The Summertime Blues

Summers are generally so carefree to me. When you live near/at a beach growing up summers just have a different feeling than if you live somewhere else. It's so glorious, and almost unexplainable. It's a state of mind, that's for damn sure. I don't think I'll ever recover. Maybe it's just because I am in a job that doesn't "feel" like summer.
My first summer job was working at a seafood place. I worked the counter, and had to deal with a 77 year old senile woman who for no other reason than it amused her, set out to make everyone around her's life miserable. Her husband, on the other hand, adored me, for whatever reason- he didn't often like anyone, I think I won him over by my refusal to stop smiling when he or Miss A (as we all called the woman) ordered me to stick my hand in the sink where shrimp were thawing in luke warm water so that I might break them apart gently as the ice melted. This resulted in my left arm smelling of shrimp and turning blue and red due to the ice/spiky shrimp tales that would prick me. Also it was pickled, my arm, completely shriveled. I had to give it to them, they built the place from the ground up and stood for nothing short of perfection. Their son and his wife worked there as well and also liked me (thankfully) so aside from the fact that employees could only drink the soda (juices and iced tea cost too much) and could only eat saltine crackers, it was actually a great first job. I learned a ton, not only about seafood but how a business should be run, and I still have a soft spot every time I drive by. Not to mention that to this day I've yet to taste better cream of crab soup (no I don't know the recipe- it's kept under lock and key) or cherry cobbler.
Then one summer I decided to do some odd jobs, working at my mom's office, and at my sister's day care center. The day care quickly took over office work, but it was early - I usually had to be there around 7am- and then would leave early in the afternoon. This generally gave me far too much time on my hands and not enough money so I began searching around for another job. In came Jakes Seafood in Rehoboth which would be my home for the following 3 summers. I loved working at Jakes. I was hired thinking I would be learning to serve, well, apparently they really needed me in take out and thus began the best job EVER. I got paid well, tips were decent, and the job was EASY. Granted it would get extremely extremely busy, but the people there when I started, B. and G., well, those 2 taught me everything I needed to know and more and we had the system down to a science. I made life long friends, and quickly endeared myself to the owners (another family run business, though FAR different than the first place I worked). The hours were great! I never had to come in before 11am, and could leave a lot sooner than any of the servers. Usually no later than 10/11pm. I'd head out to someones beach house, drink my face off, crash on someones couch, or at my boyfriends and best friends house and be on my way in the morning to do it all again. You could eat all the sides, salads, and rolls you could want. You could usually steal the seafood bisque when no one was looking, the servers loved you because you'd help out when they needed it without having to tell a manager, and you could catch up on summer reading during slow periods. As summer wound down, I asked right away if I could come back after school in the spring, and they of course said yes. I was back in May knowing this would be my only job and a dollar raise. Also a "take out manager" which really just meant that I had to train the new people. So much fun. The kitchen staff loved the takeout girls because they usually weren't screaming that they messed up an order. We also chatted with them as the take out counter was directly next to the kitchen. We were nice to the kitchen and in turn, were treated with respect (which was a big deal considering who worked in the kitchen) and our orders always came out correct and on time (well, most of the time). As summer plugged on, I got another raise, was given more responsibility and I decided I should probably start waiting tables in order to make more money. In retrospect I should have just stayed in take out, but by the end of the summer I was running food and was given a couple of lunch shifts. Nothing major, but I knew the next summer I had to wait tables. And come May of the following year, that is exactly what I did. I was a champ and within a month I was more than competent and given some great sections. I can't tell you how much money I made that summer, mainly because I spent most of it on booze, shopping, our beach house, and more booze. It was a great summer. I had to come in earlier, I got off later, I smelled worse, had way more responsibility and sometimes longed for the days of takeout, but ultimately, I was making more money, got free shots during tough shifts and I was valued way more. The managers and owners loved me, the kitchen staff didn't automatically hate me since I had long built a relationship with them, and got along with the staff, esp. the lifers who had seen me grow from a high school graduate into a college coed. I worked hard and played harder and I was so happy.
When I graduated college I decided the time had come where I didn't want to spend a summer constantly smelling like kitchen and getting yelled at by weird tourists. I reluctantly informed my manager that I wasn't going to be returning that summer and found myself with a cushiony office job in a real estate office managed by a former high school guidance counselor that knew me and my mom. I loved my new office which was a pretty little building on the Avenue that had huge floor to ceiling windows. I got a desk in one of the windows and was soon administrative assisting my way through the summer. The pay was great, I got to sit in air conditioning all day, and the hardest thing I had to do was get up and walk to the filing cabinet. I was doing a play at the time, met my boyfriend through that, and soon was simply emailing back and forth with him all day long, listening and chatting with my co-workers (an open office floor plan which I loved) and order chicken salads from SOB's. And I would occasionally walk down to Jakes for a crabcake and a visit to my former employers. I was always greeted so nicely and they always told me to come back often. I secretly missed them a little, but was happy not to be in the center of all that craziness and restaurant drama that can suck you in. I spent my money on nice dinners with my friend A. and went out to bars slightly less frequently. It was a good summer, albeit a lot tamer than ones past.
At the end of that summer I moved up the NYC and found myself not wanting to wait tables, wanting to audition and wondering what the hell I would do. I quickly found a wonderful real estate office and decided to get my license. I did really well at first, and closed my first deal in 3-4 days of working there. My senior partner was impressed and I was set to go. The office was beautiful, I worked in the heart of Chelsea, and everyone else there was young and some sort of artist be it musically, acting, or painting. I thought how perfect it was. Except when I couldn't close a deal to save my life after that. It may have been me, it may have been shitty clients, but all in all, I soon was running out of money and not really making any. I closed a deal here or there, but you really have to be self motivated and disciplined, which at the time, I was not. I loved the people there and made some dear dear friends, and treated that year essentially like college without the classes. I went out, I had fun, I met great people. Come summer I REALLY felt fine about the whole arrangement because it was summer, and time to kick back (you know from all my hard work in winter, ha.) and that I did. We'd take days off and head to Central Park. On hot days we'd hit the closest movie theatre. Occasionally I'd show an apartment. We'd smoke in the bathroom and on the fire escape. We drank. I became a myspace fiend. We talked. A lot. I learned a little French. I started a theatre company. I all around loved every second. I worked at Gap for approx. 3 weeks before it became too "stifling" for me.
And then in October decided to move to Philadelphia, get a real job, and see what would happen next. What I found was a whole lot of frustration on my part. I have a steady "good" job working in ticketing for the Kimmel Center. By all standards a great simple 9 to 5 job. Except it drives me crazy to sit in a cube (yes, cubicles, one thing I swore I never would work in) and stare at a computer all day long. This is not me, this is not who I am or what I was meant to do. No sir. I refuse to settle. Right now it's a means to an end. It's teaching me some discipline, and as my dad said, the hardest part of a job, "getting up and going every day." But I still refuse to settle. I'm still barely making rent and bills on time, and I'm doing something I definitely do not love. I'm in a show, which is wonderful. I live with my college roomate again, which is wonderful. And I've definitely explored Philly and eaten at some of the finest restaurants, and drank at some great bars. But this job is not what I thought it would be. I expected to be out schmoozing my clients and making the rounds, but here I sit, in front of my computer (a new one! Excitement of the week!), in my cube with gray walls, one dingy window I can't see letting in little to no light, and a desk full of papers that I really don't care about, I eat at my desk, I have emails from a cranky boss, and a headache from the fluorescent lights overhead. When I get home at 5:30pm all I want to do is sit on the couch and watch tv and relax. Summer has arrived and I find myself in a place where I least expected to be, in a job that sure doesn't feel like summer to me.