In the beginning

Dominic Vautier
updated 4/5/12

Grab that Paper

At the age of around ten I got my first job delivering papers.  The way this thing worked is you delivered papers to subscribers and at the end of the month you collected and reimbursed the paper company a certain percentage.  The rest was profit.  So I delivered the papers and my older brother promptly collected the money each month and promptly spent it on coca-cola and comic books.  Mom wound up grumbling because she had to pay the paper company every month.  It was not a workable business model because when I got mad and collected myself, my older brother seemed to get there first, or the people would never have the money, or they would invite me in for a cookie, or answer the door naked.  So I didn’t like collecting and my brother did.

I also didn’t like delivering papers because I usually forgot which house to deliver to so I delivered to everybody and ran short of papers and constantly had to get more.  There were three identical houses, one green, one blue and one pink.  Only one house got a paper but I didn’t remember which house so I delivered to all of them.  I didn’t like this job at all so I quit.  Besides I didn’t make any money.  It was not a career job.

After that I became an alter boy and I learned all the words well but I couldn’t remember which side of the alter the book went on so I kept moving it to the other side whenever it seemed like the right thing to do.  The priest got mad and had to move it back.  I was definitely not cut out to be an alter boy.

Scrub'um up

So when I was in the sixth grade I started washing pots and pans at the local hospital.  I liked that job and actually got paid and got to spend the money for myself and of course I didn’t give any to my brother.

The other boy I worked with was lazy and never washed pots and slept in the potato room all the time.  I had to wash his pots too.  The Chef was constantly hollering at us because sometimes the pots were not very clean.  We pealed potatoes a lot.  I liked pealing potatoes and washing pots but it was not a long term arrangement, and definitely not a career path so my life moved on.

My dad’s job was with the government.  He worked on a dredge, which kept harbors clear of silt deposits from up-river.  He was a gauge watcher. That’s all he did I think.  I certainly did not want to spend my life watching gauges.  My dad seemed to enjoy watching gauges though and he described what he did and my reaction was that the job had to be totally boring, so it too was not for me. 

So For God’s sake continue...