Teenage Dreams & Other Breakables

It's Monday!!! I'm sorry I didn't get to update the blog Friday...I was busy doing the drawing for my new Facebook page, having lunch with my brother and shopping at Costco. I need to design an app that I can use to blog while I drive, I always have so many great ideas but it's tough to write while speeding down the highway at 80 MPH.
If you are new to my blog, WELCOME!!! I love writing and this is where I vent, share, over share and hone a craft that I hope to one day get paid for. We have themed days but I want you to get super stoked about next week....we are all going on vacation!!! Next Wednesday we are headed to San Francisco where we will be seeing Rhianna in concert, watching a couple baseball games and eating lots of amazing food. I will be blogging about all the restaurants, outings, bars and events we hit up so you can enjoy the beauty of Cali in the comfort of your home. I'm excited to share this journey with you. If you have a favorite store, coffee shop or restaurant in SF please email me or comment here so I can check it out.

On Monday we tackle office shenanigans, shitty bosses and all things work. It is meant to relieve some of the pressure of having to hole up in a cubicle for eight to ten hours a day. I have never been destined for office work, my first job was at a grocery store where I started at a training wage. That's how they justified paying a fifteen year old $3.66/ hour. I started at the bottom of the totem pole bagging groceries for elderly women and pushing carts through sheets of rain. My parents raised us to work hard and then even harder, just to make sure you did twice as much work at half the cost. I blame them for the passion I have for hard labor and shitty pay. I have since followed my first job up with numerous receptionist gigs, a couple coffee shop jobs and the mother of two monkeys. I still haven't received a check for that last one.
If working hard made you rich, I would be living in Hawaii, doing yoga on the beach and napping every afternoon. Instead, I am working in an office, paying bills and wishing the temperature would surpass 40 degrees in March. Working hard and working smart are two very different paths and at the fork in the road, I should have gone right not left.
I was dependable to a fault and made my way up the proverbial ranks and into the Video Department. This promotion came with a laughably small raise and the responsibility of checking movies out to creepers and loners. Just so you know how ancient I am, I got paid to handle VHS tapes and restock huge walls full of movies that today, I could fit on my laptop. As a teenager, it was a good gig. I didn't have to flip burgers or hang out with too many of my peers, so I put my best foot forward and ended up in the Produce Department. This is where my first job takes a turn for the worse. I was very young and a little naive. There were no boys my age asking me out, taking me to prom or stopping by my house with flowers. My boss in this department started showing me a bit too much attention. He was fifteen years my senior and married to a beautiful blond with long legs and a voice that you had to strain to hear over a breeze. I had no idea what she was saying half the time and her whispers were no match for her husband's overbearing tone.She desperately wanted a baby with a man who wanted to relive high school with his employee. He degraded her at every turn, I assume to impress me and let me know that I had options. I wasn't too young to understand what a fucked up dynamic this was.
He would take smoke breaks with me, bring me coffee in the morning and compliment me on my sense of humor. I wanted to believe we were friends, but as time went on I realized there was no good reason for a thirty-five year old man to desire the attention of his sixteen year old employee. I have always had a pretty sensitive bullshit detector and once I stopped justifying his shitty behavior I realized that I had needed to run for a long time. What would a happily married man need with an awkward teenager who lived in her parents' basement? It took a few years for me to come to the conclusion that this guy had some major issues. Thanks for sharing them with me, ass bag.