Coffee and a Conversation
As Told Over Brunch is a home for intelligent discourse from the twenty-something perspective - so the stuff you gossip about over mimosas on Sunday morning or over takeout on your friend's couch when happy hour ends too early. We love chatting about our lives, whether it be the relationships we’re building (or destroying), lessons we've learned at work, struggles at school, growing pains we've felt, or even the food we’re talking over.
While I found Amsterdam in total discord, from wanting to be a beacon of new economy and growth to also simultaneously wanting to be a historical city, there is one part of the culture that I could spend weeks enjoying:
Some of the windows in Amsterdam are purely entertaining, some are wildly informative and some are just interesting. These are the three types of windows of greatest fascination to me.
Read MoreFor reasons that escape me, I always seem to pursue the most ridiculous methods of making money. Even the "normal" jobs I get seemingly turn into strange experiences. In some sort of a particular order, here is a list of jobs I have had and how it turned out for me: The "normal" jobs that could have been more normal:
My first job was at a bagel store, which would have been normal if upper management ever got itself together. By the end of my first year I was the second most senior person in the establishment at a ripe age of 17. Once when I came into work, there was some corporate people there that made me pose with sandwiches for a website. Within the week, some other corporate lady came in and had me cleaning out the inside of the trashcan in the back with a scrubber, and then proceeded to yell at me for not keeping an eye on the cash register and the customer standing at it (which was in a different room, where she happened to be, without her head in a trashcan).
I was a camp counselor for two summers. I would give this job the award for most normal, except for the time a six year tried climbing up onto my lap and then proceeded to try to motorboat me while yelling "BOOBIES!"
The jobs I took that I didn't expect to be normal, and weren't:
I then spent two summers interning at a theme park. I knew this was going to be an experience, but never did I think it would be THIS CRAZY! First off, people on vacations are insane and forget that those people working at a theme park are actual humans. Beyond that, I lived at the housing unit for international students, so the crazy never subsided. The perks of living there was that the internationals thought I was a helpless undomesticated American that would eat frozen pizza and oatmeal everyday if left to their own devices (painfully true actually), so they'd make me a rice dinner at least 1-2 time a week. On the downside, it was expected that I drink Popov with them every night and would consider marrying at least one of them so they could have a green card.
I spent a summer of my life making political phone calls. As I am not politically active, and I can't honestly say which side I was supporting, but I was told to burn in hell by someone on my first night. It didn't really improve after that night, yet it was a $9.50 a hour job, which was more than I'd ever made anywhere else, so so what if I got death threats? I endured the entire summer.
The jobs that were just plain sketchy, in hindsight:
I sold windows too for a summer. Just on weekends, so it complimented my camp job well. I would go to fairs and such with this short, creepy man and stand next to this window and pretend to know anything about it. Old men would come over to me, I would get them to sign up for a consultation, and then make a whole lot of money. I made a base of $10 an hour, plus $15 every time I got someone to sign up for a consultation. I would smile a lot and always wondered why I was so good at this job without knowing anything about construction. It was only recently when I talk about this job did I realize I was basically a window prostitute to all these old men who thought I would be the one coming to their house for the presentation.
I also thought donating plasma would be a good money maker. I ate a big meal, laid down to get my plasma sucked out, and vomited everywhere once the process started. The saline taste from whatever chemicals they were putting into my body with the blood they were returning to me clearly didn't suit me. I did get paid though, so my mother encouraged me, "Just try again. I bet they'll pay you even if you puke again." I did contemplate it because I puke for free most nights, but decided against it.
The jobs that are just funny:
My current endeavor of selling makeup. Enough said, especially if you already read From Tomboy to Tweezers.
My real full-time job of social media, which yes, is a real job, and yes, I do get paid for it.
My roommate also put up a pet care profile for me online yesterday. Here's the picture from my profile:
If that doesn't instill in you a sense of security that I can handle your pets, I'm not sure what will.
Maybe one day I will get a job that isn't in some fashion funny, but I doubt it. I have accepted that normal isn't for everyone.