The First, and Best, Job I Ever Had
For this week’s column, I’m reprinting a piece I wrote for This Nostalgic Life earlier this year. It’s a piece where I talk about my first job. My first day at the grocery store was June 20, 1994, so as this drops, tomorrow is the 31st anniversary of my first day at that job so I’m commemorating that fact with this post. Enjoy.
When you’re done reading, I’d lover to hear about your first job so leave me a comment!
It was early summer 1994, June to be exact. I was out of school for the summer and had driven my Mom to the local grocery store to do some shopping. It was an abnormally sticky hot day for June, and I remember this detail because while my Mom shopped, I spent some time talking to my cousin who worked there. He was stocking the ice cabinet from a pallet load of ice. I leaned onto that cool stack of ice and cooled down as I distracted him from his task.
The conversation quickly turned to my older cousin asking me if I was planning to get a job that summer as he knew I was sixteen. I had thought about it, but wasn’t sure if I’d like working with the public. I already had a job working for my old man at his business, but that work was done outdoors, and this sticky June day had me rethinking my options.
“Sure”, I said. He followed that up by telling me there were hiring and he’d go grab me an application if I was interested. I once again replied, “Sure”. Thirty minutes later the application was filled out and turned in.
Now that store was only fifteen minutes from home, but when we got back there, there was already a message on the answering machine for me. It was the grocery store wanting me to come back and fill out more paperwork. It turned out that the paperwork was tax forms. They didn’t even bother to ask me if I wanted the job. They just assumed I did since I had filled out the application and was already signing me up.
Accepting that job was one of the absolute best decisions of my life. I started out as a bag boy and then moved on to the produce department. As the next two years rolled by, I was a cashier, a stocker, worked in what was the count room, and did other tasks that didn’t have a title. And when I turned eighteen, they promoted me to assistant store manager.
I stayed there in that role for the next eight years. And in that time I met people who have been friends for life and met the woman that would eventually become my wife. I was there when a baby was born in the cereal aisle. I was there when the place got robbed. And I was there when professional wrestler “Nature Boy” Buddy Landel helped save the life of one of our employees.
I got to meet Dale Earnhart and spend a summer traveling around with his show car selling #3 merchandise. I got to ride in the Red Baron stunt plane, and I got to turn laps with Jimmy Spencer around Bristol Motor Speedway. And it’s where my love for movies grew as we had a video store inside, and I rented movies to take home on an almost daily basis.
I honed my business skills there, as well as my people skills. I learned a lot of life lessons and was in a position to give working starts to several other young folks through the years. And many years later, my oldest daughter began her working career in the exact same store. I even got to point out to her in the employee handbook three rules that didn’t exist before I worked there. I’ve always prided myself on being a rule maker, not a rule breaker.
I’ve said all of that to say this…that first job prepared me for the rest of my life, and if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing about choosing that as my first job.
- Mick