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The shit job. The high school job. The first job. Maybe it was the very worst job you ever had. Remember that ... or do you even want to?

A long time ago, I was on another discussion site, and people started talking about their shit jobs, and it was a riot. There was lots of virtual hysterical laughter and "Wow, I can't believe I got paid for doing that!" Shit jobs are often boring, but sometimes entertaining ... or downright weird. I love hearing about the jobs that people have taken in their formative years, and even in their in-between years when they're waiting for something better to come along. Isn't it amazing, some of the things we do to make our car payment? Gotta love it.

My first shit job was when I was in high school. During the summer of my fifteenth year, I worked every day from eight to five at a hospital. My title was that of "clerk," but what it really meant was that for eight hours, I pushed a squeaky cart from one station to another delivering inner-hospital mail and transporting suspiciously warm and sometimes leaky bags from the O.R. to the pathology lab. There was the resident creepy older married guy who made lunchtime big creepy fun by sitting down next to me and talking about how much he hated being married. Nice and creepy, wasn't it?

My second shit job was waitressing at a mom & pop restaurant, Smitty's. This entailed wearing a red plaid shirt with my name stitched over the pocket designed to give waitstaff that "fresh off the farm" appeal and which contrasted wildly with my spiky goth girl haircut. Excitement of the week was getting stuck with the Curmudgeon Couple who almost always walked the tab because their food was too overcooked, too tardy, or too something. At Smitty's, if someone walked the tab, it came out of your tip. So thanks, assholes. The only perk to working at Smitty's was an older guy named Roger who somehow managed to make red plaid look hunkadorable. We made out at one of the town's last drive-in theatres, and it was oh so sigh ...

Shit job number three fell on the tail of my tenure at Smitty's, and it was at a local steakhouse. Polyester uniforms that had absorbed smoke and other people's perspiration were passed down amongst an ever-rotating cast. I remember the night I quit; some fellow workers were shoveling the stuff from the salad bar back into big containers with their bare hands. This was common procedure. No one ever died from eating there (that I know of), but I wasn't going to chance it, and I wasn't going home with potato salad under my nails. Mmm ... 'bye!

There was a spackling of other shit jobs in college that don't merit mentioning because they were too brief or too boring, copy clerk, mail room clerk, receptionist for an eyewear store managed by a pig of a boss who tried to "convert" all of us to the Baptist religion. No, seriously, that shit flew. And that's what you get for minimum wage -- superiors wearing their tin crowns for whom exercising authority over minions is the highlight of their existence.

The shit job. You often wonder, "What purpose did this serve other than to get a check?" You don't know the value of holding the shit job until you go out into the real world. When you're in your teens, your world consists of parents, peers and teachers; it's insular. But the shit job is your training for dealing with the rest of society at large. You find out that there are all sorts of personalities out there, and that it's a mixed bag. Couples who are fried by a long workweek and child-chasing will graciously thank you for bringing them their chicken-fried steak on a Friday night, while others, like the Curmudgeon Couple, with their innate sense of entitlement, will walk the tab at the first perceived slight. There will be some bosses that appreciate that you're out there with the porta-vac keeping the buffet area clear of cracker crumbs, and others will peer down their nose and point to the one crumb you missed. Having a shit job teaches you how to recognize and appreciate those of good character -- and to acquire it yourself.

Having a shit job teaches you, too, that no matter how far you move up the ladder, you still deal with the same crap. Sure, you might have a more impressive title and do more impressive things, but there's always going to be the tin crown boss and the petty, annoying co-workers and the clients that are never happy no matter how hard you bust ass. Life after high school is still just like high school in many ways. You learn to deal.

Having a shit job makes you appreciate the small tasks that others around you perform. I tell you, once you've worked in the food service industry, you understand how hard it is to be on your feet for six hours at a time. You understand that it's not the fault of the server that the steak came out medium rather than rare, or that it came out really late because the kitchen is understaffed. You understand why it's so important not to walk the tab, why it's so important to give a good tip. Having someone bring you your food as though you're distinguished royalty is a fucking luxury, not a right, but not many people really get this.

People who've never had a shit job have a very different outlook. Ex Part Deux never held a shit job in his life, never delivered pizza, assembled crappy-tasting burritos, or stood by a copy machine. He was smug in the fact that he went into his field at the top level, and anyone who couldn't do that was a loser. He couldn't understand why anyone would accept a check for doing one micron less than exactly what they wanted to do. I saw this attitude manifest itself in disrespectful ways, at restaurant servers and department store clerks, directed at people -- mostly young people -- whose shit job it was to make our lives just a little bit easier or nicer. That he couldn't comprehend that you don't always get to do what you want is precisely why we're no longer married.

(And I'm telling you, honey, until you've made out with a sexy someone in Smitty's freezer where all the pina colada mix lives, you haven't really lived.)

I respect the entry-level worker like no one's business, because I know how hard it is starting out -- doing things that you normally wouldn't choose to do, but you need to make money somehow. The CEO of a big company, that plastic surgeon who gives Botox injections, the successful rep that makes a killing selling overpriced pharmaceuticals -- these people are not going to affect my life directly. It's the guys who empty my trash bin each week, the stock clerks who put food out on the shelf, the barista who makes my iced latte just the way I like it (and who remembers my name), the minimum-wage nurse's aides who took care of my dad in his final days ... those are the people I appreciate.

So all you people who've had "shit" jobs? I salute you!

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Okay, 'fess up: What was your first job? Was it a "shit" job? Ever have to do something that you never thought you'd do just to earn a living? How do you show respect to the "little" guys who make your world just a little nicer by taking on the shit job?

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