I Was Working as a Waitress in CockTAY-al Bar, That Much is True

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Photo found on the internet.

 Okay. So, it's time for round two of me listing every shit job I've ever worked. Let's see, where were we?

10.) The tenth job I had was being a line cook at Snow Summit Ski Resort in Big Bear Lake, California in 1985/1986. I found this job because a couple who worked with for the US Forest Service and helped with our job in the California Conservation Corps during the Summer, also worked at this ski resort during the Winter. They helped get my boyfriend at the time and I jobs and even let us stay at the their parent's A-Frame cabin for a couple of weeks when we first got there. 

I wanted to learn how to snow ski, and by working there I got free lift tickets, rentals, and lessons. It's really the only way I would ever have been able to afford to learn how to ski.

In the 1980's this ski resort attracted a lot of B-movie actors, and bands that were on their way up or down. One year every one of my co-workers got sick with every kind of flu/pneumonia/pleurisy/cold you can imagine. So, on Christmas morning that year it was me and one other guy who didn't have insurance and couldn't afford to go to a doctor, making breakfast on one of the busiest days of the year there. We were both just as sick, we just couldn't get a doctor's note getting us off of work. So, sorry people like Jan Michael Vincent and the band Berlin if we gave you a horrible flu that year.

 11.) After the ski resort, my boyfriend and I moved to San Francisco. When I first moved there I got a job being an assistant manager at a shoe store on Shattuck Avenue on the Oakland/Berkeley border. I was 20 years old, and that company took me for a ride. They paid me minimum wage as if I were only working 40 hrs/week, but expected me to work at least 60 hours a week for that.

Worst of all, like most companies back then (and today too), it was a HUGE good-old-boys network. The regional manager was an old dude with a gambling problem, and the manager was a younger dude who just covered for him.

When I finally got sick of everything enough to quit, the manager told me that I was only quitting because I was worried about spending enough time with my boyfriend. (It couldn't POSSIBLY be because I was smart enough to know I was being taken advantage of, and in a toxic work situation or anything...). Later on I found out that the old white dude was stealing from the cash register to gamble and after I left, it wasn't possible for the young white dude to hide that fact from the company. They fired both managers and laid off everyone else under them. I felt bad about the other co-workers, but those two manager dudes had it coming.

Me when I was 21 in the apartment I found from my co-worker at the Courtyard Cafe.

 12.) My twelfth job was working as a waitress and barista at the Courtyard Cafe on 24th Street in San Francisco in 1986. It was kind of a fancier place. I waited on Burt Parks, Robin Williams, and Alice Walker's daughter there. I have a million stories about the cafe, but that will have to be their own 20 different blog posts.

I will say, I met a woman working there who let me rent a flat with her and her friend, and that friend and another roommate who came along later were some of the best people for me to be around at that time.

13.) My next job was as a bar back at a fancy restaurant in the basement of  Macy's Department Store. I loved this job. I was actually more of a bartender, because the person I was supposed to be backing wasn't really into it, and so I learned a lot just doing her job for her. Don't worry, I still made tons of money. Either this woman knew every famous person who ever lived, or she had a wonderful imagination, because she would tell me all these stories like, "So, we were at this party in Paris and I went to the bathroom, and I see Salvador Dali just watching me. You know, he was a terrible voyeur..." She was endlessly entertaining.

The hardest thing about that job was how many of my friends and co-workers were contracting and dying of AIDS at that time. It was such a sad and scary time.

15.) My 15th job was back in Iowa City where I decided to go to school again and see how I did. In the Summer I was working back at the Mill at night, but I also worked at The Farmers Market and Bakery on Linn Street as a cook. This was kind of a hippie/artsy place where the livin' was groovy. I learned how to make soups here, and other valuable lessons like, don't use more barley than is called for, and just because a little dill is good, it doesn't necessarily mean that a LOT of dill will be better.

16.) Once I was in school in the Fall, I got a work study job to go along with my job at the Mill. I worked in book stacks at the main library. Imagine me handling books all day. The sad thing was that I wasn't able to read them, and I couldn't even take the time to peruse the jackets for book descriptions. Frankly, it got a little frustrating.

17.) I moved back to San Francisco at the end of 1987. My old boyfriend and I were having many issues, and we were going to give it one last chance to see if we could make it work (spoiler alert: we couldn't). I got a job in the mornings at a place called "Bakers of Paris". It was owned by a Vietnamese company. 

Originally, they had hired all these gorgeous French women because they thought it would bring in a lot of business, but many of the French women were very rude to the customers, so they were forced to hire Americans who maybe weren't quite as beautiful. It was an easy job, because the manager liked to smoke a lot of weed. So, because he was smart, he organized everything so well that he could do his job when he was really high without having to think very hard. That worked for my ADHD too. The best part about the job is that we got free baguettes and pastries

18.) While I worked at Bakers of Paris in the morning, I also took the J Church straight to Macy's, where I went after I moved back. There wasn't a bar back job open anymore, but they hired me to work on the deli side of the restaurant. I still made pretty good money, and we would cater parties to things like Vanna White's new clothing line, where because it was about fashion, no one there would eat, and we would get to have all of the leftovers.

19.) Here's where things get a little muddled, because I thought I only worked at the Mill twice, but now that I'm writing this, I must have worked at the Mill THREE DIFFERENT TIMES! So, I worked there when I came back from San Francisco a SECOND Time. Just thinking about this is making my head hurt. I'm so glad I'm not young and moving every six months anymore. JAYSUS!

21.) My 17th job was working in the juniors department at The Glendale Galeria in Glendale, California. I had lost my Iowa residency while I was in California the last time, and I had to pay out of state tuition, which was ridiculous for me. I thought I would go back to California and pay in-state tuition there, and my newer boyfriend was an actor who thought he had a line on a gig there. We were both wrong, but before we figured that out, I sold clothes to people like Punky Brewster, and to whomever it was who was in charge of costumes for Bernadette Peters in the movie "Pink Cadillac". 

I made a fun friend there, named Barbie who was a self-proclaimed Cuban American princess and we would ride around in the candy apple red BMW her parents gave her for graduation. This was in 1988, and there was all kinds of talk about gang violence. I was 23 years old.

22.) After I moved back AGAIN to go to school in Iowa City. My brother had a talk with the residency office for me, and after over a year, I finally got to pay in-state tuition. I worked two jobs. The first was as a line cook at a Mexican restaurant. It was a shit show in a lot of ways, there were some issues with cocaine and some of the servers (again, this was the 80's/early 90's), BUT I met one of my favorite people and future roommates here, so no matter what kind of bullshit I had to put up with, it was worth it.

She was the brilliant one who suggested we play "The Love Boat" at work. The bartender would of course be Isaac, the old dude who waited there would be Captain Stubing, the doofy guy we worked with was Gopher, the most prolific cocaine user waitress got to be Julie the activities director, and she decided all of us women cooking on the line would be the special guest appearance of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (duh). 

23.) During this same time, I worked my 23rd job. I used to be a nude model for art classes at the university. It paid almost twice what minimum wage was, and the hours were flexible. I was already working almost full time and taking 17 hours/credits at the university, so I didn't have a lot of time for anything else. Also, modeling nude wasn't all that weird for me. My parents were artists, we were raised to see the human form as beautiful and not shameful.

One of my "greatest" memories was once when I was modeling for a painting class. There was a guy painting almost right in front of me. Different students would take a break from their paintings, walk by his, and laugh. Since the painting was facing him, I couldn't see it from where I was sitting. Finally, after I got to rest in between posing, (it actually hurts to sit still for long periods of time) I went over and checked out what he was working on. It turns out it was a painting of a rooster's head with my body riding a giant phallus. In my head I laughed to myself, "It doesn't look a THING like me".

It looks like I'll be doing a part three to this. It's amazing just how many crappy jobs I've worked when I lay it all out like this. I do apologize for the bad typos, and misspellings. I could really benefit from a good editor right now...Or even a bad one would probably help.