Funny things I got paid for

We've all paid our dues in various jobs over the years doing random tasks and projects. Even what seemed like a menial task at the time had lessons learned and transferrable skills. Here are few of mine:

Ben Franklin: Candy Aisle

In high school I worked at our local dime store Ben Franklin. A dream job since I had grown up coming to this store every Saturday.  When I wasn’t on the cash register (where the price of each item was manually keyed in by me, no scanner) they would ask us to clean and straighten the aisles of merchandise.  I was in heaven when they asked me to clean the candy aisle.  The task simply involved getting rid of empty boxes and trash, returning random items to their homes in other aisles and organizing all the candy stacks and rows.  The bonus to my $4.25/hour was to eat any damaged candy.  This is how I discovered Chick-O-Stick. They were always broken.

This taught me the importance of presenting your best to the customer so they can easily find what they need when shopping. It also taught me there is always something to do if the store is not busy. They were paying me to work and not just stand around.

St. Louis Cardinals:  Amighetti Sandwiches

In college I was hired to provide support to the receptionists and answer customer service (314-421-3060).  When call volume was low (losing seasons or the team out of town) I was asked to help out in all the departments:  administration, promotions, player development, accounting etc.  One specific recurring task was to take orders and payment for Amighetti’s sandwiches on the day our mail man made a special run to The Hill.  I literally walked from office to office taking the precise sandwich order from each interested employee.  Roast beef, heated with provolone cheese and au jus; Mom’s special but hold the pepporcini, etc. 

This taught me how important food is to employee morale in an office setting.  It also taught attention to detail and money management skills.

St. Louis Cardinals:  Confidential Report

When I first started at the Cardinals, Anheuser Busch was conducting individual, confidential employee interviews to evaluate employee engagement, satisfaction and suggestions for improvement.  I was called to Fred Kuhlmann’s office. He was the Chairman and President at the time (the equivalent of the current William Dewitt Jr. and III).  He had received the final, confidential report.  It was a four-inch stack of paper with three-hole punches sitting next to a giant, empty three-ring binder. He asked me to put the paper in the binder without looking at any of the confidential information.  He was sitting behind his desk and I was standing in front of him.  The task took just a few minutes. I had to un-focus my eyes enough to not read any of the pages but focus enough to get the paper into the binder. 

This taught me the importance of keeping confidential information confidential. 

Sea Ray:  Balloon Arches

Sea Ray was AVALA Marketing’s largest and most important client and I was the project manager. I had my MBA and roughly 15 years of experience in marketing. One of my favorite programs was a series of “Living Large” sales events held at the dealerships located on the water.  We handled the direct mail campaigns promoting the event along with providing support on-site.  I got to travel across the country working these events. I worked alongside the client setting up the registration tent, decorations etc.  We were on the dock by 6 a.m. setting up for 9 a.m. event that ran all day sometimes into the evening.

This is where I learned the valuable art of the balloon arch.  You could hire a balloon company to do this for you but the costs quickly add up the more events you run.  We bought our own helium tank and balloon supplies for our DIY version. It’s actually pretty basic.  You buy a special plastic tab that seals the balloons. We named them ‘dobbers’.  Tie two balloons together.  Twist the two sets of two together and slide them on a fishing line. Alternate colors as desired. Anchor the fishing line on a gate or fence.  As the balloons are added you can adjust the size of the arch. Bam! We just saved you hundreds of dollars!

This taught me the value of showing your client you are willing to roll up your sleeves and do what they need to make their event successful even though you have an MBA.  No ego. No complaining.  Just get the job done.

So if you aren't in your dream job yet or you feel under-employed, there are still important lessons to be learned and bullets to be added to your resume. 30 years later you'll think of that candy aisle and just smile. 

More Reasons Why Cruise Ship Employees Make Great Candidates

A few weeks ago there was a great article on Linked-in “Why Former Cruise Ship Employees Make the Best Employment Candidates” by Sean Sassoon with Princess Cruise lines.  As a former cruise ship employee I heartily agree! He talked in generalities about attributes like team work and crisis management. I wanted to provide a couple of entertaining stories that illustrate his points. But first, let me set the stage.

Background

I worked on the Yorktown Clipper with Clipper Cruise Lines for one year as a stewardess 1990-1991. This was more of a boutique cruise line not the massive ships you’re probably imagining. We had 138 passengers and 35 crew members. The ship had no casino, disco or swimming pool. There was one dining room and a lounge for cocktails. A naturalist was on board to give lectures on the nature, culture and environment. We docked in major cities like the other larger ships but we would also anchor off an uninhabited island so the passengers could snorkel or cruise a river in Panama or Venezuela to visit tribes of indigenous people.

Stewardesses rotated into various different positions for a week at a time. We cleaned the rooms, served the meals, did the laundry and worked in the galley. We helped to load the stores (all the food and supplies) and clean the galley, dining room and lounge. A typical day was 14-16 hours of physical labor. We received one day off every set of seven days.  I don’t remember any sick days.

Team work, crisis management, stress management, innovative: these are a few of the attributes mentioned in the article.  Here are a few of my stories.

48 Hours of Laundry Service

One girl at a time would rotate into laundry. Our responsibilities involved washing and ironing the table linens after each meal, the towels after rooms were cleaned, the sheets on sheet-change day and the bar rags used for cleaning.

Our crisis occurred when a lazy and inept girl was assigned to the laundry and she fell so far behind there were no towels for the rooms and no breakfast linens for the next day. This was discovered one evening after dinner service. My boss assigned me and another girl (Connie) to 24-hour laundry for two days. We were each on 4-6 hour shifts. We’d work our shift and wake the other up to take the next shift until we caught up.Work. Sleep. Work. Sleep. Two days.

Connie and I were hard workers but also experts at the project management of the laundry service. The key was to keep all three machines working at the same time (iron, washer and dryer) and to pack every nook and cranny of the washer with as much as possible. Most girls would only fit 5-6 bags of laundry into the washer. If you took a few extra minutes, you could find the empty corners and fit another 2-3 bags! This was a huge time saver.

I was such a skilled project manager of the laundry that I was able to finish the morning work creating a large enough break in the afternoon to take a passenger excursion on a helicopter landing on a glacier two different times.  Priceless!

And the wall came crashing down.

Two girls plus one deckhand would work in the galley to assist the chefs with some basic food preparation but our primary job was to wash all dishes. This included glass, dinner and silverware from passengers and crew as well as all pots, pans and utensils used to prepare the meals. Three of us worked the dish washing line. The first person emptied the bus tubs, the second person loaded the racks and the third person removed the clean dishes from the racks. We all helped to run the dishes back to where they were stored all over the galley. At the wall where the third person worked were shelves that held cereal bowls, side plates and casserole dishes.

Our crisis occurred one night when we were in high seas. The ship was being tossed around and half the passengers were sick in their rooms. We were getting ready for dinner service. I was in the second position so the wall of china was at the end of the line to my left.  The ship listed so far to the right it felt like we might tip over.  I remember this moment like it was in slow motion.   As the ship listed we started moving to the right but looking to the left at the shelves…cereal bowls… crash…casserole dishes…crash…side plates…crash! The floor of our entire line was covered with broken dishes.

A few of the deckhands immediately ran and found some remnant carpet squares for us to stand on over the breakage. They started sweeping up while someone else ran to the stores to get more side plates from storage.  We were serving a hot appetizer so we needed to run the plates through the dish washer so the hot food was served on a hot plate.

It was hilarious!  No one complained at all. We just kept working and cleaning up and the passengers had no idea.

This was one of the most memorable years of my life.  Physically the hardest work I’ve ever done in exchange for travel.  In one year I traveled to more places than most people will in their life time: Alaska, Victoria, Vancouver, San Juan Islands, many towns in Washington and Oregon, San Francisco, Napa, San Diego, Mexico (Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo San Lucas, Ixtapa Zihuatanejo, uncharted islands), Costa Rica, Panama, Isla Margarita, Curacao, Bonaire, Trinidad, Tobago, Venezuela up the Orinoco River. Serve from the left with the left hand, clear from the right with the right hand, and the table should be ‘crumbed’ (crumbs delicately scraped off the table) before dessert arrives. I learned about gourmet food and wine, which silverware goes with each course and I have a full library of napkin folds!

Cruise ship employees have many desirable skills and even more crazy stories!

Note: the picture was taken off the coast of one of those uninhabited Mexican islands. I am wearing the uniform from serving breakfast and lunch.