Episode 78 is the special monthly bonus show.
We all may come from different places and different backgrounds, but one way we're all similar is the fact that we all work for a living. The jobs might be different, they might pay different, and have different responsibilities, but they're all part of being part of the workforce.
It all had to start somewhere though. We all can remember our first jobs. No, not doing chores around the house, but an actual job with an actual boss.
This bonus episode features a look back at my indoctrination into the land of being a working man. We'll look at what it was like getting used to taking orders, getting that first true paycheck, and whether or not I believe I started my first job too young(I was 12).
As a quick reminder there will be no new podcast episode next week due to my commitments on the final screening of the Lady of the Dunes documentary before it goes to distribution. The link for tickets is below. Episode 79 will come to you in two weeks!
Helpful Links from this Episode(available through Buzzsprout)
Listen to Episode 77 here.
Episode 78 is the special monthly bonus show.
We all may come from different places and different backgrounds, but one way we're all similar is the fact that we all work for a living. The jobs might be different, they might pay different, and have different responsibilities, but they're all part of being part of the workforce.
It all had to start somewhere though. We all can remember our first jobs. No, not doing chores around the house, but an actual job with an actual boss.
This bonus episode features a look back at my indoctrination into the land of being a working man. We'll look at what it was like getting used to taking orders, getting that first true paycheck, and whether or not I believe I started my first job too young(I was 12).
As a quick reminder there will be no new podcast episode next week due to my commitments on the final screening of the Lady of the Dunes documentary before it goes to distribution. The link for tickets is below. Episode 79 will come to you in two weeks!
Helpful Links from this Episode(available through Buzzsprout)
Listen to Episode 77 here.
Hello World, and welcome to the in my footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund. Coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and this is episode 78. It's time once again for the monthly bonus episode, a little bit of a shorter episode. But it's one single topic that we do a deep dive into, this will surely be a fun one filled with great memories, something that we all can relate to. And that is work. What I'm going to do here is dive into the beginnings of my working career. The first few jobs, what it's like adjusting to having to take orders from strangers, and becoming part of the working community. There'll be some laughs there'll be some head shaking, and there'll be some sympathy as we all can relate to what it's like to be the working-class heroes that we all are. So let's dive into the beginnings of my working career on episode 78 of the in my footsteps podcast, a special monthly bonus episode. I have plenty of times, I'm sure you have plenty of times as adults where we think about wishing we could go back to being kids again. And a lot of it boils down to responsibilities, or adulting, as a lot of us call it. I know I've had plenty of times where I could wish. I know I've had plenty of times when I wish I could go back in time to when there was no responsibilities except just being a kid, maybe going to school. But that's about it. Back then everything you do, everyone's proud of you. But as you get older, especially into your 30s and 40s. There are fewer people that are I don't want to say not proud of you. But it's more or less day, the day gets to be a mundane grind. Where you feel like what you do is not appreciated, not all the time, there are just times like that, when you have a great day, a great day at work, you get a lot done. And it's almost like George Costanza, you want to leave on a high note. But that's not possible, you got to go back the next day and do it all over again. I've been working I've been employed for more than three decades. And now it's just a part of life, you have to have a job. Well, if you want to have anything in life, you have to have a job. You could always go live in the woods and attend but even then I think you need money for it. But like I said, this episode is the beginning of employment, the beginnings of work, and I'm sure a lot of you, we may not be the same age, not from the same place don't have the same background. But getting into the work. environment. That's something I think we all can relate to, even if we don't have jobs that are anywhere near the same. Even if you knew what you wanted to be from the beginning, it's a very, very rare few that start doing what they want to do right away. And just continue on that path. Most people have a lot of different directions, lane changes, dead ends. And when I talk about work, talk about employment. I'm not talking about being a kid having chores and getting an allowance from your parents. That doesn't count. Because if you don't do your chores, yeah, you're gonna get in trouble. You're gonna get grounded, and you won't get your allowance, but you're not going to be fired from the family. I can remember growing up as a child of the 1980s teenager of the 90s having chores like emptying the dishwasher or doing something that we in the family called poop patrol. I'm sure my siblings are laughing at that now. Poop patrol was going around the backyard picking up our two dogs' poop. I mean, that's as glamorous as it can be. Still, it's better to clean it up and throw it away than to not get it and slip and fall in it. Which happened to me when I was a kid. But chores were easy. Just being a kid. You're lazy, naturally lazy, and selfish. I know I was. So I didn't want to empty the dishwasher. Something that took 10 minutes are the same with poop patrol. 10 minutes at most. I wanted to get on my bike and go ride or maybe play Nintendo or just hang out with friends. But it was all better when you got your allowance and you could go to the corner store, buy some candy, soda, candy bars. You felt kinda like a big shot. Look, I got like five bucks. There we go. At some point though, you transition over from doing chores around the house to having an actual real job, because there's only so much your parents can pay you for allowance. You don't get really big raises, you might go from five bucks to 10 bucks at most, maybe I don't know how it is today. But back then, and a big family with five kids, there was only so much money that parents can pay out. I mean, unless you were going to go up and change the shingles on the roof. There are not many jobs that are deserving of huge amounts of money when you're a kid. I got my first real actual job when I was 12 years old. Now I think today there are laws about how old you have to be to get a job. Typically it's 14 and above. In 1990, when I was 12 years old, the job I got was at my friends, families general store. And this wasn't some lucrative deal. I went one day a week for four or five hours to stock shelves. I believe it was paid under the table. I got a whopping $5 an hour. And my friend Matt and I, I've mentioned him in Episode 30, a whole bonus episode on him. But we would get up not really early, but then we would ride our bikes from where we lived down to Barnstable Village. So it's like five and a half miles, it would take us 25 minutes or something to get there. 12-year-old legs have a lot more endurance than when you're older. We didn't have uniforms, we didn't have punch-in clocks, it was just going there and start emptying boxes on the shelves. Obviously, we had to learn about rotation, bring the oldest stuff to the front, put the fresh in the back, all that glamorous, fun stuff. Being that it was my friend's family store, there wasn't a lot of pressure on me. So it was a good way to get introduced to the working world. Obviously, I tried to do a good job so that his parents would be happy. And especially mine would be happy that I was working. But being honest stocking shelves is not hard. You could do it in your sleep when you're older, you could do it hungover. Not that I've done that, but I'm sure you could. It was good because being 12 years old in stocking shelves, all the customers thought it was adorable. We were young boys helping out Ooh, so responsible you're in and you're doing work. The funny thing is, when I think back now on that first job that's over 30 years ago, the first thing that popped into my head is that I had to actually pay for my own lunch. That comes back to the selfishness of a child. Because there was a deli there where they had sandwiches, and I think soups and salads it was small. But still, I'm there working stocking shelves getting paid a whopping $5 an hour. So I thought that I would get my lunch for free. Because we would always get subs, I typically got a meatball sub, which was not good for working because it made you want to lay down and sleep. But that first day that I got a small meatball sub, and I had it deducted from my pay because we got paid under-the-table cash. So instead of getting 20 or $25, depending on how many hours we worked, suddenly the cost of the sub was taken out. I was like oh man, even though it was only that one summer of 1990 that I worked at that general store. It gave me a little bit of a sense of pride, responsibility, and freedom with my own money. So even though I didn't go back there the next summer, I wanted to keep working. That first job was easy working for my friends family. So I parlayed that the next summer into less of a full-time job and I know I said that I only worked one day a week at the general store. But the following summer when I worked for my stepfather's landscaping company lawns and things, which he basically ran on his own, but I would be his assistant every now and then he had this old blue pickup truck like the powder blue kind of color with wooden sides that went up and had the lawns and things logo painted on it. I don't know who painted it on there. Maybe my mother did. They'll have to tell me, but it was a one-man show with a lawn mower like a hand push job, rakes, maybe some shovels, maybe a string trimmer. But again, just like the general store job, the responsibilities were low, I think because it's family and my stepfather knew I was 13 at the time. Don't give me the string trimmer if I'm not ready for it, give me a rake and tell me to rake up leaves. The irony was that my friend Matt, who had worked at his family store the summer before he would every now and then come out and work with me with my stepfather. It was like we swapped roles. Most of the time, it was fun because I love being outside the smell of the summer air, the sound of the birds the smell of freshly cut grass on it, even to this day. I love it. So we'd go out to these jobs to the clients that my stepfather had we stop it can be convenience stores, probably at Dunkin Donuts. It's interesting because when I think of the lawns and things summer that I work doing some landscaping, the first memory that pops up is not as a specific job. There was a time that I believe my friend Matt was working with us that day, sort of three of us in the truck. My stepfather, my stepfather probably got out to go into the store, maybe a hardware store to get some equipment. And because I was the family the stepson I got the window seat. So I was sitting there with my arm on the window, my right arm and be in Cape Cod. We are loaded with seagulls now year-round. And out of nowhere, this Seagull just takes a dump on my arm just this white and black mix just splats on my arm. I still remember Matt just he laughed his ass off because he, I would always say Oh, it's my stepfather. I get to sit at the window. And he was laughing like, Oh, you like the window, do you? Even in the times that we swapped and he got the window seat. He never had a seagull crap on his arm. Much like working at the general store working landscaping with my stepfather. That was only one summer. The following summer 1992 I graduated eighth grade. I didn't work unless I worked and I blocked it out. I spent more time hanging out with my friends, rolling my ankle on the basketball court in front of my house and spending a week with ice on it on the couch like a jackass. Because I was showing off for this girl that I liked. The next job I wanted for the following year was to work at my grandfather's donut shop because that place was legendary. You can go back to Episode 20. And the episode is dedicated to my grandfather to hear more about Sullivan's donut shop. But after spending so much time in there as a kid and getting to watch my grandfather work and other members of the family worked there. My goal was always to eventually work there. Whether making doughnuts in the back or just being a sweep and mop boy or something like that menial. I just wanted to be a part of that. I don't think I ever talked to my grandfather about working at the donut shop or talk to my mother about it. It was more of something that was understood that once I was of age, I was going to work there. But unfortunately, circumstances came up it wasn't meant to be there was major construction around the area of where the donut shop was in Hyannis. That coupled with the rise of Dunkin donuts on Cape Cod led to my grandfather shutting the donut shop down early in 1993. So that left me kind of out in the cold where I had no idea what I wanted to do for work. But I was also a freshman in high school. So I had more important things to worry about like hanging out with my friends and having crushes on random girls that would not be requited whatever. I thought I was going to have the summer after my freshman year of high school to just hang out and ride my bike and just be out in the sun. But then I got an offer I couldn't refuse from my father. He wanted me to come down and do dishes and prep work at the marsh side restaurant in Dennis. Just for Memorial Day weekend. It might have even been just for one of those days like a Sunday. So the chance to make my own money again was something I couldn't pass up because I had expensive hobbies like buying baseball cards or going to Spinnaker or Newbury comics and buying CDs and CD singles that I would eventually throw away. Going to the marsh side. This was my first real introduction to actual work. And by that I mean working for someone that wasn't family. Yeah, my father was there but he didn't run the place. The general store and lawns and things that were family or friends of family, so there was little to no pressure going to the marshside. It was different. I got there, they asked me to go into our barn which was across the parking lot. And do prep work, food prep. And this is a 100% True story. This is from May of 1993. The very first job I ever had at the marsh side was to slice tomatoes. And I kid you not, I had never used a chef's knife. I probably had never sliced a tomato ever, because I didn't really like eating them. Within five minutes at most, I had cut my thumb slicing tomatoes. I had to walk across the parking lot into the kitchen with my thumb wrapped in a brown paper towel, blood everywhere. I was hugely embarrassed. And I'm sure my father was so proud of his son that he probably bragged to the owner, I'm bringing my son in to do prep work. And within five minutes, he's cut himself like a god, get rid of him. What ended up happening was, I got cleaned up and bandaged up. And they stuck me as a dishwashing apprentice. There was a guy named Marcos, he was the day dishwasher. And basically they put me on dish and he kind of instructed me. He was really nice. But it was weird to have someone that you didn't know, kind of oversee what you're doing. Because by now I was already on edge. I was like, What am I going to do now shattered dishes everywhere. I've already cut myself. But it was a little bit comforting because my father was there working the actual line in the kitchen. And all of the servers and bus people were super nice. A lot of them from that time. And from my time at the marsh, I became friends. And I might bring up the fact that the first two jobs I had I worked for friends or family. But getting older and being the age I am now looking back. I've never had a boss that was better at being a boss than Mary Lou, who was the owner of the marshside was when you're a kid teenager, even in your early 20s. And you think you know everything and you think you deserve more than you're getting even though you don't, you can look at a boss that's telling you what to do, quote-unquote, as being this ogre, or overlord. But when you get older, and especially when you don't work for that boss anymore, you really appreciate who they were and how they managed people. It's been almost 30 years since that first summer at the marsh side. And I'll tell you, I rarely have had more fun at a job than doing that prep and dish work at the marshside. Sure, there were times I got caught or got irritated at people telling me what to do. But there was such low pressure and low expectations on me. I was washing dishes or grading cheese or slicing tomatoes or making salads. That's not hard work, especially if you've got half a competent brain. But I would get paid I would get an actual real paycheck with a pay stub so you could see what you're making. The best part was, I actually got lunch and it didn't come out of my paycheck, that was a huge deal. Granted, it would always be chicken nuggets and fries. With the Cattlemens barbecue sauce that is still my favorite to this day. I think it's one of those comforting memories from childhood that like the flavor of that barbecue sauce brings me back to first working every now and then this guy named Craig that worked there at night, he'd made me a sandwich because I had no skill to work, actual cooking. And maybe I'm romanticizing it because there were times in high school that I was not a great employee, I would call out quote unquote sick because I just didn't want to go to work because I was a kid. I can't say when the right time is to get your first job and start working. I almost wish that I hadn't started doing any work until I was, you know, a sophomore junior in high school. Not that I missed out on anything. But it's kind of like once you enter the working world, you don't really get out. And if you get out you're seen as lazy and directionless, and it's bad. So it's almost like you want to put it off as long as you can. And maybe things were just different in the late 80s, early 90s than they are today. I don't know that first run at the marshside though, was probably the best job I ever had and that's no knock on anywhere that I've worked since or where I work now. It was a combination of what I did was easy food prep or dishwashing and eventually cooking. The setting of the restaurant was very homie, with a great staff, a great owner, great customers and regulars that you got to know. It was a lot looser with the things that we would say and do and sit at the counter and talk to people. And it was a unique setup. Overall, the original Marshside, not the soulless corporate thing that it is now the original Marshside was just so unique in its setup, the restaurant had way more character, and our barn was just so weird, but made sense. There were times it felt like I was stealing money from there because I would have so much fun with the people where I would kind of be like, Wow, I'm getting paid to make salads and listen to my grunge alternative music super loud in the prep room. Obviously, if I was to go back and do that same exact job, I want to I would want to get paid more. But when you're 15, 16, 17 That's not as big a deal because you don't have responsibilities. I didn't even get my first car till I was 18. And that thing was a piece of crap that I paid cash for. This has definitely been a lot of fun doing this episode of the podcast reminiscing about starting working as I'm getting prepared to go to work today. Because I do love what I do is my day job and I enjoy where I work and who I work with. But there's a reason that I have a YouTube video on my channel called the marsh side Chronicles. Part of his because I had my video camera back then and I would bring it into work and film us doing stuff. But the other main reason is that it was a big part of that time in my life and it was fun and important and one that I want to remember and immortalize. But those were my first three jobs. My introduction to the workplace in the early 1990s. Do you out there remember your first jobs? Was it anything like mine? Typically when I think of someone getting their first job I do I think of stocking shelves. I think of doing dishes or landscaping something that's easier to slash low risk. And when did you all out there start working? Was it like me at age 12? Or did you wait longer and enjoy more of your childhood? No, I'm kidding. I enjoyed as much of my childhood as I could. So it's not like going to work suddenly changed everything. I mean, I would work one or two days a week I didn't work full-time. But that's going to wrap up episode 78 The special bonus episode looking back at the dawn of the working man. So thank you all for tuning in. Thank you to everyone who has been listening. As I said June and now into July had been my best months and had the best weeks for the podcast, which is a great feeling and a great sign as I continue to go on with more and more episodes. Find me all over social media, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, my Facebook fan page for the podcast. Check out the in my footsteps podcast blog at blogger.com Visit my homepage Christopher setterlund.com. You can always shoot me an email Christopher setterlund@gmail.com Visit Kiwis Kustoms at etsy.com. The link is in the description of the podcast. And if you've been listening, like I said last week, there will be no new podcast next week, because that is the final screening of the lady of the dunes documentary taking place at the water's edge cinema in Provincetown, Tuesday, June 26, concurrent with the day that the body of the lady of the dunes was found. So I'm going to take that week off I'm gonna have a lot of media and press and preparing for the show. But I will return the week after we'll be into August by then for episode 79. I'll talk all about that lady of the dunes documentary screening and kind of things that went on around and behind the scenes. We're going to take a special road trip to all of these different fictional New England towns that were made up for different books, television and movies. And then we're going to celebrate summer we're going to go way way back in the day to what it was like when the ice cream man the ice cream truck would come around. There's going to be a brand new top five that are going to be the top five summertime songs. And of course, there'll be a brand new this week in history and Time Capsule all coming up in two weeks time on episode 79 of the in my footsteps podcast. And as I always say, in this life, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps create your own path and enjoy every moment you can leave the biggest footprint you can because tomorrow's never promised so enjoy today. Thank you all again for tuning into this special bonus episode 78 This has been the in my footsteps podcast. I have been Christopher Setterlund and I will talk to you all again soon.