job hunting
I've been talking to my teens about summer jobs. Although they both have one job, I'm perplexed that they're not doing more to seek employment which would provide them more money. Overall, their attitudes towards work are very different than mine were growing up. Part of this is due to the fact they travel with their mom in the summer, so that's kept them from working over the years. Part of this is that they aren't really willing to do anything "yucky" or "boring" even when it comes to payment. It's a very different view than I had growing up.
My first "real job" was working for the City of Kenai as a trash picker upper. I was probably 12 or 13 at the time. An older teenager piled a bunch of us in the back of a pickup truck, drove us out to the edges of town, and dropped us off with bags. We walked back towards town, cleaning as we went. I probably made minimum wage (about $3.50 an hour at the time, I think) and it was dirty work but I did it each morning for about 3 hours. The truck would then come back to get us, and we'd head back into town to be picked up by our parents (or ride our bikes home).
I think my next job was walking picket for the Teamsters. Alaska Cold Storage went on strike and the local teamsters were picketing the stores in Kenai that used them. Each Teamster was expected to put in so many hours a week, but since some of the Teamsters were getting other jobs, I got paid to be a proxy and walk back and forth with a big sign. This job paid super well; I think I made $12 an hour, and I got to listen to my walkman. Granted, I didn't know what to say or do when people asked why I was picketing, but it didn't matter to me.
Once I was old enough, I started work at the cannery. This was a rite of passage for most kids in Kenai, although a few had parents who were fishermen and worked catching the fish instead of cleaning them. My first year in the cannery I worked on the box crew, making boxes to put fish in; I wasn't old enough to be around knives or machinery. When I turned 16 I got hired for the slime line, but before I started got moved to the freezer crew, a much better job. My job was to load carts and trays of fish into the blast freezers, and then brake them loose once they were frozen. I remember the fog rolling around the floor of the freezers as their cold air met the warm, moist air from the processing room. I always thought I should make a horror movie and set it in a cannery in Alaska.
I worked the canneries for many summers, sometimes working at two different ones in alternating shifts. There have been times in my life when I've told myself "I can do anything after surviving the canneries" and it's kept me going. Although I had lots of fun in the canneries, which are a culture unto themselves, there were also some scary times. Once, the guy next to me got his his pointer finger and thumb chopped off in a heading machine. I saw several folks with big slices from knives on the slime line, lots of crippling tendonitis, and an ice auger go through someone's foot. From what I hear there aren't cannery jobs for Kenai kids anymore. One of the canneries I used to work at has even been turned into a restaurant & art gallery.
Jobs have always been something to both earn some money and to stay busy. I've just always believed that people should work. When work presents itself, you take it. If it doesn't, you find it. I've worked for a school district transferring test answers from booklets to scantron sheets (after which I went home and dreamed of #2 pencils and black dots). I've cleaned rotten salmon and maggots from a sunken fishing boat. I've worked in a restaurant as a prep cook and I've worked cleaning the restaurant as well. I've been a secretary, a dispatcher, and I've licensed Kenai River guides. I've been a nanny overseas, and a dishwasher.
Once, when traveling the country and short on cash I worked picking grapes at a winery in Oregon. I got paid $4 an hour, and a quarter bonus for each bucket I turned in. When I turned in a bucket, the foreman gave me a rosehip to put in my pocket. At the end of the day, I turned in the rosehips and got a few bucks. Picking grapes was hard work; I'm exactly the wrong height to pick grapes. I have to stoop to get the bottom ones and stretch on my tiptoes for the upper ones. I learned a little though, about grapes and wine. I also learned some good cuss words in Spanish from my fellow pickers.
Since I've started teaching, I haven't really done other jobs. Although lots of teachers work in the summer, I've either done the mom thing or done more teaching for the university. I could do other things though, and if circumstances required it, I could do some dirty jobs again.
It will be interesting to see how my own kids establish a work history - the kinds of jobs they do, when and where and why, and how they approach it. I was proud of working. I felt pretty cool the summer I worked a dispatch job from 7-3, a restaurant job from 4-10, a cannery job a few evenings a week from 10:15 to 1:00ish, and yet still went out dancing at Larry's Club afterwards and made it to work on time the next morning. My friends did the same sorts of things. We worked hard, we played hard.
Wow! Looking at all of this work stuff makes me feel pretty good; I've done some stuff in my life. In fact, I think I've earned a nap.
My first "real job" was working for the City of Kenai as a trash picker upper. I was probably 12 or 13 at the time. An older teenager piled a bunch of us in the back of a pickup truck, drove us out to the edges of town, and dropped us off with bags. We walked back towards town, cleaning as we went. I probably made minimum wage (about $3.50 an hour at the time, I think) and it was dirty work but I did it each morning for about 3 hours. The truck would then come back to get us, and we'd head back into town to be picked up by our parents (or ride our bikes home).
I think my next job was walking picket for the Teamsters. Alaska Cold Storage went on strike and the local teamsters were picketing the stores in Kenai that used them. Each Teamster was expected to put in so many hours a week, but since some of the Teamsters were getting other jobs, I got paid to be a proxy and walk back and forth with a big sign. This job paid super well; I think I made $12 an hour, and I got to listen to my walkman. Granted, I didn't know what to say or do when people asked why I was picketing, but it didn't matter to me.
Once I was old enough, I started work at the cannery. This was a rite of passage for most kids in Kenai, although a few had parents who were fishermen and worked catching the fish instead of cleaning them. My first year in the cannery I worked on the box crew, making boxes to put fish in; I wasn't old enough to be around knives or machinery. When I turned 16 I got hired for the slime line, but before I started got moved to the freezer crew, a much better job. My job was to load carts and trays of fish into the blast freezers, and then brake them loose once they were frozen. I remember the fog rolling around the floor of the freezers as their cold air met the warm, moist air from the processing room. I always thought I should make a horror movie and set it in a cannery in Alaska.
I worked the canneries for many summers, sometimes working at two different ones in alternating shifts. There have been times in my life when I've told myself "I can do anything after surviving the canneries" and it's kept me going. Although I had lots of fun in the canneries, which are a culture unto themselves, there were also some scary times. Once, the guy next to me got his his pointer finger and thumb chopped off in a heading machine. I saw several folks with big slices from knives on the slime line, lots of crippling tendonitis, and an ice auger go through someone's foot. From what I hear there aren't cannery jobs for Kenai kids anymore. One of the canneries I used to work at has even been turned into a restaurant & art gallery.Jobs have always been something to both earn some money and to stay busy. I've just always believed that people should work. When work presents itself, you take it. If it doesn't, you find it. I've worked for a school district transferring test answers from booklets to scantron sheets (after which I went home and dreamed of #2 pencils and black dots). I've cleaned rotten salmon and maggots from a sunken fishing boat. I've worked in a restaurant as a prep cook and I've worked cleaning the restaurant as well. I've been a secretary, a dispatcher, and I've licensed Kenai River guides. I've been a nanny overseas, and a dishwasher.
Once, when traveling the country and short on cash I worked picking grapes at a winery in Oregon. I got paid $4 an hour, and a quarter bonus for each bucket I turned in. When I turned in a bucket, the foreman gave me a rosehip to put in my pocket. At the end of the day, I turned in the rosehips and got a few bucks. Picking grapes was hard work; I'm exactly the wrong height to pick grapes. I have to stoop to get the bottom ones and stretch on my tiptoes for the upper ones. I learned a little though, about grapes and wine. I also learned some good cuss words in Spanish from my fellow pickers.
Since I've started teaching, I haven't really done other jobs. Although lots of teachers work in the summer, I've either done the mom thing or done more teaching for the university. I could do other things though, and if circumstances required it, I could do some dirty jobs again.
It will be interesting to see how my own kids establish a work history - the kinds of jobs they do, when and where and why, and how they approach it. I was proud of working. I felt pretty cool the summer I worked a dispatch job from 7-3, a restaurant job from 4-10, a cannery job a few evenings a week from 10:15 to 1:00ish, and yet still went out dancing at Larry's Club afterwards and made it to work on time the next morning. My friends did the same sorts of things. We worked hard, we played hard.
Wow! Looking at all of this work stuff makes me feel pretty good; I've done some stuff in my life. In fact, I think I've earned a nap.
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