Jobs, jobs, and more jobs.

Let’s see if I can remember them all.

If my memory serves me correctly, my first “official” job was with Pioneer as a “detassler”. A literal school bus filled with pre-pubescent teens with raging hormones and insecurities would be packed full by six in the morning to drive to a corn field. We walked through rows upon rows of corn to pull out the tassels coming out of the tops. We started in the early morning when the dew was still cold, and ended around two or three in the afternoon when the heat was becoming unbearable. I did this for several years; not really sure why since I didn’t really enjoy it.

Since I was finally at the legal working age of fourteen (with some restrictions), I was able to get a job at a local fast food joint. It wasn’t terrible, but my bosses were kind of jerks. Not all of them, but there were a few. “How can you sweep in the corners with that large push broom??” Uhhh, you can just kindly direct me to the proper broom, thankyouverymuch.

Still a teen, I ended up working with my mom at a local soil sampling company. This job entailed cutting open bags of dirt samples that came in out of farmers’ fields, and organize them by their labels. Occasionally, I was tasked with dumping the samples into a tin loaf can, or hand make paper cones. That was a tedious and boring job. If anyone is wondering, I went there on an adult field trip last year, and they STILL do this.

Next was the local daycare, the same one I used to attend as a child. I didn’t get much hours in, since it was after school and they were only open until 6. I didn’t mind it, though. It actually wasn’t that bad. Kids can be mean but it doesn’t come from the same place of maliciousness as adults.

After a few months there, I ended up moving and landed a job at a local gas station. For what it was, it wasn’t too bad. It’s also where my husband and I met. He was the kitchen worker, and I was the cashier. We joked most of the time and made outrageous pizzas that we would proceed to eat. It was a great time, honestly, as long as the boss wasn’t there.

A year and a half later, I applied for a serving job at a fast food chain. I had never served in my life before, but figured how hard could it be? For the amount of money that you could bring in, it can’t be that hard to do, right? WRONG. I bullshitted my way through the interview process, and quickly realized I didn’t know the first thing about the food they prepared there. It was eye opening. At one point or another, the kitchen was short staffed, as it so often is in the restaurant industry, and I figured, eh why hell not? Gets me away from customers for a few hours. Eventually, I was bouncing back and forth between being in the kitchen and out front enough. Once I was comfortable enough in the kitchen, whenever they got backed up, I went back there to help out even when I was supposed to be serving. I did this for about four years, until I decided I had enough of the night life. I attended a job fair at the community college and applied for other jobs.

I got a call back from two places I had applied to, a landscaping business which I was skeptical of since it was more of a seasonal position, and a coffee shop that a friend of mine worked at. I ended up accepting the offer at the coffee shop, where I worked for the next five and a half years of my life in various positions.

Currently my time is split between two part time jobs, my freelancing, and helping my mom with her business. Times are busy at the moment and yet I somehow have more free time than when I was working a regular nine to five; odd isn’t it?