Just in case you think I'm lazy

For some reason I started reminiscing on my first professional job hunt.

It was 1996. I had just graduated from college and moved to Minneapolis, cause it was the closest big city that I hadn't been to and I wanted to try something new. In fact I had a list of career goals:

• Work in an inner city school
• Work with refugees
• Work with an international organization
• Teach ESL
• Work with non-proft
• Visit 9th and Hennepin, where all the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes*
• And also visit 9th and Euclid, something about a famous dirty bookstore**

Soon after I landed there was an article in the paper. I remember it well, it profiled a recent college grad from a good university, multi-skilled, spoke another language, etc etc. She hoped to go far. Instead said the article, she worked three minimum wage jobs -one at a shoe store- and barely made $20k

There's a lot to unpack in that article and a lot is relevant today. But then I think I blew her off as a whiner. 

Gotta pay your dues!

So I trudged ahead to pay my dues. 

1-       Got a job as a Customer Service Rep at the local cable company through a friend's relative. After two days I realized it fit none of why I'd moved, a fact that made me, so I quit. 

2-       That night I saw an add in the weekly paper. Something about making a difference in the world. I later learned this ad is in the back of every weekly paper in the country. It in itself became a funny story, but the place sucked, lest because the boss didn't disclose the 50 hr work week for a salary of $14k a year. Work gave me strep throat. I quit. 

3-       I quit job #2 because I  had stumbled on to a series of part-time work. I had the following schedule for a few weeks. First I woke up and interned at the internationally minded nonprofit. I ended up volunteering for them for years. 

4-       In the afternoons I drove over to St Paul and work the evening shift at a call center for a non-profit research group. I liked it. 

5-       Then after eating dinner in my car, I worked the graveyard shift at UPS! Teamster! My sup was 19 years old, and he thought I was being a smartass when, during orientation and "what to do in case if a tornado hits the building", I asked if. Tornado had ever hit the building. I was serious. ("No, a tornado has never hit this building".)

6-       On the weekends I worked at St Joe's Home for Children as a residential care worker. It was the first of my career working with abused and at-risk kids. 

7-       After a few wks of this routine, I got a call to work a dream job teaching ESL to immigrants in an inner city school. It was only part time, but there was good chance of going full time in the new year. I quit the UPS job but the call center begged me to stay until the holidays. 

8-       I also somehow snagged a part-time evening job teaching ESL to adults. Like the high school gig, it was initially a sub job with a promise for the next year. 

So I got up at seven in the morning, drove to St Paul to teach for a few hours, then worked at my internship before going to the call center. On Tuesday and Thursday eves I taught adults and the weekends I was at the children's home. 

That's five jobs at once, eight jobs in a year (starting in August).

And I still didn't make over $20k a year. 

* See: "9th and Hennepin"

**See: "Christmas card from a hooker in Minneapolis"