Fave Teen Jobs at A2A

Tip of the Day: Swirling soft ice cream is really difficult. I was fired from Carvel for not being able to do it. Since then, I've made friends with 2 other people after finding out they share my disability. There's a whole subset of the community out there fired from Carvel for swirling impairment.

Welcome to A2A: The Teen Years! This week, the five of us are discussing our favorite teen jobs. Do you fondly remember those years of minimum wage slavitude? I have sort of fond memories. The pay sucked but I didn't have much responsibility, other than the responsibility to flirt with male customers and co-workers, which I took very seriously, let me tell you.

Teen jobs are great hooks for books, so let's go beyond fast food and talk about the interesting jobs. (Although for a while, being diva of the Burger King drive-thru was interesting.) My favorite job as a teen had to be *drumroll*:

Roadside flower stand girl!

This was a great job. The stand was on the highway, and it was enclosed, although it didn't contain much more than a walk-in fridge, a counter with rolls of bouquet wrap, and supplies. I started my shift loading up the fridge with the loose flower deliveries, and spent the rest of the shift making them into bouquets and selling them for $5 a pop. And talking on the phone to my friends and making up stories about the customers.

Unfortunately, this wasn't a good flirting job, because most of the customers were men looking for a way to impress another woman. Sometimes I'd get the odd customer who'd hit on me while in the middle of buying flowers for his girlfriend, but ick. It was still a great job because I was always there by myself. There wasn't room for two people to work in the tiny stand, so I was completely unsupervised. Not that any hijinks went on; I was a very responsible bouquet girl. My boss came by at the beginning of my shift to drop off the flowers and at the end of my shift to pick up the money. The only other person who worked there was my best friend Meredith. We alternated shifts. Also, it was within easy walking distance of my house so I never had to worry about transportation. And, of course, the place smelled great. It was a pretty awesome setup, but eventually I started college and had to move on to other, lousier jobs.

Now I'm not sure I could come up with a good story about a character working as a roadside bouquet girl. It seems ripe with possibility, though, so maybe someday it will find its way into a story. Now it's time to share your favorite teen jobs in the comments and inspire us! Yay character building!

-- Kate, Miss Apprentice Writer