Mike Literman

I believe everyone has one of these. For the fif installment of “My Jobs” I worked at a local grocery store. I didn’t hate it. Sure, there were things that I did hate, but I feel that there was upwards mobility. I don’t think that I wanted to go anywhere “up” but it was there.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am very personable and extroverted. Talkative, friendly, the kind of kid that you could trust your girlfriend/wife with sweet boobs not to get did on a camping trip alone with me. I might have just found my headstone phrase. One issue I had was carts. I know that when I went to Long Island some of the stores out there had remote control cart pushers. This probably didn’t put people out of a job as much as it made a crappy job more tolerable. I don’t know if anyone has had to deal with cart pushing, but it’s brutal. No one returns the carts to “Ye’ Olde Cart Corral” which is not too terribly difficult in my opinion, plus they get a little heavy when you’re trying to push 20 carts, 19 with broken wheels, in any one single direction. That sucked. Also, it’s not like I live in a desert because doing that in the rain is enough to make a grown man sob his grown man eyes out. It’s miserable work. Trust me.

On the register, I shined. I got multiple letters of praise which I wish I still had to put on my fridge. I would have conversations with every, got to see some interesting people and had regulars that would go only to me. It was nice. Not at all glamorous, but nice. Problem? You bet’cha. The company focused more on how many items you can scan in a minute over legit customer service. That I did not agree with. It was supposed to be warm, inviting, friendly, and they would prefer you didn’t say anything and scan like a madman rather that scan quickly and make someone feel good. No. I didn’t not like that, sir. Not one bit.

Worst?! I’ll give it to you. Plasm maintenance. You’ve got to be kidding me. This whole ordeal was some of the worst few days of my working career. Here’s how “Plasm maintenance” goes down, people. You pick up garbage. That’s it and that’s all. What they don’t tell you is that you will be picking up garbage all day, with other kids that are equally miserable, in the rain, in fall, and sometimes you will need to put on “the company waders” and walk in a ditch to fish out Funyun bags and gum wrappers. That sucked. Two days, same pay. We got subs and dented cans of pop out of it, but that was hardly worth it.

I ended up leaving that job in pursuits for a better position somewhere else. That will be volume 6. You’ll get a taste for that soon.

Today, I was generously given a link to the following Craigslist post:

Hot dog taster needed. Applicant will bite about 1 1/2 inches off hot dogs and complete a 22 question evaluation for each separate hot dog. No condiments permitted (ketchup, mustard, etc.). This is a four day project, about 6 hours per day. Dietary restrictions for lunch. Must be able to consume significant amount of hot dogs. Hot dogs are made out of various meet products.

I had to apply. There was no choice. So I did. Here is my back and forth for your reading pleasure…

Me:

I am interested in this position of “Hot Dog Taster”. To give you a background on myself, I have driven several times to Toronto to eat “50 Toppings Guy” hot dogs. I also have a hot dog roller in my kitchen. I am not lying about either of these solid facts.

Thank you and I hope to hear from you soon.

Them:

This job posting is a hoax

Me:

Yeah? What a bummer. Could you imagine this being a legit position? I should ask, how many replies, including my own, have you gotten. I know that skinny white kids like myself love hot dogs. The love has to travel elsewhere.

Them:

Over 70 replies. Someone with access to my e-mail account posted the ad. It was a funny ad, but many people are looking for work and to them, it is a disappointment.

Me:

I have a job, but this would have been a story to tell people for years to come. How many people can say that they’ve been a food tester and then how many can specifically narrow it down to hot dogs only?

Was it a friend or a clever hack? It’s a pretty good joke if that’s the case, but I understand that just about everyone in or out of work would love to eat hot dogs for $11.50/hr for a week. I too feel bad for those people that legitimately wanted a job. The last few days must have been hard on your email. That being said, it’s easily one of those “too good to be true” situations.

Them:

Probably an inside job. No damage done.

A man can dream…

Spanning 3 years from 1997-2000, the Drive-In is my 4th job in this installment. What a doozy this one was. It was everything in one. Food, security, cleaning, sales, landscape, and so on. Basically, it was crappy. Sure, I got to see Austin Powers 2 at 4:00 in the morning with my brother the day it came out, but it was hardly worth the stress and horrifying job.

Firstly, there were no breaks. You could be there from 7:00pm to 3:00am with no break. The boss’ reasoning behind it was that the slow times were your break. The slow times are when you had to prepare for the busy times. We all sustained on popcorn for the time we were there.

I used to get to spool and change the movie film before and in between the movies. That was fun. I liked that. It was manual, quiet, and solitairy. Just me in the little booth listening to “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn” and “The Pianoman” on loop for three years took its toll on me, though. To this day, I can’t listen to those songs. It was a mix put together by the owner of the place that was eight songs long with ads in the middle, but the songs were terrible, and it was on loop. Terrible.

Since I was a guy, and a fantastic worker, I got crapped on every day. I used to have to come in Saturdays at 8 in the morning to weed wack and mow the golf course. I also had to paint all the poles in the whole drive in. That sucked. I think there was someone else there with me helping me keep my sanity.

My primary job there was security. At the time, I was 16-18 and weighed about 120lbs. Not very threatening. Either way, I would go around, direct traffic a little bit, tell people that they can’t park their monstrous trucks in front of little cars and then constantly get in fights with them. It was on the sheet that we provided and there was also a traffic kid that told them the same thing, but night after night, there they are. Front row, in front of everyone. Also, people after each movie would try to skip over to other movies which you couldn’t do. So you would have to watch about every car leave the area and make sure they didn’t go to another area and if they did, you would have to confront them about it. It wasn’t that bad. I got to watch movies all the time and for the most part, it was warm and I could just walk around and make sure everything was running well. I liked that, in retrospect.

The food service was pretty easy, too. It was hamburgers and hot dogs and then candy, popcorn, and pop. Simple. I remember the popcorn being amazing, too. I have gone back since I quit, but things have changed a lot. I remember getting to see a lot of people that I went to school with and their families and it was a good place to see tons of hot girls, too.

Speaking of hot girls, I did notice people having sex. It was really no big deal. I never say penetration of anything as the cars were pretty well steamed, but I saw some rocking cars and trucks and since they’re not bothering anyone, you just leave them alone. I saw cars and trucks get in accidents, people hit the poles that separate the parking spots, all sorts of stuff. Everything that you could imagine that would happen at a drive in.

My demise was all on the part of my boss. I did everything there, and for about $5/hr. I was the only one that would come in early, and sometimes twice a day, and nothing ever came back my way. I remember him saying that he made six digits and I might have made $5k a year. I don’t think that a little raise after three years would have hurt him, but he was a jerk so it’s fine. He asked me to come back in the summer, and I told him that I was going to Boston to go to school in the summer and couldn’t. He asked me if I would be interested again and I told him that I had just made up my mind and I wouldn’t be returning. He send me home and didn’t pay me for the time I had worked. I called him and argued with him about why I should be paid and about two weeks later, a check arrived and I wiped my bosses name from my resume as there was no way I would ever get a good recommendation from him again.

Now there is an archive link on the top of the page so you can see old images. I took them and you should be able to enjoy them.

Jobs as gifts are nice. If you’ve got a good work ethic, like I think I do, then it’s like giving the gift of an endless supply of money, even if the pay rate was garbage. That is how I would like to start off this job description.

When I turned 16, like the day after, I started my job at a local sub shop. It was alright. Some good kids worked there, my boss was nice, and I got to eat subs that I loved to eat as a kid. It was a dirty job, but it was a job. So every Friday, I would go in after school and man the sub counter. To this day, I can’t understand why when you order a sub, they say it takes 30 minutes because people would call me, and I would tell them that it took as long as it took to get in. There’s nothing wrong with doing things quickly if you’re going to do them right.

They also used to have a sub prepared by the name of “garbage” which was my favorite. It was essentially, everything that would have gone on “cold” like tomatoes, lettuce, onions, cheese, etc, thrown on the grill with whatever type of sub it was and all mashed up. Everything would come out orange, hot, and delicious.

Enough garbage, let’s get to the meat.

We used to throw ice at each other when the boss wasn’t around. That was awesome. There are up-times and down-times, and when the time got down, the ice went up. I don’t know why, but it did. Things that were cool was that I was on a flat grill so anything that touched it sizzled. Awesomer?! You got it. On the other end, in the corner no less, was the fryer. Ever mix oil and water? Ever mix hot oil and water? Disaster/fun/steam/fun again/bubbles/laughter.

I used to make myself little sandwiches with just cheese and sub fixuns that sustained me until the end of a busy night. Every once in a while I would take pepperoni from the pizza counter and eat that, too. A man’s got to live. Boy. A boy’s got to live.

On to the bad…

I only worked one day a week. There were many other days that I could have worked, but I was only there one day a week, which was bogus. Nothing like taking home like $30 a week. It’s hardly worth putting me on payroll. Yeah, that’s right. Off the books. Sorry, Uncle Sam, you make enough. That was inevitably the reason why I quit. Not this one…

On to the worse…

One time, I spilled pizza sauce in the cooler. A lot. Like roughly five gallons of the stuff. That was awful. My boss made me stay in the cooler and clean up the entire mess. That’s fine and understandable, but they docked my pay which annoyed me to no end. It took me about an hour to clean everything up. While I was locked in the cooler, with nothing but a T-shirt, I ate so much celery and carrots and everything I could get my hands on. I probably ate that hours worth of pay, which means that my time was justified and everything was going to be alright.

Needless to say, this was not the best job I ever had.