A ccording to the United States Department of Labor, 72.6 million Americans held jobs paid at an hourly rate in 2009. Of these workers, 3.6 million were paid exact minimum wage or under. A characteristic of these workers were that they were young, under 25. I have to say, I’ve had my fair share of minimum wage jobs and stories to go with them.
I was once a worker at this amusement park where I stood in the scorching sun five hours a day, waiting for the water truck to come around and fill my paper cup. At this park, I was in charge of a game called “Guess your weight.” This made for a lot of uncomfortable situations; there is nothing more humiliating then guessing some one weighs 50 more pounds then they actually do. To make things more awkward, I was supposed to announce my estimated weight on a microphone for all the guests in the park to hear. I don’t know what made the amusement park think this was a good idea. When I guessed the wrong weight, women would clearly get upset, even though it meant they won the prize. I soon learned to guess the weight way under, that way everyone was happy and no one felt it was necessary to get angry that I thought their size 2 waist looked like an 8.
I also worked a job where I was forced to wear a neon green shirt that read “How can I help you?” on the front and “That was easy” on the back. Except it was far from easy. My job was to stand in the middle of the store and help the customers during the back to school season. This was easy when people needed to know where the notebooks and pencils were. But when people would ask me which paper shredder was more energy efficient or what ink fit their printer, I was useless. I did not last long at this job.
My most entertaining minimum wage job was working at a soft pretzel stand at a highway rest stop. The only negative side to this job was that I had to wear a visor and truck drivers hit on me like it was their job. I’ve never been asked so many times if I “wanted to go for a ride in a big truck.”
But this job definitely had its perks. I got to eat as many pretzels as I wanted, and trust me, I took advantage of that. The job lacked any form of superiority which meant workers could smoke in the freezer and keep beer in the fridge. Myself and other workers would come up with games to entertain ourselves since we did such little work. One of the games involved making balls out of the pretzel dough and throwing them in an attempt to get them to land on the ATM machine across the way. If it landed on the ATM you got 10 points, if you hit a customer by accident 20 points. Unfortunately the pretzel place closed down after a couple years, and I hate to say it, but I can see why.
For a short time, I worked as a telemarketer selling vacuums over the phone. I would sit in a cubicle in the basement of this office with ten other people. We would all be repeating the same thing all day, everyday. For a large portion of my day I would stare at the phone or just listen to the dial tone which isn’t as boring as most people would think. When I did attempt to sell vacuums, most of the people were generally annoyed, but trust me, I was 10 times more annoyed with repeating myself for eight hours a day, everyday and hearing everyone else in the room do so too.
The worst situations would arise when I would get a foreign name that was a line long. I didn’t know how to pronounce it, the person on the phone didn’t know English, and my unpleasant manager would glare at me until I hung up and explained that they didn’t understand. “Your job is to make them understand,” she would bark at me. That was easy for her to say; all day everyday, she sat at her desk and continuously ate, then complained that she wasn’t losing weight and wouldn’t be able to fit into her wedding gown.
At my current job, there is this woman who comes in everyday talking to herself. At first I thought she might have a Bluetooth in her ear, but then I came to the conclusion she didn’t.
I came to this realization one day when she came up to the counter begging me to take pictures out of her hands that she found on the ground. “Please take them. Tell whoever lost them that I found them. Pictures are worth a thousand words; look there is even a picture of a baby,” she said to me. When I went to take the pictures out of her hands, there was nothing there. “Take them,” she insisted. I looked at her puzzled; she was delusional.
Another aspect of this woman that makes me question her sanity is the daily advice she gives me. One day she told me it is okay if someone steals your wallet as long as they are starving and only take the cash. Another day she came in and gave me advice on sleeping. If I ever can’t sleep, she assured me peanut butter has the same chemicals they put in sleeping pills. She even pointed out the fact that she keeps a jar by her bed and only needs one spoonful to put her to sleep.
What makes these jobs worthwhile is mostly the money, but the experiences I gain and the customers I meet make my day a little less miserable.
