Some of my early W2 jobs were real winners – tough hours, long shifts on my feet – but hey, they provided a paycheck which is what it’s all about.  #7jobs laid out my early efforts to earn money and the sorts of categories they typically fell in.

That first string of jobs landed me in kids, ice cream, movies, ice cream, camera/Hallmark store, Subway, and kids.  Anyone else notice some recurring themes?

My first year in college I worked at Subway to earn my cash.  I like sandwiches just fine, so making subs was an easy way to score spending money.  The thing that made this job particularly interesting was the restaurant’s location.

That Subway was located on the Corner, an area right near the university that had restaurants, stores, and bars.  Coincidentally, it was also located only a few blocks from most of our Greek housing.  Somehow I don’t think that was a mistake.

Crowds were pretty typical during days shifts, but things could get a little squirrelly at night. The place would stay open ’til one in the morning, giving us time to catch the hungry study crowd as well as the keg crawlers craving sustenance.  Luckily the two didn’t tend to overlap…kids cramming for exams would wander in around ten, and the drunks tipsy students didn’t stumble in until eleven or midnight.

I don’t recall having any trouble with those guys, but then again I was pretty great at making sandwiches so that probably helped.  Drunk Wasted, hungry college kids want their munchies and they want them fast.  If you can deliver on that then it’s all copacetic.

Everything went fine at the time, but I look back now as a parent and shudder.  I lived in the first year dorms which were all the way across campus, so my job wasn’t exactly right down the street.  And I didn’t have a car, which meant I was using that popular mode of two-wheeled transportation for college students nationwide, my bicycle.

Those two things alone sound okay – fresh air, exercise – what’s not to love, right?  It doesn’t get hinky until you factor in that Subway closed at one in the morning, so after cleaning up and shutting things down I was headed home around 2:00am.  On my bicycle.  In the dark.  With all the drunk folks who were three sheets to the wind.

Seriously, I’d throttle Bear if I found out she was involved in this sort of madness.  But the hubris of the young leads to a misguided belief in invincibility…and apparently that’s a concept that will never die.

Subway.  Job #6 on my #7jobs list.