The chick magnet that was my 1984 velcro Men at Work wallet

 

My first wallet was very much like the one pictured above: an all-fabric, velcro-closing affair with the logo of the Australian band Men at Work prominently displayed on one side.

While Men at Work were a very, very big band in, say, the 1982-85 range, they were never a cool band in any sense. Nor, it must be said, were Velcro wallets ever particularly fashionable.

That wallet was an undeniable (almost defiant) confirmation of my dorkiness.

Yet I loved it. I really did.

Besides the fact that it touted my favorite musical group, it also suggested I was grown-up enough to need a wallet. Which, in fairness, I probably did. I would usually have a few bucks to put in it, thanks in part to my dad's continued generosity and in part to my job as a dishwasher at Tizzano's Restaurant.

That job, my first, paid $2.50 an hour. All under the table. Oh, and the owner of the restaurant, Mike, would make you anything you wanted to eat during your breaks.

I didn't have credit cards at the time, of course. And by the time I got my driver's license in November 1985, I had ditched the Men at Work wallet for something in plain black faux leather (i.e., the kind of folding wallet I still carry around today).

So my Velcro treasure keeper was never especially full.

But it was mine, and it told the world about my favorite band, which was good enough for me.

By the way, I took the image at the top of today's post from eBay, where as of this writing you had two choices if you wanted to buy your own vintage Men at Work Velcro wallet. One was going for a reasonable $19.95, while the other was priced at a somewhat overblown $49.96.

All of which goes to show that you can buy absolutely anything on the Internet...even if, by any standard of good judgment, you probably shouldn't.

I can only remember things that are practically of no use to me

Exactly 13 years ago today was my first day as an employee of Dix & Eaton, the Cleveland PR firm where I worked for nearly four years and which provided me with a wealth of valuable experience and skills.

I am the only person in the world to whom this anniversary matters, and even I don't really care about it. Dates like this just stay in my head and I can't get rid of them.

Things I really, really want to remember – like where I put the iPad charger or the name of my wife's favorite Starbucks drink – come and go in my brain. Sometimes they stick, sometimes they don't. But I know the exact start date of every single job I've ever had, with the exception of the few months when I was a dishwasher at Tizzano's Restaurant back in the summer of 1985. (Though I know my first day there was in June.)

The only time this type of information comes in handy is when I'm filling out an application, like for a job or a loan or something. I don't have to go to the trouble of looking back through my records because all of the relevant dates are readily accessible in my mind.

But when someone asks me a question to which I really should know the answer, and to which I really want to know the answer, I'm often stumped. Why didn't they ask who hosted "Joker's Wild" in the 70s? That I know. But instead they ask for something that's actually, you know, useful and relevant and all of that, and I can't help them.

Why are we wired this way? Why does our brain collect facts that will never, ever be needed again and hold on to them as if they were winning lotto tickets? And why does it discard the stuff that should be right at the front of our cerebral file cabinets?

I want an answer. Mind you, I won't actually remember that answer once someone explains it to me, but on the plus side, I will be able to rattle off for them all of the U.S. presidents born in Ohio. That's useful, right?

Everyone should work in a restaurant at some point in their lives

The first job I ever had was as a dishwasher at Tizzano's, an Italian restaurant not far from my house. I made something like $2.50 an hour, but it was all under the table and it was good money for a 15-year-old kid in the summer of 1985.

I was OK at it. Not nearly as good as my friend Kevin, who took right to kitchen work and was therefore nicknamed "The Natural" by Vince, the head cook. Vince called me "Thornton." I have no idea why, and he never explained it, but he was essentially a good guy so I'll trust it was well-intended.

I only worked there three months before I quit. I was about to start my sophomore year of high school and was playing football, so I didn't see how I would have time for practices, homework AND a job (though that didn't stop other football players from working there...they must have been a lot tougher than me).

In those 90 days or so, I learned a lot. For one thing, I learned I never wanted to work in a restaurant again. It's a tough gig, man! Kudos to all of you foodservice workers who make a living at it.

I also learned that I was grateful for having had the experience. In fact, I think it's an experience everyone should have. Whether you're working behind the counter at a fast-food place, bussing tables at a family restaurant, or scraping congealed marinara sauce off of customers' plates like I was, there is a lot to be learned from working at a restaurant. That includes:

(1) A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE ESSENTIALLY MEAN: I hate to say it, but you see the worst side of human nature when you're a restaurant worker. From lousy tips to unjustified complaints, people who otherwise have no real power in their lives become tyrants when they sit down at that table. The best servers learn this early on and know how to work through it. God bless them.

(2) A LOT PEOPLE ARE ALSO EXTRAORDINARILY PICKY: At least it seems so to me. I eat virtually anything. Anything. Just ask my wife. I never veer from the way a dish is described on the menu, I make no special requests, and I think just about everything I've ever been served in a restaurant has tasted great. I'm a server's dream. But that's not the case with many (most?) other folks. Sometimes I used to think people would send food back just because they could. Again, just so they could exercise their dominance over the poor waitstaff.

(3) HARD WORK IS GOOD FOR YOU...AND IT'S ALSO HARD: I know we already covered this, but I can't emphasize enough how hard the staff at Tizzano's worked when I was there. They were exhausted at the end of the night, and they earned every penny the owner, Mike, paid them. Such work benefits you both physically and mentally – and spiritually, I would argue – but it's also not something I could spend decades doing. You learn a lot about yourself in your first job, I think.

(4) GETTING YELLED AT BY YOUR BOSS IS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD: Mike used to praise me quite a bit, but he also got in my face more than a few times. And I totally deserved it. One time I put away a plate that had come out of the dishwasher with some miscellaneous crud still stuck to it, only I hadn't noticed because I was being lazy. Mike grabbed the plate, saw the crud, and stormed right up to me, ripping me the proverbial new one. Again, I deserved it. And I can tell you it never happened again. Sometimes getting reamed out is the only way to learn.

(5) THE GOLDEN RULE DOTH APPLY HERE: That whole thing about treating people how you yourself would want to be treated? Yeah, you learn that in a hurry when you're in a service industry. I would venture that the best tippers and most gracious restaurant patrons are those who spent some time in the shoes of those waiting on them. Working in foodservice, if nothing else, teaches you basic human decency, which ultimately is why we all could benefit from it.