Excerpt From Adventures in Working (a work in progress)

When I was seventeen, I got the bright idea to get a job.

A new discount department store had opened in the city where I went to high school. Although I had never worked before, I figured I could get a job doing something there. I planned to save money, buy a car, and get my ex-boyfriend back.

He liked cars.

Unfortunately, things didn’t work out as planned.

For one thing, being a student, I most likely would have had to work evenings. And, oh yeah, I didn’t have a driver’s license. And the buses stopped traveling through our small town after 6 p.m. Even if I had been hired and was able to find transportation to and from work, I never would have been able to save enough money to buy a car.

And my boyfriend wouldn’t be coming back, either. He already was back with the girl he had been dating since what seemed like the beginning of time. She had a job—and a car.

So I forgot about going to work until I was twenty.

Temp Job Trumped the Permanent One

Way back in the last century, I worked at a bookkeeping service that no longer exists. (Come to think of it, a lot of places where I formerly worked no longer exist. But I digress.) Among other things, I processed payrolls, payroll tax returns, and monthly profit and loss write-ups for small businesses.

 I liked the work, and I liked my co-workers. I also liked the majority of our clients. Most of them were sole proprietors who provided some type of service. The clients generally were pleasant, unpretentious individuals.


However, there were a couple things I did not like. To begin with, the owner’s good friend had developed the bookkeeping program we used. QuickBooks it wasn’t—not even close. As far as I could determine, no other business in the universe used the John Doe bookkeeping software. There was no point in listing it on a resume. It was not a transferrable skill.


Fortunately, the single-entry software was fairly easy to learn. I understood it by the third day on the job. Unfortunately, I never understood some of the clients. As nice as they were, too many of them were often frustrating to work with. Why? Well, I really, really would have liked to complete their write-ups in one day, but I generally couldn’t. Why not? They consistently failed to send us Something Very Important at the beginning of the month.


All too often, the other bookkeeper and I would start processing an account only to discover that the client had forgotten to include his or her sales figures, bank statement, or payroll information. We would do what we could using the available records; then that account would be exiled to the Missing Records Table where it generally vegetated for days. Or sometimes weeks.


If we were lucky, the client would bring us whatever we needed within a reasonable length of time, say five or six days. If the item was about three weeks overdue, the office manager would go out and attempt to snag it for us. That usually worked. However, there were a few times when the client surrendered the missing record just before we were due to get next month’s work.


I suspected that few, if any, of our clients had ever taken a class in bookkeeping or accounting. I often wondered how some of them stayed in business. I decided that they were probably great at providing services to their customers. However, I was fairly certain that, in the long run, their great customer service skills wouldn’t compensate for their lack of knowledge about good accounting practices.


After eighteen months, I decided it was time to move on. I wanted to find a job where I could finish the majority of my projects on the day I started them. And I needed to get experience in using software applications that I could list on a resume.


So I left the bookkeeping service and registered with several temp agencies. Within a week, I landed my first assignment: a short-term job at a company that published craft books and craft instruction pamphlets.


The woman at the temp agency seemed rather vague about what I would be doing. When I pleasantly demanded details, she mumbled that she thought I would be “doing something with accounts receivable invoices.” That seemed like a good opportunity. I had over ten years experience in the accounts payable area, but my experience with receivables was next to nothing.


As it turned out, the job had nothing to do with accounts receivable or any other form of accounting. Upon checking in with the supervisor, I was escorted to the warehouse, handed a pile of packing slips, and directed toward what seemed like an endless number of shelves stuffed with craft publications.


Well, that was a surprise and not exactly a pleasant one. But I decided to be a good sport. After all, I wanted more assignments, hopefully ones that involved an office environment.


I worked at the publishing company for a week and a half. Assembling orders was physical work, and I was tired by 5 p.m. But I also felt really good at the end of the day. Why? Well, because I could complete the projects I started that day, and I could start fresh with new projects the next morning.

Don't Get Your Hopes Up About the Job

Waiting in the check-out line at the library, I couldn’t help but hear a twenty-something man talking on his cell phone. He was discussing his job application with a prospective employer.

My ears perked up as he listed a number of “concessions” that he needed from any employer.
“And I’ll need at least one Sunday off a month,” he said. “And probably a couple of Saturdays too. I put that on my application.”

Well, okay, it’s a drag to work weekends. But I did it. Several times, in fact. And a lot of other people do, too. You tend to agree to that if being available to work weekends is one of the requirements for the job—and you really want/need the job. Had I not been willing to work weekends, I wouldn’t have had a job at SmartMart for over three years.

Given today’s economy, that fellow probably isn’t going to have a job either. Too bad, because he left with a woman and a couple of small children who called him “Daddy.”

Yes, some companies offer flexible work schedules, but generally the employer, not the employee, decides the definition of flexible. With all the people in this country who are out of work, that man’s prospective employer will, no doubt, find someone willing to work the hours required for the job.