I've had a long string of "cool" but not necessarily "good" jobs. Those experiences have left me a little jaded and also a little bit more resolved about what I want.

  • I worked fast food - Wendy's, to be exact - because that's what highschoolers do.
  • Then I worked at Tandy Leather for a while. It was fun but it was also a drag - it was retail and I had to put up with a very high percentage of hicks, including the store managers.
  • Then I did product demo at grocery stores. That was OK except that it was weekends only; great hours for the young college student but not great for making any money.
  • Then I went off to WWU and started working at Jo-Ann Fabrics. I worked there for four years and ended as assistant manager.
  • I got offered a "cool kid" job as an assistant manager of a record store - it was just a mall chain store, but still. Music. Fun, right?
  • The corporate grind got to me, though, and when the chain got sold to a megacorporation I left to go work for another megacorporation but one that had a better rep for "coolness;" I had the right experience to land a short term position at Tower as a store level buyer. It's the only minimum wage full time job I've ever had. It was a fun summer, but I wasn't sorry to go back to school. I then worked one quarter as a christmas season temp at yet another chain record store.
  • When I came home from school, it was 2002 and the post 9/11 slump was still on in droves; I took a job through a sketchy temp gig and wound up working in the warehouse for an internet shoe retailer for just short of three years. I got fired on Christmas Eve for ridiculous reasons, but I was already working at another "cool kid" job part time, so I just went full time there and went on.
  • That "cool kid" job promised ethical business practices and failed to meet them. After almost two years there, I left in August when the owner asked us to be complicit with business practices that were not just unethical but probably illegal. And they paid bad because they expected you to consider your "cool kid" status as part of your recompense package. Screw that! but they did give me exposure to and experience in the apparel manufacturing world.


Well, if I hadn't gone through those experiences I'm sure I would never have chosen to go back to school again for a trade (can you call fashion design school a trade school?). It's been wonderful, but it's a competitive business and I worry that when I get out that I won't be able to find work and have these huge student loans to deal with. For once I'll be that person who DOES have experience where the people I graduate with don't.

As it is I struggle to find work because I'm either overqualified or underqualified for just about everything....