If there's one big thing that happens around here every year, it's the Little League World Series. People come from all over the world to witness this spectacle. I got to be a part of it this year. I was supposed to volunteer at the concession stand for two days, but instead I only did one day. The first day I was wearing sandals and they wouldn't let me work. I had never worked in the food industry before, but I made sure not to wear sandals on the second day.
So on the second day I worked the cash register. So if you were at the LLWS and got some food, there's a possibility that I spit in your hamburger. Just kidding! If you were at the LLWS there's a possibility that I waited on you. It was great to get a chance to volunteer at this event. A few days later I checked in with a temp agency I am registered with to see if they had any jobs available. I was hoping for a full-time job, but they didn't have any. But they did have a job available over the weekend at the Little League World Series, so I took the job. The job was on Saturday and Sunday, the last two days of the LLWS. My job was to work for the Mars candy company handing out Snickers coupons at the exit of the Little League Stadium. We worked near a security station where they had metal detectors for people coming into the stadium. On Saturday the weather was being unpredictable, it had been raining on and off all day. In fact, we had to wait awhile for the rain to stop before we could start our shift handing out coupons. The sky finally cleared up and the sun came out. We weren't down there long before dark clouds came rolling in again and it started to rain a little.
It was just a small sprinkle at first and then it started coming down harder so we went into the security station to wait it out. All of a sudden the rain just started hammering us. It was coming in sideways into the security station. Stuff was flying everywhere. After it calmed down, the person in charge of the Snickers booth told us we could go home for the day. We were still paid for the four hours even though we only worked two.
The field I parked in was fairly dry when I got there, but when I walked back to my car this is what I found:
There was a girl there in the field that I knew from church. She was there with her boyfriend and she was unable to get out of her parking spot because of all the rain that had fallen. So her boyfriend and I had to move the wooden beams that were behind her car so she could back out instead of have to drive through a pond. I had to take my shoes off to get into my car. You can actually see my shoes behind my car in the two pictures above. The field was a muddy mess.
Good thing I have four wheel drive.
The second day was much nicer than the first. Security was tight though because vice president Joe Biden was there to throw out the first ball. I actually saw his limo escorted by secret service and some police cars out on the highway on my way to the stadium. They stopped all traffic on the highway so he could get to the stadium. So I ended up being fifteen minutes late for my shift. I told the person in charge of the Snickers booth that I was late because the vice president held me up. I figured it would be the only chance I would have in this lifetime to use that as an excuse for being late.
So we spent the next few hours handing out Snickers coupons. It was a fun job especially if you enjoy people watching. One time I tried to hand a coupon to this one guy and he said "No." It wasn't until he said "No" that I realized who it was. It was Jared Fogle, you know, the Subway guy.
Of course he wouldn't want a Snickers coupon, that's understandable. He could have been nicer about it and said "No thanks" or "No thanks, and try the new Chicken Teriyaki sub at Subway, Eat Fresh!" But he didn't, he just said "No". Jared was there to represent Subway of course, he's been at the LLWS a few times.
So we finally finished up our shifts after California won the final game. As I was walking towards my car Joe Biden's plane flew overhead so I snapped a picture of it.
How do I know it was Joe Biden's plane? Because I live in the middle of Pennsylvania, we don't have planes that big in these parts, not at our little rinky-dink airport, no sir-ee. So the one thing that makes our little part of the world famous, but also chaotic once a year is once again over and we can all get back to our peaceful existence here in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
So after I left the Shoe Dept. I found a job only a couple miles from my apartment. I worked for Blockbuster Video in York, PA. There were about five Blockbuster Video stores at the time in York, I worked at the one on the corner or George St. and Rt. 30 just in case you were wondering.
The cool thing about this job was that we could rent five movies a week for free! We also got to rent movies two weeks before their release date. The uncool thing was how I got tricked into working on Christmas. When I interviewed for the job, the manager told me we had to work at least two holidays out of the year. I told her I wanted Christmas and Easter off and she said that was okay. It was around Thanksgiving of 1998 when I was supposed to start working there. The manager told me that I didn't have to start working until after Thanksgiving so that it wouldn't count as one of my holidays off. I thought it was a good idea. So I started working after Thanksgiving. I told the manager what days I wanted off for Christmas so I would have enough time to go home to see my family. She said that's going to be a problem and I asked her why. She reminded me that she told me in the interview I had to work at least two holidays in a year. Then she said there are only two holidays left this year, Christmas and New Year's Eve. Not only did she tell me in the interview that I could have Christmas off, but she made it sound like a good idea to start after Thanksgiving. See, if I would have started before and worked on Thanksgiving I could have had Christmas off and worked on New Year's Eve. That's how I was tricked into working on Christmas. I was still able to go home and see my family for a couple days before Christmas, but what my boss did was just conniving and evil.
Fortunately, the big wigs in the company like conniving and evil managers so they promoted her to become the manager of a different Blockbuster and her replacement at our store was really cool. We got along great. Everyone who worked there was pretty cool. There was a kiddie section in the store close to where the cash registers were and when it was late we would put on movies that we liked, but still with a PG rating like Labyrinth or Star Wars, and we would watch them from the front counter.
One night I was working with one of the assistant managers and we were bored, really bored. The guy I was working with was only about 5'3" and he said "I bet you can't do this" and he jumped straight up and onto the counter. The height of the counter was almost at my chest. I figured if he could do it, I could do it. So I hopped right up there and I did it! But I landed on just the tips of my toes and I started to lose my balance. Both my feet came right out from under me and I came down on both my shins on the corner of the counter. It hurt so bad I just started laughing. I sat in a chair and started rubbing my shins. I looked at the assistant manager, he looked horrified and he told me he would pay me for a new pair of pants. I asked him why. I looked down and my one pant leg was soaked with blood. I didn't even know I was bleeding at first. So I went to the back room and cleaned it up. It was pretty sore for the next few days, but the bloodstain came out of the pants and I made $20! I don't think I would ever try doing something like that again though. To this day I still have a little white indented circle on my right leg.
It was fun working there, I was even voted employee of the month twice while I was there. But the time finally came where I had to move back home to Jersey Shore, PA. It was sad leaving that place, but I was able to transfer to the Blockbuster Video in Williamsport, PA. It wasn't as much fun working there as it was in York. It was the only Blockbuster Video in Williamsport so it was very busy. Usually on a Friday and Saturday night I would work an 8 hour shift and not even get a chance to leave my cash register because the line was never-ending, and this was with four registers open! It was busy! People around here have nothing better to do I guess. I don't have to many memorable moments from working at the Williamsport Blockbuster so I think I'll end it here. It will probably take a few posts to talk about my next job since there are a lot of stories to tell about that one. Till next time, adios!
I thought I would start a series here on Story Time Tuesdays. I'm calling it the Work, Work, Work Edition, but I'll probably shorten it to WWWE starting next week. That's one more "W" than WWE, so no lawsuits Vince McMahon. Yea, I'm sure he reads this blog. I've been working since I was 13 and I've had many jobs in the past 17 years. No, I never got fired, I just got bored. I was a paperboy for my first job and I've already shared the best story from that job in an older post. But there are some other stories and memories from that job that I will tell you about today.
My very first day it took me five minutes to deliver my first paper. It was the Sunday morning paper and I had trouble rolling it up and getting the rubber band around it. It didn't take long to figure out that I needed to put rubber bands on all the papers before I delivered them. I had 80 papers to deliver on my route, it was one of the largest routes the Williamsport Sun-Gazette had for the Jersey Shore area. I had to make a few trips back to my house to get more papers because those suckers weighed probably 2-3 pounds on Sundays. Fortunately after that Sunday, my parents and other family members agreed to help me on Sunday mornings by loading all the papers in their cars and helping me deliver them. I greatly appreciated that especially because we had to get up at 5am to get started.
After getting more attuned to my job I found that I didn't need to use rubber bands for the smaller papers during the week. We had to pay for our rubber bands. All I had to do was fold it so that one side tucked into the other and when I tossed it on someone's porch it would automatically unfold, right there on the doormat.
There were three sections of my route. I had one section in town near my house, another down the road in a housing development where all the rich people lived who tipped well at Christmas time, and an apartment complex for the elderly. In each section of my paper route I knew at least one person who was kind enough to offer me a nice cold drink in the summer. One lady made the best iced tea ever! There were a few of my customers that I could sit with for a few minutes and chat when I needed a little rest.
During the winters of 1993 and 1994 our area had two of the biggest blizzards in over 100 years. Those just happened to be the two years that I had my paper route. I couldn't believe the delivery truck actually showed up to drop the bundles of papers off at my house. I was thinking, "It's the end of the world and you want me to deliver papers?!" I did it, and most people weren't expecting to get a paper that day. I got a little help from my family too which was nice.
I usually delivered to the rich housing development last because the neighborhood kids were usually doing something fun like playing baseball in the summer and having snowball fights in the winter. I finished there so I could join in the fun. I delivered to the apartment complex for the elderly first. One reason was because there was this one guy who got pretty upset if his paper wasn't there by 5pm. After 5 he stood outside, waiting for me. One time I was late and there he was. He had a few nasty words to say to me and lectured me about being late. I apologized and before I kept on going I told him "Merry Christmas". He just looked at me and said "Go to hell." That was harsh. Then one day he was outside, but I wasn't late. He was packing up a few things in his car. He told me he was moving. The song "Celebration" by Kool and the Gang started to play in my head. But then he did something I never expected. He apologized for giving me such a rough time and shook my hand. He said that I was probably glad he was leaving. I told him he wasn't such a bad guy after all.
Another time I was delivering to the apartment complex and I saw one of the elderly residents sitting in his car with his eyes closed and his head down. I thought he was dead. So I went to one of the apartments and knocked on the door so someone could come down and check on him. Somehow a large group of people came out and were all standing around the car. One of them knocked on the window of the car and the guy woke up kind of startled to see a bunch of people standing around his car. He said he was just napping. Strange place for a nap.
So that was my first job, I enjoyed it even though it was nothing like the arcade game.
The "I Hate Mondays!" posts are no more. I decided to change it because I'm not a hateful person and I only have so much to rant and rave about. The things I hate most are ignorance and selfishness and I think I covered that in last Monday's post. That was the pinnacle of the "I Hate Mondays!" posts and it was a good place to retire it. So now, instead of starting the week off talking about such negative things, I will be talking about people and organizations who inspire minds through their thoughts and their actions. The first one we'll start off with is called "charity: water".
Last night I attended Valley Mosaic. We meet weekly and sometimes discuss different issues in the local community and around the world and keep Jesus Christ as our main focus when tackling these issues. We watched a DVD about an organization called charity: water and it was very eye-opening. The DVD showed how so many people in Africa walk for over three hours everyday just to get water that could cause them to become infected with disease and other illnesses. Unfortunately it's the only water available to them.
One in six people on the planet don't have access to clean, safe drinking water.
Scott Harrison is the founder of charity: water. Scott's story starts like this:
In 2004, I left the streets of New York City for the shores of West Africa. I'd made my living for years in the big Apple promoting top nightclubs and fashion events, for the most part living selfishly and arrogantly. Desperately unhappy, I needed to change. Faced with spiritual bankruptcy, I wanted desperately to revive a lost Christian faith with action and asked the question: What would the opposite of my life look like?
On June 27th, Williamsport, PA will host it's annual Music Festival called Absorb in Brandon Park. Learn more about it from my friend Natalie on her blog. Valley Mosaic will have a space set up with information about charity: water. We are going to keep the booth as green as possible. We will be raising money to build a well in Africa by selling reusable water containers. 100% the proceeds will go to charity: water. We aren't sure what kind of containers we will be selling yet. Either stainless steel or aluminum, but one of our Valley Mosaic attendees told us that if we go with aluminum it will have to be coated so it doesn't "smell like a boy scout canteen by the third use" as he put it. So if you live in or near the area come on out and see what we have going on. Heck, even if you live far away, hop on a plane and get your patootie out here!
