#10: The Absolute Worst Things I've Ever Done For Money 🤑
I did these jobs so you don't have to!
Laid Off Life is a place of respite for the weary workforce. Whether you’re unemployed, on strike or just trying to make it through the workday, let this be your 5-minute mental break from the grind of late-stage capitalism.
In this weekly newsletter, you’ll find musings and insights about work and life, things I’m finding useful (or useless) in my job search, gems from my DMs, and recs about worthy ways to waste time - from articles to TV shows and podcasts and beyond.
The 10 Absolute Worst Things I’ve Done For Money 🤑
It’s completely normal and natural to complain about your job, even to hate it at times. When you spend 40+ hours a week doing anything, it doesn’t matter what, you’re going to have your own special brand of grievances — from the fact that your boss wants you to fax every email she receives while she’s on vacation to a baby possum infestation in your workspace. Yep, I have experienced both. It’s normal to be filled with murderous rage about these things. (If those feelings are persistent and pervasive, I suggest you look for a new job.)
The key to being content at your job, I’ve found, is to constantly remind yourself of all the much worse things you can be doing to earn your living. Whenever I feel myself about to go off the rails over something stupid, I simply remind myself that it’s BTCDD, short for Better Than Changing Dog Diapers.
This is something I’ve done for pay. And seriously, it was the most awful/degrading/depressing/disgusting way to earn $12 an hour. It put a million other job annoyances in perspective. Here are some more of the most awful things I’ve done for money...
1. Changing doggie diapers. See above. I was hired as a personal assistant. I did not realize this would include changing my employer’s dogs’ diapers because it was “too much work to potty train them.” By the end of my time at that job, there were 3 dogs whose nappies needed changing.
2. Licking boots. In college, I worked at a nightclub for extra cash because working late-night shifts didn’t interfere with my class or study schedule. While the pay was better than working at Contempo Casuals (which I did for a few months), I was still always hard up for cash. One way I earned a little extra was by betting drunk customers that I would lick the bottom of their boots. Of course, no one believed I would lick a boot that had been walking the NYC streets, but I did. Twice. I made $20 and felt too ashamed of myself to ever do it again.
3. Being a part of an accidental harem. While living in LA and pursuing my acting career, I applied for a personal assistant job. The interview/audition consisted of 40 women taking a math and grammar test at a local hot tub spa. Only in LA. My high scores qualified me to work at a rich, older gentleman’s home, where I was told I’d be “organizing his office.” When I got to his house in Laurel Canyon, there were several, 20-something girls who looked just like me. We were instructed to “organize” without “taking any breaks” or “asking any questions” or he would “yell at us.” When he left to order pizza, which we would be required to “eat while working,” I escaped his compound, got in my car, and hightailed it out of there. I didn’t care about my pay, which I never got. So technically, I did this for free, which makes it even more humiliating.
4. Playing a prostitute who gets shot in the head in a vampire movie Gary Busey did for drug money. I got paid $850 to play the part of a hooker (aka Bunkhouse Girl) in the desert who gets shot in the head by vampires. Most of the day included me laying on a splintery piece of wood, without moving, while fake blood dripped into my ear. No, Gary Busey was not in my scene. Here’s proof that I’m not embellishing.
5. Wiping diarrhea off a 6-year-old who just shit herself. My first and only foray into directing children’s theater (I usually worked with teenagers or adults), ended with me in the bathroom during our final dress rehearsal using cotton balls to wipe explosive diarrhea off a nervous, crying 6-year-old. Poor girl. But also, poor me.
6. Acting as a go-between for my boss and her soon-to-be ex-husband. You probably wouldn’t be surprised to find out that this was the same person who put diapers on her dogs. Since I worked for her, I was also in charge of every bit of communication to or from her husband who had recently moved out of the house. Trust me when I say that telling a man that his wife can’t come to the door because she “doesn’t want to speak to you, you motherfucker,” is the absolute apex of awkwardness.
7. Pushing a 1,000-pound set piece with wheels down 10th Avenue. One thing nobody tells you about working at a Broadway production company: you’ll be expected to do an outrageous amount of manual labor that is way beyond the scope of your physical capabilities. For me, that meant pushing an extremely large set piece from Hell’s Kitchen to Lincoln Center. For reference, that’s nearly 30 city blocks! After pushing said set piece, I almost longed to change doggie diapers again. ALMOST.
8. Driving a 24-foot U-Haul truck down the narrowest street on the Lower East Side. Another thing no one tells you about working for a Broadway production company is that even if your job is to negotiate tour contracts, at some point you will have to drive a 24-foot U-Haul van full of sweatshirts to an undisclosed location on Norfolk Street, just because you’re the only people with a valid drivers license, even though you’ve never driven a commercial vehicle. You will get the truck stuck in an alleyway and obstruct all traffic on the Lower East Side. Then you will cry for an hour until you flag a legitimate truck driver who is willing to get the van unstuck.
9. “Hanging out” with a little girl with cancer. When a friend of a friend tells you she knows someone who is looking for a person to “hang out” with an 11-year-old who has cancer and be her friend, your first thought is, This is my chance to be a good person! Your second thought is, What if she dies while she’s in my charge? She didn’t die in my charge, thank God, but I don’t think I did much in the way of cheering her up. During our first “hang out,” she asked if she could show me her wig collection and I cried for the next 2 hours, inconsolable over her impending death. I was never asked to come back.
10. Attending a cult meeting. Again, I did not get paid specifically for attending the cult meeting, but my presence was requested by the owner of a company I worked for, which makes it obligatory if you want to keep in good stead with the person who signs your paychecks. I can handle an hour or two of New Age stuff, I thought. It was much, much worse than that. When I showed up, everyone was dressed in matching linen outfits. We were led through a guided meditation, where we were told that The Guru (whose name I shall not mention) communicated the books of Merlin through pop music. Cue the Celine Dion, the laying on of hands and the speaking in tongues.
Worthy Time Wasters:
Here are my weekly recs to combat doom scrolling.
WATCH: Stop Making Sense
For the 40th anniversary, Jonathan Demme’s seminal Talking Heads doc STOP MAKING SENSE is back in theaters, newly restored in 4K and mixed in Dolby Atmos. This was probably the most fun I’ve had at the movies since COCAINE BEAR. The footage, the sound, the dance moves! It doesn’t feel like you’re AT the concert, it feels like you’re IN the concert.
READ: Nothing Is Better Than This: The Oral History of ‘Stop Making Sense’ (The Ringer)
Once you’ve seen the film, you’re going to want to read the oral history of the film. According to Byrne it’s a journey toward selflessness.
“As the show builds, the music becomes funkier, and it becomes harder to maintain this self that’s outside of that. You just have to surrender to it.”
DOWNLOAD: Luvly
Instagram ads be damned. I got served the Luvly face yoga ads so many times I had to click. I’m proud to report that I’ve been doing face yoga every day for the last two weeks for the not-so-low price of $19.99/ month. There’s a free 3-day trial if you don’t want to pay. Just don’t forget to cancel before the end of your trial period as I did. I don’t know if it’s working, but if you tell me I look younger the next time you see me, I’ll know it is. 😁
Gems From My DMs
The best stuff people sent me.
October is going to serve Big Relaunch Energy // More of David Byrne’s senseless dance moves// This octopus has ears! //A quick recap of the Kim/Kourt K feud // A fun song about weed // You can buy an apartment from the Only Murder In The Building building // That time when NYC flooded // Britney dancing with knives // Britney dancing with knives spoof // 1997 Delia’s catalog flashback // Officecore
💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻 Don’t keep all this fun to yourself! 🤸🏻♀️🤸🏻♀️🤸🏻♀️
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👋🏼 Hi. My name is Ami and I’m unemployed. This newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To ensure that I keep writing it, consider becoming a paid subscriber!