The WORST Job I Ever Had!..

At the tender age of 12,by way of neighborhood connections,I secured temporary employment at a local amateur dog show taking place over the weekend at the municipal park.
My duties were simple.
Patrolling the showgrounds scooping up dog shit (tons),and pulling apart snarling canines battling tooth and claw over territorial imperatives (many).

..Fifty cents an hour..Eight hours a day..Two days,in the hot Summer sun.

That wasn't the worst job I ever had,it was the first job I ever had,..and it was a total blast!..

Some thirty-five years later,I found myself the reluctant resident of the San Luis Valley Community Corrections facility in Alamosa,Colorado.
Community Corrections is an alternative sentencing program..One last opportunity for convicted felons to redeem themselves,before the system decides that you're an irretrievable idiot,and sends you packing off to State Prison.

A primary requirement of your tenure at Corrections,is that you maintain full-time employment (30+ hours a week).
Quitting your job,in most cases,is grounds for swift disciplinary action (Loss of good time,earned priveledges,fines,or imprisonment),and getting fired for cause earns you a ticket on the big green bus headed straight for 'The Joint'.

Alamosa business owners know this,and find the facility a bountiful source of laborers willing to take on the most menial tasks,and suffer the most degrading indignities without complaint.
It is,quite literally,indentured servitude.

So,..don't ya know that for the last eighteen months of my incarceration,I was employed as a dishwasher by the most notorious of these taskmasters (even the guards at Corrections were like,'Dude..You have my sympathy'),..one 'Mrs. Durkin'.

She owned and operated one of the more popular restaurants in Alamosa.
A very nice establishment really,comfortably decorated in a 'John Wayne' styled theme.

Now,..I'm not above manual labor to be sure.
Mopping floors,scrubbing toilets,plowing through mountains of greasy pots and pans,topped off with numerous trips to the dumpster to discard buttloads of garbage can be made sufferable by keeping an eye on the ultimate prize..Completing your sentence,and going home.

Mrs. Durkin however,saw it as her civic duty to make every minute of your workday as thoroughly demeaning as her god-given talent for incessant human degradation could devise.
Male employees were 'Mother Fuckers!',and 'Cock Suckers!'.
Female employees were 'Bitches',and yes,..even 'Cunts!..'
Epithets hurled with gusto at every opportunity.

During my time at True Gri..er..'The Steakhouse',..no less than four of her Corrections employees chose to walk off the job,knowing full well that 48 hours later they would be in prison.
I.Shit.You.Not!

$5.15 an hour..Ten hour shifts (with one twenty minute break)...Eighteen months under the gnarled thumb of that screeching Harpy, who had sprung from the very loins of Satan himself..(Remind me to tell you about the time we didn't receive our paychecks at Christmas,because she was in Boulder buying herself a brand new big screen TV,and had neglected to turn our time cards in to the accountant)..

THAT was the worst job I ever had!

Mrs. Durkin..This song is for you...



'Good bye Mrs. Durkin'