I leaped out of the Gap.
It’s my senior year of college, I’m working at the radio
station still—the entire school year, and now it was my last semester of school. Things are going great until one day;
my program director came to me and said,
“Can you please work the morning hour, we don’t have anyone
to work the 6am-10am shift,”
6am? Does he
not know me? As a college student,
I only see 6am if I’m coming home from a party, or there is a natural disaster
or family emergency. Hell, I'm out of school and working and I don’t see 6am unless I HAVE to be at work early. But
because I can’t seem to say no to people, so I said sure.
So, at 5:40am, I rolled out of bed, went to the station,
unlocked the doors, put in the morning broadcast tape (THANK GOD WE HAD
PRERECORDED TAPES) and went my butt back home and to bed until 7:45, because
I had to be back in the studio by 8:30am when the tape ended.
For a graduating senior, I had a pretty cool schedule. And let me clarify graduating, meaning
I was walking across the stage, I would be finished in December of that year,
after my internship.
Radio Station 6am-10am (the hours I got paid, although I did
go home for almost 2 hrs, but if you don’t say anything, I won’t say anything).
EWU Admission Office 10am – 2pm
Classes 4- 6pm
The radio station schedule was NOT working for me because my
study time was at night, and those who know me know; I’m the ultimate night
owl. I blame video games, Nick at
Night and MTV because from the time I got an Atari and when MTV and Nick at
Night became 24 hours, the birth of Lisa the consummate night owl was
born.
Ask me any 80’s pop trivia
and more than likely I can answer it. Yes, I know all of the Darryl Hall and John Oats
songs, I watched too many episodes of I Love Lucy and Mr. Ed, and I was a beast
at Ms. Pac Man.
yes, I had an Atari 5200 in the 80's
Anyways, I should have known me getting up at 5:40am every
morning was not going to cut it and I should have bowed out gracefully from
that, but I tried. I mean sure, if
I was a little more diligent with going to bed at 11pm versus 1am, perhaps that
would have helped, but dammit, that was during the birth of BlackPlanet, and I
was BP Pimpin back then! I was on
the top 10 Zeta’s Beauties list; I had to entertain my fans!
I won’t elaborate too much on my position with the
admissions office, because there wasn’t any DRAMA, it was very easy. I learned all of my basic office duties
here since it was my first “desk” job ever. So I’m learning how to work multiple phone lines, fax
machines, postal machines, transfer phone calls, etc. I worked the front desk with 2 other students. Really, we’d sit and talk or do our
homework most of the time. I mean
really, does it take 2-3 students to run a front desk…no it doesn’t.
Things were going great, it was time for me to graduate and
secure an internship. I rummaged
the Internet for HOURS looking for a “cool” internship and would you know, I
found the BOMB internship working for Warner Brothers subsidiary in
Seattle.
WEA = Warner,
Electra, Atlantic records. I would
assist the territory managers with their accounts and artists. Basically, I was doing the grunt work,
working in the mailroom, going to the record stores setting up displays, sending
the radio prizes to the radio station and creating the OZ fest survival
packs.
Oh, Oz fest was the Ozzy
Osburne Festival during the summer…you know Heavy Metal Summer Jam basically. The survival packs were backpacks
filled with cd’s of the performing artists at Oz fest, earplugs, bottled water,
posters, t-shirts, etc.
Just cool
little stuff the record companies would send us. For a music lover like me, it was AWESOME to land a job working
at this location, and in Seattle…here is the catch, IT DIDN'T PAY!!! So not only did I have to find an
apartment in Seattle, I also had to find a job. No sweat I thought, I was back in Seattle and out of Spokane!
So, after I landed the job, I called my homegirl from the
Bon—you know, gangsta boo who I was helping to slash tires with, yeah well her
dude was now balling out of control and got her a house in the Renton
Highlands, and she had an extra bedroom that she was going to let me rent with
my own bathroom. I was like cool,
that’s what’s up. Yet and still, I
needed a job.
My internship was 10am – 4pm
M-F and there was no way I could work
a fulltime job during the day, so that limited me to a nighttime job. I thought about going back
to the Bon, but I had my pride and did not want to back track to retail again
although they treated me very well, I wanted something different, besides, I’d
only be able to work a 4hr shift and there would be no way I could sustain an
apartment on working part time with a fulltime internship. Again, I was scouring the want ads in
Seattle and came across a night audit position at the DoubleTree Hotel at
Southcenter. I applied and
got the job virtually on the spot.
Not knowing anything about hotels and auditing, you know me; I went in
there and sold myself as the best night auditor they’d ever have—besides, who
is the best night owl you know? MEEE!
Okay, before I go on...yes, I was eating THE HELL out of those DoubleTree Cookies!! I found they were useful when I was constipated!!!
So what is a night auditor you ask? Basically the night accountant for the hotel. I tallied up the sales for the end of
day for the hotel bar, banquets and front desk. All of the servers had to turn their receipts into me, the
front desk staff had to turn in their register intake (cash paying customers or
checks) and I would audit it all for the accounting staff in the morning. Granted I also had to make sure it
matched what was registered in the hotel computers system as well. I also managed any and all front desk duties,
sometimes have to drive the hotel van to the airport to pick up straggler guests,
deliver the newspapers to guest doors, and keep an eye on lobby activity of the hotel.
I said to myself “self, you’re gonna have to pledge
yourself. You’re gonna have to
sacrifice going out, and sleep if you want to have this internship.” And I did just that. I worked my ass off.
10-4pm Internship
4:30-10pm at home sleep
11pm-7am DoubleTree
7am-9am sleep
Weekends sleep and doubletree
I was one tired chick!
My internship lasted from August- December of that year and of course,
they hit me with the “Sorry we don’t have any paying positions open right now, try our
LA office or maybe next year.”
Who had time for that, I needed to continue to work until I
figured out how to get out of my night job. I continued to work my Doubletree
job until I was hired to my first real job post graduation.
NEXT: The end of DoubleTree the start of my “career”
Northwest Suites
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