A blast from the past, my friends, as promised:
The Many Jobs of Monsoon Forecast: Volume One
Friday, 20 October 2006
It may surprise you to learn that I haven’t always been a world-class English teacher and a half-classed meteorologist. In fact, when I got my first job in 1987 as a student swimming instructor and lifeguard at Norristown Area High School, I didn’t even have much of an inkling that I was going to get into education. (I wanted to be a Sports Information Director, a sportswriter, or a music journalist at that point, I believe.) From my days as a budding Mitch Buchannon to the present moment, I have had no fewer than 20 different gigs, by my estimation: temp jobs, long-term jobs, under-the-table jobs, deadeningly boring jobs, jobs that put me in undue peril, putrid-smelling jobs, mindless jobs, annoying jobs, aggravating jobs, infuriating jobs, humiliating jobs, jobs that led to other jobs, jobs that led nowhere, jobs that lasted one day, jobs that lasted for years. And so, in the first four-part Monsoon forecast, I’m going to chronicle some of the most memorable jobs I have held in the past 15 years or so.
I spent a couple of weeks in the summer of 1989 working at the concession stands in the Valley Forge Convention Center, but the only remarkable aspect of that job is that I learned more about the inadequate storage of mayonnaise-glopped sandwiches and other perishable foodstuffs than I really wanted to. I also learned that hot dogs, when left on those little roller grill things, puff up into grotesquely deformed once-wieners, then char and deflate pathetically until someone comes, purchases the worn-out frank, and shoves it obliviously into his or her pie-hole. And finally, I learned about “tipping the register”—taking a portion of the patron’s money and pocketing it for yourself, ringing up the sale at a lower price—and watched it accomplished with astounding flair, slyness, and frequency; I never tried it, probably more because I feared I would botch the move and get caught rather than some sort of moral indignation at the wrongness of it all.
The first job I held of particular note—the one that afforded me a long-term immersion in the seedy underbelly of discount retailing—was at TJ Maxx. Yes, I was a sales associate, complete with ID badge and fashionable grey vest, part time in the early 1990s. The two functions I served at this emporium of overpriced doodads, irregular clothing, and remaindered goods involved the dressing rooms and the returns desk.
The dressing rooms gig was easy; thankfully, it did not involve actually monitoring the store’s patrons as they stuffed themselves into skew-legged slacks, pen-stained blouses, and other assorted shapeless once-garments. My job was to collect these remnants, coax them back onto hangers, and return them to their racks around the store. As I worked, I would be bombarded by an endless loop of what seemed to be the same 20 or 30 songs, over and over, oh my god it’s that same song again and I was singing along without even realizing it and can I please get the hell out of here before I lose it…
The ones that stand out as having been particularly prominent on the MaxxRadio playlist were “Every Kind of People” by Robert Palmer and “Will You Marry Me?” by Paula Abdul, which—besides having one of the more annoying melodies in musical history—boasts lyrics that are so vapid and slapdash that they should only guarantee a negative response to the title’s query: “Think of love as wings / Not a ball and chain / And your fear of things / Unnecessary / … / Will you marry me boy?”
But the returns counter was where the real action was. As bewildered as I was at the substandard dreck that people would buy in great quantities every day, I was even more astonished at the regulars who would serially return the rubbish to the store. And despite how liberal the Maxx-for-the-Minimum’s return policy was, the return process was anything but streamlined. In fact, it was awful. It entailed a tagging gun, a red pen, filling out forms in triplicate, verification of ID, and inevitably, a foul-tempered customer who was just itching to scurry back onto the sales floor to buy more soon-to-be-returned merchandise. It was a disagreeable and miserable place.
I recall that around the time of my employment, there was a dispute over the tagline used in their advertising campaigns during my tenure at The House of Maxx. The long-standing “Get the Maxx for the Minimum” was replaced briefly with “Never the Same Place Twice!” It soon became clear, however, that people understood the slogan differently from how it had been intended. The ad execs had been trying to convey the idea that customers will find something new and exciting every time they report to the shopping center. But many customers began to focus on the fact that when they tried to find their favorite tank tops or deelasticized briefs, they were seldom in the same place twice—in other words, that the store’s layout was so disorganized and chaotic that it was impossible to locate a particular item with any regularity. The slogan was changed back to “The Maxx for the Minimum,” which was augmented, of course, by the stirring jingle: “Do-do-do-do Do-do-do-do T-J Maxx!” The latest tagline, “You should go,” shows such an utter lack of ingenuity that I can scarcely be expected to comment on it.
Finally, friends, I realize that many good people shop at TJ Maxx stores, and feel strongly about their allegiance to the quality and bargains to be had there. It has long been known that there are “skanky” TJ Maxx stores, and there are “slightly nicer” TJ Maxx stores. The TJ Maxx of which I am an alumnus—the one in the Northtowne Plaza in East Norriton, PA—is unequivocally of the skanky breed. The one you shop at is undoubtedly a fine, fine store.
My subsequent summers home from college were filled with some notable employment adventures as well. I worked as an assistant to a reference librarian at the Montgomery County-Norristown Public Library one summer, becoming a whiz at now-obsolete technologies such as microfilm and fiche, rocking some mad reshelving, and just basically taking the whole Dewey Decimal system to another level.
I also landed a paid internship at The Times Herald , Norristown’s hometown rag, where I spent the majority of my time writing obituaries and editing other reporters’ articles. (Can you imagine how seasoned, longtime reporters felt about having a 20-year-old kid take a red pen to their drafts? Let’s just say I wasn’t exactly invited out bowling with the guys on the weekends.) I went out “in the field” and got to interview Tom Burgoyne, the Phillie Phanatic, in a hard-hitting feature about the temperature inside his costume and his pre-performance routines. I canvassed the neighborhood on a 99-degree day and actually asked people what they thought of the heat. And then wrote down what they said. And then wrote an article about it that ran on the front page. I also did a Pulitzer-nominated piece on bicycle helmets that began: “They’re big. They’re goofy-looking. And they could save your life.”
But there were more substantive journalistic opportunities. I covered a speech by Grey Panthers founder Maggie Kuhn, who granted an interview afterward. I got to cover my high school’s graduation just three years after having matriculated: “Yesterday’s commencement at Norristown Area High School was a celebration of achievement, an outpouring of appreciation and the inauguration of a bold step into an uncertain future.”
And I fought with my editors to write—and have published in full—a 1000-word feature on the disgracefully unkempt Treemount Cemetery near where I grew up.
Besides being the final resting place of many ordinary Norristonians, at Treemount are interred the remains of some of the region’s poor African American citizens, including many veterans of the Civil War’s colored regiments, among them members of the Massachusetts 54th, the subject of the film Glory . It remains one of the pieces of my writing I’m proudest of, and if you’ll indulge me, I’ll share an excerpt: “To the left, ivy and dead trees strangle the markers, dragging them nearly out of sight. All around the cemetery monuments are tilted, knocked over, cracked and grown over; and visitors will more often than not have difficulty discerning the words engraved on the heavily weathered stones. And to venture past the mowed grass and into the waist-high, overgrown weeds is to be horrified at the scores of tombs barely visible, damaged and almost completely obscured, symbols of lost respect and a neglected legacy.”
