Jobs Part 1

I started working before I could drive, cutting weeds out of beans. Eventually, I would get a “real job.” My parents had made me put away the money I made. When I turned 16 and got my driver’s license, I got a car. However, it was expected that not only would I buy the car from my accumulated savings but I would get a job for the ongoing support and maintenance (gas, oil, tires, insurance). It just how it was for us and, I suspect, many others of that generation.

My first job that I was hired for, was a ride jockey at an amusement park. A ride jockey is what they call the person who operates the ride (roller coaster, merry go round, etc).  The Illinois state fairgrounds had a permanent kiddy amusement park that was open all summer and a few weekends before and after.  Besides being trained to operate the rides, we also had to open, close and maintain those rides.  Additionally, there was always grass to cut, asphalt to repair, soda syrup and such to fetch and other miscellaneous work.  The ride jockeys were separate from the concession workers that operated the snack stands (I think it was more of a gender thing since the ride jockeys were mostly male and the concession workers were mostly female).

It was hard, hot work and the hourly pay rate was low but for the select few of us, we were given as many hours as we could handle especially during the fair.  After that first summer (since I had to find a new job to support my car), I went back for another couple of fairs to work just because of the paycheck.  I remember getting a paycheck for my last fair of more than $500 (which according to the website I found would be close to $1,600 today for 10 days of 12 to 14 hour days of work).

My next job was Christmas temporary job at a toy store in the Mall as a stocker.  The store, Circus World, had a typical mall footprint so there was lots of shipments that needed to be stocked at Christmas time (and very limited back room space). After that first Christmas was over, they asked me to stay as part time help (remember, I was a Junior in High School).  Before I graduated High School, I was promoted through positions of cashier to head cashier to assistant manager. 

Ed, my manager, who eventually became my district manager, would get his coffee from the restaurant directly opposite the store opening.  I’d grab a coffee too and put a bunch of cream and sugar in it.  He would chide me that I shouldn’t be drinking coffee if I couldn’t taste it.  Being young and impressionable, I determined to drink my coffee black.  This was a habit that I continued for the next 40 years until I retired and found flavored creamers.

Ed, who by then was the district manager, offered me the assistant manager position.  I knew what the previous assistant manager made per hour (Ed offered me significantly less) and I pointed this out to Ed.  Ed did up the offer but not until he told me that he was disappointed that I brought up the previous guy (who was canned) as my argument and not because I realized I was worth more to the store.

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”

Psalm 139:13-16 ESV

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”

Philippians 2:3-7 ESV

Both of these jobs had nothing and yet everything to do with what I eventually settled on as my career.  There are learning experiences everywhere if you are open to them.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8:35-39 ESV

“But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”

Isaiah 64:8 ESV