Steve's Guide to Shitjobs (or.. What's The Least I Can Do?)

By Steve Levandoski

Let's face it. If you are a musician you will probably never make enough money to pay the rent on that 2-bedroom apartment you share with 8 other people. IF you are lucky enough to get signed, the little money the record company doesn't screw you out of will be squandered on MC Hammer-type mansions (he's doing credit card commercials now), or tied up in some lawsuit. You will need to get a shitjob. I've enjoyed the privilege of having a losing about thirty different jobs in the four years since I dropped out of college. This is my guide for al you young bloods out there. Each issue will feature a different job I once had in chronological order,and how to take advantage of it while it takes advantage of you.

Here are the past issues, in case you missed them or need to review:
August 2001
November 2001
January 2002
February 2002
March 2002

April 2002: The Demolition Man

Demolition fucking rocks the casbah, no doubt about it. This was one of my top five favorite jobs of all time. You get to break shit and get paid for it for Christ's sake . In case you didn't notice, I have a lot of pent up aggression from years of getting dicked over by chicks and beat up by jocks, and this job was back when I was nineteen years old, so I still had enough brain cells left to notice how pissed I was. When Addecco picked me to go to this site, they basically gave a monkey a gun.

The company that leased me dealt with the refurbishment of burnt out houses. When I arrived to the site, the guy in charge told me that all the dry wall needed to come off the walls and handed me my first "Demo" bar, which is a beefed up version of a crowbar, some work gloves, a helmet, and some safety glasses.

To remove the drywall I would smash a hole big enough to fit my hand in, and then rip the wall down and throw it in a trash barrel. The boss brought a radio so we could listen to Howard Stern as we did it. I was in pure testosterone bliss. Then I blew it. I got way to into the smashing part of it, and would scream "die, die, die, mother fucker. You like that? huh, bitch? You want more? etc. etc." over and over until the boss got so frightened/annoyed he told Addecco not to let me come back.

I had one other demolition position that was a nice surprise. Adecco was desperate, so they called me to go to my old junior high school to do some jack hammering, because they were remodeling. It was the best therapy I had in my entire life. It was the perfect revenge. All my repressed memories of my awkward adolescence were resurfaced and chipped piece by piece away along with the floor. Being picked last in a gym class after all the girls and special ed kids, even the ones with that wore bicycle helmets? Gone. Walking into study hall was with tampons taped to my back? History. It was nice, but I got fired in one day when the construction workers found out that I had no idea how to operate a jack hammer accurately after I hit a couple of water mains. It was worth it though.

Stay tuned for next month when I fill sandbags.

Don't miss Steve's other regular column: Steve's Not Having It