Training a New Guy

So here I am, former geek, now massage therapist but also wearing the hat of part-time bookkeeper and computer programmer for a gym.  I am training the new guy into posting payments into receivables and managing schedules.  

I realize I must be the crusty old guy in the typical work pantheon.  Having once been the golden girl, the rising star, I guess I have really crashed and burned into a weird place.

You see, the new guy is getting the degree at the end of may that I got back in 1990.  He thinks he's going to be an investment banker when he graduates.  Right now he is taking a grad-student part time job.   You know the consequence- this is like a bartender job.  A who-cares job.  And he is taking the shift opposite mine.  "I coulda been a contender"

I started down this path of a more blue-collar-ish manual-labor-ish existance (doing massage therapy - no matter what prior experience I may allow to be exploited by my employer)... I started down this path when I was reading Dilbert cartoons, and realized that the garbageman was my hero. 

But there are some aspects of being the garbageman that I just wasn't expecting.

:-)

Somehow, even though being a stay-at-home-mom is even lower on the status chain than any other job in our culture (hotel maids at least get social security), taking that status didn't hit the way this did.  But I am glad I'm not making $0 a year anymore, I have to admit.