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
May 2002
The next assignment at Addecco was Data Entry for
a pickle packing plant in Intercourse PA that was run
by Menonnites. Mennonites, for those people out there
who aren't hip to the Lancaster scene, are kinda like
Amish people, but dress a little more modern, and can
drive cars as long as the cars are painted black with
a black bumper. They use electricity, but live very
simply. Think of them as Amish-lite, or sqatters with
a job and no facial tattoos, but smell just as bad.
Anyway, I arrive at the site and was taken to a little room in the attic that has a computer in it. Apparently the only reason I had a job for that day is that none of the regular workers knew how to use a computer, except the boss who is too busy with the many details of running a pickle packing plant. He handed me a huge stack of names, addresses and phone numbers of tourists that were filled out by annoying tourists who went to the Reading Terminal Market in Philly during the flower show. (Oh, how I wish I still had those numbers, now that I tried to catch the R7 during suburban bitch day out. Those Talbets shopping, Starbucks drinking, Prozac popping, get-out-of-my-way-asshole-I-need-to-leave-the-city-before-dark, trophy wives would feel the wrath of Steve.)
For those of you lucky enough to excape the pure unadulterated hell of Data Entry, Its like all the tedium of high school compressed into eight hours a day, five days a week. Thank God that everyone left me the fuck alone and didn't ride my ass all day like other places I did Data Entry for. They were actually very nice. They didn't give me any free pickles though.
Don't miss Steve's other regular column: Steve's Not Having It