By Vicki Brown
Whether you are starting a new job, or going to work for the very first time, plan on making mistakes and feeling stupid.
When I was 15, I lied about my age so I could get a job. I wanted to have my own money and be independent, so I went to work at a car wash as a cashier. It was the summer of 1974.
I had worked at small jobs before: babysitting, answering the phone for a chiropractor, and you may remember that I had a paper route when I was 12. I had also worked for about a week at a putt-putt golf course for a friend of my parents, but I was sabotaged by someone who wanted my job. So even though I was innocent, I was fired. I learned a lot about drama in the workplace, and my parents learned a lot about so-called “friends”.
But this job was serious business as far as I was concerned. I had two bosses who were brothers whom my parents nor I previously knew, and if anything went wrong on the job, I couldn’t call mom or dad for help. I was on my own.
I have never had problems making friends, so right off I made friends with another cashier and the assistant manager. They were great people who did everything they could to help me assimilate into this new job. But the two boss brothers were a different story. They were horrible.
One of the biggest issues I had was the difference in the brothers. Joe was rather nice and professional, but William was a thorn in my flesh. He was mean and brash. When Joe would give me instructions and put me to work doing something, William would come in after and yell at me, demanding to know what I was doing and curtailing those instructions. I felt like I was on pins and needles trying to please two people at the same time and in a perpetual tug of war.
But that wasn’t my only issue.
I have never been good with numbers, and math was a nightmare for me. Between the concussion I had as a child and an evil math teacher in middle school, I seriously struggled with math. So, my biggest challenge was working with money. I had to count back change and cash to customers.
In this day and time, it’s no big deal. The cash registers are computers that tell you how much money to collect and how much to give back. Easy. But in 1974? No such luck.
To make matters worse, the cash register I had to work on was one from 1945…. I’m not kidding. It was an antique and still had numbers pop up on rather large tiles behind glass at the top of the machine. You also had to use muscle to compress the stubborn keys. The keys looked like the ones on old fashioned typewriters. It was ridiculous.
I struggled with the stupid thing and finally mastered it….just in time for the brothers to decide to go modern. They purchased a new cash register, and this one told me how much to give back to customers. I was elated. This meant that I didn’t have to actually think.
One day the cash register showed up along with an instructor who showed the boss brothers how to use it. Unfortunately, the instructor didn’t show me, and that meant that mean old William had to teach me how to use it.
Now, I didn’t mention that mean old William was also a lecher. He liked young girls and used every excuse to brush up against the cashiers, much to our disgust. He was slimy, and I was coming to the point where I was going to tell my dad when I suddenly got my revenge… accidently.
That day a customer came up to the counter wanting to pay $5 for his car wash and $5 for cleaning the inside windows and vacuuming. It was relatively easy. All I had to do was ring up $10.
Unfortunately, I was nervous about this new cash register and this man was my first customer that day. Unused to the light touch needed on this modern model, I evidently held on to the zero key too long and without looking up, I hit “Enter”.
I rang up one million dollars, and the machine crashed. It died. I was hoping the same thing happened to me before the brothers showed up. No such luck.
Mean old William showed up and started yelling while trying to fix the thing, but it was to no avail. He had to call the company to get a replacement which took two weeks, and I was back to using the antique.
Time went by and I finally mastered the new cash register. Mean old William stayed obnoxious and touchy/feely, so when I found out about minimum wage and that my pay at $1.10 was well under that number, I called the IRS and asked questions. I guess they were the right questions because a month later, my pay went up and mean old William was even meaner.
I left there at the end of the year to find a better job, saying good-bye to the car wash and first job trials and errors. I think they were glad to see me go. But on a good note, I haven’t killed any cash registers since then.
