gainful.

Generally speaking, I like my job. Well, for today anyway.

I've had some very bad jobs, including morning newspaper delivery drone, breakfast waitress, deli girl,and cocktail waitress. I once answered a classified ad for "light housekeeping and assisting a disabled person" but it turned out to be an escort service, so I didn't take the job despite my dire financial straights.

Newspaper delivery: Pure shit. PURE SHIT. My parents should be arrested for child abuse for sending me out daily at that hour (5am) when I was 13. EVERY DAY. All to be riding my crappy Schwinn through rain, sleet, snow, in sickness or in health. The only benefit will be having it to lord over my children when I'm giving them the parental "you're worthless and lazy" lecture.

Breakfast Waitress: Well hell, I was already used to being up at 5. But in a "Little House in the Prairie" dress?? pouring coffee for truckers and cops? Also, people in the heartland tend to be poor tippers.

Deli Girl: In a grocery store where the main currency was food stamps. People ordered head cheese. Do you know what head cheese is? Wrong, that's what it is. It looks like moldy fish eyes in a bucket of snot.

Cocktail waitress: out of the hinterlands, so I made a shocking amount of money compared to the breakfast gig. The short skirt and general atmosphere of consumption helped too, surely.

Chemistry 101 TA/summer research intern= eating ramen noodles and shoe leather. At least back then, coffee and cigarettes were cheap.

After all that, it was quite a disappointment to embark on my first position where I was referred to by my earned honorific, only to find that it was the very worst job I had ever had.