quasifroggyblog: 2007

I’ve had forty-six jobs. I’m thirty-eight years old and my first job was in 1983. That’s forty-six jobs in twenty-four years. What’s that, 1.9 jobs a year? Let me say right at the get go, that I have learned nothing useful and will impart no wisdom except perhaps choosing a job and sticking with it. If my current employer reads this, I’ve had my current job for a record three years and I like it the best.

First job, cashier in a local drug store up in the Northeast. I sold a lot of cigarettes and lottery tickets. It wasn’t a great job. I sat there and rang up things, and made change. I didn’t steal anything and I took pride in knowing that my drawer always matched the receipt. In retailing, that’s called matching the z, or z-ing out. I’m only in ninth grade and already learning practical workplace skills and taking pride in them.

The owner of the drugstore also owned an ice cream parlor just across the street and I was transferred over as a scooper during the busy summer months. Lateral restructuring. The ice-cream parlor had a younger clientèle and was a spirited work environment. The down side was the product. Ice cream is sticky, it is either so hard your scooping wrist aches or soft and messy and gets in everything. Cleaning an ice cream parlor involves removing ice cream from every surface and affixing it to your clothes.

Food in general is a bad work partner. Of my forty-six jobs, eighteen have been in the food service industry.

1985 – horn & hardardt’s waiter on city line ave. Very bad tips and vats of baked beans and tapioca pudding.

1986 – Grocery store in ocean city, I was fired from checkout after two weeks and banished to a hot dog cart in the parking lot. I quit before the month was through.

In 1987, I went off to college and began a long career in fine restaurants and bars. Can you believe I just called it a career? Who the fuck do I think I’m fooling?

I always made decent tips as a waiter and worked through college and in the summers at a variety of reasonably well run establishments. In those years as a waiter, I learned a number of point of sale computer systems with names like cricket and star point and NCR. I discover that I was clumsy and as a waiter, my short-lived positions are marred with broken wine bottles, ruined silk blouses and stained sports jackets. On the other hand, I’m personable and charming, I have a nice voice and I believe wholeheartedly in pushing people to eat dessert.

Upon graduation from college with a degree in ‘you’ve got to be kidding’, I returned to Philly and got a job as the Deptford food court manager for about thirty-six seconds.

Then I landed a rare good one. A bartender at Samson Street Oyster House. The older bartenders showed me the ropes, the waitresses moved with smooth efficiency, the shuckers were friendly, the customers never lingered and the managers were relaxed and professional.

Let me say something about restaurant owners. Every restaurant owner I’ve ever worked for has been either a liar, drunk, criminal, psychopath or asshole. Every single one, except one. David Mink, the former owner of Samnson Street was a good boss. The only one ever in food service.

I left the oyster house to work at a place called magnolia café. Beautiful restaurant, great bar, good money. Dumb move. Bad job. The owner was a psychopath, throwing cleavers, and screaming cursing and firing employees endlessly. Typical restaurant owner stuff. I didn’t stay long.

Soon after, I discovered the wonderful world of catering. No more tips, just a decent hourly wage and a lot of heavy lifting. I eventually worked my way into management and began selling events, managing parties and hiring staff. It wasn’t bad. Working an event is stressful but cater waiters are an efficient bunch and the owners tended to focus on the cooking or selling and leave the front of house to me. It was almost fun and some of the events were great. Allen Iverson’s NBA All-star party with fifty cases of Crystal and people hanging from the Tyrannosaurus Rex in the Academy of Natural Sciences was fun. There were others, lawn parties and birthdays and drunken pharmaceutical reps swaying to the Beach Boys live at the constitution center. These weren’t bad.

Then their were the weddings. For every cool party there is twenty stressed out brides with twenty stressed out mothers and twenty stupid grooms with twenty drunken best men. Let me tell you a secret about weddings. Every wedding, and I’ve been to hundreds, every wedding is the same. I did weddings with nothing but coolers of beer and I did Matt Lawer’s wedding to some Victoria’s secret model in a gigantic velvet tent on the ocean, they are all exactly the same. Only one-thing matters, does anyone know? The music. Good band, even a d.j. with good taste is the only thing that affects a wedding. Oh and a catering manager who doesn’t drop the wedding cake.

So if you’re keeping count, we’ve covered about half of my forty-six jobs. The other half breaks down as follows; House painter, dockworker, sailboat guide, camp counselor. That was what led me to teaching and acting. I’ve been writing and directing shows intermittingly, for money, for a long time, I’ve even managed to spend some of that time without working as a bartender. It’s always different. Being an actor and a drama teacher. I’ve had great jobs and worked in terrific schools and I’ve had terrible jobs. I’ve gotten better at it and still have yet to make a decent income from it. But I like doing it. I liked dressing up as a rabbi and m.c.ing a bar mitzvah, and I liked being a macy’s Santa last year. I liked teaching drama in the suburbs and I like it in the ‘tough’ inner city schools. I like being a colonial actor interpreter, historical character in old city. Its fun, it’s energetic, and I rarely drop anything, on anybody.

So that’s it. I’ve left out a bunch, mostly the sales jobs; I sold newspaper ads for the city paper and in nyc. It was ok, average job. But the worst, worst job I ever had was a door-to-door salesman, selling theses stupid restaurant coupons. I really hated that one. And telemarking, that is really the worst of the worst. Maybe the convenience store in Northampton, that place was a dump. Or that week as a butcher in a deli, disgusting. Well, it’s hard to say, I don't really like working. Thank you.

As you may know, I work at the National Museum of American Jewish History.

I like it when I find Jews in unlikely places in early American history. Jewish soldiers at Valley Forge, Jewish explorers in Kentucky and Tennessee with Daniel Boone. That kind of thing. It reminds us that the United States was founded as a Pluralistic society.

Here are some photos of Julius Meyer, the Jewish answer to Buffalo Bill Cody.

Julius Meyer was born in Bromberg, Prussia in1839. He emigrated to Omaha, Nebraska, in 1867 and began developing acquaintances with Plains Indians. He was reportedly able to speak six Indian languages. He served as an interpreter for Gen. George Crook and later opened an Indian Curiosity shop, called the "Indian Wigwam" in Omaha.

From the Nebraska State Historical Society website.