My brother-in-law, Jacques, modeled for me in time to snap this picture of our latest récolte: olives!
petit boulot (peuh tee boo lo) noun, masculine
: little job
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C'était quoi votre premier petit boulot?
What was your first job?.
A Day in a French Life…
by Kristin Espinasse
I sometimes wonder what my children's occupations would be, had we lived, instead, aux États-Unis.*
Would my daughter be a paper boy (the little mêtier* that brought me so much joy)? Would my son bus tables for a $1.81 an hour? I'll never forget the greasy stench on my clothes, how I couldn't wait to return home and shower.
At nine I delivered the news, and at 14 I refilled coffee cups, self-esteem buoyed by all those thank-yous! I liked being in contact with people and I know my kids will enjoy the same.
Meantime, we live on a farm… and work with grapes… and a few olives…. That makes my 14-year-old a seasonal vigneron* and an occasional olive catcher:
Max, searching for olives.
The pros of olive-catching include a clean-air environment (no breathing in exhaust fumes when standing on a street corner, pitching the Sunday news)…
And the occasional offer to aider* …as when an uncle shows up, unexpectedly, with a helpful hand or two.
Both jobs are made sufferable by grateful remerciements* which, had we lived… after all… in the Etats Unis, would still equal a simple thank you.
"Uncle Jacques"
Question / Comments :
I'm curious to know: What was your first job? Please put your answer in the comments box — for all to enjoy!
Corrections
…are most welcome! Please check the blog first, in case I have already updated it with changes!
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I could not get our puppy to pose in front of the keys… let alone say "cheese"….
I take that back… Smokey was a very good poser.
T'was the camera lens that lacked the poetry of Chaucer…
As for "how's Smokey doing?": he has two worrisome wounds that continue to fill up and empty out. He is still on antibiotics and we are keeping him clean with hydrogen peroxide or eau oxygenée…. and his mama, Braise, regularly washes his wounds with her tongue. I am wondering whether this is just reinfecting things?)
Cinema Verite
(excerpt from the Saturday edition with 12 favorite photos from Morocco):
I would like to return to Morocco as an invisible woman — invisible blond hair, invisible white skin. In this way I might finally capture the natives, a ghostly photographer chasing Whim.
Feedback from a Cinéma Vérité reader:
I couldn't wait to see these and I must say that I am hooked on your style of photography. These are like looking through a National Geographic magazine only something deeper is captured through your eye. The vendors, the daughter in Blue and or course every picture by the sea – all are simply alluring. –Karen
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I started babysitting at age 12 for 50 cents an hour and was thrilled to have a little $ in my pocket for the first time.
Thanks for the update on Smokey — always love those photos. The olives cupped in b-i-l’s hands is simply a beautiful photograph. I love pictures of hands. Max is, naturellment, as cute and dear as ever! I miss my little Sam – they grow up too fast.
Oh, and love the wall des cles! Nifty.
My first job is an American classic. Does “Can I take your order please?” ring any bells? Yes, a window person at the Golden Arches of McDonald’s, raking in a whopping $1.80 an hour. I think a Big Mac cost $1.30 back then. Wow, 35 years goes by pretty fast.
Mon premier p’tit boulot c’était la livraison de journaux, et plus tard je travaillais dans un supermarché.
Gautier, Miss. 19degC et nous attendons une tempête tropicale,(IDA)très tard, mais pas hors saison!
Same as Kevin, McDonald’s. Great memories, actually. I had to get there at 4 a.m. and make the biscuits on weekends.
Gorgeous pictures of olives!
Dear kristin, try bathing Smokey’s wounds with salt water (about a teaspoon in a cup of warm water). The slight saline dries up any oozing pretty quickly, and salt is a great natural antiseptic.
Kind regards
My first job, at 16, was as a seasonal stock room clerk, ticketing Christmas merchandise for the Lipman’s dept store in Salem, Oregon, where my sister worked as the manager of the Caliente dept. It was also the one & only time I filed a Workman’s Comp claim. I was so intent on getting the row of tickets lined up neatly that it didn’t occur to me that the reason they were so straight was because I was holding them in place with my finger. I turned on the machine and promptly (and painfully) “stamped” my finger! It didn’t require stitches but the deep gash from the metal machinery did make my employer insist that I get a tentanus shot. That was almost worse than the cut itself.
The next year my sister got promoted to lingerie buyer and transferred to the main store in Portland, Oregon, where she alerted me to a position opening at The Portrait Studio at Lipman’s (an in-store branch for a well-known portrait photographer in the area). I worked there for a year, but didn’t make too much money since I spent most of my earnings on film for my camera & paying my sister back for all the pretty clothes she could purchase for me with her buyer’s discount.
After my then-boyfriend (now husband of 39 years) returned from Vietnam, I took a job as office manager with a small architectural firm in the near-by town of Beaverton, where he was working at the time we got married.
But my most rewarding job has been as a full-time homemaker (or shall we call it family concierge) and “mom.” When my husband got a much-coveted job with the Oregon Army National Guard (first as helicopter mechanic…later working himself up the ladder to Maintenance Officer for the whole Aviation Facility), I quit paid employment so I could be free to travel with him during the winter when the aircraft are usually grounded by the weather. Since Guard members acrue leave time just as military personnel do, we often had a month or two of vacation time built up.
People asked me what I was going to do after I “retired” as Mom, but I don’t think you ever really do retire from that role. 🙂 And now I’m “grand-mere” to the-most-adorable-petite-fil-in-the-whole-wide-world (a.k.a. 3-yr.-old, “Zachary”) and ma belle-fille is pregnant with a second child.
D’Neal in Keizer, Oregon
where it has been about 54°F and raining all day
When I was 15, I worked in a rubber factory, where I had to pack (already sealed) condoms in coloured boxes. It was a very monotone work, we had to pack at least 2000 à day. To reach this, unexperienced fellows like me could not talk a lot, because that slowed down the hands.
I decided to study to minimize the probability to end up in a job like this for my whole life.
Grey sky, which sends us occasionally cold november rain, and 7°C in Besançon.
Hi Kristin,
Nice photos of your son and brother-in-law. My premier petit boulot was as a cashier at Grandma’s Biscuits in Jonesboro, GA. Overcast and 55°F here in Charlottesville, VA.
For my first job, I dressed in costumes and entertained at children’s parties. I was a cat, the funky chicken, a Ninja Turtle, etc. The best was arriving to a party in my 1972 hot pink convertible VW bug as the Easter bunny. That is until the children started chasing me and pulled off my tail!
Growing up on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, my father owned a small retail store that sold everything from beach towels, gift items, office supplies, cameras and newspapers. Our life was seasonal. During the school year, my sisters and I received a weekly allowance, but as soon as school was over, the allowance ceased and we were expected to have a job. My parents wanted to instill in us “the value of a dollar”. My first unpaid job was in my father’s store where I’d assemble the Sunday NY Times for customers, mark (price) inventory and ring up people’s purchases in the cash register – all when I was less than 4 feet tall. When it came time to make money, I’d had enough of retail and went to work in my mother’s best friends’ restaurant. I started working in this restaurant when I was 14 (child labor?) and worked there every summer until I was 22. I began as a salad and desert “girl”, moved up to being a bus “girl” and finally was a waitress. Being on Cape Cod in the summer and loving the beach as I do, this was the ideal job for me. The restaurant only served breakfast and dinner, and they served no alcohol – a real family vacation restaurant. Breakfast was from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and dinner was served between 5:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Perfect hours to go to the beach all afternoon and go out with friends after work, AND make oodles of money. My sisters both worked for my father and the store hours were from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. AND they made minimum wage, which was a lot less than I was making with tips. It was hard work but I loved it. I certainly learned the value of that dollar but also the rewards (not just financial) of working hard at something you love doing … it’s not work!
Well, I’m a day late responding on this one. But my first job was a summer job while in college. I worked at YMCA of the Rockies, a lovely family camp, in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, where I greeted guests at the front desk and assigned them their rooms. It was a great job with a staff of mostly college kids.
Babysitting the four kids next door at 75 cents/hour was my first paying job. As a junior in high school I moved on to the laundry room of a convalescent home in Walnut Creek, CA. I started at $1.42/hour. My hourly rate was raised to $1.47 and 1/2 cents after 3 months! College jobs included working vacations as a nurse’s aide at the convalescent hospital, selling burgers at McDonalds, selling men’s clothing at a store in Greeley, CO and a summer stint selling souvenirs at Rocky Mountain National Park.
Other than babysitting, my first “real” job was scooping ice cream and decorating cakes at the local Baskin & Robbins here in Western Washington. Delicious!
Kristin–I, too, was a paper-girl at age 8 or 9–a job I inherited from my big brother.
I was so embarrassed each Thursday when I had to go to school, lugging the canvas sack that carried our local newspaper . . . eve robillard
I started picking potatoes when I was in fourth grade (I think that’s about ten.) Most of the kids picked potatoes. School let out for three or four weeks in September/October to get the harvest in. We were paid 25 cents a barrel. By the time I was in seventh grade, I think it was up to 35 cents. On a good day, I could pick about 25 -30 barrels a day (working from 7 AM until 5 PM, with an hour for lunch). I was not a good picker. The good pickers could get 100+ barrels a day! Picking potatoes is back breaking, dirty work! In fact, it was the hardest job I have ever had. We moved by the time I was in high school, so I did not get a chance to better my number. 🙂