Over Christmas break, while the kids were here, we got to talking about the jobs we had when we were younger and I happened to mention that I had been fired from at least three jobs in my life.
That immediately prompted a request for details. So, here goes.
#1
When I was a sophomore at Michigan State University, I spent fall quarter working at an International House of Pancakes in East Lansing. As Paula Poundstone would say, "It was a dream and I made it happen." I worked there from September through December from 6 PM until midnight. I was a busboy and dishwasher, and besides making some money, it fit the bill in another way. My friends, Guy Conger and Bob Paski, and I had moved that year from the regular dorm room into an apartment in the dorm to save some money. The money savings was that we didn't get a meal plan - we were expected to do our own meals in the apartment. At IHOP, I was given one free meal a day, and I made it count. An omelet with pancakes and a root beer were gourmet cooking to me. Unfortunately, they didn't understand that I went home to Ohio for Christmas break for three weeks. That was the first time I got fired. After talking to the manager about coming back on the job in January when I returned to campus, I was told not to bother because they would have to hire someone to fill in for me while I was gone. Luckily, I found a job in January working late nights in the dorm grill. I spent a lot of time Freshman and Sophomore years in that grill playing pinochle when I got tired of studying, so it worked out OK.
Looking back, moving to the apartment in the dorm was a bad idea. I wasn't at all prepared to be responsible for my own food, so it was a year of peanut butter and crackers. I had a yellow VW bug that I could drive, but there was no parking near the dorm. You had to park in an outlot and take a shuttle from the dorm to the parking lot, so going to get groceries was a hassle. Students weren't allowed to drive on campus until after 6 PM, so you couldn't really go during the day unless you wanted to chance getting a ticket bringing the groceries back to the dorm, which was expensive. And as Nate found out in his Freshman year, it is a pain to have food around when you and your roommates are not all on the same page when it comes to cleanliness. There was one plus to it Junior year. Guy's dad had been working as a scientist for NASA in Cleveland, but got transferred to California during our Sophomore year. So Guy transferred to Stanford that summer to be near his parents (we kept in touch; Guy was a groomsman in my wedding). The dorm assigned two new people to room with Bob and I. One of them was from Detroit and his parents owned a restaurant there. So when he came back to the dorm Sunday night, he brought lobsters and steaks and we ate well for one night. On the downside, they were the impetus for me to learn the ins and outs of the bail bond system in Lansing (for them, not for me). Turned out the older brother of one of my best high school friends was a bail bondsmen. But that's a story for another time.
Later this week: part two of You're Fired!
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