College for Idiots: Advice

I have had my fair share of attempted jobs. Actual jobs I have only had three total. Well, technically I have had five but two of them don’t count.

The thing is only one of the jobs I have had ended well and the other I currently still have so it is going just fine. The other job I quit. Why, because they were absolutely horrible. Some might say I was naïve, whatever. At least I can now spread my knowledge on to others.

1. Tutor. You should only be a tutor if you like children. If you don’t like children and hate math with a burning passion you should probably not tutor children, with learning disorders, in math. Also I was working at an Asian run tutoring firm through the recommendations of my friend who worked there that was also Asian. Apparently my boss did not understand why a white, Italian girl was working there but she needed help so she took me. However, things got a little confusing when she constantly spoke and gave directions in Korean.

I had officially been working there for three hours (one days work total) when I decided to quit. I got home that day and came to the conclusion that one I did not fit in there, two no child should learn math from me, three that it was sort of sketchy that I was not required to fill out tax forms, and four it was really really hard to teach an eight year old math (especially an eight year who screamed bitch at you every couple minutes). That was my first job. So far I was off to a good start.

2. Working in a mall food court at Auntie Anne’s Pretzels. For those of you who don’t know what Auntie Anne’s is it is a pretzel kiosk that appears in malls and the idea was created by an Amish woman. First things first, I liked this job a lot because I worked with nice people and so I stayed there for three years. However, this job had its issues. Do not work in a food court if you do not like people, really stupid people. Also do not work in a food court, in a kiosk, that is positioned next to a play pen. The children in the pen will scream because their parents have left them in there unsupervised even though the huge sign at the entrance says they cannot do that.

The worst part is if the food court happens to have amazing acoustics and there is a play pen with screaming children you may murder someone. Why, because you won’t be able to taking the echoing, screaming children and you will at several points during the day want to kill them. Oh, and even though the customer is supposedly always right they aren’t. Ninety-nine percent of the time they are wrong, very very wrong. For example: Customer: “You burnt my pretzel” Me: “No those are raisins, you ordered a raisin pretzel.” Customer: “Screw you!”

3. Nanny. Okay so maybe being a nanny isn’t really a bad job. However, the people I worked for made it a bad job. One: do not work for people who think their child is allergic to everything. That is right they think he is allergic they don’t have any actual medical proof that he is, but either way you have to walk around with a briefcase filled with Epi-pens. Never ever work for someone who’s seven year old can not wipe his own ass.

Do not work for someone is richer than Donald Trump but never pays you and won’t pay you the correct amount. Yet for some reason they give each of their children $100 in cash to spend everyday. Do not work for someone who forces you to walk their dog even though the dog has bitten you several times. Do not work for someone who sleeps in the same bed as their seven year old child and not their husband.

4. Waitress. Being a waitress is not at all a bad job if you work at a reputable place that makes money. If you never have to fill out tax forms than you are not technically working for anybody. This means if you get injured on the job than you won’t get workers comp. and you can under no circumstances sue your boss, because well there is no legal proof that you worked there. If your place of employment writes your personal checks for twenty-seven dollars and those checks bounce. If the water and air are shut off because your boss ‘forgot’ to pay them.

If you are forced to work past when the kitchen closes because the bartender doesn’t want to put ice in people’s drinks even though you are under 21 and should not be serving alcohol. Also it was apparently too hard for the bartender to turn the televisions off at night because he was one: too wasted or two: to hopped up on cocaine to do so and he wanted you around so he could stare at something attractive. These are all signs of a bad work environment.