A honest hard day's work

Some days I really hate my job. I hate getting yelled at for my boss's lack of memory and patience. I hate getting him coffee. I hate the fact that I'm smarter than half of the people in the WB ( I wouldn't green light Hot Wheels the Movie), yet I'm the company bitch with no real responsibilities.

Everyone has to work, unless you are my biological father or homeless, then you have to panhandle, which is like work but without working. I hate panhandlers but that's for another post.

When I grew up, my father was hell bent on me learning the values of a hard day's work, even though he never had one himself. My father was unemployed so often, I considered it his career.

The last real job my dad had was being 'half' owner of many dive bars, meaning he sold the computer software to do inventory and sales in exchange for part ownership of the bar. Good work if you can get it....

At any rate, every summer I would go back to Michigan from AZ to spend quality time with my dad. He would make me work at these run down bars where I would have to wash 400 pounds of potatoes, cut 18 flats of strawberries or scrub pissed stained urinals. I think my pay was something like 3 dollars an hour, which is peanuts, but to a preteen with a bad Nintendo addiction, it was tons of money. It meant I could buy Metroid or Legend of Zelda, I just had to clean the scary basement in a building built during the 1800's.

My first summer job was working at the Tin Lizzy. This was probably the most 'normal' of the bars at which I worked. I learned how to cut every type of fruit and vegetable in the kitchen, sometimes for 10 hours a day. So much for child labor laws. This was also my favorite place to hang out with my dad after work, where I would put "Don't Worry, Be Happy" on the jukebox 25 times, much to the chagrin of many bikers who frequented the bar. At the time, the 'Baby on Board' signs were huge and the bar hung up hundreds of these signs and variants on the walls. That spread to hanging fake vanity license plates up, where people's names, including mine "Scoo", my father's nickname for me, covered every spot not taken by the fake yellow caution signs. It made the place look like a tacky car accessory convention.

The next summer I worked at the Roxy. Not the cool Roxy here in LA, no no. It was this run down spot with a failing comedy club underneath. That's where I learned many foul-mouthed jokes from crappy comedians. I also learned the difference between dry and sweet vermouth and how to make jalapeno cheeseburgers, two skills I still use today. This was also the place where my father's friend asked me if I had dipped my wicket yet. I had no idea what he meant, but I knew had something to do with my penis. That's probably not the greatest question to ask an 11 year old. But then again, what was an 11 year old doing working at a bar....

At 12 and 13, I worked closer to 'home' in Milan MI at a bar called Netty's. Netty's was the most dangerous, small town bar in recent history. A long line of bikers, stoners, and alcoholics would party it down in the tiny bar. My first summer, I was responsible for cleaning up the back area and the basement, as well as doing food prep. It was long strenuous work but I loved the little kitchen in the back, where I would make all sorts of pizza concoctions. This bar was a landmark for many firsts in my life. This was the first place where I saw two women kiss each other. The first place I heard the words "Coke" and it not refer to the cola. One of the managers had me and my baby brother, who was all of 9 years old; guard the door to the bathroom where we heard tons of sniffing. I know what Britney Spears kids must feel like.

It was also the first place that I bartended.

Yep, you read that right, bartended. At age 13. One of the bartenders was 'sick' which was probably code for 'did too much coke'. My father was called in for a late night Friday shift and needed help. He woke me up and we ran down to Netty's. I was a huge hit. All of the patrons loved me; I made the strongest whiskey pours in Michigan. I got so many tips that night, it was criminal. But someone didn't like my service and called the cops. Word was sent that the cops were outside. I ran and hide in the bathroom; sure I was going to prison. I sat there, legs up on a toilet, not sure what to do. After 20 minutes, someone came in and said the coast was clear. That ended my first day of bartending but I did get enough tips to but three Nintendo games the next day.

My last youth bar work experience was at a strip club outside of the airport. Unfortunately for me, I did inventory at the bar in the early mornings, instead of during the working hours. I would get there early, cue up music on the DJ equipment (my first DJ experience) and dance on the poles. There was also a chin up bar in the middle that I would use like a jungle gym. Fun times.

Eventually, I learned that if I dragged my feet and went slow counting the bottles, I would still be there when it opened up. I would walk to the kitchen window (of course they had a kitchen, who doesn't get hungry when looking at tits) and stare out at the young lovely ladies. I remember them all being extremely hot and classy, not like the strippers that I see now. My father, someone who gave my brother his Playboy collection for his 10th birthday, didn't have a problem with this at all. In fact, he seemed to encourage it. The cooks always got a kick out of it and would tell me little stories about the girls. "You see the redhead, she's a better cook than me." "You know Jeanie, she shot her boyfriend in the leg when he wouldn't leave her apartment last week."

I didn't have much interaction with these lovely ladies at first but my dad noticed that I liked one girl the most. Andrea, I think her name was. She was this short curly blonde with enormous fake boobs and a smile that could melt steel. One morning, my father summoned me out of the office. There she was, standing in nothing but garters and white feather boa. I was dumbfounded. I'm usually the outgoing, talk to everyone type. But with this girl in front of me, I couldn't form a sentence. She did all the talking and thought “I was so cute!" She said that we should go to Cedar Pointe together next week.

Man, did I have a hard on after that. All I could think about was riding on rides with her, feeding popcorn to each other and then maybe getting a hotel room out by the park afterwards. Not that I would know what to do in that hotel room. Man, I couldn't shake the image of her big tits in my face.

When I went the next week to count the bottles, I couldn't wait to set a date for this trip. I saw her, looking even hotter then last time in an all red outfit, if you could call it an outfit. My dad nudged me forward and demanded that I figure out what day we were going. I stumbled over and couldn't get two words out. She said that was going to set everything up, she couldn't wait for me to meet her boyfriend.

BOYFRIEND!?!?!?! What the fuck are you talking about? Boyfriend? I thought that I was.....

Then it hit me; she thought I was cute like my mom thinks it’s cute when her puppies lick each other. I wasn't a love interest; I was a sideshow of cute.

I was so hurt after that. I didn't go with her to Cedar Pointe, in fact, I didn't talk to her after that (not like I said anything to her before). I couldn't even look at her the same way. She broke my heart in two.

That was my last summer of working at my dad's bars. After that summer, my dad lost all his interests in his various business ventures and took to his natural career of mooching.

After that, it was my mom's turn at making me learn the meaning of work.

For my 16th birthday, I stayed in AZ with my mom instead of going back to MI. For my birthday, my mom was going to take me to the mall to pick out my b-day present. She wanted to stop off at McDonald's and grab some fries. When there, she made me fill out an application to work. I protested, saying that I didn't want to work at Mickey D's. She said that I didn't have work there, just humor her and put in an application since I was now the legal age to work. I turned it in and wouldn't you know it, they hired me right there, without an interview. I told them I didn't want the job, but damn it if my mom didn't accept the job for me and make me work there.

Fuck an A. Tricked again.

Working at McDonald's for me was like working in prison camp where it was the guards job to humiliate you ever chance they get. Slave labor, long hours and surrounded by what could have been cancer-causing levels of grease. It wasn't like my other jobs with my dad, where I worked hard but I had this sense of entitlement, I was working at a BAR. In my preteens no less. But now I was just like every other teenage nerd asshole, working a McJob.

I wanted to be fired so badly but I was too much of a goodie goodie at the time to fuck up enough to get fired. I wanted to quit, but my mom kept saying that it was good for me and demanded that I work there. I couldn't win. I counted the days until school started again and I could quit and go back to school full time.

It didn't help that the manager loved me. He thought I was funny, smart and the best register person he had. It wasn't much of a compliment, considering the retards that I worked with. I was the only one who knew how to count to ten, so I had that going for me. Which is nice.

Because my natural McDonald's ability, they worked me morning noon and night. I would get up early to open at breakfast, ride my bike home 19 blocks for a couple hours rest (I didn't get that car I wanted for my 16th b-day) and then would ride my bike back to close the damn place.

I was lucky though; I didn't live near my high school. At least no one would know that I worked there. Right?

Until the dreaded day when a kid I was on the school newspaper went to visit his cousin in my hood. They just had to go to McDonald's. Fuck me. Now everyone would know. It didn't help that this kid was a huge goof ball that I made fun of constantly at school. Now he had fuel for his fire.

After that summer, I vowed to never go back to that life of work.

The next two summers, I got a job with my high school girlfriend's dad filling vending machines all over Phoenix. A former ASU football standout, he had his playing career cut short when he knocked up his girlfriend and had to drop out of school. Needless to say, he had some anger issues. He was cool for the most part, letting me go to swim team events on certain days when I needed to work. But for the most part, he was a nuclear bomb with a short ticking clock.

One time, we were going to go play golf together, his treat for my good hard work. But we had to get there at 4 for our tee time. Mind you, it was 114 degrees in Phoenix on that day and golf didn't sound like the most fun in the heat after working 8 hours of ball busting lifting of cases and cases of soda. But I wanted to prove I was good enough for his daughter, so I pretended interest in the golf outing. But we had 4 hours of work to do in 1 hour. That meant every time we pulled into a new spot, he demanded that I fill the machine at machine gun pace. I was doing well enough, running 5 cases of soda up 3 flights of stairs and filling the machine like it was going to blow up if their wasn't enough Diet Dr. Pepper inside of it.

At the last machine of the day, we had 5 minutes to get this done and fly to our golf match. We were standing side by side at a coke machine in a laundry room, both filing it at a hummingbird’s pace. Of course, this laundry room had no air conditioning, it felt like 300 degrees. I reached for the Welch's grape soda and I was practically throwing them in the machine when the worst happened. One can hit the back of the machine, bounced out of its column and fell. I tried to grab it but it hit a metal bolt in the machine.

KABOOM! Grape soda went everywhere, dousing both myself and my boss in sticky, hot grapeness. He turned from his normal red color to some color that I imagine that plutonium changes before its atoms are split apart.

He called me every curse word in the book. We had to clean up, which took easily a half an hour. We missed our tee time, not that I minded much.

Then I got home and was called every name a second time. I tried to quit but then my girlfriend's mother made him apologize and I was too much of a pussy to quit.

I guess these experiences toughened me up to the harsh world of show business. Now when my boss at the WB yells me at when he's having a bad day, I just remember I been yelled at by much much leaser people. And I look back and say, I could be scrubbing potatoes right now or working at McDonald’s, I guess getting coffee isn't so bad.