Odd Jobs

I've had several.

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Like some people living with bipolar disorder, I’ve had trouble holding down jobs. And I had some odd jobs before I went back to school full-time. Let’s take a look:

• Door-to-Door Greeting Card Salesgirl: I was eleven years old and asked for a weekly allowance. Instead, my mother found this program in which kids could earn money selling greeting cards. I knocked on door after door in my neighborhood, but it was summer so no holidays were coming up. I had maybe one order, and I think it was because they felt sorry for me. The rejections didn’t help my self-esteem, although maybe it made my skin thicker regarding literary magazine rejections.

• Telemarketer: at fifteen, this was the first job for which I received an actual paycheck. I worked in a room full of tables with telephones on them at maybe two-foot intervals. We had paper leads to call, obtained by people filling out an “entry form” to win a prize. It was my job to make an appointment for them to claim it, without telling them they had to sit through a timeshare condo presentation first. The work itself sucked, but the job was fun because some of my friends worked there too. There were shenanigans.

• McDonald’s Cashier: my senior year of high school. I loved working the drive-through because my friends would swing by and give me bottles of Miller Genuine Draft that I secretly drank on shift. I left because I went off to college.

• Video Store Clerk: I was twenty years old and had just moved back home after my first year at university, because of depression. It was probably the easiest job I ever had. All I had to do was check customers out and my favorite—reshelving videos people had returned. I quit because I wanted something more glamorous.

• Go-Go Dancer at a gay club: I was twenty. The manager gave me a big, blond bouffant wig to wear over my shortish, curly black hair. I wore tight dresses by Betsey Johnson and my black ten-hole Doc Martens. My job was to dance on the bar top. I was fired, but the manager and I had no idea why. He thought it was because I got caught doing drugs in the bathroom. I don’t recall ever getting caught, but maybe it was because I was underage.

• Go-Go Dancer, Cocktail Waitress, and Coat-Check Girl at a punk bar: once I turned twenty-one, I worked in a club where there was a mosh pit with a chainsaw hanging over it instead of a disco ball. I wore lots of black, like a fringed bra top, hot pants, fishnets, and my trusty Docs. I danced in a cage on Wednesdays, which were Bondage A Go-Go Nights—chain yourself to the bar, drink free. I cocktailed on the other nights and in the winter I worked in the coat check booth. Most of the coats I checked were leather biker jackets with the bar’s skull-and-crossbones logo on the back. I still have mine.

• Veterinary Assistant: When I decided to go back to school in my mid-twenties, I thought working at an animal hospital would be a good experience to have for applying to veterinary school. I restrained animals for the veterinarian to examine them and/or perform medical procedures. I wanted to be a vet, never mind that I wasn’t good at science and math. I realized this and changed my major to English because at least I could read.

• Emergency Veterinary Assistant: The job that made me realize I didn’t want to be a veterinarian after all. They were open when the regular vets closed, so this was a nighttime job and I could go to class during the day. I saw many animals needlessly hurt because they were hit by cars (HBCs): dogs off-leash and cats who lived indoors and outdoors. It triggered my depression so I quit.

After that, I was a teaching assistant in grad school and an adjunct instructor of English—what I considered real jobs because I aimed to be a professor until my life fell apart.

Except for the punk bar and teaching, I lasted only a few months at these jobs. The one I hated most was selling greeting cards because it was humiliating. The one I regretted was working at the emergency vet because it made me sad. My favorite job was at the punk bar because it was fun, maybe because I drank and used a lot. After I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I quit.