Reflections

For the past few hours, I've been working on a school paper (ha! fooled you! You thought that since I was done with one degree that I wouldn't be taking any more classes!). The paper is a little "getting to know Erin" paper and they've asked me to talk about three good and/or bad supervisors I've had that have helped me be the worker I am today. When I reached that question, I giggled, filled up my sake cup, and started typing away.

I started working around 12 and since I was about 16, I've continuously held at least two jobs at any given time. That has given me a lot of different work adventures and a lot of different managers. I had to come up non-identifying names for folks, which just added to the fun. One was "Matt," the cocaine-addict who bought a restaurant on a whim and coerced his employees to come to his church or lose their jobs. His wife would sleep with each new chef as soon as Matt fired the previous one.  I navigated him and his crazy wife, managing to somehow get promoted to assistant manager. I blame this on his cocaine use. Adventures.

There was also "James" the owner of the liquor store. I loved working there, but eventually had to leave because it was only part-time. He was a great boss and had awesome parties...except most everyone would end up pregnant afterwards. And there was time I found a freaky big dead spider in a wine glass on the shelf. And I learned how to spot a fake ID like no body's business. And the adventures I had with my cow-orkers are typical of what you'd expect from a girl in her early 20's working in a liquor store with others like her.

And let us not forget "Sally" who ran a chocolate shop and was married to a politician. She told me in all honesty one day that she'd only had children to help her husband run for some political thing. And I thought my deliberatly having two cats at once was awfully coniving. 

All in all, I've had a boatload of bosses and all of them (and all my many, many cow-orkers) have such interesting stories and views of life, that I guess I've taken them all in a bit. It's been kind of fun to trace back through these tonight and it makes me realize how many folks I've lost touch with...since I began working way before the internet was really common, and so much earlier than Facebook was around. I hope all my old cow-orkers and bosses (good and bad) are having adventures in their own weird little ways and that I'll run into them again at some point. Who knows? The world is a small place and weird folks always seem to run into other weirdos. It also means I have a lot of interesting stories to go!

An Erinku:

I want to make curry

It weighs on me:

how bad of a cook

I am.