This week, Raymond Pert assigned Inland Empire Girl and myself to write about our first job and anything interesting that happened. Here is my essay:
When I was in junior high and high school, the Kellogg School District didn’t have the budgetary problems it does now. Partly because it received quite a bit of revenue from the Bunker Hill Mining Company.
And each summer the school district was able to hire high school students to help with the cleaning and maintenance of the schools during the summer.
The summer after my freshman year in junior high, I was too young to work on the cleaning crew, but I was old enough to work for Merv Hill, the KSD Business Manager.
He hired me to help during the summer. It was my first real job. I did a variety of jobs. Some days I would make copies. Some days I would use the “ditto machine”. If a shipment of new text books arrived, it was my job to unpack the boxes, stamp them with the KSD stamp, and numbered them so students could use them during the upcoming school year.
I also fixed books. If there were text books that needed repair, I learned how to squirt Elmer’s Glue down the spine of the book so they could be glued back together and used another year.
Another job was going through the “dead files”. These were files of students no longer enrolled in the Kellogg School District. They kept them for a certain number of years. If it had been past that deadline, I needed to take that file out and throw it away. It was interesting going through those files and seeing if I remembered anyone from my days at Sunnyside Elementary or Kellogg Junior High.
I often worked in the back warehouse, which was located in the back part of the School District Office.
I really enjoyed the work. It was easy, deliberate work that you really didn’t have to think about much, but you knew you were getting done. I remember Merv telling me that if I kept working so hard, I would work myself out of a job.
I liked working by myself. It was thinking time. And it was the perfect first job. It was just for the summer. The next summer I worked for Merv again, and the summer after my junior year I was hired on to help with the cleaning crew, and helped clean Kellogg High School.
I returned to this job after my first year at college. This time I was too old to work for the school district. So I got to work for Merv again.
My first job was great. Not a lot of funny or disturbing stories, because I was working by myself most of the time. I just remember it as a great first job.
When I was in junior high and high school, the Kellogg School District didn’t have the budgetary problems it does now. Partly because it received quite a bit of revenue from the Bunker Hill Mining Company.
And each summer the school district was able to hire high school students to help with the cleaning and maintenance of the schools during the summer.
The summer after my freshman year in junior high, I was too young to work on the cleaning crew, but I was old enough to work for Merv Hill, the KSD Business Manager.
He hired me to help during the summer. It was my first real job. I did a variety of jobs. Some days I would make copies. Some days I would use the “ditto machine”. If a shipment of new text books arrived, it was my job to unpack the boxes, stamp them with the KSD stamp, and numbered them so students could use them during the upcoming school year.
I also fixed books. If there were text books that needed repair, I learned how to squirt Elmer’s Glue down the spine of the book so they could be glued back together and used another year.
Another job was going through the “dead files”. These were files of students no longer enrolled in the Kellogg School District. They kept them for a certain number of years. If it had been past that deadline, I needed to take that file out and throw it away. It was interesting going through those files and seeing if I remembered anyone from my days at Sunnyside Elementary or Kellogg Junior High.
I often worked in the back warehouse, which was located in the back part of the School District Office.
I really enjoyed the work. It was easy, deliberate work that you really didn’t have to think about much, but you knew you were getting done. I remember Merv telling me that if I kept working so hard, I would work myself out of a job.
I liked working by myself. It was thinking time. And it was the perfect first job. It was just for the summer. The next summer I worked for Merv again, and the summer after my junior year I was hired on to help with the cleaning crew, and helped clean Kellogg High School.
I returned to this job after my first year at college. This time I was too old to work for the school district. So I got to work for Merv again.
My first job was great. Not a lot of funny or disturbing stories, because I was working by myself most of the time. I just remember it as a great first job.
1 comment:
During those weeks when we are "in the barrel" I yearn for your first job. Working alone, having think time, glueing books, filing. It sounds like heaven!
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