I’m gonna try something new, audience participation-wise… see if maybe I can get some lurkers to out themselves.
Or just let the regulars have some fun. Either way.
I found a list called “The 25 most popular icebreaker questions based on four years of data“. So I’m gonna post a few, and see what happens.
Your mission: answer the question in the comments with a good story.
If you don’t have a good story, you are encouraged to make one up.
What was your first job?
Me? Back when I was a teenager, I was very liberal, and I used to do a job (technically an “unpaid internship”) for Greenpeace. My gig was scraping barnacles off of whales.
Which I quit after a week once I found out what lousy tippers whales are.
Cat
House cat or farm cat? Were you expected to rid the premises of rodents, or did your working day involve lazily lounging around the house waiting for your human minions to bring offerings of food?
I was a caddy. Same country club that inspired Brian Doyle Murray to write Caddyshack. Met Joel Murray there one time when he dropped by to earn a bit of spending money in 1984.
My first job, where I got hired by someone outside the family, was as a Blue Chip bowling caller. It was my job to identify and rattle each bowler who had a shot at winning a large amount of Blue Chip stamps for bowling a strike. It primarily involved strolling along the concourse of 24-lane bowling center with a microphone in hand, mocking, embarrassing, or otherwise annoying all my friends. Easy money!
The first real job was as a gift-wrapper at a department store for the holiday season. I started on Black Friday to a massive crowd that didn’t diminish until an hour after closing and by the time Christmas rolled around, I could box and wrap a shirt in about 10 seconds. My friends joined me the following year, and would play their truck stereos in the receiving bay, hide in the supply loft, and use the decorations to build gliders to fly across the floor. It was always a good time when you saw the crying teenage girls who had gotten picked up for shoplifting.
My first job was supervisor of a bunch of dudes who, it turns out, launched homemade gliders from the store’s supply loft and played their truck stereos in the receiving bay. Got fired. My girlfriend had to go into shoplifting from the store to keep us in supplies. That didn’t end well either.
Well played, but I’m pretty sure what put you over the edge was when you let the bunch of teen girls climb into the fake made-up beds and pretend to have a slumber-party.
“Dear Warehouse Forum: I never believed these stories were true, but one day a bunch of teen girls . . . ”
No, not doubting you, but jeez! Nice memory.
I scooped ice cream for Baskin Robbins when I was 14. They didn’t even pay me minimum wage because I was too young. The owners were a kindly old Italian and his grumpy middle aged son. Neither spoke very good English. I got two free scoops of any ice cream every day. They thought that’d break me and make me sick of ice cream. They were mistaken.
Every now and then the ice cream roll cakes would be past their sell date but still just fine to eat. That’s when the kindly old owner would give one to me and say “take to your Mama”.
Good times.
My first job (that I had taxes withdrawn) was The Snow Bear for Thalheimers Department Store during the Christmas season. Got dressed up in a heavily padded red overall suit with a fur jacket and huge fiberglass and fur covered character head and dopey clown sized white patent leather shoes. Had to walk around the store handing out stickers and playing with the kiddos, while trying not to scare the bejezzus out of them (those were some of life’s little pleasures though).
Of course all the young ladies wanted a “hug” from The Snow Bear! So I had that going for me! Of course, I had to schmooze up to the boyfriends so they couldn’t figure out if I was M/F, because it was perfectly OK to assume someone’s gender at that time. It was always fun getting the BF’s first and making them squirm then getting fawned over by their GF!
Never had anyone figure out who/what I was! Kept it a secret the 3 years I did it in high school as well, except for two very close friends my last year. Plus, I got to take an hour break for each 45 minutes of work because that thing was HOT! AND…all the lady sales associates LOVED me! (even though I know I looked and smelled like a goat working in that getup) Got a lot of dates and…um…well…yeah…from that gig!
Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it…
Never had a chance to have a job.
Did hard time for killing a guy I thought was the Snow Bear — for hittin’ on my woman.
But now I’m free.
Those Game Wardens will really get after ya…(sniff…)
I used to hang around on the corner in front of the drugstore. Finally, due to my experience, I got a job keeping people from hanging out in front of the drug store. Oh wait a minute that wasn’t me…that was Cheech Marin…never mind
class…class…CLASS!
SHAAAATUUUUUP!
thank you.
I was a senior in high school when I had my first tax paying job in ’82.
It was a restaurant in South County Mall called, “The Blue Stove”. It wasn’t the standard mall food as they had a waiters in the evening including a full menu with steak, seafood, etc and fried ravioli (my favorite) as well as an assortment of beers. I was 17 at the time so I could not wait tables. I recall one time in the winter, we had a shipment come in that included beer. A case of Moosehead was damaged so my co-worker and I buried it in the snow until after closing then got drunk. Good times.
My first job was at a fast food restaurant. The first time I set foot in the building was when I walked in to get a job application. The first person I saw there was the girl at the register, who was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She is now my wife.
Toll keeper, bridge of Death. Back then it was 3 questions for a nickle. I was fired eventually for my lack of knowledge of the family Hirundinidae.
Back then, it was the Bridge of Occasional Peril. How times have changed.
Too true and you tell kids that these days and they don’t believe you.
I remember working for my allowance from my parents. OK, that may be cheating. But then I remember getting cash for delivering papers. After that, it’s all a blur: the jobs meld into each other in a mush of indignation at constantly having Social Security withheld before I got to touch my own money. YGDFT! YLTATSOTE!
YGDFT! YLTATSOTE!
Breaking out the old school ZING!
Brian: I’m not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly!
Girl: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.
Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!
Followers: He is! He is the Messiah!
Brian: Now, YGDFT! YLTATSOTE!
[silence]
Arthur: How shall we YGDFT, YLTATSOTE, O Lord?
First real job was stockboy at Lane Bryant – that’s right the “large ladies clothing store.” Never forget pulling my first size 50 dress out of the delivery bin I must have looked like I saw a flying saucer….
Close Encounters of the First Kind
The Attack Of The Fifty-Foot Woman’s
Pantygonia
Hip to b., Squared
— Huey Lois
This seemed appropriate and why yes, I do have the original on vinyl why do you ask?
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBRJ6jQfap0&w=560&h=315%5D
My first job was a summer job when I was 15. I worked as a janitor in what was then called a “VD Clinic.” Basically, they administered tests and then gave big penicillin shots to the people who had failed their tests the week before. At that time, it was mainly syphilis and gonorrhea that we treated. I remember everyone who came to the clinic looked very, very embarrassed.
Ah, youth.
Never had a job. I’m a politician who approves labor legislation.
Actually you could of just said…”Never had a job. I’m a politician.”
I was a Skirmish Guide. Skirmish is a paintball competition. I was a 16 year old, 5’3″, 100 pound, girl. Coincidently, I was a crack rifle shot, my brothers taught me. (I grew up in a rural area of PA) I would take teams of adults into the woods and be the referee. If they got out of line I would eject them. There was always one idiot who thought he could out shoot me….I had to set him straight, much to the amusement of his friends. I am sure they never forgot it….
Small world, I’ve been to Skirmish many times. looks at marksman badge on wall Can’t say I ever let a girl beat me, though.
It was a VERY long time ago….I think I was one of the only females that ever worked there. If I wasn’t such a rotten swimmer, I could’ve been a raft guide… Not many jobs in those days that paid well. I actually met a lot of nice people, one of which who helped me apply to college. I became a chemist and engineer. Funny how things happen.
During the summers when I was in high school, I worked for the City Parks Department as a lifeguard. I couldn’t actually swim, so I was assigned to the one-and-a-half-foot deep kiddie pool. I spent a great deal of time draining and sterilizing it after it either turned yellow from urine, or I found an AFR (Accidental Fecal Release). The park was in a rough neighborhood, and when I came to work one day banged up and bruised from a car accident (drunk driver hit my dad’s car), every last kid assumed my “old man” (by which they meant boyfriend) had beat me up. When I said no, it was a car accident, they nodded wisely and said, “Yeah, my sister always say that.” The worst thing was that “A”FRs kept happening in the adult pool, and everybody got angry when we made them leave the pool so we could “shock” it with bleach. Eventually, the city decided that even kiddie pool lifeguards should know how to swim, and I was transferred to another park to coach a girls’ T-ball team. The age range was 6-9, and of course my team was made up almost exclusively of just-turned-6, teeny-tiny girls, while all of the opposing teams were composed of 9 year-olds on steroids (maybe a few Chelsea Mannings in the mix, too, those “girls” were frightening). We had one eight-year old, who played first base and basically did ALL of the fielding. We “won” one game, by default, when the other team failed to show up. The girls had fun anyway, because after each game, we always hosted a “good sport” party with punch and cookies to congratulate the other team for playing so well. Our team name? The Charlie Brown All-Stars.
Shaving Ron Jeremy’s back. I had to use hedge-clippers.
Wouldn’t those technically be hedge hog clippers?