Long overdue writing prompt and I apologize. I hope it’s worth the wait 
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Like most of my girl friends, I worked as a babysitter throughout my teenage years. Unlike others, however, I worked between 36 and 50 hours a week during my senior years of high school. I was in demand-both from new clients and from my mom’s daycare clients who frequently needed a sitter for evenings and nights. It was easy to get work; at one point, I had upwards of 25 individual clients and I often got referrals. Eventually I was working too many hours and when my sister became old enough, I passed on some of my irregular jobs to her.
I once performed the Heimlich on a two-year old girl choking on a grape, it shot out with enough force to cover the distance of 6 feet. That was about as exciting (and terrifying!) as it got. I cleaned up enough spilt milk, changed enough diapers, made enough PB & J sandwiches, played enough tag and hide-and-go-seek to last me several lifetimes. I took care of some of the best and worst kids, sometimes alone and sometimes in groups that ran up to six before I called for backup.
And truth be told, I loved every minute of it.
When I was a few weeks shy of 16, I filled in as a part-time Sales and Marketing Consultant for one of my mom’s clients who urgently needed someone to cover her stores for three weekends. I was free-and like most other opportunities in my life-figured why not? I didn’t have any experience but I was a quick learner, had an easy smile and could memorize product spec sheets like nobody’s business. The job, working for a large marketing firm based out of Richmond Hill, eventually became permanent and over the course of the next four years, I took on a number of accounts that included Canon Canada, Palm Canada, Telus Canada (back when it was called Clearnet), Adobe, etc. for a region of Simcoe County that stretched south to Markham and north to Orillia.
I got a thrill talking to customers about technology, new product innovations and the companies I represented. I didn’t feel any particular pressure to sell but when I did, and I seemed to do it often enough that I kept my supervisor in a permanent state of ecstasy, I felt pride in knowing the customers were getting the product most suited to their needs-rather than the usual approach of ‘up-selling’ (or pushing the most expensive product with the most accessories and new-fangled features that most customers would not even bother to learn how to use).
At the end of my 17th summer, I took 6 weeks off from part-time sales for a full-time job. I washed laundry from children’s camps from 8 pm to 8 am, Saturday to Saturday in a Laundromat on the edge of a tiny, northern town. I lived in a big, messy house a few kilometres away with 14 others my age. Our manager would drive us in a big van in the evening and then one of the older boys would drive us home the next day after the manager-who swigged vodka neat from plastic pop bottles he kept under the driver’s seat-became too inebriated to count.
We all worked on productivity and were constantly pushed to work harder and faster, with bonuses for exceptionally fast work. Most nights, after repeatedly yanking hot clothes (jeans’ were the worst!) from the dryer, the skin on my hands turned chapped, red and blistered. We got to keep 50% of all money we pulled from pockets. The smell of laundry detergent and dryer sheets, the sensation of filling a washer up with shiny coins, and the remoteness of the area sometimes haunts my dreams.
I graduated high school early, hoping to work full-time until September and the start of university. In February, I scored a job as a Medical Support Officer in a hospital at the nearby CFB Borden military base. It was a demanding, jam-packed, adrenaline-filled job and I worked non-stop from 7 a.m. to 4 or 4:30pm, Monday to Friday with an hour for lunch that I usually spent passed out on a couch in the staff lunchroom.
Eventually, I quit my work in sales and marketing because I was working 60 hours a week and my body and mind began to suffer from the strain. It was stressful work but it deepened my passion and knowledge of medicine and health, and I loved working with service members. I also went on more dates than at any other point in my life to date! I worked until July and then took the summer off to relax and collect my thoughts. On my last day of work at the hospital, I finally met up with the son of one of the members I was friendliest with, a man who came in frequently for follow-up visits following his knee surgery. His son Ryan and I hit it off, dated, lived together and eventually broke up after three tumultuous years.
I had a hard time finding regular work when I transferred from York University to Ottawa in the summer of 2003. I cleaned houses for a week, the most back-breaking, ball-busting work you can picture. Ryan drove me to a parking lot on the west side of the city, where I met my team members who coughed black plumes of smoke in my face for the entire trip. You cannot imagine the pain experienced by every cell of your body after you have cleaned 3 huge houses on hands and knees over a 12-hour span.
After I quit, I sold knives for 4 days. Didn’t agree with the company’s policy and approach to sell, sell, sell! It seemed very cutthroat and shady and it wasn’t the kind of business I wanted to work for. Luckily I had a bit of savings because I was out of work for almost 2 months before I found work as a ‘footwear specialist’ in a shoe store. I sold purses and shoes, sandals in summer and boots in winter for $6.50/hour +2% commission on all sales. Needless to say, it barely covered any of my expenses. I consistently met my sales targets and even exceeded them, but I was never really happy and the job offered little opportunity for challenge or advancement. I worked there for 5 months and then lived off my student loans.
In April 2004, I moved back home to Barrie to work as a Summer Employment Officer for the Federal government. I liked that it was a routine, 8 am to 4 pm job, with my evenings to myself. I caught up with friends I hadn’t seen since high school. From the end of May to Election Day at the end of June, most of my free time was spent working on my friend’s federal campaign. For the most part, I liked the job because I thought it was worthwhile work-I helped students write resumes, score interviews and find jobs, gave occupational health and safety presentations to classes at local high schools, visited and contacted local businesses to promote our centre’s services and encourage them to hire a student for the summer.
Admittedly, there were some rough spots because I was working with 4 other university students (3 girls, 1 guy) who had a very different work ethic from me. I’ve always been a “work hard, then play hard” gal and for the most part, they all wanted to bum around until the very last second before scrambling to get the projects done. It was frustrating and there was a significant amount of tension between all of us that was only exacerbated after I filed a sexual harassment complaint against my male colleague after he made a number of repulsive, sexual comments to myself and the other girls. No one else, however, was brave enough to stand up with me (whether out of fear or shame I will never know), but I came out of the experience feeling violated. And all three of the other girls were re-hired the following year.
I moved back to Ottawa in the fall and in November 2004, started my current job as a translator/post-editor/revisor for HRSDC.
And that’s my working girl life in a nutshell!
