Listening 6 – Listen for specific words

The worst job that I ever had was actually the job that I ever had. I was fifteen years old and I was a plate-washer at a bed and breakfast in Amish country. And where I grew up in the mid-west, there were these tight-knit Amish communities that were far-off from everything; far from electricity, and from buzzing cars and , and it was the perfect setting for a little quaint bed and breakfast. People would come in from the city and they would spend a weekend or spend some time there and enjoy .

But part of the quaintness was this cozy little restaurant that didn’t have a ; that served one thing every meal. There were no options, they just cooked it and brought it to you. And I was the dish washer. And I would go there with my brother, who was enough to drive, we would go there and would always just have the most exotic things come back on plates. I felt like you couldn’t get plates any with this food.

I had to not only rinse everything off in scalding hot water, but dry it in this industrial dishwasher and dryer that would just burn your hands every time you a plate – but they kept coming, so you had to wash them and get them in and then get them out. And I remember my hands being burnt and just achy all the time. I knew I was gonna get burnt touching these plates.

And then there was also the other , there was a freezer, a walk-in freezer that you had to go into to get certain things, certain supplies, it was the grunt work to get things. And actually my first day there, I got locked in the walk-in freezer. There was no handle on the inside, but instead there was a that no one had ever really showed me, and when I was in there I actually got stuck in there.

Thankfully there was a small in the middle that I was able to knock on and you try to get somebody’s attention – but I was in there before 5 or 10 minutes before anyone came and got me.

And long story short, I didn’t last very long in the plate-washing industry. It was not my of choice. I only worked there for about six months; made enough money to buy a new bike, and I was outta there.