Employed

As is the case with many women, my first job was babysitting. I was twelve and I babysat three kids under the age of five — one of them an actual baby — for $10 an hour. I have vague memories of changing the baby’s diaper.

In high school, I worked at a daycare/summer camp called F.A.S.T. (Fun After Swim & Tennis) at the neighborhood pool. Standout moments include spraying ants with Windex and making friendship bracelets alone.

My freshman year of college, I was a hostess for two weeks at a local restaurant. I made $7.25 an hour (under the table) and they were very shady in their money dealings. We got one free meal per shift and I was a vegetarian, so I got the veggie pasta. It was made with chicken broth.

My sophomore year, my parents asked me to apply to be an RA to save money on room and board. I wanted to help out, so I applied, but with absolutely no expectation of getting the job. I got the job. I got the job every year, three years in a row. I kept thinking they might not want me to come back, but they did. My beginning of the year speech to my residents went something like this:

“Hey guys! Um, I don’t really care what you do — just don’t hurt yourselves or each other. Like, if you wanna drink or whatever, be smart about it — don’t run down the hall with a wine bottle like an idiot, ok? Cause if I see you and I don’t say anything, then I could get fired and if I get fired, I’ll lose my house. Cause, like, my dorm room is my house.”

I just needed to make them feel guilty enough about my possible homelessness for them to behave. I had to put on these Drug and Alcohol Awareness nights, so I’d gather a bunch of my residents in one of the lounges and we’d watch The OC. I’d pause the episode at one point and be like, “See how drunk Marissa got in TJ, and like, what would’ve happened if Ryan hadn’t saved her? Don’t do that.”

Being an RA covered room and board, but I didn’t get paid any actual money, so I was broke all the time. To remedy this, I got a job at Starbucks and started the morning after my 21st birthday, which in retrospect, was a poor decision. I was just so excited to make money, even though I only made $7.25 an hour and opened the shop at 4:30am. I remember mornings where I’d actually cry because I was so fucking tired. I had also stopped drinking caffeine a year earlier, so I couldn’t even enjoy the free coffee.

The day I graduated college, my parents asked me where I was going to work. I had studied opera and never ONCE during my conservatory training had it been mentioned to me that I’d need to get a job. Since I’d worked as an RA all throughout college, I didn’t have any other work experience except that stint at Starbucks.

So then obviously I got a job at Peet’s Coffee near my parents house. I worked there for three weeks and ended up spending all the money I made on a speeding ticket I got one day on my way home from work. My one takeaway from that job was learning the term BGD. If a guest is being an asshole upon ordering, then the cashier shouts BGD to the barista making their drink. BGD = Bitch Gets Decaf.

I left that job to work at a local gym — I honestly don’t know why I did that. I don’t even go to the gym and it was so fucking boring.

Then, I weirdly lived in the desert for six months and worked at the front desk of this five-star resort where I was forced to wear nylon stockings and a khaki weather girl skirt suit in a climate that averaged 100 degrees daily. I got the job through a family friend because when I tried to apply on my own, I failed the personality test. I had never taken one of those before and I didn’t know how you were supposed to answer questions like, “I sometimes hate everyone.” So, I answered them all to make me sound incredibly kind, agreeable, and punctual, which flagged me as a potential serial killer.

I worked a series of hotel jobs — including a day spa inside a hotel — until I couldn’t do it anymore. Too many rules, not enough holidays. You can only wear opaque nail polish, no dangly earrings — I’m too strong-willed for that shit.

At twenty-four, I got my first office job. I worked as a PR and administrative assistant for this start-up in San Francisco. This is the only job to date — besides the RA thing — that I’ve held for an extended period of time. I worked there for a total of three years.

I actually really liked the PR writing assignments — especially editing other people’s shitty press releases — but I needed a job that would get me out the door on time for rehearsal, so I became the office manager. Looking back on it now, it’s like when you’re watching a horror film and you see the protagonist go into that abandoned building where the murderer is waiting for them.

If you’re unfamiliar, being an office manager is like being the office mom. You’re constantly running back and forth to answer the phone, deal with plumbing emergencies (often caused by someone flushing too much toilet paper or even paper towels down the toilet), field complaints about the “seeds” on the sandwich bread, empty overflowing trash cans, manage the temperature of the room, and dig food scraps out of the kitchen sink. It’s just a monotonous flow of dumb shit that makes you want to set yourself on fire.

In my third year with the company, I was now living in NY and decided there was more to life than ordering staples — I wanted to become a yoga teacher. I got a half-tuition scholarship to this one teacher training program by agreeing to a work-study position — I swept the floor, took attendance, collected homework, etc.

(It’s important to note that before my teacher training program began, I got a job at a sushi place and worked there for one week. I was so desperate to leave that I didn’t even ask for pay. I told them that the one free meal I’d gotten was so delicious that we were even.)

Before graduating the yoga certification program, I got a part-time job working in the teacher training department at that same studio. I did admin work and it was relatively chill. At the same time, I also worked at a 1950s dress shop in the neighborhood. I’d work 9am-3pm at the yoga studio, then change into a 50s dress, throw on some red lipstick, and run to go work at the shop 4–9pm. I should’ve been more tired, but I honestly had so much fun with the girls at the dress shop that I didn’t care.

There was drama at both the yoga studio and the dress shop, incidentally, so I left both jobs in time. I worked at a prenatal yoga studio for two weeks and then had to quit to go work full-time as the assistant manager at this big, fancy yoga studio on the Upper East Side.

That job was a hot mess. I’m a good manager and I loved the people I worked with, but there was a gas leak in the studio that lasted for nearly a month. It sprung at a time when all the other managers were on vacation. It seemed like every other day I was evacuating the building and calling the fire department/gas company to come check things out. Once they arrived, the men would laugh at me, saying I was crazy and there was no gas — despite the fact that my employees had headaches, I felt hella nauseous, and the members were all concerned for their well-being.

I escaped the studio and started another office manager job, which I left a year later to move back to California. I announced to my family and friends I would never be an office manager ever again. All I wanted to do was teach yoga and work at a record store.

When I moved to LA, I accomplished both these goals. I spent a blissful summer working at my favorite record store and teaching yoga until I realized I was thirty and broke from working a minimum wage job and not teaching enough yoga classes. I had to quit and become an office manager once again. I cried the night before I started the job.

This one was like a combo of the previous office manager jobs plus the gas leak yoga studio one. There was the normal bullshit regarding food requests and office temperature, but the speciality of this specific building was its tendency to have sewage explosions. I kid you not, the sewer system exploded — more than once. Sewage flooded out of the bathroom, onto the kitchen floor, and under the fridge. There I was, once again, evacuating the building, protecting everyone from the fumes.

After a little over a year, I finally quit that job and made a pact with myself to never ever be an office manager again— for reals, this time. My current state of affairs includes a whole lot of yoga teaching jobs and a few other side hustles. I love teaching yoga although, as you can imagine, it’s not easy to make a living doing it. The irony of all of this is that I’m actually a musician and all these jobs are only meant to support that career.

I used to think that there was something wrong with me for hating all my jobs. Having been out of college for ten years now, I finally get it — my favorite thing to do is make music, so all these other jobs are kinda chopped liver in comparison. At least I’m more conscious now of spending my time in a way that’s not fucking miserable. It’s totally possible to do a job you like and make decent money at it- you just have to believe that’s an actual possibility for you and put in a little more effort to find it. And if you do have a job that sucks, at least it’ll make for a great story later on.