What is this blog about?

This blog is inspired by the book Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. Upon reading her book I was inspired to write about my own experiences. Unlike Barbara, I don’t need to go undercover and pretend to be a white woman with barely any education. Instead, this young white woman with a lot of education working in pretentious conditions is going to tell her life story. In this blog I will write about my day’s work, along with it, I will also go back in time and tell stories of past instances since I’ve been working in retail. To further introduce myself I will tell of what I have done so far in the working world.

At the age of 14, I applied to work at McDonalds not far from my house. I went in for the interview, and then never heard back, even though I called a week later and someone said that they would get back to me.  About a year later I reapplied, and the same thing happened the second time around. I am a McDonalds reject.

I started applying to other places too, like Stop and Shop, Sports Authority and CVS. Stop and Shop at the time didn’t like my schedule (because I played sports, even though I had the minimum 15 hrs they wanted.) and CVS actually got back to me. However, the day I found out that CVS got back to me, my sister didn’t take down the number, and I had applied to two of the three CVS’s in the area. It was the one that I didn’t apply to that wanted me.

I started working at CVS in October 2001. At that time CVS had those God awful red smocks we had to wear. In 2003 I applied at Stop and Shop again and got the job. In May 2005 I applied to D’Angelos (because I would get more hours and pay) and gave my two weeks notice to CVS. Those two weeks were the worst; I had to remember which job, where I was going and what uniform I had to wear. I did three jobs those two weeks, and probably worked about a total of 60 hrs at least or more. I was 20 years old at the time.

Now I just work at Stop and Shop, and the past three years I would work at D’Angelo’s as a delivery driver. This current year I pretty much decided not to work at D’Angelo’s, for reasons I will get into in future entries. I do work other jobs at the school I attend, and work at least three to four jobs year round.

The days I work I will write the days horrors (or happy times, depending on the day) and when I am not working I will do my best in chronological order write about my past experiences in the seven years I have been in retail. I will also write about bits and pieces of my personal life as well. I do have another blog  http://cantcallmenormal.blogspot.com if you wish to read that one as well. I think at a certain point people will want to stop shopping altogether once I display all the things that come with this workforce, but we will see. I also encourage people to read Nickel and Dimed at some point.