"Honey, you look like you need a sourdough roll. "

Many people that know me know that I have had many side jobs. Don't get me wrong, I have never been fired or quit, I just picked new jobs on college breaks, or held many at one time. I have gleaned many skills and hilarious stories from said jobs. Let's review the list, shall we?
They are listen chronologically, from 2003-present.

Summer babysitter
murder victim at a haunted house (not kidding)
Wendy's
Panera
Two Scoops Ice cream Parlor
Starbucks
Sheetz
Day care teacher
Geneva College Dining Hall Pizza Maker
Banana Republic
After school Math Tutor
Summer Nanny

Why have I had so many? Because of my mother.

Mama Wendy grew up on a 100 acre farm. She  actually told me once that she grew the crops .... to sell... to buy the fabric... to make her own clothes in high school. I thought she was lying until I asked my aunt. Yep, it is true.She also actually did walk a mile to get to the bus stop in the snow. Mama Wendy STILL has 3 jobs. My sisters and I didn't stand a chance. We had to get jobs pretty much the minute we turned 16, if not before.

This is the farm. It's probably one of the prettiest places on earth. 

I worked at Panera when I was a senior in high school to the end of my freshman year of college.  During my two week winter break, it was my job to open. I hate mornings. I am not actually a functioning person unless it is 10:00 am or I have had two cups of coffee, whichever comes first. I also don't have proper motor skills in the morning, like I drop things and bump into doorways and fall down sometimes. I really, really hate to be awake when it is early.To put it in church-y words, early is not my "spiritual gift"

When you are the bakery opener at Panera you have to wake up at 4:00 and get there by 5:00. You have to gather all of the pastries and set them on doilies and plates that you arrange to make the display look tasty, attractive, and magical. There are also many rules, and a diagram to follow. You can't put scones next to chocolate pastries and  cinnamon rolls have to be in the middle in a basket. Cookies have to stay flat  and in a stack, and you have to tip forward the plates with those tiny solo cups that normal people use for ketchup. This job can suck, especially when it is 5:30 and your doily slips down and all of a sudden the orange scone icing is stuck to a cheese pastry and the cherry pastries have flung themselves upon the cobblestone muffins, causing it to look like a gruesome pastry murder scene.

It gets worse. At Panera you have to wear khaki pants, a polo, a hat, an apron and brown or black shoes. This was torture. I have like three times the hair of a regular person, so it is cruel to force me to wear a hat. My hair doesn't fit. the curls spill out the sides and I look like an idiot. The outfit was the worst. I hated my pants... they were literally the ugliest things on earth. Mama Wendy forced me to buy the unisex dockers and shoes that can be found in the career section at Wal-mart.Yes friends, there is a "career section" at Wal-Mart, I bet you didn't know.

You may know my feelings about the word "unisex" if you read my post about 21 Truths.

Anyway, These hideous dockers supposedly had a "safety feature", a special coating that would prevent the flesh of your leg from burning off in the event of fry grease being thrown at you. My man shoes had the same coating. My feet are size 11, so basically my bottom half looked like a man.  There was an epic mother/daughter fight about those ugly pants and shoes. Now, in my adult wisdom, I know that my mom was concerned for my well-being. Mama Wendy loves me, and  love hurts... like being 17 and  wearing Wal-mart "career" merchandise. Sometimes, love is excruciating.

When I came back to Panera after my first year of college, I had just bought new shoes AND new pants. My pants were still nasty khakis but not nasty unisex safetypants khakis. My shoes were these brown pumas with grippy looking things on the bottom, and I was thinking: "Man, look at these things, they look SO safe. These are going to be awesome. I am never going back to the ugly man clothes because I am now a collegiate and sophisticated woman"

False.

They absolutely sucked for safety. the second I stepped on a wet surface, my feet would slip and side out from under me. I always caught myself though. I remember thinking that these shoes still looked wicked sweet, and I would be fine, I just had to pay attention when they mopped the floor.

Also false.

One day, I was in the back stocking the fridge or warming up soup or something when my manager told me that they needed my help up front. Like a good employee I hurried up front to take my position at the register...............

BAM.

My face was on the floor. I had fallen full force on my right arm in front of my coworkers and the twenty plus customers during the morning rush.They had just mopped and I didn't see the yellow" Cuiado!" sign in time.

I did what any normal human would do. I stood up quickly like "Its all cool" and pretended like nothing ever happened.
I strolled unsteadily to my register, smiled at my customer and said, " Hi! Welcome to Panera Bread! what ccaan I gett................."

 I passed out.Yep.... Mid -sentence. I was in a lot of pain and... well, sometimes I do that. It's adorable.

I was out cold for 30-50 seconds. On my way down,  I also took a whole sleeve of plastic smoothie cups with me, which flung through the air and showered the floor around my unconscious body. Fellow employees and customers rushed over to help, kicking plastic cups all over the place. It was quite a scene. I woke up to the general manager in my face asking me about the date, time, and the current president. She made me sit in one of the booths and put ice on my wrist. She called my dad to take me to Med Express and gave me the next two days off.

It was a hairline fracture in my right wrist and I was given a brace. After the weekend, I returned to work.

For at least two weeks, all of the employees and regular customers brought up "The Incident." causing me to blush a deep shade of red . I really just wanted to forget it ever happened, but people kept saying things that made me feel like Pollyanna at the end of the movie after she falls off the roof..

"That was quite a spill you took there!"
" You gave us quite a scare, little lady"
"You make sure you're safe out there!" 
" You just really need to rest...that.... arm. I mean it!"
"You just take it easy, now, and watch your step."

Not everyone had that same kind approach towards me.One co-worker felt the need to make it COMPLETELY CLEAR when she was, or was not mopping the floor. The customer that I was waiting on when I passed out mid-sentence wouldn't make eye contact as if he felt personally responsible or irreversibly traumatized by the incident.
My manager took a different approach. She was completely baffled that someone could pass out due to pain and she did not believe me. She thought I was a workplace liability, and probably anorexic. I really, really didn't look anorexic....I weighed about 20-30 pounds more than I do now.. but she felt the need to push sourdough rolls towards me once or twice in an eight-hour shift, which I accepted. I tried to refuse once, but she gave me a look like: " I'm not picking you up off the floor again. Your very presence threatens the safety and security in my workplace. I detest your face and  your vanity-shoes,  you errant employee" .. but I may have been reading into it.

After that I decided that I didn't want to work at Panera for the next 4 months. I soon left that job to live in Anna Maria Island, Florida for the summer with the intention of waitress-ing at my grandparent's beachside country club... which actually turned into me working at an ice cream parlor called Two Scoops. I lived in a beach house and rode the free tourist trolley to work every day. It didn't suck. The best part is I was allowed to wear shorts and flip flops. 
#winning
#silverlining

Two Scoops Ice Cream Parlor from the outside. 

So what's the moral of the story, kids?
It really depends on your preference, but you can choose which life lesson you want to take away from this story from the following list.
1. Safety in the workplace is everyone's job!
2. Practicality is better than vanity. 
3. Mother knows best.
4. Danger is everywhere, and constant vigilance is necessary for survival.  
5. Finish college and get yourself a nice, safe, desk job. 
6. Ya know, sometimes life just knocks you down, and you just gotta get up, and then it knocks you down again. (aka the chumbawamba lesson)
...or my personal favorite

Sometimes God closes a door, (or pushes you over on the floor in front of 30 people and breaks your wrist) but somewhere he opens a window ( or gets you a job that pays 9.00 an hour plus tips, scooping ice cream, beachside, in your flip flops)

I got a ton of great pictures that summer , too. Happy ending!!