School’s out, so teenagers everywhere are prowling the streets and message boards, looking for summer jobs. They’re not ready for mortgage payments or 401Ks, so they scrabble for simple, low-wage jobs at ice cream parlors, community pools, movie theaters, hamburger joints and retail shops to earn a bit of spending money.
When our military family’s summers weren’t interrupted by PCS moves, our three children had part-time jobs during college and high school. Although we required our kids to earn spending money, I didn’t pressure them to get internships or professional jobs until closer to college graduation. Thanks to a most unfortunate experience I had one summer when I was nineteen, I knew it would be a mistake to force our kids into “adulting” too early.
“You can work in sales for me this summer,” my father had said during a Sunday evening phone call when I was a freshman in college.
I had no interest in my dad’s industrial chemical company. I’d always dreamt of a summer job waitressing at the beach in North Carolina — living in a seaside shack with other waitresses, not saving much money but having the time of our lives.
However, my father’s warnings always prevailed. He had me believing that I had to make money, and a lot of it, to survive financially and add professional experience to my resume. According to him, the smartest thing to do was take a sales job at his company.
So, early one morning during that summer, my father took me to a mile-long strip of diners, restaurants and retail shops in Monroeville, Pennsylvania for my first day of “sales training.”
“Okay, here’s what you’re gonna do,” Dad said as we stood at the back of his Chevy Astro Van in a diner parking lot on the strip. He pointed to a “sample case” in the back of his van containing eight liter-sized plastic bottles of cleaning products manufactured by his chemical company.
As it was my first day on the job, I had no idea what the products were or how they were used. I assumed my dad would tell me everything I needed to know, but instead he simply said, “Take that sample case and go find the diner’s manager. Offer to demonstrate the products, then make a sale.” He handed me a thick pad of order forms, and pointed down the road.
“When you finish at the diner, go to the next business, and the next one, until you’ve reached the end of the strip. I’ll pick you up at the Sunoco station at five. Good luck.”
As the Astro Van peeled away, I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing to be transported to the beach in North Carolina. But there I was on that dingy strip in Monroeville, cars and trucks whizzing by, breathing in gasoline fumes.
After several polite “no thank yous,” I was terrified when the manager of a large steakhouse took me up on the offer to demonstrate my product samples in his huge industrial kitchen. “Everyone!” the manager yelled to his kitchen staff as I took shallow breaths, “Come here for a quick demonstration.” Eight or so workers stood before a stainless steel prep station and stared at me.
Frozen, my mind raced. “What do I do now? God … or Satan … or Calgon, please take me away!” Unable to disappear, I forced myself to act. I’d seen that one of the samples was labeled “Stainless Steel Cleaner” so I pulled it out, and poured a puddle of it onto the already spotless counter. With a rag, I rubbed it in four circles, then wiped it up. “Voila! All clean!” I said, interrupting the excruciatingly awkward silence.
Needless to say, I didn’t procure any orders that day. When my father picked me up at the Sunoco station, I was terrified to tell him the bad news. “Hahahaha!” his laughter boomed. “I wanted to teach you an important lesson: You can’t sell anything without knowing your product.”
My training in Dad’s “school of hard knocks” continued that fateful summer, so this most unfortunate teenage job story continues in next week’s column, “The summer I tried smoking.
I had the waiter/bartender job during a beach summer. It was the time of my life.