Work Story

I can't actually remember when I officially started "working" because while I was growing up my mom ran a day care out of our house. I loved helping her with the children, and started babysitting for one of her families at a very young age. They would have me come over to their house whenever they were having a party and I would play with and look after their three boys for the night. After getting them ready for bed I would spend the night, and I thought I was super rich when they paid me $20 the next morning. I've been caring for children ever since, including having one of my own, and in fact I'm babysitting a three month old right now (he's napping).

With six years babysitting experience under my belt, I got my first "real" job the summer I was sixteen at the Wet Seal store in Vallco Mall (I probably just aged myself, but yes there was a time when Vallco was a good mall and you only went out to Valley Fair if you wanted to go to Nordstrom). At some point durring the fall of my junior year, I left the chaos and disorganization of Wet Seal and began working in a family-run Christian bookstore, The Lion and the Lamb, where I stayed until halfway through my senior year in high school. Then began my career of job-hopping.

I worked at: Chili's (hostess), Round Table (front counter), Cold Stone (ice cream scooper extraordinaire), State Farm (receptionist/assistant), Old Navy (customer service), Red Robin (server), Beavers Bar & Grill (cocktail waitress), Rosie McCann's (server/cocktail waitress), Three Degrees Restaurant (manager), Creative Habitat (infant teacher), and finally Pizza Antica (server). In between those jobs I have been a nanny for four different families, including my current position caring for three month old Nathan two days a week (in addition to serving at Pizza Antica two days a week, taking summer classes on campus two days a week, and caring for my own eight year old son 24/7).

I've had good experiences with well run and organized companies, but have also experienced horror stories of down-right awful organization, communication and management. Unfortunately, the horror stories significantly out-number the positive experiences, which is what has brought me here, to Communication Studies at SJSU, and specifically to this class.

Here's to an exciting and challenging six weeks of Comm 144!

~a