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Writer's Block: Clock Punching
Aug. 29th, 2009 11:42 am[Error: unknown template qotd]There was babysitting, of course, early on, probably true of a lot of girls. (It still amazes me that my parents' friends hired me, at TWELVE, to babysit for their three-year-old and THREE-MONTH-OLD while they went one evening. I didn't have any trouble, and my mom was home, just three blocks away, the whole time, but TWELVE? Seriously? )
Aside from that, my first job was working at the local mall. Not in a store -- I was thirteen. My best friend's mom worked in the mall management office, so every once in a while she hired Mary and I to work the information desk, which was such Serious Business for us when we got to do it, oh my god. I clearly remember dressing up (which would have meant ... a church dress, I guess? ... complete with heels) and sitting very soberly, prepared to answer the questions of any and all comers about the location of the food court and/or which way Burdine's was.
Once, we also got to dress up like farm girls (braids! straw hats! overalls!) and walk around with baskets, distributing some kind of promo flyers for a coming event, and the huge excitement about that night was the shoplifters we helped catch. They had actually stolen art from one of the frame/print places (artwork! it was almost like a real heist! although the prints were probably of beach chairs in the sand) and we were given walkies and told to watch and report in on their movements while the security guards prepared to, I don't know, take them down or something. Funny that the most memorable part of this was feeling all superspy FBI with my walkie, and pretending not to be following them as I walked around in my straw hat. Jesus, I was young.
We actually got paid for these gigs, but I don't remember how much, and I'm sure it was pretty paltry. The biggest draw, aside from feeling very important and grownup when we were working the information desk, was the two security guards we had crushes on. Thankfully, we each had our own -- mine was Eric, thin and dark-haired and sort of wry, and Mary's was Seth, big and blonde and gruff. They were, as I think about it now, probably no more than 19 or 20, but they seemed terribly adult to us.
Of course, looking back now, I also understand that Eric had a raging crush on Mary's mom, who was divorced and blonde and very, very pretty. Sigh.
Aside from that, my first job was working at the local mall. Not in a store -- I was thirteen. My best friend's mom worked in the mall management office, so every once in a while she hired Mary and I to work the information desk, which was such Serious Business for us when we got to do it, oh my god. I clearly remember dressing up (which would have meant ... a church dress, I guess? ... complete with heels) and sitting very soberly, prepared to answer the questions of any and all comers about the location of the food court and/or which way Burdine's was.
Once, we also got to dress up like farm girls (braids! straw hats! overalls!) and walk around with baskets, distributing some kind of promo flyers for a coming event, and the huge excitement about that night was the shoplifters we helped catch. They had actually stolen art from one of the frame/print places (artwork! it was almost like a real heist! although the prints were probably of beach chairs in the sand) and we were given walkies and told to watch and report in on their movements while the security guards prepared to, I don't know, take them down or something. Funny that the most memorable part of this was feeling all superspy FBI with my walkie, and pretending not to be following them as I walked around in my straw hat. Jesus, I was young.
We actually got paid for these gigs, but I don't remember how much, and I'm sure it was pretty paltry. The biggest draw, aside from feeling very important and grownup when we were working the information desk, was the two security guards we had crushes on. Thankfully, we each had our own -- mine was Eric, thin and dark-haired and sort of wry, and Mary's was Seth, big and blonde and gruff. They were, as I think about it now, probably no more than 19 or 20, but they seemed terribly adult to us.
Of course, looking back now, I also understand that Eric had a raging crush on Mary's mom, who was divorced and blonde and very, very pretty. Sigh.
