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If you don’t count babysitting, the first “real” job I had happened this way: It was my senior year of high school and one of my art classes was centered around creating our school yearbook. At the end of the semester and just as summer vacation was getting started the whole art class was required to solicit contributions from local businesses to help with the expenses of producing it. 

I was okay with this task. While I’ve never liked soliciting for my own needs, pleading for people to contribute to a good cause wasn’t something I felt shy about.  So, off I went, joyously, to every kind of business in my town that might be willing to give towards our school yearbook. Fortunately, many of them responded generously. However, the last one I tried said no. I should’ve known that the manager of a big grocery market chain wasn’t in the position to do that. But not all was lost in my attempt.

The store manager said he couldn’t contribute to my school’s cause, but to my surprise he asked if I’d like a job as a “box person.” He then went on to offer, that if I did well at bagging groceries, he would train me as a checker. I was elated at the prospect of having a real job.

So, that year, at the age of 18, I got my first real job. I also found out that I had earned the highest contribution amount of the class. And true to his word, a few months later, the manager trained me to be a grocery checker. It was a physically hard job in some ways, but one of the best paying manual jobs of that day.   

We never know where a simple, or even daunting, task might lead. That task led to a job at a grocery store that also led to meeting the man I married. You see, my husband of more than 50 years now, was a customer at the second market I worked at after my family moved to a new community. I made many other friends through the job of being a grocery checker too. One of them became a regular art student of mine many years after I quit working that “real job,” and she remains a friend to this day. I also have fond memories of encounters with customers when I was off duty. One of those serendipitous meetings, out of the context of the grocery store, revealed that a customer felt so lifted by my usual smile that she frequently made excuses for coming into the store, as she said: “Just so I could see your smiling face.”  

However, it was a few years into marriage and my job at the second store, when I became pregnant with my first child. I was thrilled with the prospect of becoming a mother and entering this new job arena. Yet, little did I know how difficult it would be at times. Even so, this very real job became my most joyous and important job of all. In 1 Thessalonians 5:16 it says: “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

So, in conclusion, maybe my first real job was learning to be joyful no matter what I was working at, or what new job it would lead to.

Tell me about your first real job and what it meant to you and to others in the comment box here. And don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter so you can download my new “Sweet Devotions for the Soul” booklet for FREE. Check out my YouTube channel at: @IrisCarignan-ATasteOfHoney too and see if it brings a smile to your face too. Savor my most recent video is a cooking demo for Chicken Potpie.

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