Today is this blog’s 15th anniversary. This month is also the 50th anniversary of starting my high school job. 50/15=3.33 — a third of what I consider my adult life or, by shifting the decimal point, the speed of a rotating LP, which seems fitting. My job was in this building, which was originally a W.T. Grants store.
For $1.60/hour, I washed dishes at the Bradford House restaurant, at the far end of the store, where the white posts are. I worked very, very hard, and how well I remember the logo and pattern that’s on these cups and saucers.
My junior year of high school I worked up to 25 hours/week washing dishes. Note the restaurant’s hours on this old ad.
Finishing a 5-10 PM shift on Fridays, there were many Saturdays I returned to work at 8 AM and worked fourteen hours. I’m sure it wasn’t legal for a 16-year-old kid to work a 14-hour day, but I was desperate for the money.
At end of my junior year, a kid who worked part-time as a cook graduated. He left for Canada, where he could be certain of avoiding the draft by attending McGill University. I was given his job, along with a raise to… wait for it… $1.85/hour. The 14-hour Saturdays ended, and from the start of that summer, through the start of the following summer, I filled the plates at the restaurant, rather than wash them.
Being a short-order cook was challenging, but it was a lot of fun, and I held similar jobs in college. After high school graduation, I quit the Bradford House when I heard about a summer job working for the town’s school system for $3/hour. The exact same pay I would earn four years later at the radio station.