Started working at Mails Boxes, Etc.

My father arranged a job for me at a franchise of Mail Boxes, Etc. Not for the money but for the character building and all that. He had to drive me into the city for it, until we moved nearby. I already had the job when he introduced me to Ken, the owner.

I started as an odd-jobs worker, helping to pack boxes for shipping, sort mail into post boxes, running photocopy jobs etc. I sometimes helped Jackie, the only other employee, with the counter during rushes. Ken was a CPA and also did tax preparation out of the shop, and eventually I was preparing basic 1040 returns for him.

After he invested in a laser printer in 1990, I became the IT guy and set up the 486 workhorse PC with PC/GEOS. I have no idea why, but I also was the only one of us with an eye for graphic design, so our resume and sign production services were also my responsibility. By the time I was old enough to legally hold a job I had been given raises to full minimum wage.

This was a pretty nice gig for an young introvert, so I worked on-and-off for Ken over many years. At one point I even talked him into hiring Colleen, which went surprisingly well until it didn’t.