Remember that summer job??

notrichenough
Wed, 08 Sep 2010 14:36:43 +0000

I worked at a stadium for a Major League baseball team for the concessions company.

I started as a cashier at a vending location. Armed guards would show up at the end of the game to escort us to a counting room, where we would have to sort (by denomination, all bills face up with the heads pointed in the same direction), count, and bundle the money. It wasn’t unusual to have to count $20,000 for the night, in mostly small bills. This was the mid 70’s.

I worked my way into the warehouse, which was a day job. Unloading trucks, moving stuff around the stadium, etc. The worst was loading the freezers, which were kept at -30 degrees Fahrenheit. The blowers were so strong there was an actual wind chill effect. We kept winter coats there for when we needed to go in the freezers. Got to drive a fork lift now and then, which was fun.

By my last year I was doing inventories, and figuring out how much stuff to order, and then ordering it. It was kind of fun to call up the hot dog company and order 2000 cases of hot dogs, or call the beer distributor and order 7000 cases and 500 kegs of beer for the weekend. Coke by the tractor-trailer (5 gallon post-mix tanks, which weighed about 80 pounds a piece - fun moving those around), french fries by the ton.

Lots of characters, too.

It was a pretty cool job.