waitingman (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
waitingman) wrote2018-03-20 10:12 pm
waitingman) wrote2018-03-20 10:12 pm
Entry tags:
On The Job
Listening to the radio while driving around town today & the afternoons host posed the question "What was the job that taught you the most?" It may not have been one that has anything to do with what you do today, but which job do you look back on & think 'I learned a lot during that time'...
I didn't get to hear what any callers answered with, as I had to go & do my current job for half an hour, but the question stayed with me for the rest of the day & I wondered which one of my (too) many past jobs was that one for me
I think it was when I was Assistant Manager at a large music store between 1988-1990. I started as just a Sales Assistant, but through circumstances & a little attrition, the 2IC role was mine within a couple of months... ready or not. I could certainly handle the nuts & bolts of the role - ordering & processing stock, cash handling & balancing, rosters... But I don't think I was prepared for the personal politics, pecking order power plays, questionable morals & morality & bitchiness, all mixed up in a hotbed of teenage & early 20s sex & drugs & rock'n'roll. And there were only about 10 of us!! I learned to deal with personality clashes, drug & alcohol hangover 'sick days' (NOT mine!!), petty theft, jealousy, power games &, memorably, a sexual harassment complaint. As well as my first (& only) workplace relationship, from start to finish. I definitely left that role a different person than when I started. Certainly it burned away a lot of lingering adolescent attitudes & naiveté
And you, dear Reader?
I didn't get to hear what any callers answered with, as I had to go & do my current job for half an hour, but the question stayed with me for the rest of the day & I wondered which one of my (too) many past jobs was that one for me
I think it was when I was Assistant Manager at a large music store between 1988-1990. I started as just a Sales Assistant, but through circumstances & a little attrition, the 2IC role was mine within a couple of months... ready or not. I could certainly handle the nuts & bolts of the role - ordering & processing stock, cash handling & balancing, rosters... But I don't think I was prepared for the personal politics, pecking order power plays, questionable morals & morality & bitchiness, all mixed up in a hotbed of teenage & early 20s sex & drugs & rock'n'roll. And there were only about 10 of us!! I learned to deal with personality clashes, drug & alcohol hangover 'sick days' (NOT mine!!), petty theft, jealousy, power games &, memorably, a sexual harassment complaint. As well as my first (& only) workplace relationship, from start to finish. I definitely left that role a different person than when I started. Certainly it burned away a lot of lingering adolescent attitudes & naiveté
And you, dear Reader?