Would You Like Fries with That--The Early Years

{With so little going on and T'giving preparations looming, I'm going to revisit a series of posts I began in the Blogger days of SoT.  I never finished the series, but hopefully I will be able to over the next several weeks.}

Not many people I know entered the workforce at age 13 (and I’m not including grass cutting, car washing, or lemonade selling). Trust me, I didn’t one day wake up and decide to get my career started before all of the good ones were taken. My decision was made for me. In 1983, my dad discovered that there was an alarming shortage of electrical contractors in the tiny town of Atmore, Alabama. He saw a way to make his thousands by starting his own business there. Those first few years were definitely the Mom & Pop years of the new company. He operated out of a rented apartment while Mom served as the secretary and bookkeeper, doing much of her work from the kitchen table as she multi-tasked homework help and cooking. In the summer of 1984, in the midst of his first large job as a newly minted business owner (an addition to the First Baptist Church in another small town nearby), Dad decided to dip into the family work pool, so he recruited me as his first full-time helper. At the tender age of 13 ½, I became a taxpaying member of society. My initial salary was $2.50 an hour, but Dad paid for all lunches, and the benefits included unlimited vacation for visits to cousins and a few days off to be, well, thirteen. The work was mostly menial labor but did have its share of risks (electrocution was always a misplaced screwdriver away) and rewards (getting to know my father as something other than a disciplinarian and occasional batting practice pitcher).

I continued as his helper through the summer of 1988. It was during this summer that I realized the family business was not destined to fall into my lap one day. This revelation occurred when I drove a ground rod through my hand. Not only did I receive a new bike thanks to the workers’ comp. checks, but I also had the last half of the summer off to reflect upon the decision not to be heir to my dad’s company.

After my senior year of high school and following a rather heated argument with Dad that included threats of exile and castration, I decided that I would not spend my summer working for him and he decided that he no longer wanted me as an employee. I’d progressed up the pay scale to an amazing $4.50 an hour, so I knew I was going to have to find a job to at least come close to this number; otherwise, I would lose money because of my refusal to be a mind reader and all-around slave to a man who never seemed to appreciate my efforts. Keep in mind that Atmore doesn’t exactly have much to offer a teenager other than the typical fast-food drudgery.  I filled out the applications at Hardees, Pizza Hut, and Ponderosa, throwing in a few hopefuls at Rite-Aid and Kmart. Finally, the call came from Pizza Hut. I was now going to be a cook for a place that I had single-handily kept open since moving to Atmore.

I made it four days at Pizza Hut. Four days, the PH-1 training tapes (don't ask), a ton of dishes, and a grand total of one pizza made before I turned in the polyester uniform and name badge. Luckily, my friend Mitch, whose parents owned a chain of gas stations stretching all throughout southwestern Alabama, asked me to join him as a roving maintenance man. Mostly, the job involved sweeping the outside of the stations, painting, and general handyman duties. Hazards of this job included being on a scaffold as a rather severe afternoon thunderstorm approached unnoticed, and sunburn while painting the handicap blue on the curb just outside of the station. On top of the fact that I didn’t have to work with my dad and I made fifty cents more than he was willing to pay me, I was often able to pilfer beer and cigarettes from the stock room unnoticed.  It made for a rather good end to the high school portion of my working life.

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