Worst Job Ever - Concession Stand Worker

Nickel over at Five Cent Nickel wrote about his worst job ever, and he invited the rest of us in the pf blogging community to join in on the fun.

My worst job ever happened to be my very first job. The summer after my sophomore year in high school, I got a job as a concession stand worker at a second run theater. Second run theatres aren't necessarily second rate. They show movies that have ended their first run at regular theatres but before they're released on DVD. Popular movies at a cut rate price. What's not to like?

I was too young to watch the mostly 'R' rated movies that they showed. So, no real benefit there. And by the end of the summer, I was really sick of eating leftover popcorn.

So why did I hate my first minimum wage, hourly job? I'm not sure what the owner was thinking, but he didn't have a cash register, and he wouldn't even let us use a calculator. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I can't do math in my head. Needless to say, it was a painful experience, both for myself and for the patrons of that theatre. How do you 'ring up' a customer when you can't figure out how much they owe? Anyway, I tried to compensate for my deficient math skills by memorizing some of the more popular combinations (1 large popcorn and 2 large drinks). But when people ordered things like Junior Mints or nachos, I was a goner.

The other thing that I really hated about that job was cleaning the popcorn machine. Again, the owner was a stickler for cleanliness. According to one of my friends, other theatres pop all of their popcorn for the week in one huge batch and then they 'store' it in the machine. Not so where I worked. We popped fresh popcorn all the time. And each and every night, it was the concession worker's job to clean out the machine with paper towels and a bottle of glass cleaner. I dunno what was in that buttery flavored oil that we used, but once it cooled down, it became a congealed mess. It literally took me half an hour of scrubbing and 2 rolls of paper towels to get the machine squeaky clean. Ick. Also makes you really not want to eat that first batch of popcorn out of the machine. Would you like some windex with your extra butter?

On the bright side, I met my first boyfriend at that job. He was working as a usher. The irony is that our dating life revolved around movies and theatres as well.