I’ve held a job since I was 16 years old. This was partly because I wanted to assert my independence by being someone who earned her own keep and paid taxes, but also because my parents stopped giving us allowance in high school. Not that we really got a lot before – getting a quarter for every time you wash the dishes is not going to make you a millionaire overnight.
I’ve had a variety of jobs, many of them less glamorous than I would have liked. But there are aspects of each job that I’ve enjoyed. In retrospect, the shitty parts of each job are actually more amusing to remember now.
Job #1: Elementary school tutor for Kids First, an after-school program at Delaine Eastin Elementary School
A lot of my friends think I hate kids. The funny thing is, I don’t actually hate kids. I think people assume I hate kids because unlike many girls, I don’t possess a natural maternal instinct that makes me want to coddle every baby and toddler that I come across and I don’t have a lifelong dream to produce a variety of reputable offspring. But let’s make things clear: I’m not a touchy-feely person. I never have been, probably never will be. Kids, even the cute ones, aren’t going to change that. But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy spending time with them. (Raising one is a different question, but that’s another can of worms.)
Being a tutor at Eastin was cool because my co-workers were all friends of mine from high school. So every day after class we would take the bus to the elementary school together (which was conveniently located a couple blocks from my house) and hang out with a rather cool group of kids. We basically supervised them during homework time and played games with them during the free hour. Eastin was a pretty elite school so most of the kids didn’t need our help anyway. We felt more like mentors than tutors, which was nice because we got to spend a lot of time with the kids outside of a purely academic setting. My favorite part of the job was Fridays when we would play kickball. There’s nothing like a good kickball game at work, especially with a bunch of crazy kids who aren’t afraid to kick the ball sky-high.
Job #2: Cashier, then Assistant Student Manager at Round Table Pizza
If you’ve ever read William Blake’s poem “Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” you’ll understand what this job was like. It was a funny mix of two extremes because on one hand, my boss was an absolute asshole who took advantage of her workers in every way possible. She actually cursed me out on the phone once, even though the situation in question wasn’t something I was responsible for. Needless to say, she wasn’t a very nice person to work with.
On the other hand, among some of my co-workers were my best friend (who got me the job), my boyfriend at the time (who got the job because of me), her boyfriend at the time (whom she met while on the job), and a really cool Indian dude who said the funniest things at the most random times. Some nights it would be just the five of us chilling in front of the flat-screen T.V. and making our own pizza sandwiches because there were no customers. I’m not going to lie, that was pretty sweet.
However, there were drawbacks. One of them was another one of my co-workers, who I’ll call S. S was a real bitch. She was one of those backseat coworkers who felt she had the liberty to point out every mistake you made, even when they were none of her business. Nobody liked S, but no one could say that to her face because her uncle was one of the managers at another branch of the restaurant nearby. Plus, she had been there practically forever so of course she couldn’t get fired. S had a high-pitched voice and a bad attitude. 90% of the time, I wanted to punch S in the face. The other 10% of the time, I wanted to humiliate her. Not surprisingly, S was one of the most commonly talked about subjects on the job.
Another drawback: working at Round Table was what made me decide that you should never work with someone you’re dating. There was one point during the job where I was working over 40 hours a week (I was still a sophomore in high school so I’m pretty sure this was illegal). My boyfriend at the time, whom I’ll call Z, was also working a lot of hours but for the most part, on different days. This meant that we didn’t really get to spend time together, and the little time we did spend together was spent together at work. Combining a high-stress environment, as most fast food places are, with a straining relationship is never a good idea, especially if you’re your boyfriend’s boss. Once I became assistant student manager and had more authority than Z, all hell broke loose. Long story short: We got on each other’s nerves, big time.
Most degrading moment: The time I dropped a pizza on myself. This pizza had just come out of a 530 degree oven and consisted of seven toppings. My hand was not happy. (I still have the scar from the burn.)
Job #3: SAT Writing Tutor
This was a relatively chill job because I only had one student. She was a cool gal and like many Asian girls aiming for a prestigious university, very motivated. I didn’t even have to tell her to study most of the time. This job consisted of me assigning essay topics, assisting her while she wrote them in a timed setting, and giving feedback afterward. I really liked picking the topics.
Job #4: Cashier at the North Campus Student Center
I got this job during my first year of college so I could find my way out of a persistent and scary-as-hell bout of depression. My first year was probably my worst year of college by far. I was going through a series of emotionally traumatizing events, none of which I handled very well. (Probably an understatement.) My parents had just announced their divorce shortly before I left for college; I was going through a very long and nasty break-up; and I was very, very homesick.
When I say I was depressed, I’m not exaggerating. For months I didn’t eat regular meals or sleep until around 5 in the morning. I didn’t feel motivated to do any work and I considered transferring to a community college close to home just so I could get away from UCLA, which at the time I hated. I stopped seeing friends and I had suicidal thoughts.
Eventually, things got so bad that I went to go see a counselor at the student Counseling and Psychological Services center. I don’t know what motivated me to take that step, but I’m glad I did. For about 30 minutes and on the verge of tears, I told a stranger most of what was on my mind. She must have seen that I was desperate, because she suggested that I fly home for the weekend and look into changing schools in the near future if things didn’t improve. I remember calling my dad and begging him to let me come home the next day. Luckily, he was very understanding and bought me a plane ticket right away.
It wasn’t until late February that things took a turn for the better. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I woke up one morning, still felt like complete shit, and decided that I didn’t want to feel that way anymore. I decided to do everything I could to avoid thinking about my problems every hour of every day. I had to; the all-consuming nature of my thoughts was driving me insane.
So, I applied for a job. I purposely chose long hours so that I would have to get up at 5 in the morning, four days a week, and not be back in the dorms until around 5 or 6 at night (of course, I still had classes to go to). I figured I would be so tired that I wouldn’t have the energy to be sad anymore. I was right. I was exhausted and things went from there. I wouldn’t say things got better right away – the entire process was something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy- but somehow, I stopped falling apart.
Sometimes, when I think back on those dark nights when I thought I would never feel better, they feel like a dream. The person I was back then definitely isn’t the person I am now, and probably for the better. It’s not as if the problems disappeared, but I think I learned to deal with them more effectively. That’s what I’ll always remember when I think about that first job in college.
Job #5: English Tutor
I tutored my friend’s sister who had Down’s Syndrome in Shakespeare. It was a pretty life-changing experience because it was my first time working with someone who had a mental illness. It was challenging, for sure, but I loved every moment of it.
I’ve always valued hard work over pure talent, and I felt like this job confirmed that. My student, whom I’ll call B, had a lot of passion for learning despite her handicap. In fact, she had more passion than most people I know when it comes to school. B didn’t know a lot of the words, and she’d struggle just to understand the plot, but I could tell her heart was in it. Her eyes would literally light up every time we read Shakespeare together. I would read Romeo’s part and she would read Juliet’s part and we’d go over the themes and the meanings of words together.
Job #6: Cashier at Lu Valle Commons
My favorite part about this job was definitely my co-workers. I think the worse your job is, the more likely you’ll get along with the people you work with – mainly because you’re all going through the same thing and have something to talk about. Unlike at Round Table, I didn’t know anyone coming into this job. And not everyone was friendly, but for the most part I met some pretty amazing people. I still miss them a lot even though I don’t work there anymore.
I remember there would be some pretty shitty days when nothing went right, and all I’d want to do was get out of there as quickly as possible, but then I’d have a conversation with someone while cleaning a station and things suddenly wouldn’t seem so bad anymore. We laughed a lot and did a lot of silly things when the supervisors weren’t there. I hate working with fast food, but my co-workers made life much less miserable. They were friends first, and then co-workers.
Job #7: (currently) Access Control
I have to admit, when I first started working at Access Control, I felt somewhat conflicted because while it’s the most chill job I’ve ever had (minus the late hours), it bothered me that I often felt like I was being paid to do nothing. A lot of the people who come through think the extra security is a waste of money and for a long time I couldn’t help but agree with them. I was happy making money without having to flip burgers but at the same time I felt guilty because I didn’t feel that my job lived up to its purpose, and that I was being paid to uphold what was inherently a flawed system.
However, I realize now that I made a lot of assumptions about Access Control that just aren’t true. One huge assumption is that they’re unnecessary. Most people probably think Access is there because the school doesn’t want to risk liability for a problem that isn’t prevalent. Surely there aren’t that many trespassers at UCLA, certainly not enough to warrant all the extra security in the halls that only ends up inconveniencing the residents.
But Access exists for a reason, and it’s a pretty legitimate one. It exists to prevent rape. Believe it or not, UCLA used to be one of the most notorious universities for rape incidences. I looked it up online and it’s true: UCLA had to pay a shitload of money in the past for students who had been raped in the dorms. Before Access existed, anyone could simply tailgate someone entering a dorm building, follow them up the elevator, grab girls coming out of the bathrooms and commit their heinous crimes. I was pretty shocked when I heard this, but it’s not completely unfathomable. After all, it’s not as if the campus is hard to access from the surrounding areas nearby, and discreetly tailing someone into a building when there are always other people around (and trust me, there are always other people around, despite the hour) is hardly a challenge. Once Access Control was established, the number of rapes in the dorms dramatically decreased.
A lot of people, myself included, wonder why Access only exists in the four main high-rise dorm buildings: Hedrick, Rieber, Dykstra, and Sproul. I used to think that this was because these buildings had the most traffic of people going in and out and thus needed more security. However, this isn’t true either. The reason why Access isn’t in the suites or a plaza is because the non-plazas, or the regular dorm buildings such as Hedrick or Sproul, are the only ones with community bathrooms. Plazas such as Rieber Terrace and Hedrick Summit have bathrooms directly connecting to the rooms, so plaza residents always have a locked door between them and a potential intruder once they are indoors. But in the halls, this is not the case. Shared bathrooms means you have to wander the hall at night if you want to use the bathroom, thus increasing the risk for contact with a potential intruder.
People often give us a hard time when we don’t allow them to go up the elevator without showing a valid ID or guest pass, even if they claim to be a UCLA student living in the apartments or a resident who doesn’t have their BruinCard on them. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard the phrase, “You’re taking the job way too seriously,” whether it was a statement made directly to me or off to the side. While I understand their frustration, I think one point should be made clear: the sole purpose of Access Monitors is to make sure that non-residents have a right to enter the building. That’s essentially the only reason why the job exists. I’m not taking a job too seriously when I’m committed to performing the only task that’s required of me. I’m just trying to do the job right.
Most people who come through the building are fine, but some of them do get on my nerves. They blame the system without bothering to find out why it exists, and then they transfer the frustration they have on the system onto the people who are merely enforcing it. (Key word: Access monitors enforce the system; they don’t make it.) But the system is there for a reason. And I’m not there to mess up your night; I’m just there to do my job. So in the end, who’s taking themselves too seriously – you or me?
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