Illustration by Cara Seccafien
Nothing screams ‘summer’ like working for ‘the man’
By Isabelle Orr, Entertainment Editor
Vacation to Cabo? No thanks. Week-long camping expedition? I don’t think so. Having any semblance of summer fun without the black cloud of a looming 7-to-3 shift with a bunch of high schoolers? Not on my watch, bucko! You’ve chosen to spend the summer working and saving up for the upcoming semester (read: seeing everyone post beautiful travel pics on Instagram while you serve your friends’ parents on an open-air patio), which is a very adult, mature thing to do. However, all of your job options suck! Help remedy this demeaning Sophie’s choice by taking this quiz!
Describe your work ethic:
a) house elf
b) Santa
c) Tom Sawyer type
d) Garfield
What about your work history?
a) one “serious” job (aka not in the food/service industry*)
b) manager position
c) I try and do as little work as possible at any and every job
d) booting for my little brother and his friends
What is your greatest work weakness?
a) too much attention to detail—I get lost in tasks
b) I care too much about the job and sometimes it can affect my emotions
c) I’m above a dumbass summer job
d) nut allergy
A coworker texts you to tell you they’re viciously ill and unable to come into work. However, you’ve planned a fun beach day with your friends. What do you do?
a) cancel on your friends and cover the shift
b) help them find another person to cover
c) laugh and say no
d) I never pick up my phone if it’s a work call
Your newest coworker is having a hard time picking up the flow of the job and they keep making mistakes that you have to fix. You:
a) offer to go over certain tasks with them
b) give them a list of job duties to review
c) don’t fix their mistakes, it’s their problem
d) are arguably worse at the job than your new coworker
Mostly “A”s: Office temp
You’re a corporate shill and a major suck. Yeah, you’re probably going to get ahead in life but you’re also a major nerd. You might as well get an unpaid internship, you lackey.
Mostly “B”s: Coffee shop
Your maturity makes you a dream to hire, and that’s why you’ll settle for the first job that hires you (on the spot, too). A few weeks in you’ll realize how poorly the workplace is run and how the burden of running it now rests on your scrawny shoulders. Feel free to even the odds with some light pastry thieving.
Mostly “C”s: Ice cream parlour
You care so little that you’ll work at almost any job, regardless of how bad the uniform is. Find an easy job where you can coast while still getting some extra tip money. Try showing maturity and good work ethic while the boss is around and get promoted to manager so you can exert your power over weak high school teens.
Mostly “D”s: Movie theatre employee
Time to chill! Everybody knows the best place for any slacker to work is the movie theatre. Why? The dim lighting makes it hard to tell if you’re stoned, you get free movies, and have access to unlimited popcorn at the end of a shift that you can just shovel right into a garbage bag and take home. Why make this summer worse than it has to be? Enjoy your minimum wage labour before heading back to the grind in September!
*not to demean those in the food and service industry, where I have worked for the past eight-plus years and will die there, where my ashes will be stirred into a vat of cold brew and consumed by my closest friends and family
