My first job taught me about dry cleaning and why people are garbage
Someone recently asked me about my first job. I actually had to sit and think for a few minutes to recall what my first job even was, as I have had dozens of jobs over the years. After some time, I finally recalled it. I worked at a dry cleaners which was walking distance from my home when I was 15 years old.
I had just become officially fifteen and a half years old, and at the time, that was the legal age to get a job where I grew up. There was a bulletin board in the library of my high school where local businesses advertised the positions they were currently hiring teens for. I was a student aide to the library department, and I would see business owners come in all the time to post up their listings on the board. Most of the time they were retail jobs or burger flipping jobs, nothing I really wanted to do and all of which were too far from my home to be able to reliably get to. Then one day, a short, stocky, bald man that looked like a Jim Henson puppet waddled into the library and posted his flyer to the board. He was weird and was whispering gibberish to no one under his breath as he completed his task, and he continued whispering in this strange way as he left the library.
I ran over to the board to read the new flyer:
With so many exclamation points, I just had to check it out, and the best part was, the address was right down the street from my house. I looked around and saw that I was temporarily unsupervised, so I took the whole flyer down and stuffed it into my backpack to eliminate any possible competition. I might have only been 15, but I was a clever 15.
I waited a few days and then walked down to the dry cleaners. Behind the counter was a tall, dark, gorgeous woman with a thick Hispanic accent. I told her I was a student at the school where a flyer was put up advertising an open position available. She said "Oh, jes, jes, joo, way heeeuur, I go git him," and she hurried off to a back office. I stood waiting at the front desk for a few minutes and then eventually, the lady stuck her head out of the back office and signaled for me to join her.
The office was small, dark and musty. The only light came from a bare bulb hanging from a wire, the kind you usually only see in old attics and basements. The weird old man that I had first seen in the library was sitting at what I assumed was a desk. It was hard to tell because the entire surface of it was covered in receipts, envelopes thick with notes and crumpled papers, held together by rubber bands, and shoe boxes. The whole office was littered in shoe boxes, and in most place they were stacked up nearly to the sagging suspended ceiling. There was a metal folding chair in front of the desk on the one square of carpet that wasn't covered in shoe boxes. The woman was standing next to the old man with her hand on his shoulder. "Please sit," the man said in a gravely, tired voice.
"So you wanna work in dry cleaning, huh?" he asked.
"I saw your flyer and I was interested because I live right down the street, so I know I could get here every day after school reliably," I replied, hoping it was the kind of answer you are supposed to give in a job interview. This was, after all, my first one.
"Ah, ok, well that's good news I guess, see, the last girl wasn't so good 'bout showing up on time always, or some days even showing up at all. You can do math, right? I mean, they do teach math to girls at your school, right?" I tried hard not to laugh. How old was this guy?!
"Yes, sir, I can do math," I figured I would keep my answers short.
"well ok then, fill this out and then go on back out with my wife, Maria, and she'll start training you." I was stunned that this gorgeous woman was married to this dumpy, weird old man, but I was more than happy to get out of that stuffy, awful little office.
Maria, as it turned out, was a very nice woman. Her accent was incredibly hard for me to understand, but she had only been in America for two years. She was born and raised in Columbia where I learned that she was married for a time and had a daughter who was now an adult. Maria casually informed me that she married the old man, Jim, in order to get out of Columbia. This was back in the early 2000s, and at that time Columbia was the murder and kidnapping capital of the world. She described an ordinary day back in Columbia, going to the market with her 17 year old daughter. They ran into the weird little man who was struggling with an English to Spanish dictionary, trying to purchase a bottle of booze. Maria's daughter stepped in and helped him out because she spoke English fairly well. The three of them ended up having a conversation which turned into lunch, which turned into the old man buying them both plane tickets back to America where they were immediately married less than 72 hours after meeting. They had been together two years when I applied to the cleaners. The story was fascinating. Maria was fascinating. The job was gross and dull.
The job itself was easy enough to learn. Customers come in with their items, each item has a price for dry cleaning, give the customer the total, write up the ticket, collect the money. Customer leaves with their half of the ticket, tag all the items and send them to the back to be dry cleaned. My job was to run the "front of the house" as Jim liked to say. I never did learn how to use any of the machines or presses. The only machine was was allowed to operate was the carousel that moved all the clean orders around the building. There were two more employees who ran the "back of house" and their job looked incredibly difficult. Both of them were Hispanic women as well, Marta and "Izzy" which was a nickname, I never did get her real name. They were both very nice women, but I didn't get to know them very well because they were always in motion. There was never nothing to do for them.
And so I enjoyed working my first job for two weeks, eagerly awaiting pay day. When payday finally arrived, it did not go as expected. I was given a check, which Jim demanded that I endorse on the spot and after I signed it, he took the check back and then paid me what I was owed in cash, not taking out any taxes. This was my first job, so I wasn't sure how paychecks were really supposed to work, so after work that day I went home and asked my dad. My dad laughed and explained , "OK, so you really do have a job, but you are being paid 'under the table'. He had you endorse that check so he has a record of what he paid you. He isn't taking any taxes out of your check, so you get more money, but he doesn't have you recorded as an actual employee so his taxes are smaller too. It isn't legal, but you're a teenager, if you want to soak up so tax free income your junior year of high school, I don;t see any harm," and my dad left it up to me. I figured the job was easy, the people were nice and it was walking distance from my house, so I couldn't complain and I continued to work there for several months.
As time went by I began to learn about customer service and just how terrible most people are. Most people are rude, don't make conversation and often don't even make eye contact when dropping off or picking up at the cleaners. Additionally, their expectations were often unreasonable as well. For example there was a woman who came in with fur coat (gross) that she had spilled a vodka-cranberry on two years ago. She took the stained fur, hung it up in her closet, and forgot about it for two years. She brings it into the cleaners demanding to have the stain removed for $1.50, which was our going rate for a single men's dress shirt. When I explained that first, we don't handle fur, you have to go to a furrier for that, second even if we did handle fur, heavy coats cost much more to clean than a dress shirt, and lastly, if you hang up an expensive coat with a stain for two years without addressing it, odds are that coat is ruined no matter who you bring it to....well after all that she demanded to speak to my manager, who was Maria. Maria tried to calm the woman down, but it all ended in the woman storming out yelling "fucking immigrants!" This is one extreme example of shitty behavior inflicted on us my customers, but I assure you, the nastiness was a regular occurrence.
The months rolled by and soon it was the holiday season. Maria and Jim had plans to travel back to Columbia to see Maria's family whom she had not seen since she made the choice to run away to America. It was explained that I would be on my own with closing each evening for the week they would be gone. I was taught how to balance out the drawer and given a key. I was instructed to take all the money earned for each day and place it all in on very specific shoe box in the top right hand drawer of the desk in the musty office. Each day's money was supposed to be rubber banded and dated with a post-it note. I did exactly as I was told and I was proud of myself for handling the responsibility of the office closing duties. I got through the whole week and closed it up for the weekend, excited for the praise I would undoubtedly receive when Jim and Maria returned from Columbia.
When I went in to work on the following Monday, only Marta and Izzy were there. Marta stopped me at the door and explained in broken English that while I was in charge, all of the money from the week had gone missing. She told me to go home and that Jim would call me tomorrow when I could come in. I was horrified! I had done everything they asked me to do EXACTLY the way they had asked me to do it! I went home nervous and upset. The next day, right after school Jim did call and ask me to come on down.
When I got to the cleaners, Jim and Maria were waiting for me in that stuffy little office. This time there was someone else with them, and from her height and beauty, I correctly guessed that she was Maria's daughter from her first marriage. She girl stood there, wringing her hands, refusing to look at me. Jim started. "So, while we were out of town, only two people had keys to this place and only two people knew where the money was kept. You and Sofia," he said, gesturing to Maria's nervous daughter. I just sat there, I wasn't sure what I was expected to say. I had never been accused of stealing anything more serious than my little sister's hairbrush before. I just sat there, angry and nervous for what felt like a very long time. Finally Jim said, "Well? What did you do with the money?"
"I counted down the drawer, banded up the money with a post-it note with the date written on it and put it in the shoe box in your desk, then locked up the office, and then locked up the cleaners." I figured the exact truth was the best option, but Jim seemed to think I was being sarcastic.
"Then where the hell is all that money, huh?! If you did what you said, then where the hell is the money?!"
Without speaking, or even looking up, Sofia jammed her hand into her coat pocket and produced a wad of cash. She set it on the desk.
"What the fuck is this?!" Jim yelled.
"It's your money. I didn't spend any of it yet. It's all there." And she just walked out. No explanation as to why she stole it in the first place, or why she didn't spend any of it. It was one of the weirdest things I had seen up until that point in my life. After staring stunned at the money for a few seconds, Maria scrambled to follow Sofia out of the office in a flurry of shouted Spanish. The two of them argued right out the front door and across the parking lot. Jim and I could hear them out there screaming at each other and we just sat there, listening. After a few minutes we heard a car door slam and after that Maria walked back into the cleaners and came back to the office. She resumed her place behind Jim, hand on his shoulder, just like on my first day. I waited for someone else to be the first to speak.
Jim finally said,"Well, I guess that solves that mystery. So, let's all get back to work."
I was furious. Jim and Maria started to leave the office but I just sat there in that stupid, awful metal chair, blood boiling. This was my first job. I worked so hard to be good at it, and to be accused of stealing made me so angry, my eyes were filling with tears. My 15 year old heart just couldn't take it. I was so mad I was shaking. Jim asked, "well, you coming?" I snapped.
"No Jim! No, I am NOT coming! I didn't steal from you! I have never stolen from anyone! You accusing me sucks, but when you found out who actually did it, you don;t even say sorry or anything?! So no! I am not going to work right now, I quit!" And I stormed out.
I went to work for my uncle for the next year. He owned a business detailing private airplanes at the local private airport. The work was hard, but no one accused me of stealing.
And that is the story of my first job and how it taught me that most people are garbage.
I had just become officially fifteen and a half years old, and at the time, that was the legal age to get a job where I grew up. There was a bulletin board in the library of my high school where local businesses advertised the positions they were currently hiring teens for. I was a student aide to the library department, and I would see business owners come in all the time to post up their listings on the board. Most of the time they were retail jobs or burger flipping jobs, nothing I really wanted to do and all of which were too far from my home to be able to reliably get to. Then one day, a short, stocky, bald man that looked like a Jim Henson puppet waddled into the library and posted his flyer to the board. He was weird and was whispering gibberish to no one under his breath as he completed his task, and he continued whispering in this strange way as he left the library.
I ran over to the board to read the new flyer:
Assistant for dry cleaners wanted!
Must be able to do basic math!
Must be polite and good at talking on the phone!
DO NOT call about job! Inquire in person ONLY!
I waited a few days and then walked down to the dry cleaners. Behind the counter was a tall, dark, gorgeous woman with a thick Hispanic accent. I told her I was a student at the school where a flyer was put up advertising an open position available. She said "Oh, jes, jes, joo, way heeeuur, I go git him," and she hurried off to a back office. I stood waiting at the front desk for a few minutes and then eventually, the lady stuck her head out of the back office and signaled for me to join her.
The office was small, dark and musty. The only light came from a bare bulb hanging from a wire, the kind you usually only see in old attics and basements. The weird old man that I had first seen in the library was sitting at what I assumed was a desk. It was hard to tell because the entire surface of it was covered in receipts, envelopes thick with notes and crumpled papers, held together by rubber bands, and shoe boxes. The whole office was littered in shoe boxes, and in most place they were stacked up nearly to the sagging suspended ceiling. There was a metal folding chair in front of the desk on the one square of carpet that wasn't covered in shoe boxes. The woman was standing next to the old man with her hand on his shoulder. "Please sit," the man said in a gravely, tired voice.
"So you wanna work in dry cleaning, huh?" he asked.
"I saw your flyer and I was interested because I live right down the street, so I know I could get here every day after school reliably," I replied, hoping it was the kind of answer you are supposed to give in a job interview. This was, after all, my first one.
"Ah, ok, well that's good news I guess, see, the last girl wasn't so good 'bout showing up on time always, or some days even showing up at all. You can do math, right? I mean, they do teach math to girls at your school, right?" I tried hard not to laugh. How old was this guy?!
"Yes, sir, I can do math," I figured I would keep my answers short.
"well ok then, fill this out and then go on back out with my wife, Maria, and she'll start training you." I was stunned that this gorgeous woman was married to this dumpy, weird old man, but I was more than happy to get out of that stuffy, awful little office.
Maria, as it turned out, was a very nice woman. Her accent was incredibly hard for me to understand, but she had only been in America for two years. She was born and raised in Columbia where I learned that she was married for a time and had a daughter who was now an adult. Maria casually informed me that she married the old man, Jim, in order to get out of Columbia. This was back in the early 2000s, and at that time Columbia was the murder and kidnapping capital of the world. She described an ordinary day back in Columbia, going to the market with her 17 year old daughter. They ran into the weird little man who was struggling with an English to Spanish dictionary, trying to purchase a bottle of booze. Maria's daughter stepped in and helped him out because she spoke English fairly well. The three of them ended up having a conversation which turned into lunch, which turned into the old man buying them both plane tickets back to America where they were immediately married less than 72 hours after meeting. They had been together two years when I applied to the cleaners. The story was fascinating. Maria was fascinating. The job was gross and dull.
The job itself was easy enough to learn. Customers come in with their items, each item has a price for dry cleaning, give the customer the total, write up the ticket, collect the money. Customer leaves with their half of the ticket, tag all the items and send them to the back to be dry cleaned. My job was to run the "front of the house" as Jim liked to say. I never did learn how to use any of the machines or presses. The only machine was was allowed to operate was the carousel that moved all the clean orders around the building. There were two more employees who ran the "back of house" and their job looked incredibly difficult. Both of them were Hispanic women as well, Marta and "Izzy" which was a nickname, I never did get her real name. They were both very nice women, but I didn't get to know them very well because they were always in motion. There was never nothing to do for them.
And so I enjoyed working my first job for two weeks, eagerly awaiting pay day. When payday finally arrived, it did not go as expected. I was given a check, which Jim demanded that I endorse on the spot and after I signed it, he took the check back and then paid me what I was owed in cash, not taking out any taxes. This was my first job, so I wasn't sure how paychecks were really supposed to work, so after work that day I went home and asked my dad. My dad laughed and explained , "OK, so you really do have a job, but you are being paid 'under the table'. He had you endorse that check so he has a record of what he paid you. He isn't taking any taxes out of your check, so you get more money, but he doesn't have you recorded as an actual employee so his taxes are smaller too. It isn't legal, but you're a teenager, if you want to soak up so tax free income your junior year of high school, I don;t see any harm," and my dad left it up to me. I figured the job was easy, the people were nice and it was walking distance from my house, so I couldn't complain and I continued to work there for several months.
As time went by I began to learn about customer service and just how terrible most people are. Most people are rude, don't make conversation and often don't even make eye contact when dropping off or picking up at the cleaners. Additionally, their expectations were often unreasonable as well. For example there was a woman who came in with fur coat (gross) that she had spilled a vodka-cranberry on two years ago. She took the stained fur, hung it up in her closet, and forgot about it for two years. She brings it into the cleaners demanding to have the stain removed for $1.50, which was our going rate for a single men's dress shirt. When I explained that first, we don't handle fur, you have to go to a furrier for that, second even if we did handle fur, heavy coats cost much more to clean than a dress shirt, and lastly, if you hang up an expensive coat with a stain for two years without addressing it, odds are that coat is ruined no matter who you bring it to....well after all that she demanded to speak to my manager, who was Maria. Maria tried to calm the woman down, but it all ended in the woman storming out yelling "fucking immigrants!" This is one extreme example of shitty behavior inflicted on us my customers, but I assure you, the nastiness was a regular occurrence.
The months rolled by and soon it was the holiday season. Maria and Jim had plans to travel back to Columbia to see Maria's family whom she had not seen since she made the choice to run away to America. It was explained that I would be on my own with closing each evening for the week they would be gone. I was taught how to balance out the drawer and given a key. I was instructed to take all the money earned for each day and place it all in on very specific shoe box in the top right hand drawer of the desk in the musty office. Each day's money was supposed to be rubber banded and dated with a post-it note. I did exactly as I was told and I was proud of myself for handling the responsibility of the office closing duties. I got through the whole week and closed it up for the weekend, excited for the praise I would undoubtedly receive when Jim and Maria returned from Columbia.
When I went in to work on the following Monday, only Marta and Izzy were there. Marta stopped me at the door and explained in broken English that while I was in charge, all of the money from the week had gone missing. She told me to go home and that Jim would call me tomorrow when I could come in. I was horrified! I had done everything they asked me to do EXACTLY the way they had asked me to do it! I went home nervous and upset. The next day, right after school Jim did call and ask me to come on down.
When I got to the cleaners, Jim and Maria were waiting for me in that stuffy little office. This time there was someone else with them, and from her height and beauty, I correctly guessed that she was Maria's daughter from her first marriage. She girl stood there, wringing her hands, refusing to look at me. Jim started. "So, while we were out of town, only two people had keys to this place and only two people knew where the money was kept. You and Sofia," he said, gesturing to Maria's nervous daughter. I just sat there, I wasn't sure what I was expected to say. I had never been accused of stealing anything more serious than my little sister's hairbrush before. I just sat there, angry and nervous for what felt like a very long time. Finally Jim said, "Well? What did you do with the money?"
"I counted down the drawer, banded up the money with a post-it note with the date written on it and put it in the shoe box in your desk, then locked up the office, and then locked up the cleaners." I figured the exact truth was the best option, but Jim seemed to think I was being sarcastic.
"Then where the hell is all that money, huh?! If you did what you said, then where the hell is the money?!"
Without speaking, or even looking up, Sofia jammed her hand into her coat pocket and produced a wad of cash. She set it on the desk.
"What the fuck is this?!" Jim yelled.
"It's your money. I didn't spend any of it yet. It's all there." And she just walked out. No explanation as to why she stole it in the first place, or why she didn't spend any of it. It was one of the weirdest things I had seen up until that point in my life. After staring stunned at the money for a few seconds, Maria scrambled to follow Sofia out of the office in a flurry of shouted Spanish. The two of them argued right out the front door and across the parking lot. Jim and I could hear them out there screaming at each other and we just sat there, listening. After a few minutes we heard a car door slam and after that Maria walked back into the cleaners and came back to the office. She resumed her place behind Jim, hand on his shoulder, just like on my first day. I waited for someone else to be the first to speak.
Jim finally said,"Well, I guess that solves that mystery. So, let's all get back to work."
I was furious. Jim and Maria started to leave the office but I just sat there in that stupid, awful metal chair, blood boiling. This was my first job. I worked so hard to be good at it, and to be accused of stealing made me so angry, my eyes were filling with tears. My 15 year old heart just couldn't take it. I was so mad I was shaking. Jim asked, "well, you coming?" I snapped.
"No Jim! No, I am NOT coming! I didn't steal from you! I have never stolen from anyone! You accusing me sucks, but when you found out who actually did it, you don;t even say sorry or anything?! So no! I am not going to work right now, I quit!" And I stormed out.
I went to work for my uncle for the next year. He owned a business detailing private airplanes at the local private airport. The work was hard, but no one accused me of stealing.
And that is the story of my first job and how it taught me that most people are garbage.
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