The Religion of Work

Last night was awesome. I worked my last day at Rosie's for the next month, and it made me remember all the jobs I've had and the people I've worked with over the years. Working has come to be my sort of religion, my church practice for the past several years. We all do it, and many of us complain. But secretly, we are all heroes in this.
Let's find out...

Babysitting. First paid work for me. Hourly, lucrative, fun; I was 12 years old. Tyler Compton knows, who now lives in LA with his acting life.

Fudge Factory. Mom got me this job when I was 15. I ate too many sweets while working at this lovely Apple Hill farm for two seasons. Here I learned the great ways of the cash register. And the meaning of "Lavese ses Manos".

Signature Theaters 8. 15.5 years old. Dad said, "Mikie it's time you get a job," and I remember getting dropped off there to turn in my application. Then I walked the several miles to Jaime Jensen's house down Cold Springs Road. Weird day, but for some reason I was hired and so begins my independence in America: getting a real job for the first time. Welcome to Life.
That theater job gave me my first taste for corporate cynicism. We were minimum-wage workers meandering around a big empty business that provides expensive services for the community (movies), I made very good friends, learned from my seniors to do things I shouldn't have (like exploding full soda boxes, stealing candy, climbing on the roof from pipes in the back, playing indoor hockey and laser tag in the theaters, sneaking many friends into movies) and had some of the happiest moments of my life.

Safeway. From the best job comes the worst. Corporate terror. Worst hours, jerkiest management, tightest strictest rules. I applied there because I wanted a job that paid better (7.10/hr, way above minimum wage at the time) Little did I know how bad a good job can be. So I "quit" Christmas Eve after 6 months of misery (cleaning parking lots at 6 am, scrubbing floorboards at 4 am, bagging groceries for rude old ladies, thanking every frikking community member by their last name). I took my few saved bucks and went on a dual-state road trip up Highway 1 into Oregon.

Mimi's Cafe. I kept hearing that being a server makes a lot of money. $$$ So I started looking for a server job. Problem is, nobody wants to hire a server who's never served. The good thing about my first restaurant job is that they were opening a new, freshly-incorporated location and so they trained me to be a server. And like all job trainings, I learned little more than how to hold a plate. if that. I worked there from January thru June of 2001, and quit with no particular incentive except to stop wasting my time only making money and commuting. The job was fun, but felt too forced and fake. I realized for the first time how dirty restaurants really are.

El Dorado Center, Cosumnes River College. Ahh, my college job. The first true love-hate relationship of my life. I despised the hours and the boringness, and couldn't get enough of it. In a crash course of a month I learned everything there is to know about the Financial Aid programs for College. Interestingly, I also knew nearly nothing about "college" except that I didn't want to go to it, nor did I think I was cut out for it. I was 19. Working at a college seemed kinda like a big practical joke to me, so when I'd go to work I'd get really serious. I'd listen to people and consider their problems and treated students like friends and not numbers (unlike most in the college world who just want to filter students through with no regards to their personal issues). I took the time to listen, and for the first time in my life I felt what it felt like to make a difference in someone's life. Here I met Hillary and Daniel. I was finally making money doing something that was for a cause greater than making money. It was crazy to have a job where you don't really know how much you're making an hour but it doesn't matter because you're so financially covered that you can focus on the job itself. For once I was my own boss, and my coworkers not only trusted me but respected me greatly. Looking back, I see how much this screwed me for every job I'd get in the future.

Borders. 1 month of try-out. I worked at the cafe, learned how to enter books into the system, remembered what it was like to have a "Manager", did too many dishes for my own good, hated the smells of 6 am in that place, made up an excuse about moving to LA and quit. Summer 2002.

Macaroni Grill. In my attempt to step outside the life of the College job and try to still have a 20's lifestyle, I applied at Macaroni Grill to see if I could get another job. I wanted to work at the restaurant and maybe phase my way out of the school job..because let's be honest: i got tired of the routine of the school job. It started to get monotonous, and I didn't always feel like it was for me. I wanted to be free! I was too young to be confined to the shackles of a 9-5, Mon-Fri. (and since, I've learned that everybody is too young for that schedule). At 21, I tried Macaroni Grill, and remembered yet again how terrible a Management system and a corporation can be. After 1 1/2 months, I was gone. I quickly quit and decided to play out one more year at my college job while taking classes. In brief, Macaroni Grill SUCKED.
-Then I graduated college and finished my college job on May 25, 2004. Last day, said my goodbyes, looked to the west, and left -

River Runners / RMA. That summer I worked for River Runners, rafting boats really for the first time. It was maybe the scariest job proposition I'd ever taken, and I learned how to conquer fears while still doing what I loved. River Runners is another example of an employer that allows you to be your own boss while paying you and respecting you all at once. That's why I still work for them.

UC Santa Cruz. For a short month, I worked as a techy for Porter College. I trained to work the soundboard and equilizer in the Porter auditorium, and helped set up and take down equipment. But I didn't like it..something was amiss. There was that weird corporate vibe again, like I'd felt in Safeway and Macaroni Grill and I wasn't into it. So I kindly bowed out and looked around for other work with the college. I tried their financial aid office, and again was disillusioned by their cold staff and short patience. No job there.

Pizza My Heart. Josh Flasher came with my in my first attempt to get off the UC Santa Cruz campus after about 6 months of being secluded up there. Together we went downtown to search for some kind of job I could get in order to make a little more money than I was getting from financial aid. We tried a few places, including the movie theater (although Justin steered me clear of that place...sorry Joey I should have warned you) and finally I went into Pizza My Heart with a shrug on my face and a smile in my heart, knowing I was probably overqualified for working there as it was. Geoff, the manager, gave me an application, took me in the back, had me fill it out and hired me virtually on the spot. For what? Delivering Pizzas. I was like, "huh? Delivering pizzas? well...sure I could try it out." I didn't really know what to expect and definitely hadn't anticipated what this job became: the TMNT pizza guy from 2006, owning the streets while pumping the Rx Bandits and the Offspring. For the next few months I learned the ins and outs of every corner of Santa Cruz, while delivering hot steamy cheesy greasy pizzas to the stoned residents of a town I barely understood. Then I quit because summer can into the air I wanted to leave SC for a spell, before school started again.

College. College is a job that you pay to go to. In essence, you work for somebody else and learn the whole time. You perform monotonous tasks and learn about the world and science and people and nature and art, and in the end you get a degree to prove you've been working (and learning) and then you're laid off. What I learned most in college was an invaluable piece of destructive information that I have been unable to unlearn since: everything is arbitrary. Grades, money, education, everything. By the time I finished college, I had stuck my sword right through it. I had conquered the infallible Beast of College. Like the true Hero I've always wanted to be, I had walked up to the doors of a Leviathan with sword and shield in hand, and in a battle that took two and a half years in the making I had grown and finally bested the monster that had once stood before me, now me swinging my sword in glittering triumph. Not only had I beaten him, I had smashed him and smothered him and doused him with such sweltering liquid force that as I resheathed my sword, all I could do was smile and ask the world for more. Come again, beasts! Come again! I'm ready for more! So the value of over-preparing yourself for the fight of your life, when the truth is it won't be as difficult as you ever expected and so shall you rue the day in such glory that your breath will be in golden heaves and blows.

Shakespeare Santa Cruz. In the end of my time at the UC, I was finally hired to be an actor. For the first real time in my life, I was getting paid to do something that was completely my own work. There's no better feeling. Over 2 months i performed 48 shows of The Tempest, and made 30 bucks a show. It felt amazing to work as an actor.

Beckmanns. I avoided working after College. Who wants to step into a minor skirmish after winning triumphant over the Battle of the Ages. I tried not to work anywhere and live as I wanted to, free and true. I galavanted the roads of the world, seeing what sights I could, searching for a new adventure. Yet after a few months, there came a time when my victory had run dry and I needed to return to some place temporarily. It was then that I placed a call to Beckmann's. Scott Ryan, the nicest bossman I know, hired me right away. For a season following, I was driving large trucks packed with bread at 6 in the morning to cold, foggy, rainy locations throughout the bay area. From San Jose to Marin I sold bread to the locals. Cool job, and then it ended after too many disputes with the ladyfriend, and I needed to leave SC yet again.

The Mouse. Acting-hosting in front of a camera. Strange new destinations. Major television network. Interviewing celebrities. Where the HECK did this job come from?!? I wasn't sure I'd ever face a bigger demon than College..and then I auditioned for Andy. Talk about a life-changing event. My path took a 45-degree turn, and in three months I was living in Los Angeles.

NYPD Pizza. Like the Majora's Mask of reality, I was suddenly thrust into a new world of complete strangeness. New sights, smells, people, things. And Zelda was this strange princess of an idea: to get more acting jobs. So I ventured out and found an agent and a manager quickly...but needed some other kind of work in the meantime. NYPD Pizza was like Pizza My Heart, but nicer, less frantic and far less stoney. I got to both serve and deliver pizzas, to some very rich people. Burbank was my new favorite place - a Santa Cruz amidst the bustle of LA - and I came into my own quickly there. I worked for NYPD between February and June of 2008, then my car broke down and I was left with no choice but to go home to Placerville for a little while and refigure a few things out.

A Relationship. This kind of work is difficult because it changes every day. It's a job that doesn't pay any money. And that's all I'm about to say about that. :-)

Drunk Monkeys. I didn't know what the heck I was doing back in wet tiny Santa Cruz, but after a while I knew I needed to find some kind of job. Problem was, I hated every line of work the city had to offer; and nothing was for me. Everything felt like a Safeway or Macaroni Grill or Borders, and nobody was welcoming. Still, I'd lazed around waiting for too long, and I needed to be doing something in the meantime. So I applied to this little restaurant randomly, another skirmish miles from any behemoths. I got the job, worked a couple months and was virtually laid off when the business ran out of business. A fine-dining waiting experience that I hardly invested any emotion into. No big deal. Nice people though, and a very small and sort-of fun place to work. I have extremely neutral feelings about this place.

Rosie McCann's. And so this brings me up to date with the Now. Rosie's was my look back into the world of Work, the religion I'd abandoned without hope. The world that I never really cared for but was coerced into joining in the first place. Rosie's is the Mimi's, the Safeway, the Borders, the Shakespeare Santa Cruz, the Beckmanns, the NYPD Pizza, and Mouse, and on very very rare occasions, the College job, all mixed into one. I made good money, and wittled my time away . I didn't really have a next chapter to start living, so I just worked quietly and waited. I had no battles to fight, just a couple tables to serve. I felt no beliefs, just polished and rolled silverware. ...and yesterday I worked my last day at Rosie's. I didn't say goodbye because I didn't need to: I had said goodbye when I walked in looking for a job. Rosie's didn't hide my monster, it just reminded me every day that I could be doing something else. Like Jill Deutsch once told me about delivering pizzas, "It's when you dream the hardest."
I know what I'm cut out for, and like a dog on a leash there's a slab of meat just across the street and I'm ravenous.
I love to work. I've done a lot of work. I know what it's like to feel and breath and experience the fulfillment of a real life. and I could shatter a mountain with the energy I've been containing.

Somewhere in the fog of my future there is a monster, breathing quietly, like behind the walls of a dungeon room when you are not too far away. I have a sword that's rusted from the ocean's breeze, I have a shield that lies beneath a pile of clothes in a closet, I have a raft that's in pieces under a bed, and I have a heavy heart that's beating, deep and slow.
What happens to the great warrior now?
Stay tuned.

And so, that's my working life; my religion, of sorts. It sums up a lot of the things we all do with our time, and for me that's been many jobs: little treaties that are upheld or broken. So now, as I get ready to try something new again, I am still ready for the biggest battle of my life.. I just don't know what that is yet. Here I come.