More Proletarian Adventures

Much earlier I had described my pre-law adventures.  I had left out the fast food experience, and have some post-law experiences to share as well – for those who bother to read these things. [In this case, I preferred to use images from “Clerks II” – particularly that impressively delicious poster of Rosario Dawson...sorry, I couldn’t resist!]

 Dining Services.  This was 6 weeks in fall 1987, my sophomore year at University of Maryland.  To earn some extra cash, I joined my comrades Woody, Chip and Bill at the Food Court at the Stamp Union.  Mostly my work was at the pizza stand, but I also spent some time at the sub shop and the ice cream stand. 

 Pizza.  I didn’t actually make any pizzas, I simply served various slices.  I love pizza and have strong tolerance for wide varieties in quality, but this was the most horrible, disgusting pizza I ever had.  Something about the cheese, I don’t know.  It was also an excellent place to burn yourself fairly often, which was unpleasant.  And I recall various shady characters showing up at closing to ask for free pizza, since we had to throw away anything left over before cleaning up.

 Subs.  I was only here briefly.  This pissed me off because the subs were wrapped in tin foil, then placed in a superheated drawer.  They were made fairly simple (not by me) and wrapped up and placed in this drawer, and had to be opened up and modified to the customer’s particular order.  All hot hot hot.  And this was before I had ever tasted one, so they weren’t my type of food.

 Ice Cream.  Ah, this was more like it.  Finally a place where 99% of the items were cold, with the obvious exception of hot fudge.  I learned to make milk shakes.  My frequent co-worker was a girl named April, who I recently relocated on Facebook.

 Cleaning. That was something I really detested: we had to clean up completely, utterly spotless to the manager’s satisfaction, and couldn’t leave until then (those of you who have worked in the food industry know what I’m talking about).  My prior jobs had been office jobs where you leave at closing time with no fuss or bother.  This could have been avoided by taking a non-closing shift, but my only free hours – with classes – were in the evening. 

I ended up quitting after six weeks as the money was minimum wage and not worth the long hours and bullshit.  It wasn’t so much poor treatment by management – most of the managers were fairly cool and laid back (except for one dick who always made me mop up whenever the customers were gone), and some of the assistant managers were fellow students.  Mostly it was the work itself I didn’t like and this business of being kept an hour after closing to clean up.

 Trak Auto.  In 1995 or so I was working as a very poorly paid attorney, still waiting for – and not getting – a long-promised raise from my boss, a sole practitioner by the name of Jerry.  So I took this part time job, Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and the noon-to-closing shift on Saturday, at the Track Auto in downtown Falls Church, on Broad Street, across from Don Beyer Volvo.  Later it turned into an Advance Auto Parts, but this location was swallowed up by the Staples next door.

 Initially I was a cashier, then later did some work at the parts counter.  This was back when Trak Auto employees wore the white button down shirts which were pretty sharp – even with epaulets.  Years later they switched to the more casual dark grey polo shirts.  I was frequently recommended for management, but managers had to put in at least 32 hours per week (not compatible with a full time job as an attorney) and got a fairly low salary considering their high responsibilities – not a good combination.  Plus the company didn’t seem to treat even its valued employees very well.

 Trak Auto cashiers were just that: cashiers.  They didn’t have to know anything about cars, and frequently knew far less than many of the customers.  Most of them were teenagers or young 20-somethings with poor attitudes and work ethics, and turnover was horrendous.  With my experience at NOVA, plus having taken all of the optional parts quizzes (though I never took the ASE Parts exam) I was in a much better position than most of the cashiers, so I got the coveted parts desk position fairly often.   I did get used to the whole “closing the register” deal, counting out $75.00 cash, counting out the excess, splitting up the checks and charge slips, and putting everything in the right envelopes.  Before long I was consistently having the register close out on target.

 We frequently had customers ask us to install wiper blades and headlights, or even batteries.   Since we were only cashiers and only qualified to run a register (which for some of the guys was a challenge in and of itself), we weren’t paid or authorized to do any services on cars, no matter how simple.  I’m sure the customers felt stupid paying a mechanic $20-50 to do something that simple, and at the same time embarrassed (particularly male customers) that they couldn’t manage to do it themselves.  As a practical matter we would do some of these things, free of charge, on rare occasions if the store was dead quiet – and if the customer was nice enough and appeared to recognize that this was an accommodation on our part and not part of our job description.  Of course, if the customer was a particularly attractive female, that would also be a bargaining point.

 90% of our staff was male.  Occasionally we’d get female employees, or even managers, but that was rare.  An auto parts store is a man’s place, by mutual agreement of the sexes – I can’t imagine any straight guy volunteering to work at Sephora or Victoria’s Secret, for example.  I don’t think women were actively discouraged from applying: first of all, a cashier job is pretty much unskilled, so we’d hire practically anyone, and with our turnover we almost always could use more help.  Second, as male-dominated as the stores were, we’d gladly welcome any female presence to make the job more interesting.  It’s just not the kind of place the average female employee would want to work.  On the other hand, if she was looking to find a guy, this was probably an excellent job to have, both in terms of her co-workers and the heavily male proportion of customers.

 Eventually Jerry was embarrassed explaining to clients why his associate was leaving the office at 4 p.m. in a white Trak Auto shirt, so he gave me a raise which let me quit the Tuesday and Thursday shift.  I kept the Saturday shift until November 2000, when I got a reasonably well paying job at a firm in Woodbridge.  Around December 2001, unemployed again, I took a parts counter job at the Super Trak Warehouse in Sterling, which I held onto until about April 2002, yet again finding the atrociously low wages were not worth the long hours.  Shortly after that I ended up at the current office, Saigon Central.

 I would say I learned alot at Trak Auto, mostly from my fellow workers. I still stay in touch with Ed, who turned out to be a great friend, and frequently run into some of the others at various Advance Auto Parts.  I had a 10% employee discount, which came in handy for lots of auto parts and Mobil One.  For what was supposed to be simply a part-time job to earn some extra money, it was a surprisingly positive and useful experience.

 Domino’s.  I must have worked this job for a week at most.  For all the work driving around, finding someone’s house number on a curb in total darkness, for a modest tip, it was really not worth the bother.  It didn’t help that the branch I was working at was fully staffed already and sent me home after only an hour or two a night.  I’m not Fry – count me out of the delivery business.

 Next up will be an analysis of post college office jobs – outside the legal industry.  Stay tuned!