I was a dishwasher my senior year of high school. It was at an Italian restaurant, a very busy one. Some of the most popular dishes were the baked ones. Eggplant parmesan. Various types of lasagna. My job was to get those pots and pans and baking dishes spotless and free of all their totally crusted-on, covalently bonded, cement-like Italian food carcasses. It was brutal. So hard.

The upside was, we had a great manager who liked us and, after close, he would usually bring us back an expensive imported beer to sip while we worked. Totally illegal. But a nice gesture. Ironically enough, the other dishwasher, whom I'd not previously met, was heading off to the same New York City university I was. we had a great time talking about interesting things like philosophy and art history and who the cutest girl in our class was. We did well together.

Everything about this job was great, except the actual work. That was horrid. But I stuck it out until I left for New York. It gave me some extra money to spend on my girlfriend.