Monthly Archives: November 2009

Thanks to Enrico, everyone seems to be talking about their previous jobs lately. I guess it’s time I put mine out there:

Paper Boy: All my siblings delivered the neighborhood papers. If you ask my brothers, they will say that they started at the age of two, and delivered all the papers in the tri-state area, but by the time it was passed to Amanda and me, it was only a few blocks. It was a fine after school job when you’re ten (could you believe they allowed us to deliver papers after school?) but the worst part was Fridays when you’d need to ask your costumers for money. It’s tough being a shy kid asking cheap assholes grownups for money. We eventually had to give up the paper route when we were told we’d need to deliver the papers before 5AM. Wasn’t gonna happen!

Karate Instructor: I started taking karate when I was in seventh grade. By the time I got to high school, I had advanced several belts and started helping out with the younger classes. One day me and my friends went to class and saw that our instructor had been replaced by someone new. They were okay, but not quite like our previous instructor, so people started helping with the other classes less and less, and outright quitting karate, until I was the only one left. Before my dedication could falter, I was offered pay to help out, and when I reached black belt I was given classes of 4-6 year olds on my own. There’s nothing quite like teaching little rugrats how to punch and kick.

Church Janitor: For a summer during high school, I cleaned our local church for an hour after school for some extra money. It was nice and quiet, except those times I’d have to vaccum. That was always super embarrassing because people would be there praying and I’d be all like VRRRRRRRR! all up in their faces. Oh well. I’m pretty sure I get a free pass into heaven for that stint. Or maybe not since I was paid? Damn, I should have volunteered.

Bus Boy: The summer before college, I got a job as a busboy at Ground Round where my sister Amanda was a waitress. I had to be a bus boy, since waiters needed to be 18 or over. At the time, I thought it was gross and was dying to be a waiter, but looking back, it was a pretty easy gig since you weren’t responsible for dealing with the costumers.

Waiter: But when I came back home for the first time during Christmas break, I was 18 and able to be trained as a waiter, so I waited tables in the winters and summers when I was off from school. I think this is the turning point in my life when I became a pessimist. People really are the scum of the universe and are super ridiculous when it comes to their food. By senior year, I pretty much turned into a asshole. A costumer insisted that her meal came with a salad when it did not. She said “Yes, the menu said that it comes with a salad.” “No it doesn’t,” I insisted right back. When I was done taking orders she asked me to leave a menu, and I knew it was so she could doublecheck about her salad. So I left the menu and walked way only to return a few minutes later and asked in the sweetest voice “Did you find what you were looking for?” She replied curtly “Yes.” and when I smiled and took the menu back and walked away I heard her mutter “Smartass.”

Chicken Wing Cook: I didn’t work freshmen year, but sophomore year I worked at the late night food court on campus. I was in charge of making chicken wings. That’s all I did for four hours every night. Chicken wings, chicken wings, chicken wings. You know how many college students just loooove chicken wings? Especially when they have a meal card paid for by mommy and daddy? A lot. Oh, and no one ever made me a nametag, so I was Chirag since it was the closest one I could find. We knew that it was probably pronounced “she-rahg” but I preferred to go by “chee-rag” since it sounded uglier.

Supermarket Checkout Guy: Then when I moved off campus I worked at the register of the local supermarket Price Chopper. There’s nothing more boring than standing on your feet for six hours, checking people out with only one 15 minute break. Awful. I was always the late night guy, usually with the only register open, working till 12 or 1. Some craaaazy people need to go grocery shopping late at night. I got in trouble one time for selling alcohol to a drunk person and was reprimanded but then told “I won’t send you home since this was your first offense.” I wish I had the balls to say “Um, no, you’re not sending me home because I’m the only register open and you don’t want to work it yourself.” But I didn’t.

Editorial Assistant Intern: By senior year of college, I developed a love of reading and writing. I wanted to go into publishing, but knew my geology degree wouldn’t look all that great on my resume, so I scored an internship at a local self-publisher. It was good, and the owner was ridiculously nice and would buy us pizza and snacks, but it was essentially an editing sweatshop since the authors were paying for their books to be published, we just had to do our best to make them readable.

Subsidiary Rights Assistant: I graduated college and went back to waiting tables for a month or so before I got a job at Penguin Publishing selling subsidiary rights. It was a great first full time job, and I made a load of good friends there. At the time I was going to grad school on weekends and my student loans were deferred, but when I graduated again, my students loans came rearing their ugly heads and I had to leave for a job that paid more.

Contracts Administrator: And this is where I am now. A contracts administrator for a large construction company working on the World Trade Center. Believe it or not, this was actually a pretty smooth transition from Penguin since both had to deal with contracting with other companies. It’s a tough job, but it’s allowed me to pay off a lot of of my student loans. Plus not too many people get to say they walked around the World Trade Center while it was under construction. And I look mighty fine in a hard hat.

This lovely bit of mail scared the bejesus out of my Mom came in the mail today from Ryan with a Cupcake. There’s a reason why I call you people my dancing monkeys!

It wasn’t even ripe when he mailed it from California on Saturday. I am flabbergasted that the post office actually delivered it and it got to my house in one piece! It may be a little worse for wear, but it’s pretty damn cool that it made it all the way across the country!

And then Bob from Kentucky sent me the new Star Trek DVD for my birthday. All in all, it was a pretty great mail day for Craig!

Okay, I admit it. I think porn ads are fascinating. It’s amazing what they show and say in order to entice you to click on them. Today I have taken some of my favorites, cropped out all the naughty bits, leaving only the words. Then I added what I can only assume to be what’s waiting on the other side of those ads.

Too bad I never look at porn, so we’ll never know if my predictions were correct.

Let’s see. First I saw 2012 with my cousins Michelle and Nicolle and my Dad. It was good, not great. The special effects were amazing though. The story (what story?) was lacking and the characters were all punch you in the face “Like this guy!” “Hate this guy!” caricatures. The destruction of Los Angeles and Yellowstone were amazing action sequences though. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen action on that scale before. It was worth the price of admission. Oh, and Michelle got me the first season of Smallville for my birthday. I’ve always wanted to watch it, but never had the chance but I do now! (After Buffy (and maybe Supernatural) of course!)

Then I watched some more Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which included the amazing Once More with Feeling episode, that I’ve been hearing about for 6 seasons, and yes, it was just as amazing as everyone told me it would be. I need the soundtrack immediately! All of the songs were amazing, but the bit that stands out the most to me was Anya’s rock breakaway about bunnies. Pure awesome! Then I got dinner with my friend Jim at this Japanese restaurant, which was really good. Then I met some other friends at this bar around me by called the Bunk House. It’s just a local bar. People like to make fun of it and call it the Skank House, or the Skunk House, but everyone still goes, which says something. It’s fun though.

Then Sunday my parents and Amanda went to Pennsylvania so I slept in and caught up with my good friend the DVR. In one sitting (well, kinda still lounging scantily clad in bed) I watched The Office (better!), 30 Rock (awesome!), America’s Next Top Model (finally!), Desperate Housewives (really good this season!), and 90210 (is Annie on a different show than everyone? not that I’m complaining!). Then I dragged my ass out of bed and…brought it downstairs to the den where I watched the first Kill Bill. I hadn’t seen it since I saw it in the theater and it’s so good!

Okay, so then I actually had to get dressed to go to Meg and Rachel’s book signing for The Happy Book! It was so happy! Even before I got there! Because along the way I found this amazingness:

Yes, it’s a turkey costume, and yes, it’s the most amazing thing you’ll see all day. Then I was at the signing and Meg and Rachel were giving a talk, and when asked what made him happy, a little boy in the audience said underwear. It was adorable. The event was great. Rachel’s Mom made cupcakes! And yeah, we’re all excited about the book, but cupcakes! Mmmmm…

And then I went home and Mom and Dad brought back a present for me from John and Barbara in Pennsylvania and it was this awesome argyle t-shirt:

Then I spent the rest of the night catching up on blogs, including this amazing post over at Hotel Tuesday where I of course leave a comment and where I of course get yelled at even though I tell Enrico all the time that I would comment more if he would use the popout window comments instead of the darn embedded comment template than prevents me from commenting at work. But what can I say, his are a fiery people and they yell a lot. But my friendship with him is worth it. (I’m thinking if I say something sweet, he’ll feel bad about yelling at me all the time.) So that was my weekend!