My First Job

Carol Kearns

May 2012

            I badly wanted a job when I was teenager.  I couldn’t say that I “needed” the money, because we certainly weren’t poor.  But I didn’t get an allowance and I wanted some discretionary funds of my own. 

            My first real job was at the local bakery when I was 15 years old.  They hired me to work three days as extra help for the Christmas holidays.  In my eyes this was the Bigtime because I even had to get a work permit. 

            For part of each shift I would scrub the large metal trays used in baking.  This was difficult and hard on my hands because of the steel wool and hot water.  But all my tribulations were forgotten on the second day when I was assigned to stuff the jelly donuts and the chocolate, crème-filled cupcakes.  I tried to look mature as they explained the procedure, but inside I was screaming, “Are you kidding?  Have I died and gone to Heaven?”

            They gave me a fat syringe filled with jelly, and I would actually stick the point in the middle of the donut and push down.  I couldn’t believe I was filling jelly donuts by hand, one at a time.  This was the most exciting thing I had ever done in my life!  I thought about the person who would eat the donut, and tried to insert as much jelly as possible.  I wanted the recipient to think, “This is the best donut ever!”  I had to control myself so that the jelly didn’t ooze back out of the donut.

            I was even more ecstatic over the crème-filled cupcakes.  Each time I pushed down on the plunger, I envisioned the bliss of the person licking so much cream.

            On my last day, as I was carrying a completed tray of donuts to put in a slotted rack, the owner told me to put it down quickly and help her with something.  The tray was full and needed to be held with two hands.  As I looked around for a safe place to set it, she gestured toward a pile of boxes that were filled with dozens of preordered brownies.  I hesitated because I could see that in all of the holiday rush, a few lids weren’t on straight, making the entire stack a little crooked.  The pile needed to be straightened if it was to hold my tray of donuts.   

When she told me a second time to put down the tray, I felt I had no choice, so I did, and sure enough, the crooked boxes started to slide.  I managed to save the tray of donuts, but the brownies in one box fell out on the concrete floor.  They weren’t badly damaged, just not sellable anymore.  Many were just a little smushed from rolling in the box, and those that actually fell out of the box were still edible if you cut off the part that touched the floor.

I felt relieved when the owner didn’t yell or say much, and assumed that she understood that it wasn’t my fault.  I assumed wrong.  When I got my paycheck for the three days of work, I saw that she had deducted the box of brownies.  Even worse -  she had taken the brownies home herself!  I paid, but she got to enjoy.  My brothers would have loved the rejects. 

My mother was a little miffed as well, but the bakery was so wonderful that we didn’t stay away for long.