It’s 5 a.m. and a man as wide as he is tall is yelling Spanish curses in my ear. I’m tired, sore, soaked to the bone and more than anything else humiliated by the fact that I have no idea how to use a lawn mower. I have just begun another day at Rolling Hills Country Club.
I planned to get a summer job doing something related to my prospective major, but since engineering companies seem to have a problem offering jobs to high school seniors with absolutely no experience, I found myself working at the local country club. Instead of taking a position as a caddy, waiter, lifeguard or any other job that operates on normal hours and gets tips, for some godforsaken reason, I decided to be a landscaper.
My day began before sunrise, at what my boss would refer to as “the asscrack of dawn.” I putt-putted my way to Hole 15 in my dysfunctional golf cart and would haphazardly attempt to fill divots — the notch that golfers carve into the fairway when they take a swing.
After three hours of work in oppressive heat, I manage to almost finish working on Hole 16 and putter back to the workshop filled with pride.
I sit down at the lunch table with my fluffernutter sandwich and patiently answer my co-workers as they fire questions at me in fragmented English. Each response is followed by laughter and insults — words that cannot be repeated here.
The door opens and my nemesis enters. Perfectly round and mustachioed, he is the spitting image of Mario. His name is Chabello, and his life’s mission is to bust my chops. He lumbers over and gives me a wry smile, a lone avocado sitting on his lunch tray.
“Do you play golf? This is golf ball!” he tells me, winking at the avocado.
“No, Chabello,” I sigh. “That’s an avocado.” More laughter, more cursing.
By the end of my 20 minute lunch break, the temperature has somehow dropped 40 degrees and three inches of rain have already fallen on the golf course. My boss rolls up in his swanky, hooded golf cart and informs me I have somehow managed to screw up filling divots, a job that literally entails pouring dirt into holes.
After an hour or two of mowing the putting green, thunder begins to rumble in the sky and an alarm sounds. I pack up my gear and drive 10 minutes back to the shop in my very electrically-conductive cart. After swerving to avoid lightning strikes and hydroplaning one or two times, I pull into the garage and huddle next to the heater, lamenting my lack of proper rain gear. My boss pokes his head out of his office and says I can go home a whopping 10 minutes early.
No matter what job you’re doing, no matter how irrelevant that job is to your goals and interests, summer jobs are always a pain in the neck. Each day is a reminder that you’re not old enough or experienced enough to get an internship doing something you actually want to do.
Despite all of this, you go to work every day so that you can collect your check at the end of the month — cash you promise yourself you’re going to save but deep down know you’ll spend on smoothies or sunglasses.
At the end of every work day this summer, I slumped home and collapsed into bed, wishing I could sleep through the night and all of the next day. But this desires was only a far-fetched dream, as the next day started at 5 a.m. with a man as tall as he is wide yelling Spanish curses in my ear.
John’s column runs biweekly Fridays. He can be reached at j.benenati@cavalierdaily.com.
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