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Music

The Soundtrack to All My Shitty Jobs

From retail to construction, these are all the songs I had to suffer through.

I've been working terrible jobs for the better half of my life. Which is fine. Of course, that number will continue to go up unless I plan on changing career paths. Which I don't. Chalk it up to wanderlust or maybe just overall laziness. My only constant complaint at all of them is the music. The 55-year-old gender neutral "music czar" at retail headquarters shouldn't be in charge of the radio. They already make you work a bullshit job that you hate, which sucks, then they get to choose the soundtrack to your misery. If you work, or plan on working, any blue collar job, you’d better hope you like Rob Thomas featuring Carlos Santana. Otherwise, you’re fucked.

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Job: Lawn mower

Age: 15

Towards the end of the school year, I started thinking about what kind of car I was going to drive when I turned 16. I had a conversation with my father regarding which car I should be expecting to receive and I must say, I was shocked to find out that not only did I have no say in the matter, but the car I was banking on fingering girls in the back of did not exist. Emotionally crushed and encroaching social peril, I took a job with my friend’s father who was a “landscaper.” Her house seemed pretty nice and was in a very respectable part of town and when she told me her dad could hook me up with a job. I was delighted and jumped at the chance. Being an only son, I had a lot of experience mowing yards and assumed “boss” would make me number one lawn mower in no time. It turned out, Meredith’s dad wasn’t so much a “landscaper” but more of an “organizer of lawnmowers.” I spent the first hour of my workday riding around in the back of a truck, picking up random Mexican dudes from local Dallas area day labor hot spots. Home Depots, Lowe’s, etc. When the “boss” had decided we had enough fellas, he’d point and we’d go mow and edge and trim or whatever while he sat his fat ass in the truck. Seeing as I was 15 and spoke no Spanish, it was a pretty lonely job.

It was summer in Texas. Days were long and hot. After work, I was never invited out for under-the-tree beers or anything fraternal. One of the Mexican guys always had a radio and it was Tejano all day. A couple of times, the younger dudes would bang South Park Mexican who was a Texas sensation in the 90s until he got convicted for fucking children a whole bunch of times and is now incarcerated. And of course Chingo Bling, who started out as a legit rapper and is now more of a Mexican Weird Al, but “Some Pinche Guey” is a banger and “Cerveza” is about as good as it gets. Nike sued him for putting a “swoosh” on a pair of pointy cowboy boots. On my last day, I realized we were mowing the lawn of the mall my mother worked at, so I just cut out and ditched the dude’s mower and never looked back. Hit up the Chick-fil-A and planned my next move.

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Job: Mall sneaker/skate shop

Age: 16 to 17

Sixteen and confused, I landed myself a job in Collin Creek Mall at the sneaker store there, initially for the discount. It was the first of many jobs that taught me how to treat people. I don’t mean treating anyone special for any reason, but more just how to not to talk to people like they are garbage. Retail is fucking horrible. Shout out to all that can do it day in and day out. Momma Dean worked retail 30 years. Unfortunately at Neimans, they had a calm baroque soundtrack to sell designer jewels to. Over at the sneaker store I worked at in 1998/99, not so much. What we did have were VHS music video compilations that had to be set on a loop all day. A new one came every quarter, so basically I had to listen to the same goddamn 90 minutes worth of songs in three-month increments. Here’s a little list of what I’m fucking with every mother fucking hour and a half.

Sugar Ray – “Every Morning”
Barenaked Ladies – “One Week”
Fastball – “The Way”
Smash Mouth – “Walking on the Sun”
Everlast – “What It’s Like”
Savage Garden – “To the Moon and Back”
Santana Feat. Rob Thomas – “Smooth”
Vertical Horizon – “Everything You Want”
Red Hot Chili Peppers – “Scar Tissue”
Fatboy Slim – “Praise You”
Eagle-Eye Cherry – “Save Tonight”
Len – “Steal My Sunshine”

Every half hour, I’d have to take a break from fat bar lacing some asshole’s shell-toed Adidas to rewind this insane video that ultimately I was going to have to sit through over and over, again and again. First thing we would do when we would close was turn off the TVs. Just silence. Replacing racks and racks of Simple brand shoes in complete silence. The new signage for every quarter would show up and we would tear open in the boxes in anticipation. Somehow every quarter, would be Rob Thomas’ “Smooth.” The worst part is that when you got off work, you had to sit in your 30-year-old coworker’s IROC Camaro while he made you listen to 311 “Grassroots” and smoke more ditch weed than Cheech and Chong. The only saving grace was Missy Elliott – “Hot Boyz.” Ever hour and a half, I was stoked. Well, for three months, anyway, until it got replaced by a fucking Len song.

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Job: Corporate chain coffee store

This was not the worst job I ever had. They would give me time off for tour whenever I wanted. It paid decently for an 18 year old in Austin, TX. The people I worked with weren’t terrible. The music wasn’t always that bad. It wasn’t as mundane as retail. Very wide variety of tracks, mostly shitty free jazz coffeehouse bullshit, but that’s just because it was a shitty bullshit jazzy coffeehouse. We discovered a way to skip songs when they would be too terrible to listen to. There’s a couple Sun Ra songs that would be like nails on a chalkboard to me. You’re asking some dumb old lady how many Splendas she wants in her half-caff breve fat girl latte and all of a sudden, you hear a cat getting thrown around in a pillow case. Kinda fucked up my Frappuccino game. One summer, Brian Wilson’s “Smile” came out on digipack CD. That was a pretty rough summer. It was probably like, 115 degrees outside and I’m being forced to “Smile” on repeat all goddamn day. Staring out the window all broken spirited, “What’s there to smile about?” Sigh. The regulars loved to talk about the music being played through hidden speakers behind five-foot-tall pieces of glorified “Target art.” Like, “Excuse me, sir, my hands are full of gravity-sensitive shit, do you by chance know who this is playing right now?” “Yeah, its 'Brown Eyed Girl,' by Van Morrison, it’s probably on the first classic rock station you can find.”

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There was one time when my girlfriend broke up with me on my lunch break. It was a great feeling having Rufus Wainwright’s version of “Across the Universe” as a nice little comedown from that slagg ripping my guts out. If I had to sum up my experience at there with three musicians, I’d have to say Dave Brubeck, Coldplay, and Eddie Vedder.

JOB: Rock Club

I worked at semi-prominent rock club for a while. Working there, I saw some of the worst bands on the planet that you could have ever imagined, EVER. I cannot even begin to describe how soul-crushing that job was. And although it was fun and you got laid and you saw bands for free, you paid with your soul, your liver, and your future. Clutch is probably the worst band I’ve ever seen. Them and Black Veil Brides. Those dudes are 30 and dress like vampires. Hank III has the worst fans. I’ve probably been beaten up at three Hank III performances. I saw a female Hank III fan fight three dudes and—until helped arrived—seemed to be winning. All the rap shows were bad. Soundchecks should be illegal two hours before doors. No one should have to start his or her workday by having to listen to the dickhead from Falling In Reverse check his “in-ears.” It’s not fair. It’s like if a morning person woke up to me knocking their coffee out of their hands, looked them dead in the eyes, and said, “I hope you have a terrible day today.” Soundchecks would just let me know how shitty of a day I was about to have. Brokencyde was pretty bad too. But yeah, Clutch is the worst band I’ve ever seen. I’m pretty sure they were playing the songs correctly and their instruments fine, but to me, it just sounded like a human being was shitting hot diarrhea into my ears. Just like having water inside your ear, but instead of water, it’s just liquid shit. Of Mice & Men were pretty bad too, but if we go down that k-hole, we ain’t coming out. It’s the kind of music that I assume people drive tanks to.

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Job: Sushi Place

(3 weeks)

I worked at a sushi place, bartending for a month. It was pretty terrible. The owners were new to town and didn’t really have a grasp on the town’s current tastes and flavors. I believe the overall intention was to somehow recreate or encompass the 90s in a single sushi bar. Heavy Jamiroquai vibes. Once in a while, patrons used to ask for information about the artists and every single time it was Jamiroquai. Sometimes I could see his floppy hat in the shadows. This being the 21st century and all music was Pandora radio, we had three choices: Jamiroquai radio, Daft Punk radio (lots of overlap), and A Tribe Called Quest radio, which I refused to listen to on my shifts. What they did have on a loop was a DVD of a Japanese breakdance competition that I was forced to watch constantly. When someone would ask what we were watching, I’d always try to act like it was the first time seeing it. Maybe try and convince them that this is actually how people in Asia fight—on their hands to Jamiroquai. I really don’t have anything against Jamiroquai. I would probably fake liking him if it proved advantageous to me which sometimes at this job, it would was. My problem is with his overly infectious Michael Jacksonesque rhythms. You ever try to stay mad at somebody while Jamiroquai plays loudly in the foreground? Nope. Can’t do it. It sounds like a Target commercial.

Job: Construction Sites

(a whole bunch of times)

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Most construction jobs are bid on, so who the boss is will to determine a whole lot of shit. First off, if the owner’s a Christian, it’s white t-shirts and jeans/modern country or Christian contemporary country the whole time. If he’s a normal redneck contractor, it’s more than likely guitar-based rock music or modern country. I like both! Right after my dad died, I was painting ceilings for work. When I say “painting ceilings,” I mean just ceilings, they’d call me in late at night and I’d come knock ’em out. Awful job, but hey, $10 an hour cash is the going rate for pretty much anything these days. Forty-year-old construction workers ain’t trying to listen to some outlaw country bullshit that their dads used to fuck to in high school. They listen to new country. Or classic rock. Exclusively. Never heard rap at a job site. Either Lynyrd Skynyrd or new country, which is fine with me. You can always understand the lyrics. They never go on for too long and are usually accompanied with a hook that easily gets stuck in your head in a pleasant way. Typically, nobody’s going to bitch about “Sweet Home Alabama.” That summer, a new song came out called “Voices” by Chris Young. It’s about a middle-aged jagoff working his contracted job or mowing his fucking yard or whatever and then the wind brings in his father’s voice, dropping little tidbits of advice through out the day and that’s how he communicates from the beyond. You find yourself in the HEB singing out loud “Dad’s telling me to work that job, but don’t work your life away.” Sometimes you get the rowdy good ole’ boys for co-workers. That’s more CCR (Cross Canadian Ragweed)/ Zac Brown “Chicken Fried” territory.

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JOB: Hippie Café

(very long time)

I worked with a guy named Skip at Bouldin Creek Café. Before Skip worked with me at Bouldin, he had been a tattooer. He had a nightmare one evening that he accidentally gave someone hep C and never picked up a tattoo needle again. Because of this, he decided to make my life a daymare and bring all of his shitty tattoo music with him to the hippie café. Skip and I worked mornings together for years. I didn’t drink back then, and in those days, the first one there got to pick the first CD put on, meaning that at 6 AM Monday through Friday, I walked in to Skip playing Buckethead live records for about three hours at a time. He was always there before me. You couldn’t get stoned enough to tolerate that. The old Bouldin was directly across the street from the school for the deaf and a lot of my regular customers were deaf, so luckily for them, they didn’t have to endure the sonic torture that is a Mike Patton side project blasting at 11 at 6 AM. I couldn’t sleep one night before my shifts and just said “fuck it.” I headed in early, sure to beat Skip to the chase. Alas, there he was 5 in the fucking AM, just listening to Buckethead, just solos, and solos, and solos, We opened at 7 and I was trying to get myself sufficiently stoned before my shift, Buckethead blaring through the PA speakers just reminding me of how fucked my day was going to be. Just like clockwork, the 7 AM deaf kid school bus drove by as I was putting out my blunt, 50 tiny little deaf hands sticking their middle fingers out the windows of the school bus just as it passes by me. I asked to get switched to mid-shifts the next day. The staff was made up of a motley crew of Austin’s weirdest. Drunks, junkies, and freaks. It was the best job I ever had aside from the music. Lots of Tori Amos. Lots of Eastern European folk music. For some reason at Bouldin, people always found the need to listen to their own musical projects, which I personally think to be horrible. Since my day, Bouldin has adapted a more updated Pandora which, coupled with the departure of me and Timmy and a new location, probably increased sales tenfold. Sadly, the days of the agro-ginger banging screwed Zro at 7 AM might be done, but it was fun while it lasted.

Check out more by Logan Dean Worrell:

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