Common Ground: A Community Post
kellykeller.substack.com
Common Ground: A Community Post
Do your job.
This month we’re starting to ramp up the search for summer work for my kiddos. At various times in my young life, I was a terrible waitress1, a bored grocery store cashier, and a college campus landscaper.
What was your first job? What was your best or worst job? Lists are welcome.
1
I know this seems like run-of-the-mill self-deprecation, but I was really terrible. I spilled drinks on people on multiple occasions. As the summer went on, I got better, and I still think that waiting on 8-10 tables at a time prepared me pretty well for (a) teaching little kids and (b) mothering five of them.
I was fired from my first job. I had been told exactly what to do and specifically what NOT to do. I did the reverse. They were completely justified in firing me. I would like to think that today, I would fire me too.
My first job was working at the gym at church. I worked the front desk. Basically, I was paid to do my homework. It was really the best first job, and I feel like I’ve been confused ever since as to why I can’t get done my personal work while at work. Ha!
After years doing that then working in student ministry, I spent a summer doing an internship in Australia and came back home to no job. I applied everywhere and finally got one at Kirkland’s. I hated that job. I had to wear awful khakis, and the smell was awful. My first weekend working there, I had to climb up on a ladder to get something that was on display. I was near the front of the store, and there was a long line to check out. Everyone was watching me. And they watched me as I broke some sconce or something of the like. It was miserable.