I got a telephone call from our step-grandson who is 19 and trying to earn money for school. We don’t  hear from him often as he is as busy as most 19-year-olds, so when his name showed up on my telephone, I prepared myself for the inevitable news that something horrible had happened. This propensity for assuming the worst runs in my family. We got it from Mom. It’s why we all start every telephone conversation we initiate with, “Nothing is wrong.” Most people say, “Hello.”

Just as an aside, Bill would never go immediately to the worst. Instead, he would assume that the call was going to bring the wonderful news that a mysterious billionaire had died and left our grandson enough money to not only go to college, but to BUY the college.

Anyhoo, the real reason he called was not to tell us about a horrible accident or an unexpected windfall, but to tell us that he was now selling Cutco knives, and could he meet with me to discuss. Oh no. Danger. Danger. Only marginally better than a horrible accident.

I of course said yes, and we set up an appointment. I immediately began doing research on Cutco knives. From what I can tell, the general consensus is twofold:  First, the company’s marketing stragety is to use college-age kids to sell their wares because said kids can appeal to their moms and dads and grandmothers and grandfathers and aunts and uncles and neighbors and, well, you get the picture. And who can say no?

But, second, the knives are pretty darn good. And pretty darned expensive.

So we met, and I managed to limit myself to a trimmer and a spreader. It could have been worse.

But the whole scenario got me to thinking about that question we all ask each other on occasion when we are gathered as a group: What is the worst job you ever had?

For me, the answer is simple – the job I had during college working at a Circle K store in one of the northern suburbs of Denver. Now, there wasn’t really anything intrinsically terrible about the job itself. I waited on people, I stocked a few shelves, I accepted money for gasoline purchases. What was terrible about the job is that the store itself was located out in the middle of freaking nowhere. My assumption is that a subdivision was planned in the area someday. But at that time, it was blocks away from the nearest homes, and except for the parking lot, it was dark as a cemetery. And just as scary.

And that’s not the worst of it. My shift was 6 p.m. to midnight. And this was in the days before 24 hour shopping, and the store closed at midnight. So the final job of my shift was to take the day’s earnings and place them into a bank bag, walk all by myself to my car, and drive all by myself – at midnight – to the bank and make the deposit. Someone thought that was a good idea. I didn’t.

And neither did one other person. After I had worked there a short time, a nice police officer took to stopping in the store around 11:50 p.m. and waiting while I gathered the cash and walking me to my car. No one asked him to do this. He was just a nice cop. Who didn’t want a murder and robbery on his shift or his conscience.

Bill will tell you his worst job was as third helper on a steel-making open hearth furnace at US Steel in Chicago. The furnaces were hot enough to turn molten iron into steel which then poured into giant ladles as liquid steel. Part of his job was to shovel manganese into the liquid steel as it poured into the ladle. Of course, if you didn’t shovel the manganese directly into the stream of steel pouring out of the furnace, it would splash small bits of the molten steel out of the ladle and to heaven knows where. Bill says once a molten piece of steel set his shirt collar on fire. He didn’t even notice until the person next to him pointed it out that his shirt was burning. He put the fire out, but because it was so hot and he was sweating so profusely, he didn’t get burned or even get a red mark on his neck. As an aside, our suspicion is that this handling of manganese may have contributed to his Parkinson’s. Just sayin’…..

Anyway, I wonder if one day our grandson will say that selling Cutco knives was his worst job ever. Maybe not. He gets to eat a lot of pineapple and cucumbers after the demonstrations.

Oh, and sorry to all of you people he contacts following yesterday’s demonstration. He held my feet to the fire for referrals……. They seem like good knives.

I’m really curious. What was the worst job you ever had?