Day 19: My first job

Memories of my childhood bakery with a cannoli ….

As this roller coaster ride of emotions and outpouring continues on Day 19 challenge to blog each day in the month of November for Blogember I recall my first job.

I often say that when we recall the past, things that appear to have gone on forever, are often relatively short in the grand scheme of things.  After my dad passed away when I was 8, my mom remarried a year later.  By the time I was 10 they went into business together opening a neighborhood Italian bakery on the west side of the town I grew up in.

This was long before the days of Carlo's Bakery where cakes cost hundreds, even thousands of dollars. A bakery was a lot of hours and energy for very little profit back then.  To that end, I was cheap labor and was trained to bag rolls and make change at the cash register.  In retrospect it talk me a lot about customer service, the value of relationships in returning customers and how running a family business is extremely hard work!

The hours were long and began early in the morning.  Weekends were a blur for several years as we'd go to bed early on a Saturday night in order to rise early and open the bakery first thing.  My stepdad had gone in much earlier to begin the bake-off process.  And by the time we arrived things were cooling and ready to be bagged or go into the display cases.

Truth be told, I didn't like the work.  I didn't like the tension that existed between my parents.  Although I didn't always understand it, I knew it wasn't good.

The bakery didn't last more than 4-5 years.  But the experience lives on.  I evolved my skills into working at a soft ice cream place for several summers, and then on to waiting tables.  The service industry seemed to be where I could keep growing.  Although I considered myself shy back then, I know that those experiences shaped who I am today.