First Job Series: David Sollars
First job:
Bag/Stock Boy | Bob and Carl’s Finer Foods Supermarket Southridge in Wilmington, Ohio
Age 16 | $3.10/hr
Responsibilities
Bagging groceries, helping folks get the groceries to their cars, stocking shelves, stacking bottles in the return bottles room (nasty), other duties as assigned.
Why this job?
Summer, they could give me 40 hours, and then cut back after school started again. I needed lots of gas money!
Memorable Experience
A very hot summer Saturday morning, I was wrestling a long line of shopping carts back into the store, and apparently didn’t look very happy doing so. Bob, one of the owners, looked at me and said, “David, in our store, we smile. If you want to work here, you better smile.” I smiled after that.
Life Lesson
In any job there are parts that aren’t that much fun. When we had to organize and stack return-for-deposit pop bottles in the “bottle room” we often had broken, dirty, foul-smelling, maggot and other insect-laden bottles. Nasty. On the other hand, helping “little old ladies” to their car or filling up a cart using a phoned-in shopping list from a shut-in (that we then delivered to), told me I was helping someone who really needed my help. The trick is to make the positive things a bigger part of the job—the things that help people—and try to minimize the pop bottles.
Teen Advice
Smile (and show up on time).
