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| So not me. Source |
We were walking by Hooters when he encouraged me to apply. "You'll get a job there for sure. And waitresses make good tips." I reminded him that not only do you have to be well-endowed, but your butt has to fit into those tiny shorts. I was not going in there.
Guess what? We ended up going in there. I sat down and awkwardly filled out the application. I almost made it the whole way through. Then I had to list my most recent positions. The school year wasn't quite out yet, so the first "employer" I had to list was my agency. The agency that sent me in to work with Kindergardeners. I realized that it wasn't just the booty shorts that were going to be a problem. There was no way I was going to have Hooters call my agency for a reference. As much as I wanted a summer job I wanted to keep my job come fall.
I ended up working as an interim secretary.
When I lived in Idaho, I tried so desperately to fit in. I went to book clubs where I read horrible teen novels with English Lit grads who told me Hemingway was in no way the author of "A Farewell to Arms." I went to dinner parties with couples we had nothing in common with, trying to find any way I could to relate.
One time, I even went to a sex toy party.
You know the kind. It's like a tupperware party only you're sitting there with a room full of women talking about putting things in weird places and the size of their husband's...endowments. Apparently even in Idaho's ultra conservative culture, it's okay to be super slutty with your words as long as everyone present is married and you're talking about your husbands.
With a group of close friends, I could see this. But some of these women were each other's in-laws. That means that some of them were hearing about their brother's sexual habits. I sat quietly in my chair and tried to figure out why I was putting myself through this.
When it came time for the business building part of the party, I was so, so happy to be able to say, "I'm sorry. I can't sell sex toys. I work with kids. And that catalog just wouldn't look right next to the Avon catalog in the teacher's lounge."
LOL, you're funny. I wouldn't want to work at Hooters anyway. I'm not going to dress like a slut to sling wings. Working in food service is bad enough!
ReplyDeleteHaha amen.
DeleteIt's a waste of time to see people you don't want to be friends with anyway. I'd rather be alone with a few good friends than surrounded by 50 whom I have nothing in common with.
ReplyDeleteI'm totally with you. Once my friend from out east moved into town, that was the end of me trying to culture match. We hung out all the time and I didn't feel as much pressure to socialize with people that weren't on the same wavelength as me. I got lucky. The lack of social life was killing me.
DeleteDon't they where nylons with the shorts at Hooters. That alone would make me not want to work there. :)
ReplyDeleteI don't know! I'm definitely not a nylons girl, either, though. :)
DeleteHahaha awkward!! I would NEVER go to one of those parties with anyone I was related to. And I think it's great that you acknowledged your future plans when you were younger and actually put some thought into how your decisions then could effect where you wanted to go. SO many people miss that (ahem, like me) when they are young and end up making dumb mistakes that cause issues in the rest of their lives.
ReplyDeleteOoooohhh I feel like there's a juicy story behind that...
DeleteHAhaah you are hilarious! I thought about working at Hooters when I was in college. I had a friend who did and she would make AT LEAST a couple of hundred dollars a day (she was 18 at the time too). However, she said people who worked there were not pleasant to work with.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny how degrading jobs can pay so well sometimes!
DeleteI have no problem with sex toys, but I can imagine it being super awkward going to one with family members! Weird!
ReplyDeleteLuckily it wasn't my familiy! Super weird.
DeleteLike! But you would be surprised... I know a girl who took a second job (first job teacher) as a shot girl at the bars on Saturday. You know, get paid to wear low cut shirts and hand out shots to promote different brands, get groped by drunk dudes. Sometimes she would even do it and end up in school the next day without having slept.
ReplyDeleteSo far it hasn't seemed to bite her in the butt, but I just think she's playing with fire having that as a second job.
(On the bright side, when we lived in the same town, I never paid for booze. She was always handing out leftovers...)
Man, I knew a teacher who did that. But she didn't get paid for it lol. I don't know how she did it. She'd come home from school and sleep until it was time to go out. Then go to work without sleeping. I can't speak to her teaching abilities as I never saw her in action, but you'd have to think they'd be impaired, right?
DeleteLOL!! Well, you've got a great excuse not to host sex toy parties. :) I couldn't even imagine. And with relatives ... so much worse.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how they did that with a smile on their face. But they seemed to really be enjoying it. Weird.
DeleteI don't think you need an excuse to NOT sell sex toys. LOLOLOL...This was funny. I wouldn't work at Hooters because it's a very small world. If one of my family, friends or colleagues caught me in there in those booty shorts, I'd die. LOL Definitely not my personality.
ReplyDeleteHaha me either. I have too much shame.
DeleteA good friend of mine used to work in college for the big tobacco companies working at trade fairs and auto shows etc. promoting snuff and cigs, now we teach smoking cessation workshops to our clients. Talk about different worlds. It would be hard for her to do that job now (she often tells me she know working for big tobacco was "wrong", but the money was so good it helped her pay her way through college).
ReplyDeleteWow! Those are two different worlds! I can only imagine how well they paid. It's like now I know of people that buy up land to sell to the Marcellus Shale people for a HUGE profit, but they're morally against that type of drilling. But the money's so good. Dilemmas.
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ReplyDeleteGirl, you do not need your job as an excuse to avoid things that make you uncomfortable. Stop at "I can't" and you'll have much more power.
ReplyDeleteTruth! Something I need to work on for sure. Excuses are convenient, but they can be dis-empowering.
DeleteI do agree on that, but you have a double excuse given your job, let's be fair.
DeleteMy personal boundaries are pretty tight. And I suppose there is potential for scandal - I recall one Texan journalist getting outed as a stripper in her own time and you can imagine how that went down...
I understand you completely. My friend who is 36 was trying to do hip hop modeling and some of the pictures are were almost soft porn. Anyway she asked me for a reference because she wanted to be a volunteer for her daughter's girl scout troop. One of the questions was, is the person a good role model. Of course, I told her I couldn't do it until she took the pictures off of Facebook. She asked me why and I told her that Girl Scouts do background checks and she was going to be embarrassed when they told her no. She said she was NOT going to volunteer because that's her modeling career. I really didn't have the heart to say, "YOU ARE TOO OLD". LOL.
ReplyDeleteSuch a shame that instead of just removing the pictures from facebook she decided to forgo an opportunity to serve her community. No one said she had to stop modeling....just make it a little more difficult for people to access those pictures when you're working with kids! Lol on the age thing. I'm glad you had the courage to tell her no. Not worth sullying your reputation when you know something going on just wouldn't have been right.
DeleteWhen they asked for "recent positions" at Hooters, they weren't talking about jobs.
ReplyDeleteAnother awesome post. Funny stuff.
YOU MADE MY DAY.
DeleteI suppose the references numbers they were looking for weren't my bosses, either?
I think it's a good thing that Hooters isn't your calling! That's hilarious that you went to a sex toy party...my friends are always telling me to go......and I always say no.
ReplyDeleteI'd say the "Just Say No" policy is best practice. So incredibly awkward! If you need something like that it's completely cool, but I'd prefer to purchase privately...not with a bunch of other people in the room or in an environment where I felt pressured to buy something I didn't really need.
DeleteI am loving the full-spectrum of jobs in the post! So funny! And I can't think of anything more awkward and anxiety provoking than a sex party with family!
ReplyDeleteHaha, yes. It's a well-rounded post. :p I don't know how those women did it...and they seemed to be nejoying themselves!
DeleteOne of my facebook fans says they go to Hooter for family dinner, I think the kids eat free. Interesting post... party.. I'll stay out of that one.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm I doubt the free kids meal is the true reason they're going; there's so many other restaurants that are more family friendly and do free kids meals on certain nights of the week. :p
DeleteI wish I had stayed out of the party, too.