My first job

Image from here

I love this post from Garance Dore about all the dead-end summer jobs she had before becoming a professional photographer/illustrator.  Certainly it's reassuring to know that even someone that famous started off as a waitress.

My first job was working the Christmas season at the Gap.  Initially, I really enjoyed folding all the holiday-themed sparkly shirts and wearing my red fleece scarf they'd given me as a hiring gift.  I quickly mastered exclaiming "Wow, that striped sweater really compliments your eyes!" with the proper spontaneity, and worked off my lunchtime creme-filled cookie sandwiches by bopping around the store singing to the two-hour tape loop of Christmas tunes.  But after three months of malltopia- right around when people began returning all of their unwanted Gap socks- I began to think I might detonate a mannequin if I had to hang up one more satin shirt that had slinked its way to the floor.

I've worked in a pet store cleaning poodle pee and answering profoundly technical questions regarding chew toys, in a bicycle shop selling specialty helmets to sweaty cyclists while averting my gaze from all the lycra-wrapped butts, at an anarchist book store (also quite sweaty), in a video rental store - complete with x-rated back room, at a million different restaurants (the majority of which have been, inexplicably, Asian-themed).  I've Moshi-Moshi'ed my way through two years a Japanese salon receptionist, and poured two more years worth of beer and sympathy as bartender at a Dutch youth hostel. I'm sure at some point I will be able to save someone's life with my expansive knowledge of the dog kibble industry, how to perfectly tap a "biertje" with exactly two fingers' worth of foam on top, or how to change a rear bike tire within five minutes.  I certainly dream of the time I will have to write my expose about sexual harassment in the New York restaurant industry during my leisurely retirement years.  But for now, I'm looking forward to a real job!

My dad's first job was in a potato chip factory, and my mom's was "flipping burgers at Burger King." Thus are my culinary preoccupations explained.  What were your first jobs?