First job I ever had was working the lights for the elementary school summer play. It was the summer of 10th grade. They hired my younger brother to do the sound and he needed me to drive him to work so when I dropped him off, I asked them if they were hiring for any other position. They said they needed someone to work the lights and asked if I knew how to work them. I lied and told them I did. It wasn't too hard to learn - just move a bunch of switches up and down. They told me which kid to put the spotlight on, when to fade the lights out, when to flash the lights for the thunderstorm, etc. It was only a two week gig but it payed well and was a lot of fun. They had a pizza party for the staff and students after the final rehearsal which was nice.

Second job I got as a teen was working as a stocker at the grocery store my senior year. I hated that job. I didn't mind the work but my manager and co-workers were awful. They made me clean the bathrooms, clean the stock room, clean the break room, mop up any spills the customers made (cleanup in isle 10 was always an announcement for me), stock the shelves, bag groceries, load groceries into elderly customer's cars, bring the carts in from the parking lot, help customers find items and mop all the floors with the mopping machine before the store closed at the end of the night. The other two stockers didn't have to do any of that and one of them, a classmate of mine, always left his shift early. I think he was related to the owner or one of the managers or something. Anyways, the manager had the audacity to call me into her office to complain about how long it takes me to stock the shelves. Maybe if they didn't have me do all the jobs, then I could stock the shelves faster. I ended up getting fired after working there for two months. The reason they fired me - I don't smile enough and it makes the customers uncomfortable. I always smiled when the customers were around so I have no idea what they were smoking.

The third job I got as a teen was when I was 19. I was a dishwasher at a fancy pants sit-down restaurant. I hated that job - dirty, disgusting and exhausting - but I loved my coworkers. I was the only woman in the kitchen and was often sexually harassed verbally but they were nice about it (this was the 90s so stuff like that was normal). It was more like, "I love your titties, we should go out after our shift and I'll show you a good time in my bed." then all the cooks would laugh and high five each other. I would roll my eyes and shake my head and then he would say, "You know I'm just kidding right." and I would say something like, "Yeah, yeah, I know you're joking but your jokes aren't very funny." I think pretty much everyone in the kitchen, besides myself, had spent time in jail at some point in their lives. Very rough looking dudes. The job didn't pay much and I would come home from work covered in food and slime. I somehow managed to last 3 months before I got the best job of all time - cashier at a tiny museum. Super fun, relaxing and I got to learn cool things about Native Americans.