I was happy and relieved to get the follow-up interview. I had signed a lease for a place with rent I could barely afford and was eager to make some money.
My new boss explained that I would be working "front of house" in the cafeteria of a children's summer camp. Just setting the tables, restocking the salad bar, sweeping. Sounded like a piece of cake.
"We also might schedule you for cleaning once in a while. Hopefully we won't have to."
"That's fine. I cleaned bathrooms at my high school job. I don't mind," I replied. Mistake number one.
When my new boss asked me how much I was looking to work, I told her to load me up with hours (mistake number two).
I have been extremely lucky when it comes to employment history. Never before have I had a truly terrible job.
In high school, I worked front of house at a live outdoor theater, cleaning the bathrooms, taking tickets, and operating the concession stand. This was actually an incredibly sweet gig. I worked for my cousin-in-law and with my friends. During the show, we would roam the state park in which the amphitheater was located. We were almost always overstaffed and days off were abundant and easily requested. Also, there were only two bathrooms. Bliss.
After that, I worked as an office aid for my dad, who is a property lawyer. When I tell people about this job, I always veer toward the dramatic. Like really dramatic. I've been known to compare my dad to Meryl Streep as Anna Wintour (err "Miranda") in The Devil Wears Prada. And, in my defense, there was a time when he really did ask me to locate some lonely piece paper (which he only vaguely described) in a entire store closet full of barrister boxes, each of which was stuffed with file folders. Very Miranda.
But if I'm being honest, the job was, most of the time, pretty mild. Some light filing, some data entry, some dictation.
This was followed by a plethora of University positions--science camp counselor, new student orientation aid, research assistant, journal editor--each job cushier than the last.
And finally, I was a temp in an IT office. In a lot of ways, this job made me miserable and lonely, but let's face it: I came in late, read blogs for a embarrassing large portion of the day, and never got yelled at even once.
My pampered bourgeoise ass was in No Way prepared for what was waiting me at the Camp of a Million Sorrows.
First, a few things about the camp: 1.) It is expensive, meaning, the children that attend are overwhelmingly wealthy, and 2.) It is huge, meaning, close to 600 campers at a time. All eating at once, all needing juice and peanut butter and margarine packets and ketchup and more fucking cream cheese and caviar and perrier and golden nuggets, like, yesterday.
I think that it's also important to mention that I wasn't actually employed by the camp. I was employed by a catering company that it contracted by the camp.
This setup created a very "us against them" vibe, at least for me.
And truly, truly, every meal was like going to battle.
When I try to explain to people what made this job so terrible, I can't find the words to adequately express the press of 600 children at the salad bar and the "peanut butter station" (a table that we kept stocked with peanut butter and jelly ingredients and fruit all day). The children were extremely competitive about food procurement, which led to some maddeningly inappropriate and annoying behaviors. First, they would not move away from a salad bar or PB station item long enough to let me restock it. I would have to fight my way through them to give them the shredded cheese or grape jelly that they were so desperately clamoring for. Additionally, they could not take one fucking extra second for civilized behavior. They ripped the bread bags at the PB station open because they didn't want to waste time untwisting the tie, grabbed cartons of milk or pitchers of juice off carts while I was still wheeling them out, and threw garbage into trash cans that we had not yet had the chance to reline after hauling the garbage out.
And I guess the garbage was actually partially our fault, because we should have learned, by that point, that the meal time battles were as much about defense as they were about offense. We should have known that kids were going to throw trash in the unlined cans and not left them unlined for even a second. Because you had to do that, to determine how the campers could use things you left out or provided against you.
It was exhausting, setting up this huge cafeteria for a meal, serving the meal, cleaning the huge cafeteria up, and then doing it all over again. I think this was the fist job I ever had that actually made me physically tired. Holy privilege! How could have gotten this far through my life without ever experiencing that before?
And actually, that exhaustion--that feeling that you had actually earned your money--felt pretty nice. I use to come home from my cushy office job feeling angsty and irritated as all get out, absolutely seething with dissatisfaction. But the sore arms and aching feet that marked the end of a day at the camp felt weirdly wholesome, and i returned home with the simple happiness of having had a defined task to complete and completing it, I happiness that all my amorphous and vague office work could never provide.
