It was 10 years ago this month that I interviewed Bill for an entry level position. Over the years he has progressed rapidly within our company and he he has also become a close personal friend, but in 2003 he was 35, had a wife and three little kids as well as a highly erratic job history that he was somewhat defensive about.
During his interview, as he tried to explain his history of job-hopping I could not help but think that compared to me at that age he was a veritable rock of stability. Like Bill I bounced from job to job until I was 35 years old.
My first job in high school was cleaning rat cages at a pet store which, looking back, was not as bad as it sounded. My first “real” job after college was way worse. I somehow ended up managing the Bridal Registry at Jordan Marsh where decades later I’m not sure who was worse, the brides or their mothers. I spent a good part of every day talking high-strung brides and their overwrought mothers down from the ledge when they discovered that their china pattern was out of stock.
After my Jordan Marsh experience I flirted with the idea of becoming a psychologist and so enrolled in grad school. During this era I waited tables and later became a bartender. This was a career changing gig because I decided that if I could not bear listening to a customer whine for 15 minutes while they were drunk, no way could I listen a patient whine for 60 minutes while they were sober, so I quit my job and changed my major.
After grad school I spent a year teaching at a local middle school where I encouraged the 13-year-old monsters I was babysitting to sleep during class because while they were asleep they were at least quiet. This did not endear me to the Administrators who came from the “Children WANT to learn” school of thought, a notion that could have been dispelled instantly if any of them had simply walked into any schoolroom in the county.
My stint as a school teacher so traumatized me that I indulged in an escape fantasy and was hired as a flight attendant for Pan Am, which was hands-down the worst job I have ever had since it entailed serving soft drinks to whiny passengers for 6 hours a day. At least as a bartender I made better money.
I flew for Pan Am for six whole weeks and resigned to work for a small consulting company. I got this job because – now this gets complicated – a buddy from Pan Am was sleeping with the son of a county judge who was sleeping with a woman who took yoga with the judge’s wife. The judge’s girlfriend’s husband, (who was also sleeping with my buddy) managed the consulting company; I met him at a yoga class and he hired me as his training manager.
This was actually not a bad job, but the manager drank way too much, and I learned on my first day why he kept a sofa in his office, and the company soon went under.
After this I taught aerobics at a gym in Boca where the owner wanted to hire someone tall. Since that was the main criteria for the job I was imminently qualified and the main part of my job was pretending I was fascinated listening to Boca women complain about their husbands. Soon after I became a personal trainer at the same gym so I could pretend to be fascinated hearing Boca men complain about their wives.
There were other bad career moves along the way but now, listening to Bill explain why he never lasted at any job more than a year I felt a flash of camaraderie.
“You’re hired,” I said.