Christine McQueen shares about her summer job experiences working at a restaurant.
Way back in June of 1972, when I was just graduating from high school, I started hitting the pavement to find a summer job. I desperately needed money to pay for my college education! A new A&W restaurant was opening in my hometown, of Salinas, so I applied there and was hired. The salary was $1.65 an hour. On opening day, a whole crew of new hires showed up for a training before the actual doors opened to allow the stream of customers to enter.
There were few fast-food restaurants on that side of town, so the opening of an A&W was a huge deal. At the training, the crew was divided in half, and I was relegated to the group sent to the back of the restaurant to do the frying of the burgers and French fries. I wound up working side-by-side with the most amusing group of teenage guys you could imagine. We were the “fun group”!
Since the customers couldn’t really see us, we could crack jokes all shift long and get away with it! Most of the other girls had to wait on customers at the counter up front, and they were super jealous of me and the few other women working in the back.
I graduated in 1976 from San Diego State University with a degree in journalism, and I needed a reference for my first newspaper job. My manager from A&W wrote me a letter of recommendation. I got hired at the newspaper, having no experience as a reporter. Months later, my editor told me the reason I got the job was because of the glowing letter I got from the manager of the A&W. Looking back, I realize that position as a short-order cook was the most fun job I ever had! With a Perspective, I’m Christine McQueen.