Get A Real Job (Part 1 of 7)

As my junior year of high school was nearing a close, I felt that I needed to get a job for that summer that would possibly continue on into the next school year. I applied to be a dishwasher at a near-by restaurant called Poor Richards, but they didn’t need me. As one who would later recruit and hire lots of dishwashers for several restaurants, I almost can’t understand that they would turn down a tall, dark, and handsome seventeen-year-old (me). But they did. I applied at other places too, but with no luck.
So school ended and I still had no job for the summer. My situation was difficult because I was in the Granite Youth Symphony and the practices took most of my mornings. Also I would be gone for two weeks later in the summer. I then saw an ad in the newspaper for temporary laborers. I thought, “Problem solved. I’ll do that.” So on the first day of summer vacation I boarded a bus going down town. I had a sack lunch in hand. I got down town and walked several blocks until I found the location of the temporary agency. I had to go down a scary alley to get there and when I did I was appalled. It was a large smoke-filled room with a few very grungy men sitting around. The room was bare cinder blocks with a cement floor. It looked like it was under construction, except for it also looked like it had been that way for a long time. I hesitantly went up to a window and asked about work. They had given out all the assignments they had, but I was welcome to wait and see if anything else came up. I elected to get out of there as fast as I could! I spent the rest of the morning at Temple Square. I then waited for the bus on Main street in front of a giant hole in the ground that would become the Crossroads mall. When the bus came, we road one block south and I saw a very old man who was standing there with a dazed look on his face. He also was drooling all down the front of his old blue over-coat. I thought, isn’t somebody going to help him? Then I thought, isn’t someone going to help me? What am I going to do?