Thursday, August 7, 2008

My Fave Teen Job

Tip of the Day: If your kid eats a Silica gel packet, don’t panic and race to the ER. Make them drink lots of water.

I’m just loving this week on A2A and reading about everyone’s jobs! It really does give lots of ideas for future books. I had a number of teen jobs (I started working at 14! Crazy me.) So it was hard to choose just one favorite. There was one job that I liked a lot—because of the people and all the fun and gossip and boys. That was my gig at the local grocery store. It has provided me with endless material for books—I even have one in mind to write one day with this setting. The work itself though? Eh—not as interesting as you may think. Don’t crush the bread or drop the eggs. Don’t push more than 10 carts in at a time unless you have help. 4011 is the key code for bananas. Thrilling stuff I tell ya.

Want to know the absolute BEST teen job ever though? I’ll give you three hints.

This:

Plus this:


Plus this:

Equals??????????????????



Pool attendant. Yup. I was a pool attendant.

What is a pool attendant you wonder? Good question. I often wondered that myself and I did the job. From what I gathered, it is a person that sorta kinda attends to a pool(s). Let me explain—when I was 15, I worked at an apartment complex that my friend’s dad was the manager at. There were two NICE pools on either side of the complex, like a block or so apart. Every day during the summer my mom would drop me off at the complex in the morning and pick me up in the evening. My job was to open both pools, look around to see if anyone left any garbage or glass anywhere, test the chlorine every once in a awhile, and on the occasion that I saw someone bring a glass bottle in the area—say, “hey, you throw that out.” That was it. The rest of the day I was to divide my time laying out, reading, and swimming at each pool until it was time to lock it up again. We’re talking about 15 solid minutes of work a day. And they paid me. Dream job right? Add to that, I was able to hang out with friends while doing it and flirt with as many boys as I wished. It was the BEST JOB EVER. (Hmmmmm. I wonder if they are still hiring?)

Alas, I only worked there one summer. For some reason I wasn’t the greatest at the job. Crazy huh? I had the laying out/swimming part nailed. But I botched up the chlorine tests a couple of times and they had to shut down the pool once. Whoops. It doesn’t matter though—I’ll always have the memories.

Did you have a dream teen job that you think tops mine? If you did, I gotta know.

Kristina, Miss Soon-to-Pub

6 comments:

Emily Marshall said...

Okay, wow, that sounds like a fab job!!!

Kate Fall said...

I absolutely cannot top that. I was always envious of people whose summer jobs let them lounge by the pool or on the beach.

DeenaML said...

Right now there's a town pool behind the lib where I work and when I leave, I enviously watch the life guards sitting there, tanning, while kids run around and generally don't need rescuing. Yes, jealousy.

Kristina Springer said...

Yeah, there was no lifeguarding even involved in my job. I sometimes wondered what the heck I was supposed to do with all that time but then quickly didn't care and just had fun. :-)

Lisa Schroeder said...

Wow. That's the coolest job evah! You guys are going to laugh when I tell you about my favorite job tomorrow. I mean, I can't even believe I'm saying now that I liked it, cuz at the time, I'm pretty sure I thought it sucked.

Kristina Springer said...

Hee hee-- isn't that how it always is Lisa? I thought I hated the grocery gig too but nope--looking back it was fun. I also thought I hated living in a small town and now I totally want to move back!