New Phases

When I was eleven years old, I began my first job.

Yes, I said eleven; that wasn't a typo. Back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth, as in modern day China, kids actually had jobs and salaries. Lots of children went into sales, putting together lemonade stands or community newspapers, mowing neighbor's lawns or babysitting their children. A few, like me, went into retail.

Back then, people lived dangerously. They drank out of plastic cups that contained BPA and might have been washed with a garden hose. Beverages weren't made in commercial kitchens that were overseen by OSHA. That entrepreneurial lemonade was made in homes where there was possibly be a dog or even two, and a cat who was allowed on the counter, by kids who wiped their noses with their hands before opening the package of kool-aid and who then stirred it with a spoon so short they had to put their grimy hands in the drink. The water to make this .25 cent lemonade came out of the tap, shockingly unfiltered.

Mothers routinely left their infant children in the hands of the pre-teen next door, and they didn't require a teaching credential or day-care permit or anything. This was long before cell phones, so the moms would post the restaurant they were going to on the fridge door, leave potato chips for their employees to eat, and hope for the best. They got the best too, because the girls babysitting knew their own moms would beat them silly if they accidentially killed the neighbor's kid. You knew if your charge died on your watch that your parents weren't spending money on a high-priced lawyer - you were going down. You might even have to apologize, unheard of today. Babysitters were paid the princely sum of .50 an hour, which definitely is not a living wage, until you realize you could buy a candy bar and a coke with that amount and sometimes you worked four hours and got a dime tip. That could keep you in candy and soda all week, which is pretty much all any kid really needs to live.

Nowadays, of course, pre-teen children have not finished breastfeeding themselves and therefore can't leave their own mothers long enough to babysit somebody else's children. They are so busy being driven from sporting event to ballet class that they don't have time to go work for a living.

Babysitting was my side job. It was barely work, since once you got the brats kids to bed (which a good babysitter did by tossing candy in their room and blocking the door) you could watch all the TV you wanted. Johnny Carson in black and white, baby!

Fun as that was, my real job was working in a dry cleaning store. Every Saturday, my dad would take me to the store, drop me off, and leave me alone for the day. There, I would handle customers, check clothes in and out, run that cool clothes conveyer belt with a foot pedal, try to explain what "martinizing" meant, and put large, dangerous pins in drapes. I even put the stuff I found in pockets into a little bag to turn in to the owner. I have no idea what people thought when they came into the store and saw a skinny, knock-kneed, bespectacled, frizzy-haired eleven year old who barely looked nine waiting on them, but to their credit, nobody ever called the Better Business Bureau. Child labor wasn't that unusual back then; it's not like today when you have to write a contract promising to buy your kid a new car to get them to throw away the soda cans in their room.

Wait, I don't mean throw away, I mean recycle.

I loved that dry cleaning job. I used to take my lunch minute and go next door to the liquor store, and buy a coke and some sunflower seeds and then come back to the cleaners and sit in the back at a rugged wooden table filled with spools of thread and boxes of safety pins. I'd read a book and spit out shells, only getting up when the bell on the door rang, alerting me to a new customer. There were times when I violently hated that bell. Rhett Butler would be about to kiss Scarlett in the most romantic scene possible and I was completely swept away in the saga, and then "ding ding ding." I'd have to leave Tara to pin tags on dirty clothes, write up a receipt and tell the customer it would be ready on Tuesday. But, I did get up every time that bell rang, and greeted the customer with a smile on my face, even if I didn't mean it.

Even today, the smell of "perc" (perchloroethylene, dry-cleaning chemicals) takes me instantly back to the carefree hard labor days of my youth. Being the toxic chemical that it is - now banned in the State of California - it may also have ended up taking me to a lot of doctor appointments.

I made $3.00 every Saturday for six hours work. I was rich.

I don't need to tell you that I learned how to have a work ethic at that job. I wanted to watch cartoons on Saturday like everybody else, but making money and getting out of the house was more fun. Admittedly, since I love to read, I hated that little bell that announced the door had open and a customer needed me which required me to put my book down and go help them, but I did it anyway. I was terrible at math and am today, but I learned to count change (this was the days before cash registers did it for you) and occasionally the till would balance, I wouldn't get screamed at, and I knew I'd done a good job. I learned to make up fantastic stories on the fly, about Martinizing being a special method of cleaning clothes that leaves them cleaner and fresher than any other dry cleaning method, and why "One Hour" was not possible despite what the sign said. Making up answers quickly has been invaluable in every job I've ever had, and it all started with the phrase "One Hour Martinizing".

But that job was only one day a week, so when I was 16, I got an after-school job at a place called Woolco. It was pretty much the same as Walmart only everything there was made in Taiwan instead of China, and, you know, there was no "people of walmart" clientele back then. (Nobody had even invented the store scooter yet). I worked in various departments, and one Christmas I got the plushest job in the store. I got to man a little booth and make personalized Christmas stockings for people who had spent a certain amount of money. I would take Elmer's White Glue, write the name of the child on the white fuzzy part of a stocking, and then sprinkle the glue with the glitter color of their choice (red, green, or multicolored) and let it dry. If you could see my handwriting now you would not believe anybody would let me do that job, but I swear it is true.

Maybe somewhere, in some attic, one of my stockings is packed away carefully, the glitter all fallen off and the red felt filled with moth holes, but my childish handwriting faintly visible.

I'm 54 now, and in the intervening years I've had many jobs. I've done everything from Bartender, to Cruise Ship Sales Girl, to Keno Runner, to Network Manager at the DAs office, to Principal's Secretary in a High School, which is my current job. And, it has been my favorite job, even though I am not the boss like I have been in the past. I like it because it's perfect for my ADD self. There is something new every single day, a lot of variety, interesting people to talk to, lots of stories you have to make up quickly, and teachers and school personnel are pretty nice people.

I have stayed home with my children when they were young, and that is a busy job too; I don't care what Hilary Rosen says. It counts as hard work, and important work. But, when the kids went back to school, I have always returned to the workforce. I like to work; I like to feel like a contributing member of society. I have noticed over the years that on days when I don't go to work, I tend to lose all track of time and suddenly, my husband will walk in the door and I'm still in my pajamas with my teeth unbrushed. And, that was when I was healthy. Work keeps me sane, it keeps my ADD under control by giving me structure, and it gives me purpose.

When I was home recovering from c-diff, struggling to even stand, I looked ahead to the days when I would be back at work. There were times I felt that I would never be able to get well enough to go back, but I was wrong. Since February, I have been working.

But, only half days.

I have been trying to get back into the groove of a full time job again, but I have sadly come to the difficult conclusion that it is not possible. I don't have the strength or energy to be anywhere at 7:00 a.m., and it's looking like that might be a permanent condition. I struggle to get up by 9:00 and it takes an hour before the pain meds kick in and I have a hot, soaking bath and I can begin to function. I have about 4 or 5 good hours in me, and then I start to get tired and less effective.

My boss, my district, my substitute, all of them have been wonderful in giving me time to get healthy again, to try to come back. They have done more than I could have ever asked. I can't say enough good things about the way everybody has handled my illness and the way I have been treated - with kindness and consideration.

But, despite my best efforts, despite hearing that bell in my head that says "get up now, somebody is waiting" I am physically not able to do it.

I have faced the reality of my disease but it is much harder to face the reality of my decline.

So, I have given notice. I will work out the school year and work as long as they want me during the transition to a new secretary, but I sometime in the month of June, I will - forever - join the ranks of the unemployed.

Then I begin my new life - staying at home and trying to make meaning within these walls. I am going to be as productive as I can be but with my personality, that is going to take some doing. Without definite tasks that need to be done and some accountability, I usually find myself doing nothing.

Maybe I should look for one of those bells to put on my door.



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