"I Work!"

As the opening sentence of thousands of lousy high school social studies essays suggest, communities come in all sizes with their own unique norms and values. And as mediocre as that sentence is, it’s true. Each job community comes with its own unique norms and values, which are oftentimes deemed stupid and petty by the outside world.

I’ve waited tables at a few restaurants, answered phones at a mutual fund company in Boston’s financial district, sorted books as a librarian, wrote about music for a weekly newspaper and manned the counter at a record store. These days I put stuff in buckets at a not-for-profit in the music business.

My first job (not counting short-lived stints as a bad bagel sandwich maker/even worse barista at Chesapeake Bagel and a surly, khaki-pantsed hostess at Tippins Pie Pantry, both of Overland Park, Kansas, both now defunct) was at Waldo Pizza, a popular beer and pizza joint in Kansas City. I got the job when I was 17, and I worked there during high school, after high school, then during college, and then after college. I was there for years, as most of the employees are, which is usually unheard of in the restaurant business. I haven’t worked there in six years, aside from the three month stint I did to raise money for my New York move in the Fall of ’07, but, to this day, every anxiety dream is me at Waldo, waiting tables without shoes, being completely distracted by co-workers having sex on the make table as my section is suddenly slammed with smoke-shooting-out-their-ears mad customers, and, to make matters worse, I can’t ring orders into the POS because it’s turned into a super complex game of Frogger. Total nightmare!

As chilling as the dream is, waitressing wasn’t all that hard, aside from the stressful weekend rushes of too many unattended kids running at your feet. The money was bananas. To this day, I’ve yet to secure a job where I make that much money. And the flexible hours gelled perfectly with my party girl lifestyle of rock shows and hangovers.

The restaurant was not just my place of employ; it was my social life, my grocery store, my dating pool. It was kind of like Melrose Place, where everyone’s limited to humping and dumping their neighbors (or working at the hospital, Shooters, D&D Advertising or Mancini Designs, Jane’s bullshit fashion house. Are there no other jobs in LA?). But Instead of Melrosian high stakes dilemmas like who stole Jo’s baby, it was “WHICH ONE OF YOU FIRST-CUT ASSHOLES MADE LEMON WEDGES AND DIDN’T SLIT THEM!?!? HOW ELSE IN FUCK ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO STAY ON THE ICED TEA GLASS, YOU GODLESS CRETINS?!?!” You know, stuff that in any other environment (aside from a psych ward full of OCD-stricken acute schizophrenics) would be no big deal. Only in the service industry does cutting lemons with slits, folding silverware neatly into a paper napkin, or facing the beer cooler with the warm bottles in the back deem a person fuckable.

Not that this sort of pettiness isn’t seen in other job fields that are considered “more important.” Two years after college, I partied like I was still in college. My father was promoted, meaning he had to pack the family and move to New England. I hadn’t lived at home in six years, but he wanted me to go with them too.

“You’re idling, Megan. I’m afraid you’re only going to regress more and more if you stay here,” he said. I couldn’t disagree. I was too hung-over to argue with the guy. So, in summer of 2004 I left for Massachusetts.

I had no clue what to do with myself there. We were about 30 miles from Boston. They were building the commuter rail further south, with a stop slated right by my parents’ house, but that wasn’t supposed to be ready until 2006 (or in Boston Big Dig years, 2212). I had no car, no job prospects. I was living with my parents, relying on them for rides and money and a life. Remind me again how this wasn’t regressing?

Eventually I got a job through my dad’s connections, working as a phone rep at Pioneer Investments, a mutual fund company in Boston’s financial district. You would think with a dad as a big deal boss, I could’ve scored a position higher up on the corporate totem pole. Nope.

Working at Pioneer felt like being in high school again. I was a total misfit. It was not good for my already-depleting self-esteem. Nothing but a cubicle farm of yuppy fuckfaces who spoke in sports metaphors and office jargon (“eyes on the prize,” “touch base,” “golden parachute”), and boasted about shit like paying $150 to see Jimmy Buffett at Fenway (and they were younger than me!). My only solace was listening to the music of my youth during my long commutes on the T. Liz Phair got me through some pretty heady times. Thanks, girl. I almost forgive you for sucking later on in your career.

At Pioneer, business attire was mandatory for phone reps, which didn’t make sense to me, because, as my title suggests, it was a fucking phone job. I could’ve worn bunny slippers and pasties made out of bologna and our customers would’ve been none the wiser. One day, Komal, my team leader, a young, married (arranged, so I heard!) Indian woman with an 18” waistline and a broken spirit, took me aside to discuss my wardrobe (a foreshadowing of my future as a Glamour Don’t?)

“You wear a lot of bright colors,” she said. “Maybe you should tone it down a bit? You want to be known as Megan the Hard Worker, not Megan, the Girl Who Wears Loud Clothes, don’t you?”

Yes, Komal. You’re right. Please scrub away any residue of joy I may have had left by wearing yellow H&M sweaters with turquoise Marc Jacobs skirts. Dress me in muted grays and tweeds so that I can rightfully claim my title as Megan the Girl (not yet a woman!) Who Gives Customers Incorrect Price Share Quotes, Only Realizing so Immediately After She Gets Off the Phone With Them. Oh, the power and the glory!

I do not give a fuck about mutual funds, as my dour work attitude showed. I also don’t care to have small talk. Only in an office setting, is the answer “It’s Tuesday,” an appropriate reply to “How are you?” Tuesday is like the most arbitrary day of the week. How could I possibly know how you’re doing when you answer with that? Are Tuesdays stressful for you? Is it the one day a week your wife grants you the permission to screw her? Wait a second. I just remembered. I don’t give a shit! I only talked to you because we are cramped in the break room getting coffee at the same time! Quit replying to my simple questions with non-answers!

Although now I regard trips to Hingham as a respite from my busy New York life (peppered in with some occasional undermining and throw-away insults that can diminish months of therapy), I was anything but rested during my tenure as a worker bee in the financial district.

I turned 25 and I told them I was moving back to Kansas City, where I could feel like myself again, even if that meant being a rock ‘n’ roll-loving boozehound, which is what I am when I live there (and the only thing I know how to be when I visit). I even managed to make a career out of it.

Working at the Pitch, Kansas City’s leading alternative weekly as it says on my resume, was tits. My salary was puny, but so what, it’s Kansas City. Rent’s like $300. I got paid to snark about music I hated and slobber all over music I loved. So long as I got my work finished on deadline, I could come and go as I please. I could nap on my music editor’s couch if I was too hung-over from last night’s show. On Fridays we drank beer and had dance parties. I could wear whatever color I bloody well pleased. I had a tendency to write a little too cutesy, and I’m still trying to shy away from that, but I’m a published writer, dammit. I’ve got clips. I’m the first me who pops up when I Google my name. I matter!

I took all this clout of being a published writer with me to NYC when I moved here three years ago, and it did absolutely jack shit. The media bubble blistered and burst, and even if it hadn’t, there were a million other writers just like me, who had better adjectives for how a guitar sounds. I got a few gigs here and there writing on blogs for free, but, I’m a lazy writer who balked at the idea of not getting some form of payment for time spent. In fact, I am blowing my own mind right now that I’ve been able to write 1,400+ plus today. And it’s not even stuff I’ve had to make up! I’m just reiterating stuff that happened to me! But I’m sort of getting paid for it right now because I am doing it in the comfort of my current job. On my break, though, of course. I'm not a criminal.

These days I work in the music industry. When I tell this to hairstylists or dental assistants, or other strangers making small talk, they think it’s glamorous. “Who have you met?” they ask. When I told my therapist I couldn’t make my appointment because I was going to a three-day concert in Las Vegas she asked, “Are you going through your work?” If you mean, they supplied me with the pay check necessary to purchase the concert tickets and airfare, then the answer is yes!

I have friends here with much cooler music jobs, and I’ve met people I consider “famous” through them, but that doesn’t count. I am a cog. A cog in a very important machine, mind you, but a cog nonetheless. It’s an office environment like Pioneer, and people still answer my “how are you?” with “It’s Tuesday,” but I actually give a shit about what I do and who I serve. And, bonus, there’s no dress code. Today I am wearing mothergrabbing sweatpants because I’m PMSing (ack!) and I’m going to the gym after work. Don’t judge me!

My current job works for now. Mostly. At least I have one, right? But after this string of it’s-a-pay check almost-careers, I am ready for the dream job I deserve, which means the opportunity to partake in a little bit of arrested development at grad school come this fall.

I love school. I love the threat down of a deadline, and the chance to commandeer people’s attention while I go on and on about stupid shit that only I care about (like Melrose Place, por ejemplo). I want to make a job out of it. So, I’mma be a professor when I grow up, so I can wear whatever the shit I want, and if someone dares to answer “It’s Tuesday” to a “how are you?” I can shut them down in front of their peers instead of muttering to myself like some crazed lady. I can’t wait!