The first thing I ever did that earned extra cash was babysitting. I don't regard this as my first actual job, as it was almost too much fun to be considered work. I got to play games or read stories to the kids. After they went to bed, I got to watch whatever I wanted on TV or could spend the time doing my high school homework. I could help myself to whatever snack food was available, and I actually was paid for doing all of this. Back then, probably the most I made was $1.00 per hour. Often the parents gave me an extra dollar or two at the end of the evening, for the babysitting care I provided for their children. The only downside to babysitting that I recall now, was when a child resisted going to bed, or the few times I had to change a dirty diaper.
As I advanced through my Junior and Senior Years of High School, I needed to work more hours each week, at something that would earn me more money per hour as well. Many of my high school friends were working at a retail store called Turnstyle. This was a store that carried many different types of products, just as WalMart, and Target do today. I put in an application, and was soon earning my first consistent part time hourly wage, somewhere in the area of $1.65 per hour. While that certainly isn't much by today's standards, back then, it seemed like a lot to me, and I was happy to get those first hard-earned paychecks as a high school teenager.
The employees at Turnstyle were given a smock to wear and a name tag that was pinned onto it. The smock was an ugly shade of light green, made out of a material that had almost a plastic feel to it. The smock buttoned in the front, and had two large pockets to hold miscellaneous items.
I was assigned to work the Candy Counter. This was a rectangular shaped counter, approximately 25 to 30 feet in length. Customers gathered around all four sides, waiting to purchase their various candy orders. At that time Turnstyle sold Brach's candies, in bulk, with a price ranging from 29 cents a pound, to something as high as 79 cents a pound.
Turnstyle also carried a finer line of Chocolates from Dutch Mill, such as Chocolate Covered Cherries, or Almond Bark, as well as a selection of different nuts, like cashews, pistachios, or Spanish peanuts. We also had boxed chocolate from Dutch Mill, that was already wrapped and available for customers to purchase. The minimum purchase a customer could make, was a quarter of a pound for any of the selections of candy or nuts available.
The woman who trained me was named Frieda. There were scales that sat on top of all four sides of the counter. There were silver metal scoops left in the various candy bins, to gather and weigh the selections the customers ordered. Then the larger scoop on the scales would be lifted and the contents poured into a paper bag. I recall Frieda telling me, to always give the customer a small amount over what they had actually ordered. This made for good customer relations as the customer always felt they were getting slightly more then what they paid for.
Back then the cash registers did not list out for the employees, the change a customer was due to receive. Frieda taught me how to count that change out when I gave it to the customers. She also taught me how to nicely gift-wrap a box of Dutch Mill Chocolates whenever a customer wanted more variety of chocolates, rather then the pre-packaged boxes that were available. Frieda instilled in me, how important it was to treat each customer with courtesy and to thank each customer, when their purchase was completed.
The weekends were often the busiest. I was often scrambling from one side of the counter to another, trying to quickly wait on the customers in the order they presented themselves. I'm sure there must have been times when I had some irate customers who felt I had waited on people out of turn, while they impatiently waited to purchase their spice drops or chocolate covered raisins, but that's pretty much a dim memory to me now. Not having eyes in the back of my head, it was hard to always determine, which customer got there first. I didn't always see who might have been standing at another side of that candy counter, when my back was towards them, while I was waiting on someone else.
Occasionally I would munch on a few pieces of candy, ducking down behind the counter when I did this, so customers would not see me eating any of the wide variety of candy or nuts available. I became somewhat less guilty about this indulgence, when I later witnessed a Manager come back behind the counter and he would often help himself to a handful of cashews, before he went on to his next task.
When I wasn't waiting on customers at the Candy Counter, I relieved other employees from the Tobacco Counter. That occurred when they went on breaks or lunches. Part of the responsibilities there, were answering the ringing telephone as well as waiting on customers. Upon answering it, the voice on the other end, inquired whether we carried Prince Albert Tobacco in the can. After a short time spent searching for that item, I'd come back to the phone to report the results as to whether we currently had it in stock or not. Then I would get that famous laughing response, from the person on the other end of the phone, that I should quickly free Price Albert, and let him out of that can that held him prisoner. This of course usually happened, when there were seven or eight people waiting impatiently in line, to purchase their various tobacco items.
After work, usually on Friday or Saturday nights a bunch of us would often pile into one or two cars, going out for ice cream or pizza, after we were finished at work. We referred to this group as "The Turnstyle Gang". I'll never forget the times when we pulled up to a stoplight that was red at the time, and we'd all quickly dash out of the car, laughing, as we ran around the car once or twice, and quickly reposition ourselves back inside the car, before the stop light turned green. I'm sure other adult drivers must have thought we were just typical crazy teenagers, when we did this. But for us it was a way of blowing off stream after whatever good or bad things had happened to us at work that day.
Many years later I gravitated back to working in Retail, when in my late 40's I applied for and was accepted to work in a part time position at a Nationwide Arts and Crafts Store, where I later became full time. When I first was trained on a cash register there, the training I had received from Frieda when I was 16 came back to me. I was one of the few employees at that craft store, who counted out the paper money, that the customers received. Most of the other employees just handed the customers a wad of bills, along with the coins that made up that change. I never had a customer who appeared unhappy that I counted out the bills for them. They seemed to like that I was making sure they got the correct amount of money back for their purchases.
Working in retail, at an older age, I was more aware of my tired aching feet, at the end of the day, then I seem to recall from my first paying job at Turnstyle. I lifted heavier boxes of freight then I did in my younger days. I had less patience for rude customers, then I must have had when I was 16 or 17.
I suppose indirectly I could blame Turnstyle for the love of candy I still have to this day. Perhaps my having to handle the tobacco products might have indirectly caused me to later become a smoker. But I gained valuable experience in how to treat customers, that has stayed with me, and will carry over into any customer service area that I work in. The fun I had with the other members of "The Turnstyle Gang" while we were at work, or when we went out afterward, have left me now, with only pleasant nostalgic memories, about the first real paying job I ever held.