Those who think this is going to be one of those, “When-I-was-your-age oxygen-was-called-air” stories, you can semi-relax. It isn’t. OK, it semi-isn’t. I’m ancient, but not old enough to know if helicopters were used to build the pyramids.
This is my “When-I-was-half-your-age, air-was-free” flash of streaming consciousness about my second-ever teenage job: bagging groceries for tips at the former Navy Commissary, across Seaside Avenue from the one-time Long Beach Naval Station.
While I cherish the memories of my second job as a bagger, it’s important to give a little background about my unsavory first job, the Pacific Car Wash on Pacific Coast Highway in West Long Beach.
I landed that career opportunity in 1970 when I turned 15 years old and could complete the coming-of-age ritual of getting a work permit. The car wash was only a weekend gig because I was in high school. Minimum wage had just skyrocketed to $1.40 per hour, so decent jobs for teens were scarce. McDonald’s hadn’t served its triple-gazillionth hamburger and Jack in the Box didn’t wear a business suit.
I didn’t know it yet, but the manager of the car wash was a thief. I wouldn’t find that out until I got my first paycheck three weeks later. After busting my hump for 45 hours, my pay envelope had $23 in it. I wasn’t a journalist yet, so I could do math and, by my estimation, I should have raked in around $58 after Uncle Sam took his cut.
When I asked the manager where the rest of my cash was, he said I only got $1.25 per hour because I was under 16. On top of that, he had to deduct the standard $5 per shift for use of the towel dryer – a major prerequisite for drying cars. I glared at him and he fired me.
Two months later, my buddy said they needed help at the commissary bagging groceries. Baggers and carry-outs worked for tips only.
Training meant sharing a register with an experienced bagger, which meant splitting tips with an experienced bagger. My first day lasted nine hours and we split $83, which the other bagger seemed upset about.
The next day we split $120 for six hours on the register, and I was light on my feet with my hard-earned wealth. During the next month, I earned more in any single day bagging groceries than I did for my cumulative labor at the car wash.
I started the summer with my own register because my school let out a day early and I got there first. The cashiers were all women, and to have your own register meant having your own cashier. Mine was a wonderful woman named Gloria. Bagging groceries for tips can be territorial, but I was adopted. Gloria acted as friend, mentor and surrogate mother to her foundling.
The Navy Commissary was a world apart from civilian grocery stores. It was bigger, far less expensive and sold food in bulk. It took a military I.D. card to get in. Business was steady most of the month, but on the monthly military paydays it was squirming room only.
Lines to get in on Saturdays formed at 6 a.m., and the store would open at 7:30 a.m. It was a family excursion rather than a jaunt to the corner market.
One Samoan family came in every month with 12 to 15 family members. When I finished bagging their groceries the first time, 29 shopping carts were filled with food. Their total bill was more than $1,600 and they tipped me $40. From then on, they would check to see which register I was working before starting their foray down the aisles. They were gregarious and would joke and tease while I worked my magic.
One regular customer was a high-ranking officer’s widow. The first time she came through, I put her eggs and bread flat in the bottom of a bag and made it appear as if I dropped her five-pound canned ham on top.
Her eyes bulged as she scooted to see the damage, only to find I had put them in separate bags. She came in weekly and would chastise me playfully each time, “Please don’t put the canned goods on the eggs, Sonny.”
I started the school year with self-confidence and a bank account. I was anticipating that next plateau of young adulthood: getting a driver’s license and a car.
One day I hope to forget about the unfairness of the car wash manager, but I’ll always remember that second job, bagging groceries for tips.
Pssst. It wasn’t helicopters.
Duke Pescola is a junior journalism major.
