The first boss I ever had was named Song (not really, but that's what I'll call him, for the sake of anonymity and because I honestly can't remember his name; I find this highly distressing, by the way; remembering names was once a superpower of mine, but like the ability to clasp my hands behind my back and bring them vertically over my head, it's one I've lost with age). Song was a business student at UW, working with a big paint company (Sherwin-Williams, I think) to run a house painting outfit for the summer. Such a venture can be lucrative if done correctly. My cousin made a career of it. Unfortunately for Song, he did not do it correctly. Mistake number one: He hired 17-year-old me to be his primary painter.
I'm decent at manual labor, so long as it's merely grunt work. But I'm terrible at anything that takes the slightest bit of skill, multiplied by a thousand if it needs to be done quickly. I fuck up; I daydream; and I don't care. My first job for Song was billed at four man-hours, meaning I would be paid for four hours regardless of how long it actually took me. It actually took me 11 hours. I was supposed to finish before lunch; I was still working at dusk. The man-hours system is a way of hedging against painter slowness (and if you're a fast painter, you make more per hour), but I was so slow that it didn't work, because a four-hour payment on an 11-hour job was less than minimum wage, so, by law, I had to get at least 11 hours at minimum wage. This ate into Song's profit, and I overheard his superior, who was called in as a reinforcement, tell him to fire "the entire crew." I was the only one on the crew at that job.
Song didn't fire me, unfortunately. He gave me one more chance. But on the next job I unknowingly knocked over a tray of paint, while working on the soffits of a roof. The paint dripped down to the ground and the customer noticed it and got pissed, and the next day Song mercifully let me go. He told me maybe someday I would be a good painter, but for now I was too slow and spilled too much paints. I might not remember his name, but I remember he said "paints."
Later in the summer, a friend of mine said he saw Song on a weekday morning, sitting at an outdoor table by himself, with his head buried in his hands, holding a lit cigarette. So, I'm guessing things didn't get much better for him after I was gone.
****
A few days after being fired, I interviewed with my friend JY for dishwashing jobs at The Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown Tacoma. We wore slacks and ties. Initially, I wanted a busboy job, but the general manager, Peter (again, not his real name), said none were available, so I settled for a dishwasher position. The next day, my friend A turned down a dishwashing job and was promptly hired as a busboy. That's how Peter operated. He lied, manipulated, and generally treated his employees like serfs. Most notably, he got a bunch of workers to help him move one weekend and didn't pay them anything for it. The workers all thought it was a job (you know, because he's their boss), and he thought they were just doing it out of the kindness of their hearts -- like were all buddies or something.
I tried to avoid Peter for the few months I worked there, which wasn't hard, as he didn't like to come into the kitchen, and he typically left early in my shift. Once he had to stay late because the usual kitchen manager was out sick, and he refused to let me leave early, even though one of my coworkers wanted to work my hours, and I wanted to go home. "You'll be more motivated to finish quickly," he told me. So, of course, I intentionally took extra long, and, just for good measure, I scarfed down a bunch of chicken we weren't supposed to eat when he wasn't looking. I nearly choked (seriously) and didn't get home until 3:00 am, but it was worth it.
****
My next boss, at a different restaurant, dishwashing again, was fake-named Matt Nokes. (His real name is the same as a different 1980s Tigers catcher.) Matt was super cool -- the polar opposite of Peter. He was flexible, accommodating, and he always stood up for the lowly dishwashers, which I appreciated. We were constantly understaffed, and the busboys and busgirls didn't always have time to bring their tubs to the kitchen right away, so I would get slammed at closing time when they could finally catch up. I would be there for hours by myself toiling away into the night. The only other person in the entire restaurant was the closing manager. It usually wasn't Matt, but when it was, he would either come into the kitchen to help me (even though he was the big boss), or he would tell me, "Go home whenever you want, and if anybody says anything to you about not finishing, tell them I said they can go fuck themselves." I never had the need to say that to anybody, which is good, because I certainly would not have.
*****
Freshman year in college I worked at a dining hall on campus for a shorter time than I worked as a painter. All the available shifts interfered with my class schedule, so I signed on as a "caterer," which typically entailed making box lunches for the busy student-athletes. The woman who ran the catering service was named Cathy -- or rather, in my mind's eye she looks like someone who would be named Cathy. She was gruff, but kind. Presumably, she was the type of woman who wore cat sweaters to work everyday, but sucked down a few Camel Lights and a finger of gin during breaks. I don't actually know, however, because I only interacted with her for about five minutes total.
My first -- and only -- day on the job, I had to make, like, 100 sandwiches in two hours. The plastic gloves I was supposed to wear slowed me down considerably, so I took them off to bump up my speed from glacial to very slow. As I was finishing the last sandwich, Cathy, who had left me alone for most the shift, returned and noticed me working without gloves.
"Where are your gloves?" she asked.
"I took them off. I couldn't really work with them on," I replied.
"That's unsanitary."
"Not really," I argued, "I washed my hands really well. I mean, cooks at restaurants don't wear gloves."
"It's just... our food safety guidelines... corporate policy... *sigh*... it's okay... I guess... no, it's not... throw all the sandwiches away and make them all again. I'm not gonna be on the hook for this."
She left again. I waited a few minutes and then clocked out and went to class. I figured she wouldn't do the math on my time card, and even if she did, I didn't care. I wasn't coming back. Quitting was easy to justify -- I had to focus on academics after all.
A week later I got a pay check for $6.47. I had it transferred to my supplemental dining hall account and used it to buy mozzarella sticks and a milkshake. The sticks were okay, but the milkshake was lousy -- I could tell they used soft-serve ice cream, a pet peeve of mine when it comes to milkshake making -- so, I'd say ultimately the entire experience came out in the wash.
***
The summer after my freshman year in college I moved up in the world: busboy at TGI Friday's. I have only fond memories of this job. I was too slow to hang with the dinner shift, so I worked at lunchtime almost exclusively -- 9:30 am to 1:30 pm, and in addition to my base pay, I'd come home with about $25 cash in tips each shift. For a kid living with his parents for the summer, it was a pretty sweet deal.
The general manager of the restaurant, Bob, liked me a lot, probably because he was a huge baseball fan, and I would regale him with Mariners trivia every time we worked together, which wasn't often. Most of the time my boss was a woman named Carla, who didn't like me as much and frequently accused me of "slacking." I tried to explain that my slowness was not due to a lack of effort, but it never seemed to assuage to her.
When I left to go back to school, Bob told me to come back next summer -- he'd make sure there was a job for me. I did just that, but when I returned, Bob was no longer there. Carla was the new general manager. Unsurprisingly, they happened to not be hiring at the moment.
***
Well, that concludes Boss I Once Had, A Pointless History, Volume 1. Be on the lookout for the next installation sometime soon .
Until next time...
I'm decent at manual labor, so long as it's merely grunt work. But I'm terrible at anything that takes the slightest bit of skill, multiplied by a thousand if it needs to be done quickly. I fuck up; I daydream; and I don't care. My first job for Song was billed at four man-hours, meaning I would be paid for four hours regardless of how long it actually took me. It actually took me 11 hours. I was supposed to finish before lunch; I was still working at dusk. The man-hours system is a way of hedging against painter slowness (and if you're a fast painter, you make more per hour), but I was so slow that it didn't work, because a four-hour payment on an 11-hour job was less than minimum wage, so, by law, I had to get at least 11 hours at minimum wage. This ate into Song's profit, and I overheard his superior, who was called in as a reinforcement, tell him to fire "the entire crew." I was the only one on the crew at that job.
Song didn't fire me, unfortunately. He gave me one more chance. But on the next job I unknowingly knocked over a tray of paint, while working on the soffits of a roof. The paint dripped down to the ground and the customer noticed it and got pissed, and the next day Song mercifully let me go. He told me maybe someday I would be a good painter, but for now I was too slow and spilled too much paints. I might not remember his name, but I remember he said "paints."
Later in the summer, a friend of mine said he saw Song on a weekday morning, sitting at an outdoor table by himself, with his head buried in his hands, holding a lit cigarette. So, I'm guessing things didn't get much better for him after I was gone.
****
A few days after being fired, I interviewed with my friend JY for dishwashing jobs at The Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown Tacoma. We wore slacks and ties. Initially, I wanted a busboy job, but the general manager, Peter (again, not his real name), said none were available, so I settled for a dishwasher position. The next day, my friend A turned down a dishwashing job and was promptly hired as a busboy. That's how Peter operated. He lied, manipulated, and generally treated his employees like serfs. Most notably, he got a bunch of workers to help him move one weekend and didn't pay them anything for it. The workers all thought it was a job (you know, because he's their boss), and he thought they were just doing it out of the kindness of their hearts -- like were all buddies or something.
I tried to avoid Peter for the few months I worked there, which wasn't hard, as he didn't like to come into the kitchen, and he typically left early in my shift. Once he had to stay late because the usual kitchen manager was out sick, and he refused to let me leave early, even though one of my coworkers wanted to work my hours, and I wanted to go home. "You'll be more motivated to finish quickly," he told me. So, of course, I intentionally took extra long, and, just for good measure, I scarfed down a bunch of chicken we weren't supposed to eat when he wasn't looking. I nearly choked (seriously) and didn't get home until 3:00 am, but it was worth it.
****
My next boss, at a different restaurant, dishwashing again, was fake-named Matt Nokes. (His real name is the same as a different 1980s Tigers catcher.) Matt was super cool -- the polar opposite of Peter. He was flexible, accommodating, and he always stood up for the lowly dishwashers, which I appreciated. We were constantly understaffed, and the busboys and busgirls didn't always have time to bring their tubs to the kitchen right away, so I would get slammed at closing time when they could finally catch up. I would be there for hours by myself toiling away into the night. The only other person in the entire restaurant was the closing manager. It usually wasn't Matt, but when it was, he would either come into the kitchen to help me (even though he was the big boss), or he would tell me, "Go home whenever you want, and if anybody says anything to you about not finishing, tell them I said they can go fuck themselves." I never had the need to say that to anybody, which is good, because I certainly would not have.
*****
Freshman year in college I worked at a dining hall on campus for a shorter time than I worked as a painter. All the available shifts interfered with my class schedule, so I signed on as a "caterer," which typically entailed making box lunches for the busy student-athletes. The woman who ran the catering service was named Cathy -- or rather, in my mind's eye she looks like someone who would be named Cathy. She was gruff, but kind. Presumably, she was the type of woman who wore cat sweaters to work everyday, but sucked down a few Camel Lights and a finger of gin during breaks. I don't actually know, however, because I only interacted with her for about five minutes total.
My first -- and only -- day on the job, I had to make, like, 100 sandwiches in two hours. The plastic gloves I was supposed to wear slowed me down considerably, so I took them off to bump up my speed from glacial to very slow. As I was finishing the last sandwich, Cathy, who had left me alone for most the shift, returned and noticed me working without gloves.
"Where are your gloves?" she asked.
"I took them off. I couldn't really work with them on," I replied.
"That's unsanitary."
"Not really," I argued, "I washed my hands really well. I mean, cooks at restaurants don't wear gloves."
"It's just... our food safety guidelines... corporate policy... *sigh*... it's okay... I guess... no, it's not... throw all the sandwiches away and make them all again. I'm not gonna be on the hook for this."
She left again. I waited a few minutes and then clocked out and went to class. I figured she wouldn't do the math on my time card, and even if she did, I didn't care. I wasn't coming back. Quitting was easy to justify -- I had to focus on academics after all.
A week later I got a pay check for $6.47. I had it transferred to my supplemental dining hall account and used it to buy mozzarella sticks and a milkshake. The sticks were okay, but the milkshake was lousy -- I could tell they used soft-serve ice cream, a pet peeve of mine when it comes to milkshake making -- so, I'd say ultimately the entire experience came out in the wash.
***
The summer after my freshman year in college I moved up in the world: busboy at TGI Friday's. I have only fond memories of this job. I was too slow to hang with the dinner shift, so I worked at lunchtime almost exclusively -- 9:30 am to 1:30 pm, and in addition to my base pay, I'd come home with about $25 cash in tips each shift. For a kid living with his parents for the summer, it was a pretty sweet deal.
The general manager of the restaurant, Bob, liked me a lot, probably because he was a huge baseball fan, and I would regale him with Mariners trivia every time we worked together, which wasn't often. Most of the time my boss was a woman named Carla, who didn't like me as much and frequently accused me of "slacking." I tried to explain that my slowness was not due to a lack of effort, but it never seemed to assuage to her.
When I left to go back to school, Bob told me to come back next summer -- he'd make sure there was a job for me. I did just that, but when I returned, Bob was no longer there. Carla was the new general manager. Unsurprisingly, they happened to not be hiring at the moment.
***
Well, that concludes Boss I Once Had, A Pointless History, Volume 1. Be on the lookout for the next installation sometime soon .
Until next time...
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