It's a dirty job, but...

I teach college composition, literature, creative writing and honor’s English at a state university. But I was never one of those kids on a clear, determined trajectory along a carefully considered career path. I was more the aimless wanderer who happened on my career fairly late in the game. Along the way, I’ve had some weird jobs, for which I’m grateful, because I learned important life lessons from every one…

1. Car hop at A & W. This was my first job at 14. I learned two valuable lessons: (a) It’s not okay to throw 50 cents in small change back in someone’s car and yell, “You need this worse than I do!” (b) If a pimp in a lime green suit, all kinds of high, jumps the parking curb and drives THROUGH the plate-glass storefront up to the counter, then leans out his window and orders a chicken dinner, get him chicken dinner. Now.

2. Nursing Assistant. I did this twice, once at 15 and again at 24. Two things happened that fundamentally changed me as a human being. First, a sharp but frail old man not allowed to live on the same floor with his non-ambulatory wife, hunted me down in the hallway and slipped a quarter in my hand. He thanked me for being nice to his wife. A frustrated NA had told her God didn’t love her for being such a bother. I had found her crying, so I’d brushed her hair and sat with her a bit. Nothing noble – just simple human decency – for which her husband felt he had to PAY. Second, a youngish man with cerebral palsy – Cletus Stalnaker – motioned with his head one day toward his dresser. Through a series of my questions and his nods, he directed me to a notebook in a drawer he wanted me to read. I sat in a chair beside his bed and cried as I read a notebook full of poetry he’d typed with his head, using an electric typewriter and a stylus attached to a headband.

 

3. Janitor. I cleaned dental offices at night. I learned I’d rather use old railroad spikes for toothpicks than EVER go to the dentist again.

4. Food service truck driver. I was 17. I had to wear an adorable little outfit (very French maid, though I didn’t realize that at the time), and drive a deli truck to industrial/factory sites, park, open up a side window, and serve food for coffee & lunch breaks. I felt like a lamb cornered by rabid wolves and lasted only a week. Plusses: I got to cruise Omaha driving a big-ass truck, and, as a redhead, I loved that the company was called Red Top Food Service.

5. Bronco’s Drive-In. I was 15. I learned you can eat a lot of fries in the time it takes you to save up for an Ovation guitar. Too many fries, really. Plus: My name was Prescher then, and my boss, Johnny, called me “Precious.” Cool.

6. Maximum Security bank teller. I worked for First National Bank, in the basement vault. I learned that a smart, skilled young woman may be forced to train a dull ex-UNL football player with only rudimentary head-butting skills, who will then move upstairs into a management position and make at least five times the money paid to the smart young woman who trained him. This was an invaluable lesson that I would re-learn again and again, in one way or another, in almost every job I’ve had since.

7. Taco Bell. I worked there one hour. I went in for my first day, put on my uniform, watched the boss spoon grease over and over the taco meat for 20 minutes while he talked, said I had to get something out of my car, and drove off in my uniform.

8. Drive-up bank teller. I learned that if your female co-worker wears pleated miniskirts and exaggerates her movements as she stretches up to reach the capsule in the vacuum tube, your male boss will give her a raise. I also learned that if you, in your smart & sensible pantsuits, threaten to quit if he doesn’t also give you a raise, you’d better be prepared to quit.

9. Residential Care Assistant. I learned about the incredible power of drugs. The organization I worked for provided care for folks with mental (and often physical) disabilities in neighborhood group homes. I took care of one woman who swore, screamed, stuck her finger in her eye, and constantly stripped and crawled around the house naked. After a year or so, the organization hired a new oversight physician, who reviewed & changed her meds. The last time I saw the woman I had cared for, she was calm, fully clothed, and clearing the dinner table.

10. Cocktail waitress in a hotel bar. I learned that RAF pilots who drop room keys on your tray have NOT mistakenly given you a key instead of a tip, you poor naïve girl. The key IS your tip. Drop the key in the hotel pool.

11. Ad agency copywriter. I learned that (a) Less. Really. Is. More. (b) Grammar is subjective when it comes to advertising. (c) There are only so many ways one can say “We care” before one comes around to, “We could care less,” and (d) ad agency people, unlike many academics, have senses of humor.

All of these experiences have made me a more patient, compassionate, light-hearted and sometimes cautious teacher. And above all, they remind me that what my students learn outside the classroom will ultimately be waaaay more important than my third (or thirteenth) lesson on the evils, of, comma, splices.