For every success there are many failures that came before. My story is no exception, and please believe this list of jobs from the previous posts is not comprehensive.

I have worked at places I did not include in this work for a number of reasons. Maybe the experience was unremarkable: I was a side character in someone else’s play for a speck of time. There were a few other examples of me working somewhere and I get informed during the first month of the place’s permanent closing.

The first time I moved to a new city, I applied for a security job. I found out my out-of-state license didn’t count for shit, and the company was happy to pay me $7.75 an hour to patrol a neighborhood that had a recent active shooting. I passed on that one.

One of the funnier ones I turned down was this Chinese casino in SoCal. I get to the job interview, I was the only white guy in the room, and the first round of the interview was a math test. It reminded me of the math tests the gave us in first grade. Ten multiplication problems each ranging in difficulty from 1×1 to 25×13 and further. Midway through the test one man stood up, let out a huge sigh, and left. I moved on to the next round, and sat through a whole lecture on buster brackjack. Afterwards, I was sent to a lab to take a pee test, which I knew I was going to fail. I forget if I actually took the drug test or not, but I do remember leaving and never actually going to work for them.

During that time period I had an opportunity to sell some kind of medical device for pregnant women. I was down and out pretty bad and my friend’s dad has a business associate out there, and that was the kind of business he wanted to do. He requested I wear a tie. I got out of that due to him being very hard to get ahold of, and me leaving SoCal entirely.

Phewh.  

Recently, a church approached me to be their pianist, but upon meeting the people in the church I was really weirded out that I sat at the piano, played two chords, and said, “I don’t think this is for me. Sorry.” And I left.

I turned down a front desk position at a gym because I’ve been there, done that, and neither time ended well. Both times were during COVID, one for the JCC, the other for a national chain of which I was already a member. The JCC gym job wasn’t really noteworthy. I left early because I offended a coworker and she was taking offense to it very seriously. The day I left early I sent in a resignation letter. So quit on bad terms I guess. The only person I look back on from that job with any reverence or fondness was this old Brooklyn Jewish dude named Jesse. He was unassuming in appearance, but he was hilarious. He loved the Grateful Dead, and he could hoop like it was nobody’s business. He was out there playing Horse with high school kids making them look like punks. He was a cancer survivor, and despite his gruff demeanor, he had a lot wisdom. One takeaway I got from our conversations was to not let hate consume me to a point where it meant my own downfall. Hate is a powerful and harmful emotion that costs people their lives. Even in trivial matters, hate takes a toll. I hope that dude’s still kickin.

The chain gym was a different story. I got hired by a pregnant hiring manager who left on maternity leave the week after I started. I have never seen that woman since the day she hired me. The main crew at this gym was me at the front desk, this 18 year old kid they hired as the training manager, and this 27 year old dude who was the maintenance guy. We all would shoot the shit about hip hop, life, spirituality, and have some deep conversations.

We also stared at ass.

There were a few personal trainers that worked there, the only one we really got to know was a woman named Pearl. She would always invite people over to her house and hang out with her husband. Me and the maintenance guy did once and never again. They had us pray with them and play Monopoly or something. I’m not here to judge the lifestyles of others. That was just not a compatible lifestyle with mine or maintenance guy’s.

There was another training manager guy. Randy. This guy had some weird vibes. Most of the time, he didn’t really give a fuck and tried to lay low. He wasn’t bothered if we talked to him but you could tell if he could have chosen to be invisible he would have. Sometimes he’d come in on his bullshit and brag about his side hustles. The one I remember was there was no context, the dude was in the building for like five minutes and he says, “I got a vending machine.” I was like, “in your house? Or what?” He laughed and he’s like, “Nah I’m not a narcissist. As a side hustle I got a vending machine” Because of his vending machine he was pretty benevolent with the monsters and red bulls. Towards the end Randy got a little weird. There were these two very young girls that were hanging out with him, and one day as they’re leaving he yells, “We out this bitch! If anyone needs me I’m dead. Don’t call.” Five minutes later he calls me at the front desk with a whole nother tone saying, “Yeah, I’m only five minutes away if you need me just call.” Not a month later Randy gets caught robbing a series of Walmarts. Wild west style, he’s out there with guns and a mask and his partners blasting and robbing three different Walmarts. He’s doing 15 years in federal prison now.

Back in my alcoholic days, I would casually go to breweries, hotel bars, and pretty much wherever sold alcohol and “work the room.” I’d post up for a few hours and connect with whoever sat next to me. Sometimes the bartenders would be amazed at my people skills. I never went home with anybody so, what was it all worth? One Monday I walked to a brewery near the house I live in and I was the only person there. The owner and the sales manager served me and we got to talking. Talking turned into a job interview, which turned into a drunken night on the town. All I remember was the sales manager buying me like the worst drinks he could fathom. He bought me a spicy watermelon shot somewhere, and then bought me a rumplemint shot at another bar. Then he was mouthing off to this dude from Georgia at the bar which I calmed him down. Next thing you know, we’re getting in to the guy from Georgia’s jeep and drinking at this other bar known for whiskey. Sales manager guy throws up on himself in the whiskey bar, which was funny because the sales manager was wearing the shirt from the brewery he worked at and the whiskey bar had a sign for his brewery on the wall right behind the sales manager as he threw up. Twas a poetic vomit.

Months go by, I don’t hear from them, and I basically forget about the whole thing. Then they call and say, “Oh yeah we need some help.” So I’m pulling pints and cleaning the bar, hanging out with the people and working the crowds. It’s fun, easy, good stuff. Then one Saturday night I’m working alone, and they’re throwing a huge party with a bunch of rich people at the brewery. I am drinking and letting people buy me drinks left and right. When the traffic slowed down I stepped out for a cigarette and the owner’s wife did not like that. She really didn’t like me much at all. Unfortunately she’s the person that signs the checks, and so after that night they fired me for drinking on the job. Reasons why that’s bullshit? They all drink on the job. All of them. And it wasn’t a problem up until she made her mind up that she didn’t like me. Which is fine, I wrote it off as, “I’m a man’s man. Not for everybody.” My severance payment from that job was about four pallets of beer. For months I did not have a fridge, just beer. I was giving six packs away left and right and still probably had to drink like 300 beers total. I’m still cool with those people, as they put it, I wasn’t fired I was promoted to customer.

I’ve turned down some sales jobs, some retail jobs, didn’t get picked for a sales manager job at Games Workshop, I turned down a job at Wetzel’s Pretzels because that shit did not seem worth the trouble. I tend to turn down any jobs involving alcohol now based on past experience. The real bummer about that brewery job was the guy who owns this brewery makes great beer and the reason I took the job was to learn how to brew from this dude. Either way, I’ve learned to stay out of that industry. I try to minimize the 1099s I have to fill out, because my taxes over the years have been a nightmare. This year alone I am filing eight different W-2s and 1099s.

I think for most people it’s reasonable to ask their parents for advice when it comes to things like taxes and insurance. My Dad has worked the same job for the last 20 years, and freetaxusa does the job for him quite nicely. I’m at a point where I need to hire an accountant. One year I had to file for three different states because I lived in two different states but worked in three. One guy told me to make sure I paid state income tax on one of the states I’ve lived in lest it bite me in the ass in a few years.

I am currently making more money which means I have to be much more careful with my taxes. This year I’m looking at paying for intuit, but I’ve heard intuit lobbies to keep the tax system the way it is. I’ve been told every other country does taxes differently than the good old US of A, and the way I hear it, some other countries’ systems sound like they make more sense than ours.

I still fully believe taxation is theft, and the older I get the less I laugh about it and the more irritated I become.

Every year I have to hunt down the forms. Some of the gig apps don’t send tax forms, rather “earning statements” or “yearly summaries” which requires a great deal of math on my part. Sometimes being in college is great for my taxes, other times it fucks me in the ass. I’ve had to pay taxes more than I’ve seen a refund. This past year was the first year I started saving receipts, and I am excited to write some things off this year. I run my life like a business, and I’m tired of operating in the red.

I have never received unemployment. I have never been truly unemployed. Even when I was ‘between jobs’ I still had these gig apps, or craigslist to fall back on.

To supplement my income, I’ve sold some things to get the bills paid. I have pawned a stereo system, and a violin. I don’t know what I did with the stereo system money. The violin money was the remaining $60 I needed to cover rent.

I sold a guitar to make a car insurance payment, and if my dad found that out he’d be heartbroken. He bought me a nice guitar When I graduated high school, and I sold it thinking that being late on a payment was the end of the world. I am currently late on some payments and the world continues to turn. I do intend to bring my accounts current.

Throughout middle school and high school I used to sneak into the teacher’s lounge buy sodas and mark them up and sell them. I sold Pokémon cards, Yu Gi Oh cards, alcohol, drugs, video games, you name it. It was funny because I’d sell video games and stuff like that so I could have enough money to buy some weed, or psychedelics. I wasn’t really smart about where my money went, but boy could I hustle to make stuff happen.

The worst thing I’ve ever sold in my life was my plasma. It took me about two hours to find a place to sell my plasma that wasn’t in a strip mall attached to a liquor store. Once I found the place all was well until about ¾ the way through. My body felt like a massage chair. I was losing feeling and starting to panic. When I described my symptoms, the nurse lady said, “Okay we’re going to reverse the machine, get your blood back into you and…” other things in the process to get me feeling normal again. “Great.” I said as my whole body was shaking. Several minutes passed and I was starting to feel worse, so I asked again, “Hey, what are you guys going to do about this?” And the lady repeated her self and I said, “I’m so sorry to interrupt but have you started doing that process yet?” “No, not yet” I said, “Could you please hurry that up I am not feeling great. I’m not trying to be rude just, it’s really urgent.” I was as polite as I could possibly be while knocking on death’s door. A few minutes later and it felt like I just got off of the electric chair. I received a Gatorade or two, some cheez its or chex mix or something, a $100 prepaid debit card, a stress ball, and one week of feeling like I got hit by a bus. I’ve kept the stress ball as a reminder of that experience.

Most everything else I sold has been musical instruments on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. I’ve sold a seven string Schecter guitar (literally nobody wanted it. I could not give the thing away).  When I sold some car seats I had people begging me to hold them a little longer or offer me more money to go against my “first come first served” policy.

There’s only one man I remember fondly from all of the items I’ve sold. It was 9pm CST and I was at the gym. I get a message from a guy about a drum machine I was selling. I went to this guy’s house and I swear I met the cyclops from the Odyssey. This giant goofy looking guy with one glass eye opens the door and he’s got a booming voice. He pulls out this 50 year old Gibson and sings a song about humility. I asked him what he did for work and he said, “computers.” I found out later that he worked on the top floor of the tallest building in the city, and if that ain’t humble, I don’t know what it is. He liked the drum machine, but as a self-described completist couldn’t buy it in the current condition. I did not have the original plug for it. So we left at, if I return with the plug, he’ll buy it. I did him one better. I found the box for the thing, and sold him the box, bags, plug, and manual to it. We became friends over time. I found out he was in the program and had a bit of a rags to riches story when it came to sobriety. I failed to mention that I was on ecstasy (yes, at the gym) when I met him. Mike was from Louisiana which means he has that outlandish accent. I’m glad I met him. He had plenty of songs and stories that will never be heard by nobody, but that’s okay, I needed to hear them. He’s also involved with a recovery theater group. Stand up guy, a real unsung hero.