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My favorite job was working for a restaurant called Frontier Pies in Provo, Utah. As the name indicates, they were known for their delicious pies and had an extensive bakery to keep the refer stocked with their soul-satisfying goodness. I worked in the bakery as a pie maker.
I was in my early twenties and once again working my way through college, still hacking away at an associate's degree. To save money I was living out of my car and needing to be at work at five in the morning was a good excuse for being caught sleeping in the parking lot.
I loved those mornings. Climbing out of the back of my 1979 Volvo station wagon I would stand in the chilly morning air and savor the stillness of the city. Provo, a bustling college town, is normally a hub of frenetic activity but in the predawn hours it was bathed in tranquility.
I would stand in the parking lot aware of the inadequacy of my thin shirt against the cold but content to give it another minute or two before going indoors. I would breathe deeply through my nose and let my chest swell, eyes closed, while I sucked in nature's goodness.
It was as though the air came rushing down from the mountains to expand my spirit and I could taste, more than smell, the earthy goodness of its origins. I felt like a king, the master of my destiny. As though nothing were impossible and no door was closed to me.
My cold body would shiver in rebellion at my protracted delay and I would say to myself, don't tell me what to do. I'll go in when I'm ready. And I'd stand there a few more minutes until my body finally relented and said, okay; stay as long as you like. And that's when I'd go in.
Happy stomach, happy life
The head baker Angela, having arrived before me and lit the stoves, would be playing music in the bakery as I walked in from the cold. A wall of warm oven-air and the smell of flour would greet me with open arms as I entered.
On the counter would be a handwritten note, the items listed in pencil: coconut, banana, German chocolate...She had already counted the leftover pies from the day before and written out a list of the pies we needed to make that day. She made the fruit pies and I made the cream pies. We'd work on the lemon meringue and pecan together.
"We were like free-floating electrons, dislodged from our former homes."
I liked this arrangement as it allowed me to work essentially on my own. I baked the crusts and cooked the pudding. If any of the crusts broke--and at least one always did--I would dip the broken pieces into the fresh pudding and maybe put a little whipped cream on it.
Best breakfast ever.
Best breakfast ever.
But that would only whet my appetite. As I worked throughout the morning I would help myself to spoonfuls of pudding and even whole pieces of pie if I felt like it. I would say, on average, I ate a whole pie each day.
The waitstaff started showing up at ten to get ready for the lunch rush. We were like free-floating electrons, dislodged from our former homes, carelessly floating through the Utah autumn air until we found another atom to revolve around. Line cooks fired up the grill in time for me to get an early lunch before heading off to class.
The waitstaff started showing up at ten to get ready for the lunch rush. We were like free-floating electrons, dislodged from our former homes, carelessly floating through the Utah autumn air until we found another atom to revolve around. Line cooks fired up the grill in time for me to get an early lunch before heading off to class.
Life as performance art
It was a curious ballet we danced; the dainty waitresses in their freshly pressed uniforms were the royalty of our world. The cooks, the sweaty, harried and crude antagonists.
“Where’s my Navajo Taco?” a waitress would snap. “I put that order in twenty minutes ago.”
“You want to come back here and run the grill?”
“I’ve got customers waiting, Rich.”
“And I’ve got ten orders in front of yours, Amber, so keep your skirt on.”
She’d cool her heels in the break room commiserating with fellow malcontents while Rich wiped his hands on an already filthy apron and sneered at her back as she walked away. It was a constant struggle of who worked for whom in the kitchen.
"Busboys have to please just one constituency, the waitresses."
The dishwashers were under no such illusions. Unseen and unspoken to they pushed racks of dishes through the spray of super-heated water and slid on the greasy dungeon floor. Their hunched backs wet with condensing steam, they kept their eyes averted as they humped piles of clean glasses to the drink station.
The busboys played the jesters, largely uninvolved in restaurant politics. They had no beef with the cooks, no frustration with the dishwashers. Busboys have to please just one constituency, the waitresses who would share their tips at the end of their shift.
There was all the normal drama which accompanies college-aged kids, relationships mostly, the occasional car trouble or school problem. But mostly it was a world unto itself and people who left were never heard from again and those who arrived were quickly assimilated.
It was simple and distracting; it was enticing at times and demanding at others. It was money in my pocket and food in my usually empty stomach. And in the end I remembered it all as delicious fun.
The busboys played the jesters, largely uninvolved in restaurant politics. They had no beef with the cooks, no frustration with the dishwashers. Busboys have to please just one constituency, the waitresses who would share their tips at the end of their shift.
There was all the normal drama which accompanies college-aged kids, relationships mostly, the occasional car trouble or school problem. But mostly it was a world unto itself and people who left were never heard from again and those who arrived were quickly assimilated.
It was simple and distracting; it was enticing at times and demanding at others. It was money in my pocket and food in my usually empty stomach. And in the end I remembered it all as delicious fun.
The best or the happiest?
In many ways Frontier Pies was my favorite job, but it was not the job which did the most for me. It did not demand much of me nor teach me invaluable life lessons. It did not take me to the breaking point and then push me further.
That was a job I had eight years earlier.
I was 14 and had recently dropped out of school. I had moved to Denver to live with my father who had a job in a plastic molding factory.
“What are you going to do?” he asked me.
“I thought I’d take some time off,” I said. “Try to figure things out.”
“I think you need a job.”
The factory had a policy about familial employment: no direct relations could work together. My father got around this by saying I was his nephew.
“I told ‘em you just turned 18. Happy birthday.”
I was sure no one would believe I was eighteen but they never said a word. My only previous job had been a paper route so being at the factory was adventurous. I had to be careful not to spill the beans about our real relationship and my actual age. It was a world of us and them; I felt like a secret agent.
I loved hanging out with my dad too. I felt like a man. It seemed to put us on equal footing, my dad and me. I wasn’t his son, I was a peer. We worked the huge machines side by side as they spat out the freshly molded plastic, still warm to the touch.
It's not about doing the easy thing
When lunch time came the break room filled with people intent on sucking in as much satisfaction as possible from a pack of cigarettes, so we took our lunch on the factory floor. It was eerily quiet as we passed each other peanut butter sandwiches and ziplock bags of carrots.
The normally raucous equipment sat idle and made our voices seem tiny in the enormity of the factory. We spoke quietly then and sometimes not at all, lost in our own thoughts. When I’d eaten my sandwich I’d often lie on the cement floor and stare into the exposed metal rafters. The solid girders and supporting braces forming a dusty, steel web.
I would imagine the world turned upside down and what it would be like to walk among those beams and climb over the enormous ventilation ducts. Then I’d close my eyes and savor the sweet odor of heated plastic that still hung in the air like the memory of a kiss.
"I was moved to the graveyard shift and my father was laid off."
But the work was tough and the adventure began to wane. Eventually it receded altogether leaving only the drudgery with which every factory worker in the world is familiar. The repetition of task and the monotony of the interminable eight-hour shift ground away at my spirit, and even the momentary pleasure of watching a barn swallow building a nest in the rafters was not enough to lift my mood.
As winter rolled around the economy took a turn. I was moved to the graveyard shift and my father was laid off. I was ready to move on.
“I think I’m going to quit,” I told my dad one night as I got ready to leave for work.
“Why’s that?”
I told him the way I’d been feeling and I think I actually used the phrase, “this job is killing me.”
As winter rolled around the economy took a turn. I was moved to the graveyard shift and my father was laid off. I was ready to move on.
“I think I’m going to quit,” I told my dad one night as I got ready to leave for work.
“Why’s that?”
I told him the way I’d been feeling and I think I actually used the phrase, “this job is killing me.”
How I learned to do hard things
He gave me some great advice, though I’m not even sure he knew how valuable it was when he said it. I’m sure he didn’t know how profoundly true it was or how it would affect me for the rest of my life. He was just speaking from his heart and conveying a lesson he’d learned from experience.
“You seem to be unhappy with this job. And I can see why you would feel that way. You can leave if you want,” he said, “but don’t leave because the job made you quit.”
He said I should keep working until I felt like I was in control of the situation, that when I felt as though I could stay or go, then the choice would truly be my own.
"When I told my body and mind who was in charge, they eventually listened."
“If you leave now, when things are difficult, you’re letting the situation control you. You’re letting circumstances determine the course of your life. If you bow to pressure now, you’ll give in for the rest of your life. You’ll always be thinking, ‘this is hard, I want to quit.’ Make sure when you make a decision it’s because it’s the right decision not because you couldn’t stand the alternative.”
I did stay on at the factory and it got worse before it got better. But my dad was right, I could overcome my feelings. I could force myself to do hard things. And when I told my body and my mind who was in charge, they eventually listened.
I ended up working there for another year and when I did leave it was on my own terms, not because I had to get out of there. It was not the funnest job I ever had but I think I learned the most. I learned to appreciate my ability to direct my life and not to let hard things push me around.
I did stay on at the factory and it got worse before it got better. But my dad was right, I could overcome my feelings. I could force myself to do hard things. And when I told my body and my mind who was in charge, they eventually listened.
I ended up working there for another year and when I did leave it was on my own terms, not because I had to get out of there. It was not the funnest job I ever had but I think I learned the most. I learned to appreciate my ability to direct my life and not to let hard things push me around.
My job at Frontier Pies was nowhere near as demanding, but it didn't cause me to grow as much either. The reality is, I probably never would have had the job at Frontier Pies except for the self-management skills I learned from my factory job. You could say one was my vegetables and the other dessert.
Which was the "best job"? It's hard to say.
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