How The Odd Jobs I Had Growing Up Led Me to Entrepreneurship and Feminism: Part 1

A bagger at a grocery store promoted to Salad Bar attendant (fired). Limited Too (fired.) Starbuck’s (fired). Noodles and Company (fired). Shakespeare’s Pizza (quit). Columbia Montessori School (quit). Climbing gym in Portland (quit/fired). Nannying (consistently have been a nanny for ten years now and I’m burnt out).

My parents told me from a young age that when I turned 15 I needed to get a job. It was always drilled into me that you need to work for what you want. So, I got my first minimum-wage job as a bagger at the local grocery store.

Photo by Rob Maxwell

My best friend and I worked together in our matching khaki pants and forest green, collared shirts. In the humid, Missouri summer heat we would go outside and collect carts, and then after twenty minutes passed, we would get back on the check-out line and pack groceries into double plastic, or double paper, or double paper in plastic — people get particular with their…