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 month will feature a different job I once had in chronological order,and how to take advantage of it while it takes advantage of you.

This month's Featured Job is working in a corporate movie theater.

I got this job from my longtime buddy Newell Walter Embley the fourth. Everybody calls him Chip. Anyway I was unemployed, as usual, and Chip calls me and said, "Dude, I just got the easiest cake job in the world at the movie theater. I've worked there two weeks and I'm already assistant manager. You get to see free movies, eat all the popcorn you want, and stand around all day. Need a job?" "I'll fill out an application tomorrow Chip."

After the usual hassle of being interviewed and filling out W2 forms I started my first day. Chip, looking shwank in a suit and tie that he probably stole from his Dad's closet, greets me and hands me a uniform. "What the fuck is this shit Chip"? The uniform is purple, teal, and black in a God awful design that makes you look like a gay Star Trek officer from the planet Tacky. "It's the uniform. You have to wear it until your a manager." I see all the hot chicks in line ordering popcorn, and I then realize that my gober suit will prevent me from entering the ballpark, let alone getting to first base with any girl. "Oh well, Its money,"I think," and most of these chicks are on dates anyway".

Your probably thinking to yourself, "Steve, you winy bastard. You had the easiest job in the world and you still complain. All you do is bitch and piss and moan. So the uniform was stupid, big deal" but there was another catch to the job. The work itself was so easy that Chip trained me without using his thumbs to prove that a chimp could do it, so that wasn't it. It wasn't the pay. The pay sucked and I lived on the free popcorn plus whatever candy I could steal, but the pay always sucks. The problem was my coworkers. I worked with not one, not two, but three child molesters.

What I failed to realize was that the movie theater is the perfect job for child molesters. They can take neglected children to any movie for free, plus they get to meet new victims on the job. Here is a pervert by pervert account of my coworkers. I won't give names because I can't legally prove anything.

Pervert No.1 was an fat, old, dirty, stinky man. Everyday he would bring a boy that wore the same clothes every day. He called the kid "darling" and was always hugging him. He was very good at winning stuffed animals from the game machine, and I found out his entire apartment was full of stuffed animals. I was in the changing room with him once and saw that he had the nastiest, most stained underware I've ever seen in my life. He would aways try to offer me pizza.

Pervert No.2 was an assistant Manager like Chip. He was also old. He always talked about getting me out of my shell like he did his nephew Stevie. Later I found out that his nephew Stevie wasn't really wasn't related to him, but a kid that Pervert No.2 was sending through art school in exchange for, well, you can guess.

Pervert No.3 seemed nice until I talked to my friend Ryan who worked there three years before me and Chip. Aparently Ryan was in the iceroom when Pervert N0.3 turned the lights out, sneaked up behind him and whispered in his ear " You don't know where I am, do you Ryan?" Ryan pushed him and ran out screaming.

The Perverts weren't the only sickos. My general manager Grant and the other other assistant manager Cathy, who were both in their fifties and married to other people, would do it in the upstairs office. Their were rumours about it floating around the theater and I didn't believe it until Chip dropped by the theater unexpectedly because he forgot his keys or something, and supprised them sitting next to each other on the counch. Grant had his shirt off and had massage oil all over his big fat stomach. To make it even more disturbing, Cathy's son and daughter both worked at the theater and would be working along side me when Grant and Cathy would disappear upstairs together. I don't think her kids knew. I wasn't going to tell them.

Chip was a nervous wreck from working there. He ran around the place counting money and all the drink cups and popcorn bins everyday for inventory. Also, he was in charge of operating the projectors and supervising everything, because Grant was too busy screwing Cathy. He would work six twelve hour days a week, all for six dollars an hour. And he had to deal with my lazy ass constanly fucking everything up because I usually came to work seeing double. He would get pissed, not because I was wasted, but because he wasn't.

Needless to say me and Chip didn't last there very long. It was the movie Titanic that broke us. The theater was overflowing with 13 year old girls crying their eyes out. (The boat sinks, get over it). We both had to work overtime during the enire week of Christmas and we got fucked up after work at midnight on Christmas day and decided never to go back there again.

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