never work in bars).
the summer before my sophomore year in college, i picked up a second job at victoria's secret. i hung underwear on cushioned hangers, wore a black wool suit in july, and answered the phone all day like this: "thank you for calling victoria's secret, home of the new lightly lined, deep V, cotton bra collection." after seven days i called in, saying, "i'm not coming in."
janice, my boss, said, "this morning?"
i said, "no, not ever."
i vaguely remember some threat about not EVER being allowed to work for the limited corporation again.

at the same age, my sister managed to get fired from her stint at ACE hardware. also from her work at a calabash drive-thru.

in grad school, i worked first as a catering server and was forced to wear a full annie lennox tuxedo. i tried constantly to feel like a guest at these parties, thought for sure at times that i blended in, that i might meet mr. somewhatbetterthanwrong while carrying around trays of mini crab cakes, one white linen draped over my shoulder, my hair a frizzy mess from the kitchen's heat lamps.

the best, though, the absolute best was my year-long run as the manager of a day spa. even better, this opportunity only occurred after morgan (friend morgan, not niece morgan) moved to brooklyn and i became her successor (she had hired me as a receptionist). i argued with reps about nail polish colors we desperately needed but were out of: "what do you MEAN, havana nights red and holy pink pagoda are on back order? joan smythe is going to FLIP when she comes in for her manicure." or, even more often, entire bridal parties showed up at dawn on saturdays for "up do's." these were a stylist's worst nightmare. inevitably, half of the hairdressers would be hungover and unaccounted for, their whereabouts unknown, and i'd be left with a hysterical bride named christy to deal with.

this is why it infuriates me when struggling artists who have never done manual labor or worked in a restaurant say they can't find work. give me a break. a good bit of my thesis was written while priming and painting all the doors and entryways of wilmington's bellamy mansion.

and it always comes down to this: you call your mother to say, "that's it. the guy at table 6 thanked me for a shot of frangelico by shoving money into my back pocket and slapping me on the ass like we were at platinum plus." or, "i scrubbed the porch of the bellamy with something that LOOKED like murphy's oil soap but was actually some sort of acid."
to which she replies, "at least this will make for good material." or, if she's really asking for it, a chipper "it's all copy." i'm over it. i don't want any more material; god knows i don't have time to make any sense of it.

anyway, a poll: i want to know shitty jobs, and i want to know them now. i feel like we've done this before? on tom's blog? somewhere? i don't care. jobs. now. MOOOVE!