I’ve lived too long to not believe that things happen for reasons.
Your alarm didn’t go off? Maybe being late prevented you from being in a car wreck. Didn’t get the job promotion? Maybe you would have been more miserable in your new position than you were in your current role. Lost your wallet? Maybe you needed your faith in humanity restored once it was returned.
We live in a world of choices, and we never know if we’ve made the right one until later in the game.
What’s this have to do with the worst job I’ve ever had?
Well, that’s the rationale I used to help me get through that time of my life. That there must have been a reason I was there, I just hadn’t realized it yet.
And I think there was.
A bit of backstory to start:
I met my wife online. I lived in Kentucky, and she was in Florida. We were in the same World of Warcraft guild and started hitting it off. We were both in our 40s and, after some months of talking, decided to meet. She flew up and we got along great. Later that year, I drove down to surprise her for her birthday. Afterward, we started talking about taking things to the next level and we then decided that I would quit my job and move down to be with her. She and her sister ran an adult arcade which isn’t as racy as it sounds. It’s a place where older people went to play slots and such for gift cards, etc. Anyway, we decided I would work there while I looked for a real job.
No, that wasn’t the “worst job I’ve ever had”. It was a lot of fun. We had regulars who came in every day and played. Most, if not all of them, were people in their 60s-80s and some of the nicest people you’ve ever met. I would love to sit and talk with (most of) them as they all had such great stories. The work was easy, and I could go in when I wanted and work for however long I wanted. It was great, but it also made me lazy. I kept putting off looking for a “real job” because we figured the arcade would go on, not forever, but for quite a while.
It didn’t.
Our Lt. Governor got caught in some sort of scandal involving the arcades and overnight, they shut them all down. Thousands were out of work because our Governor was trying to save his political bacon. Go figure.
I had been at the arcade for about two years and had zero prospects in the job market.
Thankfully, my wife (we had gotten married a year after I moved down) was an Army veteran which helped her land a good job with the county. I put in a metric ton of applications and got crickets. In Kentucky, I had worked for ten years at Fidelity Investments in their banking division. Sadly, that experience didn’t count for much down here. I applied at banks, investment firms, and even the Fidelity branch down here with zero results.
My midwestern sensibilities made me feel guilty for not working and I was a little embarrassed that at my age I was floundering (at least in my mind) and it was all my fault. Even when my wife (God bless her) suggested that I just concentrate on writing and we would get by, I couldn’t do it. I had to work.
It seemed that no one, at the time, was hiring for full-time work. Finally, it got to the point where I was willing to apply for and accept even part-time work which I finally found at our local Publix grocery store.
Now, for the “worst job I’ve ever had” portion of the story.
First, let me preface this by saying that Publix is an awesome company for a grocery store. But it’s still a grocery store. They do hire great people who are hard workers and believe in giving the best customer service out there. It’s not just corporate propaganda, it’s the absolute truth. I say this not only as someone who worked there but as someone who still shops there to this day.
As a 40-something-year-old man who had marketable skills in the workforce, though, it wasn’t so great. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never thought I was above doing any sort of work. One summer, I dug ditches. At Fidelity, I started down in the shipping department and worked my way up to a cushy (not really, but it was better than shipping) banking job. Stocking produce for eight hours a day just wasn’t my idea of career advancement, though.
It’s not like anyone was ‘mean’ to me or anything, as I said the people were great, and I wasn’t even the oldest guy working there. Most of the other guys in the department were older than I was, but they were full-timers. The only part-timers were me and the younger guys. Unfortunately, I had been hired right after Publix stopped bringing on people full-time. It had become something you had to work your way up to. O.k., no problem. I had done it before and could do it again. Or so I thought.
One of the main issues for me was benefits. I had none and, as I got older, began to realize how important they were. At Publix, you could get benefits as a part-timer IF you worked a certain number of hours the previous year. I don’t remember the number (300 maybe?), but it wasn’t helping me as someone just getting hired. Another was scheduling. Anyone who has worked a retail job knows what I’m talking about. Nights, weekends, holidays, you could wind up on any of them with only about a week’s notice. It was tolerable but still depressing. I worked every weekend for five months straight until I asked if I could have one off. And, finally, it was just hard labor. I considered myself in decent shape but was still sore every night for three months straight after getting hired. On the bright side, being on your feet for eight hours a day really helps keep the weight off. I lost about twenty pounds. I’ll admit, there was a little bit of embarrassment there too. Working at a grocery store in my 40s just wasn’t where I had pictured myself in my life journey, but we do what we have to for our families.
Had Publix given me full-time at any point, I would have taken it and probably still be there today, but they didn’t. Management would dangle it in front of me a few times because they knew I was a hard worker and wanted to keep me, but something always came up where they couldn’t give it to me. This brings me back to the original point that I believe things happen for reasons. Maybe I was there to touch someone’s life. I know a lot of those people touched mine in very positive ways. Maybe I just needed perspective or a lesson in making better choices. Life lessons can be hard. I used that as consolation and told myself that better things were on the horizon, and I was right.
I wasn’t happy and kept looking for other work. Eventually, I found a job with the city in the billing department which led to me being hired by the largest utility company in the state when they purchased the city’s electric company.
I still shop at Publix, and we moved right across the street from the store I used to work at. A lot of the same people are still there, and I always have fun chatting with them when we make a trip over. As I said, they’re some great people, and one of the things that helped make working there tolerable.
When I’m going through a rough patch or having a bad day at work, I always look back on those times and feel so grateful that I’m not stuck there anymore. I’m also proud of myself for not giving up and finding a job that suited me. It helps more than I would have imagined. I think we all become complacent at times and need something to shake us up and make us realize we should be thankful for more things than we realize.
They say that “tough times make strong men” and, while I’m still no Hercules, those times helped strengthen my soul more than I probably know.
What was the worst job you’ve ever had and how did it affect you?
Until next time—
Good and thoughtful post, Mark. This is a difficult question for me to answer for a couple of reasons. One is that I've basically worked for the same employer for almost 31 years, always in an Information Technology position of some kind. The different roles that I've held within that company have been variations on the same kind of work: application support, project work, analysis and testing. There have been periods when the work was very challenging, for a lot of different reasons, but they were always valuable.
I will say that a job that I didn't like much at the time, but saw value in later on, was working as a carpenter's assistant one summer (I was helping some family members finish up a move of a house to a nearby location, then the work to finish it - lots of manual labor.) I was not a fan of being outdoors and doing manual labor but I realize now that working with my hands, arms and legs did teach me some practical skills and it was better than sitting around all summer.
Great post, Mark!
My worst job was as a temporary call centre operative in my university long vac. The task I had to do was to call up random people and ask them to take a telephone survey for an insurance company. Man, the thick skin you need for that job... I don’t know how ANYONE did it. I left in tears halfway through my first - and only - day. The things people called me on those calls were the stuff of nightmares!
Sad to say I never did grow a thicker skin!