Check It Out: First jobs make life-long memories

Do you remember your first job? I’ll bet you do. It’s one of those experiences that has a tendency to leave a mark on one’s internal list of life-changing events. When it comes to first jobs, let me just say I was a late bloomer. Aside from the occasional baby-sitting or pet-sitting gig in my early teens (by the way, pet-sitting was much easier, which probably explains why I’m a cat-mom but not a kid-mom), I didn’t do any of the typical teenager jobs such as working at a fast-food restaurant or selling tickets at the local movie theater.

My first real paycheck happened during my sophomore year of college. After meeting the daughter of an airline executive in my biology class, I interviewed and was hired to work part-time in the airline’s accounting department (a long since defunct carrier, which is why I don’t feel too bad writing about my internment, er, employment there).

My work mostly involved reconciling passengers’ tickets (all paper, of course, in the mid-1980s) against large reports printed from a dot matrix printer. In other words, mind-numbingly dull. What kept my brain from seizing up completely were my co-workers: all women, the majority married and working full-time, and, with rare exception, perfectly happy and willing to bash the opposite sex, husbands mostly, but really any person unlucky enough to have been born with the XY chromosome. I didn’t really enjoy the ultra-gossipy atmosphere, but the women were funny; and yes, some of their stories were — how shall I phrase it — eye-opening. I learned a lot of things, especially from the stiletto-wearing, nightclub-hopping secretary who found me to be a wide-eyed listener, and I really don’t regret my two years there. However, can you guess what I did when the airline went bankrupt and I was furloughed from my “important” job? I promised myself that I would NEVER become an embittered cubicle worker whose highlight of the day involved “besting” my co-workers’ stories about incompetent men (also, to never wear stilettos past a certain age).

There is something rallying about sharing first-job experiences, and I’m pretty sure this is why I was entertained by Merritt Watts’ book “First Jobs.” From the 12-year-old who developed a thriving pecan delivery business (“The Pecan-trepreneur”) to the high school friends who headed to Alaska one summer to work in a salmon processing plant (“The Alaskan Adventure”), all manner of successes, failures, and surprises make up the stories — all true, by the way — included in this week’s book.

Because the work world is not always kind or gentle, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some of the stories include difficult people and colorful language. Think of these as examples of life’s “hard knocks.” Speaking of “hard knocks,” in the early 1990s, I worked as a receptionist for a small air tour operator. Unlike my other aviation-related job, this environment was mostly male — pilots, mechanics, owner, manager — and the phrase “political correctness” was pretty much non-existent. While the timing and the setting of this particular venture allowed for a work environment that most likely wouldn’t “fly” at all in our currently politically-correct world, I’m glad for the experience. I learned how not to be overly sensitive about others’ behavior or attitudes, I learned how to interact with a variety of people, but most importantly, I met my future husband there. We’ve piloted our way through 21 years of marriage so far, so I’ll always consider that job to be my best career move ever.