Lydster got a summer job

better than refolding clothes

Yay. Our daughter got a summer job!

When she was home for spring break, her mother suggested to her that she ought to apply for jobs for the summer. This mildly bugged the Daughter because she was already thinking about doing this.

Apparently, a lot of this process is now done online. She may have started the process slightly early, but it’s better than the opposite, when her search last year was too late to secure employment at all.

She was able to get a job at a clothing store in a local mall where she has shopped in the past. This was, as you might imagine, both a benefit and a curse. It was beneficial because she was familiar with the merchandise. The problem is that she had to restrain herself from buying a whole wardrobe with her employee discount.

I understand this tendency. When I worked at FantaCo in the 1980s, I was more likely to pick up more comic book issues and books than I would have if I were buying at retail.

Our daughter likes her job. She gives us the blow-by-blow of her day, both the occasionally annoying customer and her success in selling the product. Because she is the only non-manager employee who is over 18, she was able to pick up additional hours that the high schoolers working there could not.

New attitude

The job has totally changed her perspective. Before, when she and I, or she and her mother, would go into a store and needed to ask a question, she always wanted her parent to ask. Now, at work, she enjoys being the one answering questions, in part because she appreciates the break from refolding clothes that customers tried on but did not purchase.

More interestingly, she’s been nagging her bestie, K to get a job over the summer. I told my daughter I would hire K to work on some projects, but that idea was rejected. “She needs to work with people she doesn’t know!”

She likes ringing in sales, something she had never done before, and learning what to look for regarding potential shoplifters.

Style

My daughter has always had a strong sense of style. I discovered this even more on Father’s Day. The three of us and my MIL were going to Catskill to meet my BIL, his wife and one of their daughters. My daughter overslept and didn’t have to put on makeup.

My daughter and I sat in the back seat while she explained her cosmetic choices.  The colors on her face match her daily wardrobe in very subtle ways. She explained the use of concealer and the other items in her packet. It was far more interesting to me than I would have imagined.

The Lydster: Her career choices

barbara-jordan_congressI saved this Ask Roger Anything question, from Chris, until now:

Do you feel like you’re pushing your daughter towards certain career choices or letting her choose, or both? Do you think you’d be supportive of a career where it would be difficult for her to make a living, e.g. actress or musician?

Oh goodness, no. That’s a function of her needing to figure out what she wants to do. And honestly, I don’t have a strong sense of something I want her to do. I suppose I don’t want her to do something that involves a lot of danger.

Thinking about some of the things she has tried out:

Ballet – did it for two or three years, decided it wasn’t for her. But the lessons she learned have been useful, and she still likes to choreograph her own moves.

Soccer – she did youth soccer for three or four seasons, decided it wasn’t for her. So I was a bit surprised that she signed up for modified youth soccer this fall. What she learned before has come in handy.

Playing clarinet – her mother played, and she seemed to enjoy it. Moreover, I thought she got to be rather good at it, but she suddenly dropped it a couple of years ago. I was surprised when she pulled it out once this past summer. Maybe she’ll go back to it, maybe she won’t.

Things she’s interested in currently:

Art – she’s quite good at it, and she received some local awards for it. She DOES agonize over her work, though.

Clothing design – She’s been taking old clothes, cutting them up, stitching them together. Well not so much in the school year, but it was a business she wanted to look into this past summer.

Law – right now, she says she wants to be a lawyer. She sees injustice on the news on TV and wants to fix it. I wanted to be a lawyer for a time, so that would be fine.

One of the things that seems constant in this narrative is that everything learned has value. Maybe it won’t be applied directly, but it won’t go to waste.

Would I discourage her from a career path that might be difficult? No, and frankly, it would not have occurred to me. Now that I think of it, neither of my late parents EVER said, “you ought to do” X for a living. My father had a varied career, and I doubt it would have occurred to HIM. My mom was easygoing about those things, as long as we were happy and not involved in some criminal activity.

 

Apartments, landlords, jobs

It was an odd space in that, when you walked into the apartment on the first floor, you were in the kitchen. But I liked it.

keys-20120131New York Erratic, who needs to use her blog as therapy more often, wants to know:

Who was your worst landlord ever?

I’ve lived in over 30 apartments in my life, and most of the landlords I don’t much remember, one way or another. I suppose I can name the ones who I got miffed with:

The one on Ontario Street in Albany in the mid-1980s who did not take seriously the invasion of mice in the apartment, shortly after my girlfriend at the time and I moved in. This wasn’t a rodent or two; they were quite numerous. And aggressive. One found its way into our noodles that were on top of the refrigerator. I set traps and killed three or four every night for at least a week and a half, and one or two a night for another week or so, before the mice got the memo not to come inside anymore.

One place I liked on Lancaster Street in Albany, the landlord threw everyone out, including these nice old ladies who had lived there for about 30 years. He renovated it, and it is now a chichi place that recently got mentioned in the real estate section of the local paper.

Worst apartment you ever stayed in?

The worst apartment was probably the first apartment the Okie and I moved into in Kingston, NY after we were married. Not only was the pullout sofa terribly uncomfortable, we discovered that first night approximately a zillion cockroaches. I had never seen a roach before and was not savvy as to the telltale signs of their droppings. I believe we were there for eight weeks.

Although the first real apartment in Schenectady, after Uthaclena’s then-wife threw me out of theirs, was a real dump. I was there for three or four months.

Best apartment and landlord?

I really did like that basement apartment on Lancaster. It was narrow but deep; I think they called it a train apartment.

Aside from that, though, my favorite had to be Second Street in Albany in the late 1980s. It was an odd space in that, when you walked into the apartment on the first floor, you were in the kitchen. But I liked it. And it was the easiest place to move into because it had an enclosed back porch. This means I could put all my books and LPs on the porch, position the book cases and record stands, then put away said tomes and albums at my leisure. The landlord couple was really nice.

Also, I was really taken by the sunken living room at an apartment on Morris Street in Albany. Unfortunately, the landlord decided to move from wherever to that apartment, and we had to move upstairs. And WORST MOVE EVER, because we were slowly schlepping our stuff up the stairs and it seemed to take FOREVER. The landlord I do remember getting along with quite well, listening to Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson together.

Must admit I was also fond of an apartment complex in New Paltz called Colonial Arms. For mass housing, it was rather nice.

What was your favorite job ever?

At some level, it had to be my job with the Schenectady Arts Council from March 1978 to January 1979. I was hired, ostensibly, to do the bookkeeping. Straight off, though, the office staff was making phone calls to sell ads for a performance to benefit Proctors Theatre, the old, rundown vaudeville theater where our offices were located. Now it’s a jewel of downtown Schenectady.

Even got to sing at the benefit, in the arcade, with Susan, the secretary, and a couple of her friends. All the artists on staff were doing art in the schools and in the broader community, so Susan decided that she and I should go to nursing homes and sing, and we did.

Occasionally, the choreographer, Darlene, needed a dance partner when she went to the schools and she hookwinked asked me to accompany her.

I ran an Artisans’ Arcade fortnightly, which was fun, though a LOT of work.

Because the director, Paul, was more an artist type – he was an actor by trade – he hated dealing with the blue-haired ladies of Arts Council board, and he often left it to me or the program coordinator, Nancy, to deal with them. When he decided to go on vacation, even though we HAD no vacation, I was in charge in his absence.

I was very sad when the federal funding abruptly ran out.

I should note, however, that I learned a great deal working at FantaCo, the comic book store/mail order house/convention operator/publisher/distributor in Albany, and that has value to me.

What was the nicest group of people you’ve ever worked with?

It occurs to me that, because I was at FantaCo for 8.5 years, and the SBDC for 21.7 years, and counting, that for all sorts of reasons, the personalities changed quite a bit over time. So I’ll opt for the Arts Council staff. Not sure they were all nice; one of the sculptors was probably crazy, but I liked him. I was just looking at the staff photo a couple of weeks ago.

Library people, in general, are nice, but there was one library boss of three years I didn’t particularly get along with. And there was that two-year period when our whole organization was subsumed by this incompetent and evil external political beast, which, fortunately, had a very public takedown.

FantaCo was almost two different places before Mitch was fired/Raoul died in 1983, and afterward. I liked almost all of them, but it was very tough leaving, and I HAD to go because I was ODing on the horror film stuff, which wasn’t my thing.

I should note that one of the worst places I worked was Binghamton City Hall in the spring of 1975, when I dropped out of college. Part of my job was to empty the wastebaskets of the local cops, and they seemed to have disdain for the lowly janitor. The sole exception was the local captain, who engaged me in interesting conversation.

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