My Summer Job

This doesn't go on my job counter because it wasn't really a job. It was the 40 hours of community service I was sentenced to a few months earlier.

I had to go to the courthouse in Golden to get my community service assignment. The counselor asked me if I had any non-profit organization in mind to work for. I didn't, so he offered me two locations. One was in assisting the security department for some organization. The other was working at Value Village, the thrift store for ARC. The counselor told me that there would be some light janitorial duties at the security position, so I chose the thrift store. I knew that even though that accident was my fault, there was NO WAY I was going to spend 40 hours cleaning toilets.

The thrift store was very liberal about its community service program. You could come in and leave when you wanted. I had planned to try to get it all over and done with during a two week period during the summer. However, when I first arrived, the woman I encountered. said I didn't have the proper paperwork. I told the woman they were supposed to have it, but she said I was supposed to get it and bring it. I called later and talked to the other guy in charge of the community service. He said they had my paperwork. All I needed to do was show up.

I was kind of mad about how I was treated that first time. (And I found out later that I could have done my service with the Denver International Film Society, which I had frequent contact with at the Mayan Theatre.) I decided to just spread out the 40 hours over several Saturdays.

I arrived and they had me working a kind of assembly line. The regular workers would put donated merchandise on a table and we were supposed to sort it out. There were about 10 people working in the back for community service. I talked to one couple who had been sentenced to 100 hours. They had less than three weeks to complete it. And I thought I was procrastinating.

It was interesting to see how everyone worked at a snail's pace while doing the sorting. Seriously, they were slower than some of the cashiers I've seen working at Walmart. But when I watched the regular employees do the sorting, they were lickety-split fast at folding the clothes and putting them on the hangers. They could do 10 pairs of pants in the time it took a community service person to do one. Sometimes, it seemed like the regular employees were a little irritated at our presence. We likely slowed down their productivity and they were the ones who got yelled at by the supervisors because of it.

The first thing I noticed after I had completed my first day's work was that they had padded my hours. I only worked six hours that day, but the person in charge wrote down eight. I guess they have so much work that needs to be done that they want to encourage the community service people to keep returning.

The third time I went in, the maintenance guy said I would be working with him. It was cold and rainy that morning and he had me outside pulling up weeds with my bare hands. Really? Then he had me go into the bathroom and clean the sink. (He did not make me scrub the toilet.) And we did some other maintenance stuff. After two hours, I got fed up and went home, even though that meant I would have to spend one extra day to complete my time.

I never got put on maintenance again. The next to last time that I showed up, they had me helping at the front of the sorting line. I put clothes on one side and general merchandise on the other. I was actually having a good time doing this. I was getting along really well with the regular employees. I accidentally hit one of the women in the head with a lampshade. She was shocked because she heard it go crunch and she actually thought that was the sound of her skull fracturing. She laughed when she realized that all that had happened was that we had dented the lampshade.

She told me I worked a lot harder than most of the other community service people. I made a comment to her that I needed to keep in mind that, while I only had to spend 40 hours of my life doing this work, she had to do this 40 hours each week.

I wound up with 1.75 hours left to go on my community service. I walked in one morning, did the full 105 minutes and told the guy in charge I was going. "You're leaving already?" "I'm finished. That's the end of my community service." He signed my paperwork and I was done with my obligation to the justice system.

I have never had to do community service again since. But if I do, I'll be sure to try to get into another thrift store.