Keep Calm and Carry On: Lessons from my first real job

It all happened because I rear-ended Sarah's car in the Junior parking lot. She certainly didn't deserve it, not her or her pretty white 90's-model Honda with the painted white bumper. (I still don't get why cars are made with painted bumpers. Can any good really come of that? What is the purpose of a bumper, if not to protect? Painted bumpers are just asking to show off scars....I digress.) But I was newly licensed, poking along in school dismissal traffic, and yelling to friends out the side of the car instead of paying better attention to the stop-and-go action in front of me. Now not only was I legally authorized to drive a vehicle, but I had bills to pay (or a father to repay for car repairs, rather). It was time to start earning my keep. Necessity is the mother of invention, yes. And payback is a mother....

My BFF, "Beffy" let's call her, talked me into applying where she worked. It was definitely a Misery-Loves-Company suggestion. If I had to work, at least I could do it standing alongside a friend, making snarky comments about whatever we were doing. So I skipped off to apply at a fast food restaurant in the mall. Let's call it "Everybody's Favorite Chicken" or EFC. I think part of me naively romanticized EFC, since I had some strong, fond memories of eating there with my mom on shopping expeditions while growing up. How cute that I could work on the other side of the white counter! Also, given the make-up of its current employees, it was a high school cult of sorts. I would definitely be with familiar company, which I hoped would be good company, if I got hired. Given my sum total of zero experiences in a paid job beyond babysitting, I'd gladly take a few familiar faces as Chicken Compadres.

Oh, and what an education it was. And in so many ways...Since I've had a long, long time to reflect, I have come up with these little life lesson that I figure - even if somewhere bogged down and semi-repressed in my unconscious - stay with me today.

Keep Calm and Carry On

Every job has its hazards, obvious or not: Gossipy colleagues, crazy bosses, rude customers, snake pits disguised as assignments. EFC had the fry machine.

So it is a lot like what you see if ever you have been in a fast food joint: There are metal baskets full of starchy goodness pressed into fry shapes. The baskets are dropped into hot oil (peanut oil, if I recall correctly), and after a few minutes, a migraine-inducing shrill beep sounds when the fries have had enough of their hot oil bath.

For a long while, I had some lovely scars from fry grease and/or some clumsiness of mine that ended with branding my flesh on the sizzling metal basket. But the greater hazard was the oil that persistently dripped from the baskets and/or the fry machine. It would be a rookie move to wear any kind of good shoe to work, because the side effects of the job included all sorts of stains, gunk, and ruined clothing and shoes.

My mom's old Reeboks, retired from her aerobics class, were what I wore to work. Ugly and unfashionable in my opinion, or in other words: Perfect for the job! The problem was that there are few shoes out there except maybe metal cleats or ice clamps that could protect someone from the treachery of the oily floor. While those super-slippery rubber Reebok soles helped me to do some rad dance moves (on purpose or not) - a little Axel Rose side to side shuffle, or a Michael Jackson moonwalk - I also ended up doing some crazy acrobatics to stop myself from completely wiping out. I wasn't always successful, though. And if you've ever been to an EFC, it's rare for there to be a time during opening hours when a customer is not around. It's the perfect set-up for public humiliation.

Oh, and how! One minute, I was taking my next customer and having a very rote discussion about the specifics of her EFC order, and the next...I was in mid-air, feet above head for that split-second, until gravity had me pinned to the floor. My customer (nice lady that she was) leaned over the counter, eyes bugging out in horror: "Are you okay?" I quickly peeled myself up off of the floor and, without missing a beat, assumed the position of cashier, put that bored teenager look back on my face, and said, "Yeah. Happens all the time. Would you like a drink with that?"

No wonder the place was teeming with teenage and college-age kids as employees... Young whipper-snappers tend to have fresh, healthy backs and physical elasticity - and a likelihood of recovering (and not suing) when injured.

More of these little (chicken) nuggets to come...