Browsing around for my favorite blog post for Fabruary, I just ran into Lou Plummer’s What Were Your First Seven Jobs? I say “browsing” but I was really just going through only his archive. I knew when I decided to participate in Robert Birming’s Fabruary that the post I would submit as my favorite would be something written by Lou.

What Lou’s writing captures perfectly for me, is the honest, “no muss, no fuss” type of wisdom coming only from someone who has been through it. Perhaps I recognize in Lou’s story some of my own experiences with addiction, loss, and learning to cherish the good in my life. His stories are among the things I look forward to most when opening my RSS reader.

Anyway, reading about his first seven jobs was a fun way to see that every generation has its remember whens. He thinks of glass bottles, I of plastic ones. Remember when my cousin and I would stroll the neighborhood looking for old ladies with pending returnables? When I make my way through my employment history, a variety of things come to mind.

Job 0: The one that got away

I can’t think about my first seven jobs without mentioning this. I’ll never feel cool enough to really belong, but my hometown’s skater scene is the closest thing I have to community. Age fifteen, and I walk into the town’s skate shop, which ironically sells more paraphernalia than actual skateboards. I’m there with my mother to deliver a hand-written application letter. It says I look forward to getting their call. I forget to include my phone number.

Job 1: Garden center cashier

Where I’m from, the garden center is a common hangout for children and their parents on a boring, rainy Sunday. For about a year, I man the cash register and make friends along the way, writing notes on cash register paper, and spending what little money I make on the snacks by the exit. I eventually get promoted to assistant to the manager of Home Decor. At the time, I think it’s because of my creative disposition. Looking back, it’s probably because I’m too accomplished at getting rolls of bills stuck in the safety shute.

Job 2: Server

Quitting the garden center and quitting trade school happen around the same time. Like many other (neurodivergent) people (of color) in the Netherlands, I’m a stacker: graduating with the lowest degree, working my way up to where I need to be. I knew from the start of Orientation, but I last half a semester anyway.

Rather than sit at home, I figure I’ll do what my friends have done before me: make pretty good money working in the service industry. I find a place overlooking the town square that happily gives me a trial shift. I’m nervous, intimidated by the pace, overwhelmed by all those table numbers, and drop a dozen bottles of chocolate milk, making a total mess. It’s a disaster. My mother’s looking on from behind a tree nearby, crying. Through it, I inherit her fearful disposition, which will take years to shed.

Job 3: The newspaper shop / dry cleaner employee

Selling cigarettes and magazines two doors down from the cafe is quite fun. I get to drink chocolate milk without creating a mess, and my friends drop by every now and then during smoke breaks. I’ll never understand what type of person gets their dry-cleaning done where cigarettes are consumed. I’ll also never understand how my high school drop-out manager can enjoy taking her lunch break in the tiny, windowless back room. Soon after, I move to the next step on my academic ladder.

Job 4: Outlet retail worker

The GED program was supposed to be one year, but having failed three subjects, I take another year to meet the bare requirement: a passing grade in History. I have plenty of spare time to work at Bodum, one of the shops in our outlet shopping mall. I get really good at demonstrating their coffee machines, and have fun with coworkers analyzing the clientele. Somehow, I always feel like a failure for not seeing the appeal of that outlet mall and the old-fashioned storefronts that aren’t fooling anyone.

Job 5: Call center super star

My first experience in college is in an actual city, where I soon find employment at my friend’s father’s call center. I turn out to be disturbingly skilled, first at selling newspapers, and soon after at tricking the elderly into buying a subscription to a service “that will enter into all of the Internet’s sweepstakes” for them. I memorize the script so easily I make it to the end while reading a college textbook. My girlfriend at the time is appalled to notice that my voice has developed the cadence of a salesperson.

Job 6: Academic assistant

Flunking out of college means I, once again, have plenty of time on my hands. Luckily, I have applied to an academic assistant job at the school’s career center, where I get to manage its front desk and conduct aptitude and career tests. I like the job, for one because it’s my first experience working in an office with actual adults, and for two because it’s really good money. After about nine months, the department director discovers we’re over budget by 400%, and they let all the assistants go as a result.

Job 7: Postal worker

Luckily for me, PostNL is hiring. It’s the Dutch postal service, a mega corp struggling with productivity after failed mergers and privatization. Summer’s approaching, and I am hot. Cutbacks mean we’re allowed one 0,5L bottle of water on our route, and since I mostly deliver in my own neighborhood, I usually encounter a few friendly faces who refill my bottle. One day, after biking in the scorching heat for hours, I faint, landing in the bushes with a stack of mail in my hand. It’s all for a good cause, though, because that Autumn, after passing my adult entry exam with flying colors, I finally enroll in university.