What was your first job? 

hotg0ssip:

dietcock:

As a teen, I pumped gas at a no-longer-extant Mobil station in Malibu, in the days when Malibu was still actually a quaint and (relatively) down-to-earth community.  The manager was never there, so I’d rock tunes and read most of the time.  Apart from gaining unparallelled skill in squeegeeing windows and checking fluids (it was a full-service station and customers would actually tip), the most memorable fringe benefit was the many chance encounters (though not in the Craig’s List sense of the phrase) with legendary celebrities.  Gary Busey and Nick Nolte would arrive early, like 6:00AM early, looking (and smelling) like they hadn’t slept yet (Nolte’s infamous DUI mugshot looked like a Vogue cover shoot compared to how bedraggled his appearance was some mornings).  Cheech Marin was a regular customer (which was a huge deal for me, as I was the biggest Cheech & Chong fan ever as a kid) and would always command, in his best “Pedro and the Man” voice:  ”Hey… unlead me.”   The best star-sighting of all, however, was Miles Davis.  He pulled up one day in a yellow Ferrari.  After I pumped his gas, he turned to me and, in a raspy whisper, asked,  ”you like this car?”  I eagerly nodded, too nervous to say anything.  He waited a few beats, sizing me up, then broke into the slightest trace of a grin:  ”I’ve got seven of them,” he responded, cool as ice.   And with that, he drove off….

I love stories like these. My first job was in a warehouse in South Jersey. Nothing to tell, other than the time I sent a large steel beam plummeting to the level below. Man, the ensuing five seconds were the most awkward and silent five seconds that I’ve ever experienced.