Once again Natalia Sarkissian goes cutting edge, writing the first in a new Numéro Cinq memoir series called “My First Job”—to go with the terrific “What it’s like living here” and “Childhood” series already under way. In the essay, Natalia recounts her early career as a Good Humor man, the ins and outs of customer base development, the advantages of having an ice cream truck for driving your friends around on weekends, and the day she made so much money she was throwing dollar bills into the freezer because there was no room left in the cash box. This is a piece of Americana—still in the evenings in my neighbourhood, we hear the musical notes of the Mr. Ding-a-Ling truck (our version of Good Humour). My sons don’t rush out anymore, clutching their dollar bills, but still we look up at each other smile. As with her earlier essays, Natalia brackets off a piece of her life and serves it up to the reader. If you read through all her NC texts (glance at Nonfiction contents page), you’ll see a life emerging: mysterious, scarey, adventurous, sad and triumphant.
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My First Job
(In which I break into the food industry, drive a truck and learn about business)
by Natalia Sarkissian
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The Search
In the swing, on the shady side porch, with the sun breaking through chinks in the trellis, I’m thumbing through the Stony Brook newspaper, scouring the help wanted ads. I’m nineteen years old and it’s a silky June day in the late 1970s, one of those days when the light shines strong and white in a glowing sky while the breeze is still cool and fresh. Wafting up from the Long Island Sound, a rush of that cool, fresh air rustles the leaves overhead and the hair on my neck but still, I’m perspiring. Time’s running out. After three weeks hunting, I’m still jobless. On September 10, I’m to fly to Italy to spend a semester studying art. Such plans require significant cash. Although I have a student loan to cover tuition and airfare, I need spending money. It’s Italy after all. I need lots of spending money.
Turning the page of the paper, jostling the swing, I find an advertisement that catches my eye.
Sell pots and pans! Make $200 or more per week!
So. They’re back but their name and location have changed. Last year, when I visited their office in Great Neck and signed up to be a rep and plunked down $65.00 for a starter kit that never materialized, they were Deluxe Kitchen Gear. This year, they’re Culinary Designs in Smithville. Well, I’m a year older. A year smarter. No con’s going to swindle me out of another chunk of change. I continue to search but nothing I’m remotely qualified to do materializes.