The Cover Letter I Can Never Use

In the past four years of my life since my college graduation I have been pursuing a career as an actor.  I was sure that full time work could not allow me the flexibility I needed. Thus I have worked a number of interesting part time jobs in order to pay the bills – and just barely at that.  

I have worked in a Chinese restaurant as a hostess where I worked my way up to a waitress.  I learned many skills here from how to manhandle an angry crowd, how to harmlessly flirt in order to get tips and free food, how to get out of the way when men argue over who will pay for the other - proving their toxic masculine dominance, how to keep the peace among servers who take their work way too seriously, and how you always get tipped more when you dress up. I then worked in three other restaurants after that.  I moved on from each for various reasons; paychecks where bouncing, the mob was running my restaurant, one restaurant spontaneously closed without warning its employees, and the never-ending reason: the tips were not consistent enough.  

I have worked retail at a framing store where I learned the skill of looking like you are doing something whilst doing nothing as well as the skill of unloading a truck overnight.  I also learned (and not exclusively at this job) how to bite my tongue when I am certain the manager is making mistakes, even if they are only grammatical. 

I have babysat. A lot. Since I was thirteen actually.  Here I learned that though technically and physically ready for motherhood, I am still not over the sweet pleasure of returning the children to their parents and receiving cash in return for cleaning up projectile vomit off the wood floor and loose stool from the bathtub.

I have worked at a gym. Here I learned about all the different walks of life and their daily routines. I don’t believe it would be much different than watching wild animals in the deserts of Africa. There are mating rituals, feedings rituals, cleansing rituals, and so much more.  The men compete over who can lift more weight. The fitness models will not have their pictures taken, even for identification, without consent of an agent. The women realize this is a great place to meet men and many work out with full make up and hair dos.  No one respects the closing times and they will report you to your boss when you are upset that you have to wait, without pay, for them to finish their midnight shower before you can lock the doors and go home to your pathetic canned tuna fish dinner. The most valuable lesson I learned at the gym, other than why labor laws exist, was that if you are ever homeless but have a little bit of cash left over, just get a gym membership. They are open most hours of the day and they provide bathrooms with showers, lockers, and steam rooms to get warm in the winter.  

I have worked at a yoga studio, both as a front desk “girl” or staff member and as a teacher.  I say girl because no boy has lasted at this job for more than a few months.  Here I have learned the dangers of the family style business plan. I don’t solely mean “family” as in owned by a family for this is only partially true.  I mean “family” as in your boss says at the staff dinner, “We are a family.”  This feels great at first. It’s nice to be a part of a family.  But try to tell your sister she is doing her job incorrectly, your dad that he’s not good with money, or your step-mom that she’s not good with people.  I also learned here that when it comes to customer service, you are not allowed to be having a bad day. If your unhappy feelings about having to be at work at 8 am show even for a minute, it stresses out the peaceful customers. 

I have performed in Children’s theatre traveling to elementary schools all around Southern California. Here I learned guerilla style theatre where you do all the work yourself. You get up at 5 am to drive two hours to meet the often ungrateful administrative staff who don’t believe in the arts. Then you put together your set, lay out your props, find a bathroom for your after coffee poop, meet ten children who may or may not be capable of public speaking, teach them their parts and costume them in less than 15 minutes, and then get ready for the show. So I learned how to improvise around sleepy coworkers, shy children, persnickety teachers, and a boss trying to relive his days on the road.  I don’t blame him, they sounded fun. But through it all, the sweetest lesson I learned is that even if you only make one child’s day, you can make a difference.  It starts with one.   

I could go on to explain what I learned from the jobs I worked before I graduated college. These jobs include working as an intern on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, in the fundraising office for Arnold Schwarzenegger, as a stagehand carpenter and electrician in the college theatre, at a college gym, and for a small town YMCA.  However, instead of five more paragraphs, I’ll simply give you a few gems.  The overzealous star struck interns ruin the best perks of working on a television show for everyone else.  I met Arnold as well as Ron Jeremy on the same day.  I learned the value of a sexy phone voice and that not everyone has that skill.  I learned to hit someone that’s being electrocuted with a wooden stick. I learned how to make fake tile, brick, or stone – which will not come in handy in my future home but at least I know my way around a hardware store. I learned that whether you are in the same class with someone or not, they can still be a shitty customer if you are on the other side of the counter. And lastly, I learned that your boss probably hates his job too, so the least you can do is go where he wants to go for lunch. 

Yes, I learned a lot of random and seemingly useless lessons. And at first when I realized it had been four years since graduation, I couldn’t help feeling like I had wasted my time.  I spent 3 years achieving a waitressing resume that could get me hired at almost any restaurant and yet I never want to waitress again.  But sometimes, you have to take a second glance to see what you really learned.

I learned how to take care of myself. In college I was living in an apartment off campus and I thought because I had learned how to go to target and the grocery store and drop the rent check in the mailbox on the correct day I had it all figured out.  Well, little did I know about renters insurance, health insurance, car insurance, budgeting, 401Ks, craigslist, internet scams, sexual harassment, dating, cleaning out your microwave, cleaning out your refrigerator, purchasing a refrigerator, mold stains, replacing air conditioning filters, car batteries, and oh, so much more. I know I’ve only been through a portion of it, and more will come. However I’m learning how to take care of business.  Usually you have to cross bridges as you come to them and try your best not to fall off.

I learned the value of a dollar the hard way.  I grew up in an upper middle class family and we were more than comfortable. In my mind I was not spoiled because my parents were frugal. They would not buy me designer clothes or purses like my friends’ had.  They wouldn’t randomly buy big electronics for me. They encouraged me to get a job as soon as I was old enough and to start babysitting before that. However, they did spend about $300 on both my birthday and Christmas. I didn’t realize how privileged that was until I worked with a waitress who was begging for more shifts the week before Christmas just to get her daughter one good gift.  My parents took us on vacation to Europe. They saved up enough to put me through college without sticking me with massive student loans. They took me back to school shopping every year. They stayed married. All these and more were luxuries I didn’t realize I had.   

I learned that money isn’t everything.  Yes, I want my kids to have everything I had growing up. But my dad lost his job two years ago because of what they call “High-Functioning Alcoholism.” I didn’t even know that existed. I knew he drank but I didn’t realize how consistent it was. I still haven’t had the courage to ask him much about it – but I do know that he felt pressure to give us a life his father never gave him. He needed to continue to provide for us even after my sister and I had flown the nest. He worked too hard and the stress drove him to drink.  He was functional, in fact more functional and more driven than anyone else I have ever met, but he needed to know he could have wine with lunch. I love wine with lunch. But I never want to physically need it to get through my day. And it makes me sad that he felt like we wouldn’t have enough or wouldn’t love him enough if he didn’t work that hard. 

I learned how to use a credit card responsibly. Whether it’s $5,000 out of my checking account or $5,000 on a credit card, it is still $5,000 that you will be responsible for and that’s a lot of hours of work, sweat and tears, especially at minimum wage. 

I learned that it isn’t their fault. The flight attendant at the airport, the cashier at the place you pick up food on your way to work, the guy trying to switch lanes in front of you, the barista at the coffee shop; it isn’t their fault that you are running late or that things aren’t going your way in general. Don’t take it out on them. You probably should have left earlier, or packed your lunch the night before, or prayed to mother nature to change the weather. If you can’t accept things the way they are, either take it out on yourself or please stop being a customer anywhere that provides customer service. You make “just paying the bills” hell on earth. 

I learned the value of my own time. I am not specifically skilled in one thing, but I’m a generally talented person. I’m responsible, I pay attention to detail, and I take pride in (most) things that I do. I also care way too much. This can be considered either a blessing or a curse; we can debate that later. However it has led me to volunteer my time and my resources for miscellaneous things that I see need to be done. This characteristic has gotten me stretched way too thin time and time again until I want to run away from everything and everyone.  It has taught me the hard way, the value of saying “no,” or simply quoting a price for my work. 

I learned that most people don’t know what they are doing. Not all the time, but a lot of the time. There’s just too much to do in this lifetime from keeping up your home, laundry, cooking, eating healthy, staying in shape, building a successful career, building a successful relationship, maintaining spirituality, continuing your education, spending time with your family, maintaining lifelong friendships, keeping up with politics, contributing to society, charity work, managing your finances, parenting – I could probably go on but this is already a run-on sentence. Who has the time? The point is – people are only good at a few of these things. We are all just doing our best to help each other get through the rest.  Your boss might be terrible at doing laundry or cooking. Your boyfriend might be terrible with money.  Be careful with the judgment.

I learned how I deal with grief. Everyone is different.  Unfortunately I have learned twice that some people in your life will die too young. You are not the only person dealing with it and you must be sensitive to how others choose to grieve. If you can’t handle it, remove yourself from the situation. Also, the person you are serving at the restaurant does not know that your friend just died and their problems will seem glaringly small compared to yours, but this is the time for that fake smile you have practiced so often. 

I learned how to deal with people. I was already pretty good with people, but I was used to them liking me.  When you are behind the counter, the desk, or on the other side of the telephone, people are for some reason hard wired not to care about you. They want something from you, and gosh darn-it you better give it to them. So I’ve learned truly how to deal with people.  How to brush some of them off your back, how to listen to the ones that just want to be heard, and how to bend the rules without breaking them in order to help the ones worth helping. I learned how to either give people what they want or make it clear that they are not getting it. This skill will take me through any job I ever have.

So I guess I’ve learned quite a bit in the past four years, whatever shape these jobs seem to take on my resume or however insignificant they may seem in the movie of my life. I’m just lucky I didn’t have to learn a lot of these hard life lessons as a child. 

At the end of the day, what I have truly learned is that even if I finally get my dream job, it will still be a job. I will still try to squeeze enough money and vacation time out of it to see my family and see the world. I will still wake up some days and not want to go.  I will still be mad if I don’t get to go to my friend’s birthday party because of work. There will still be incompetent bosses, passive aggressive emails, weird coworkers, and awkward working spaces. Most of the time I will do what I need to do for the paycheck. So what I’ve learned is how to deal with all that. The rest of it I’ll learn on the job. I’m ready for whatever one is next.