Working while You Grow

Kitchen Manager—Joe

I had been working at a café called Pacific Desserts for two years. One day the kitchen manager left his job. I had worked there the longest. I was given the kitchen manager's work, but not the title or the pay.

High school kids waited tables at night there. They often visited in the morning before the place was open. They came for free coffee. I had been making myself breakfast before the manager got there and I decided to expand. For the last three months of school, I made fried eggs and potato salad using the restaurant's eggs, cheese, milk, vegetables, potatoes, and spices. We started a morning coffee club, and charged $1 per plate. Soon the high school students started to bring their friends. One of them even made a signboard in his carpentry class that read "Joe's Underground Café". I usually made about $8 extra per day. This was the same as an increase in my pay. I was also spending an hour of the company's time for my own profit.

Bicycle Messenger—Kenny

Being a bike messenger in Seattle is hard, but our job was easy. We had to work extremely hard, but at least we got paid by the hour.

The company always let us wear shorts, but we had to wear the company T-shirts. We cut off the sleeves to stay cool. Then, the company wanted to give a better impression of itself because we delivered to big businesses. They made us wear long pants and shirts made of heavy material. This was crazy! Try riding your bicycle fast for ten miles up hills, really big hills, with heavy packages while you're wearing long pants!

All of the messengers agreed we could not continue like that. We decided that we wouldn't wash our clothes at all. We wore the same clothes every day. You can imagine what it was like when we were in an elevator. Our clothes smelled terrible and our bodies also smelled bad. Within a month, the company received many complaints. They let us wear shorts again.