I think it’s necessary for one to reflect upon one’s past experience in the work force in an effort to understand whether or not you’re progressing at all in an upwardly mobile fashion. And thus in this blog, I will singlehandedly explain all my work experience from fetushood to present.
Commonly, in most families, especially more upwardly privileged middle/upper classes, parents usually give their kids allowances for doing chores. This is not the fact however, in my childhood. I don’t think my parents could afford the luxury of giving their kids money, but whatever the case, we did receive approximately $50 for Chinese New Years / TET every year. This is a lot less than most Asian families, but any money > no money. Besides, we were part of a big family, so if my parents were to give every kid a lot, it wouldn’t necessary work out in their best interest.
As part of a reward of my sister teaching me very little Vietnamese when I was approximately 7 – 8, we got about a dollar, which I used at the 99 cent or 98 cent (later on) store to buy a bag of chips. Or those toy guns that broke very easily. For some reason though, I wasn’t aware as a kid of sales tax, so I always demanded 99 cents from my parents, and not a cent more… Food doesn’t get taxed, for the most part though.
I also received $1 from my parents every week for going to Buddhist temple. Here’s a picture of me at temple.
They figured I would be hungry and thus I used the money to buy vegetarian eggrolls or a bag of chips + soda every week. I got to admit, I didn’t really enjoy temple that much – but that wasn’t necessarily because of the religion, but more-so of the atmosphere there, but we’ll get into that another time.
That’s all for handouts from parents. Now let’s discuss ways I made money on my own.
Somehow, I was able to manage all the way up to sophomore year of high school without money. I think, this was due to my lack of leaving the house or doing social activity away from home. But that’s not the point.
Job #1: OC Fair: So one day, George Tello calls me and was like “Hey, you want a job?” I never had one so I said “Why the hell not!”, so I did. So George and/or his mom would drive me to work every day (about only two times a week), which he did (good riddance) all the way to OCC (approximately where the OC Fair was located; near Fairgrounds). So the OC Fair was nice and all; it looked nice, it was nice, but our job was okay. We had two bosses, a white one, and a black one. Both were extremely nice. The job was extremely nice too, kind of.
We basically were newspaper vendors for the LA times, and had to sell them to random workers at the fair. So we had to go up to strangers basically, and ask them to buy newspapers.
It wasn’t necessarily easy to convince people to buy newspapers. I was still extremely shy and socially awkward at the time, and felt uncomfortable going up to strangers and asking them to buy things. George did a much better job overall, but I did okay too. Somehow though, we got “bonuses” for not really doing much. I didn’t understand it. And most of the time, we bought the newspapers more-so ourselves, but since we got paid for the hour (10 bucks/hr) we were making a profit still. It was weird…
Notable story #1: One time, I asked a guy to buy a newspaper, and he was like “Is that the LA Times? No, that’s way too liberal for me.” I was upset at the comment, solely due to the fact that I did not yet grasp the distinction between conservative news (OC Register) and liberal news (LA Times). Looking back though, I can see why he wouldn’t want to read the newspaper.
Notable story#2: I asked this girl who was making crapes at the fair for her myspace. She gave me her email. I used it. Myspace said it didn’t exist.
Notable story #3: We went up to this girl who was selling flowers. I forgot her name, but she was clearly a college student, and super nice. I asked for her myspace, but she said all she had was a facebook. It was uber-fail because at the time, everyone in high school was still using myspace so it was super awkward. Anyway, she was nice, but I’ll probably never encounter a flower girl quite like her again.
Anyways, the job lasted for 1 month in the summer (August), and thus was my shortest job.
Job #2: Popeyes
Worst job ever. Ask Nhi Pham, Kimberly Nguyen, or Anthony or Landon Nguyen.
Okay, well maybe it wasn’t THATTTTT bad, but it was still what you would expect from any fast food (food service industry) place. Not only that, but the owner and the manager were the same people, so they were super strict.
Vanna was the nice one. My other boss, Pete, yelled at me every time.
Maybe it’s cause I wasn’t trained properly, but I did things any normal exployee would have…. I basically had to cook (I was horrible at this…. I was slow, and couldn’t cook chicken very well. Plus it was super hot). I also had to clean – wash dishes + Season the chicken. WORST JOB EVER.
Notable story #1: I was spinning a rotisserie once while seasoning chicken, but I didn’t close it tightly enough, so all the chicken fell out into the ground. In fear of being yelled, I grabbed all the chicken from the ground and put it back in before anyone could say anything. Good thing germs and disease die in extreme tempeartures.
Notable story#2: I was putting batter and flour on the chicken, and accidentally sneezed in the flour.
Notable story #3: One time, I put too much chicken in the flaming oil, and thus none of them were fully cooked.
Notable story #4: One time, I was taking out a trash bag (which had some leftover batter in it), and took it outside, and it broke, all the batter spilling out. One of my co-workers, Kenny, however, had to clean it up, and not me. Phew.
And thus, for a whole year (mostly weekends on Saturdays I worked during the school year), I worked at Popeyes. It was a…. whatever experience.
Job #3: Career Services Center
This was an okay job. Basically I came in and scanned lots of documents every day. It was a basic office job. It only lasted one quarter (Winter Quarter of my Freshman year). In retrospect, I regret working so fast that it ended so soon, but it helped guide me to my next two jobs on campus at UCSD.
Job # 4: Conference Services
So in the summer of 2009, I regrettably made the decision of staying at UCSD all summer and working on campus. But if you think about, I REALLY NEEDED a starting point to pay back my parents. for borrowing money to pay for college, and in being self-sufficient, sacrificed my summer. So essentially, I worked here, which wasn’t necessary a bad job.
So I basically sat behind a desk every day, surfing the internet for about 8 hours. Sometimes we picked up phone calls, sometimes we checked people in and out (including Lebron James’ basketball academy), and sometimes we drove carts to deliver things to other conference desks on campus, but that was essentially it. Also we packed and unpacked storage centers from the start (June) to the end (September). It was quite a dull summer, professionally speaking of course.
Notable story #1: Gossip was widespread in conference services. The conference coordinators seemed to elicit from drama between Suzette vs. Sonia. And Tim vs. Michelle. Lots of fun.
Notable story#2: One time, this girl came in from the Lebron James basketball academy and said she lost her keys. Me and Dana decided that I would help her go find them. So I walked her to the basketball court to find them. Little did I know that the Kings Academy staff would be super upset with me. Even Davelle talked to me about it afterward, but it was all settled fortunately. So the question is, did they think I was a pedophile or something ?!?!?!
Notable story #3: David driving the carts to his apartment for lunch break.
Notable story #4: Playing Party in the USA every day at work. Falling asleep during graveyard shifts at work.
Notable story #5: I spent 40 minutes backing up the cart one day (it got stuck outside the storage in ERC)
If asked if I would go back again, maybe. But not likely at this point. We shall see.
Job #5: Environmental, Health, and Safety
Best job ever. Coming in at the start of summer, I didn’t think it would be easy. James, the previous worker trained me, and he told me how easy the job was. Obviously, I took the job a little more seriously than he did, but I soon realized over time, that the bosses didn’t really care/know what time you came in, but as long as you were doing work that’s all that matters.
In balancing two jobs over the summer, I had to do it discreetly. Because it was technically against the rule of Conference Services to have two jobs, but they never found out, and I wasn’t going to tell them.
So anyway, what I did in the summer was essentially scan audits, and randomly post safety warnings everywhere. Upon starting the job, my boss Doug Harvey told me that I would undergo a major project in posting diecuts all over the laboratories on campus. Of course, it didn’t start in June like it was supposed to, but the end of August, so it’s still underway at this point.
So that diecut; I literally had to post that all over campus. To give you a statistic, I have posted approximately 6200 diecuts on vacuum lines all over campus, and 560 stickers. This includes all of the school of medicine, revelle buildings, muir and marshall buildings, scripps institute of oceanography (and in the works thorton/hillcrest, and engineering buildings). That’s to those that think I do not work! I do work, just very efficiently. The best part? I get to leave early most of the time, usually my boss lets me, but sometimes I just volunteer myself to do so .
It’s probably the best job I’ve had ever.
Notable story #1: I was playing farmville on the computer and my boss grabbed me and said “Are you playing baseball or something?”
Notable story #2: I was driving the cart, and accidentally drove it on a one way street the wrong way. I was reported. My boss barely said anything, but just to “stay away from the carts for a while”.
Notable story #3: One of my co-workers told me an interesting story about how she was good friends with a guy in high school, but had a merely platonic relationship with him. 10 Years later, upon reuniting with one another, they started dating and had a non-platonic relationship. I asked her “What changed?”, and she said “We both grew up”. Those stories make me happy.
The end. By the way, here’s how much I was paid approximately.
OC Fair: 10/hr + bonuses
Popeyes: 8.50/hr
Career Services Center: 9.50/hr
Conference Services: 9.50/hr 10.00/hr nights and graveyards
Environmental Health and Safety 9.94/hr
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. I think I finished RA applications too! Probably not on this day tough.
