The Complex Guide to Surviving Your Summer Job

Image via Complex Original

If you still haven't nailed down that summer job, we recommend swallowing your pride and relying on nepotism to land you gainful employment. You are going to spend the rest of your life watching other people's parents get them jobs. Luckily for you, these rich kids aren't currently working summer jobs because their parents have gotten them your dream internship, even though they are more interested in going to EDM concerts and popping Molly than pursuing a future in publishing.

Don't get too bummed out, your parents do know some people: they know the guy down at the bank, the manager at the lumber yard, and the crazy lady at the flea market. Leverage your parents' network to get you the summer job that you hate the least. That way, you'll have the memory to cling to as you are passed over in favor of far less qualified, far more connected people for the rest of your life. Have the crazy lady at the flea market pick you out something nice to give to the rich kids once you return to school in the fall so that they'll remember you when you're working in their mail room a few years down the road.

College may have conditioned you to forget that manual labor is a possibility. Sure, labor gigs are hard on your body, but you're young, and the physical strain is nothing compared to the emotional damage of working retail. Many warehouse or outdoorsy jobs let you wear your headphones and zone out as you accomplish the repetitive tasks of the day. In a retail store or chain restaurant, you will listen to the same mix CD sent down from corporate every day until September when they start playing Christmas music.

If you aren't fortunate enough to land a job where you work with your hands instead of your mouth, jump on the chance to help load or unload inventory. In this situation, you'll have the best of both worlds. You won't be expected to be any good at moving things because it isn't your job, so you can take the whole morning to unload a truck and receive immense pity instead of a reprimand. There are those of you who are saying to yourselves, "But, I like people." We're going to assume that you have never worked in the service or retail industry before, because such feelings would be quickly beaten out of you.

We're speaking from experience when we say this: You only like people from a distance. Once you are paid to interact with them, you will hate them forever. Grab some steel-toed boots and save yourself years of therapy.

Summer jobs are the only work you'll ever do where it is feasible to get your friends hired. Really, it doesn't make a difference whether you're making $8.00 an hour stocking shelves or $8.35 an hour selling lumber, but having your buddies around does make a difference. If you're still looking for that summer gig, you should check  where your friends have wrangled work. If it's too late for you to spend the summer with your buds, there is always next year. In our experience, there are a lot of places that are likely to hire friends, because it increases the odds that you'll both show up. If, as Woody Allen said, 80% of success if just showing up, then 100% of success at a summer job is just showing up.

After college comes to an end, the odds that your friends will end up in the same region as you are pretty minimal. Even if they are close by, career, relationships, and family will continually bite into what little time you have to get down with your boys. During these summers spent in drudgery, all you have is time: Make the most of it.

Your boss doesn't want to make your life miserable (probably). In the event that your boss is a sociopath, there isn't much we can do to help, but luckily for you, odds are that your manager wants to make your summer more like Empire Records than Office Space, but you have to help them.

Whether you like it or not, your boss is partially evaluated on your performance. While you may not care if the meat is well-done or the lawn is well-trimmed, for your boss there are thousands of dollars at stake. If the big cheese understands that you are on their team, then they will likely be far more lenient on you when you screw up. Even if your boss is passionate about the job (which, given the amount of existential turmoil all of us endure on a weekly basis, is unlikely), there are sure to be aspects of it that they hate. Commiserate with them. Bosses like to be able to gripe and complain just like every other employee ever. Your boss is never going to be your peer, but your summer is going to be much better if you're both on the same page.

Odds are that you aren't going to be able to keep up with the guys that do your job all year long. The employees who have been at your job for a while will be able to lift more, move faster, and look better doing it. Though your very presence is going to slow down the pace of their day, they will be more than happy to help you catch up if you really need it. Before you go begging for assistance from your more senior co-workers, make sure that you give the problem your best shot. You'd better have tried to load the truck, set the table, or fold those pants yourself before you called in the cavalry. If you end up looking like Chicken Little (or as your co-workers will affectionately refer to you, "a pussy"), don't be surprised when there isn't a lot of help coming your way when you absolutely need it.

We are viewed differently as we travel among various groups of people. Maybe at school, you are considered masculine because you don't wear colorful scarves and extemporaneously recite sonnets as you traipse down the street, but among the burly dudes that will be your co-workers at your summer job, you are going to be referred to as "College Boy." Your confederates will assume that you are a soft-handed, condescending wuss—and they are likely at least partially right. They are going to make any excuse to be offended when you "sound smart" or "get an attitude." They will make fun of you if they catch you reading a book. Embrace it. You entered their small world for the summer and no matter what you say, they are going to put you through some hazing and ball busting. The less resistance you put up to their mocking your book learning, the better off you'll be.

Getting up early sucks, which is why no one does it. It is going to be awful dragging yourself out of bed at the crack of dawn, but if you force yourself to do it, great rewards may await you. Your boss is probably working long hours and will likely tend to show up at the office a little later during the busy times. Customers certainly don't want to get up at 7 am to start shopping on their day off. You might be able to get two solid hours of book reading leisure in before anyone arrives to notice the work you haven't done. You'll be eating lunch just when it gets busy. Then, you can head home before rush hour. Or course, you'll get tired by 8pm, falling asleep during Wheel of Fortune like your grandmother, but you can always DVR The Newsroom, True Blood, or any of the other show the kids are watching these days, and catch up with them on your day off.

If you are pursuing a four-year degree, odds are you won't be spending your career working in the great outdoors. For much of your life, you are going to stare at a computer screen in an air conditioned office, whether you are writing poetry, algorithms, or memos. Take this opportunity to get a job where you work outside. There is something refreshing about working outdoors, even if it is just handing out free samples to passersby. You'll get tan and sinewy as your friends become pale and doughy. You'll feel invigorated (and sweaty) by air that isn't conditioned. There is also a hidden bonus to working outdoors: If it rains, you just stand around until the rain stops. The one negative of working outside is that your co-workers will talk about the weather constantly, remarking either "It's a hot one," or "Nice day" at least a dozen times daily. We'd gladly take the incessant weather comments over the gossip and complaints of an office environment any day of the week.

Whether you work at a restaurant, clothing store, or country club, you are likely to run into some beautiful older ladies [Author's Note: I spent one summer working in the flower section at Home Depot. Highly recommended.] With the divorce rate at over 50%, and the number of eligible bachelors in your hometown likely being well below that percentage, you might have better odds back home than on campus. Expand your horizons this summer, and make sure you are on the lookout to provide excellent customer service to any women who needs it, even if she doesn't know it yet.

Pro tip: Offer to shake their hand so you can inspect for a wedding ring as quickly as possible. A visit from an irate husband won't earn you any points with the boss.

This might sound like a given, but think back to jobs you and your friends have had before. How much time was spent dicking around and avoiding work? And hey, we're all for avoiding work. All of us have had jobs where we were given three hours of work and eight hours to do it in. Just make sure you do the three hours of work. It's not just that you don't want to get fired; odds are you'll have to fail a drug test or steal some heavy machinery to get the pink slip from whatever mindless job you work this summer. If you do your job, and try to do it well, time will go by faster and you might even enjoy yourself a little bit. Besides, the sooner you finish the job, the sooner you can take a break.

Every job has that guy on staff who needs to be the center of attention. He waltzes into the breakroom every morning and starts monologuing about his latest sexual conquest. He does donuts and burn outs in the parking lot after work. He loudly complains about customers to other customers. There is a part of all of us that wants to be the coolest guy in the room, even if the room is lit by overhead neons and the walls are obscured by cardboard boxes.

Be careful: if you feel the need to be the Applebee's class clown, you're going to draw extra scrutiny. If you keep a low profile and go about your work quietly and diligently, no one will notice your long lunches, that you're reading a book while operating the riding mower, or that you just slipped a cute customer your phone number when she stepped out of the changing room. The less you make a spectacle of yourself, the more you can bend the rules before you get broken. Sure, eventually you'll get caught, but by then, summer will pretty much be over anyway, and it will be nice to have a couple weeks of video games and sneaking whiskey from dad's liquor cabinet before you head back to school.

For you, this gig is just another job. Everyone who works there will know that from the moment you walk in the door. You need to realize that for many people you work with, this is their life. Landscaper, restaurant manager, house painter: These are all careers and they can be more lucrative than many jobs college graduates land, so be respectful of the job. The last thing that your co-workers need is to hear some snot-nosed collegiate (i.e. you) bad-mouthing their chosen vocation. Save any editorializing on how shitty the gig is until you are on your commute home, well out of earshot of the rest of the staff. It might sound strange, but even though they might complain about their jobs constantly, it will likely upset them if they hear you complaining about it.

If your summer job is anything like the ones we've had, your co-workers are going go out a lot. At most manual labor jobs, if you stand between the parking lot and the bar on a Friday evening, you're likely to get run over. Everyone we've ever known to work in the service industry considers alcoholism an occupational hazard and if you work retail and don't drink, then you'd have to be really into meditation or listening to ocean sounds to keep your calm. Most nights, you'll probably want to go hang out with your old high school friends, go on dates, or just rest after a long day, but you should still try to go out with your co-workers once in a while.

After a couple more years of school, you're going to settle into your chosen field, and whether that is banking, sculpture, or geology, you'll spend most of your time hanging with guys cut from the same cloth. Take the opportunity to see how the other half drinks. If you're lucky enough to have some wild co-workers, you might end up with some stories (and potentially black eyes and court dates) that you'll never forget.

Not only are you the low man on the totem pole, but you'll be removed from the totem pole by the end of the summer anyway, so the whole totem pole metaphor doesn't work very well here, does it? The point is, the powers that be will have no reason to give you any preferential scheduling. Your co-workers have paid their dues and developed skills so they get to have vacation and the privilege to get blind drunk on every patriotic holiday from Memorial Day to Labor Day (yes, they'll probably even get drunk on Flag Day). That means you will work every weekend, every clopen (ending your shift by closing and then opening the next day for the uninitiated), and everything resembling a holiday until you go back to school. Prepare for this. Your friends likely don't have weekends either, so introduce Tuesday Fundays into your life. Start saying T.G.I.W. Besides, bars have the best specials on Monday and Tuesday anyway. Rather than putting yourself in a bad mood every Saturday and cursing the world when you wake up with 5 a.m. Sunday hangover, try to adjust your recreational schedule accordingly.

Believe it or not, this dumb job might present valuable skills that you can apply later in life. If you are headed into the arts, the best thing you can do is wait tables and try to glean some bartending experience before you graduate, as those restaurant jobs are competitive in the big city. If you are a lucky enough to work under a craftsman, watch them do their thing as often as you can. If you can pick up how to finish furniture or tile a kitchen, you might have a lifelong side job. Even grunt work like loading trucks can come in handy. If you are getting into fashion, art, film, or theatre, being the one assistant who can actually pack and drive a truck could make you stand out more than any number of art history classes ever could. What we're trying to say is, take advantage of your summer gig; you never know what unexpected benefits you might reap.