Erik

Year: 1994 or 1995.  Not sure which.
Place: High Level, AB
My age: 16 or 17

Yeah, I forget if this happened during the summer between grade 10 and grade 11 or the summer between grade 11 and grade 12.  Doesn't really matter.  I'm leaning towards 1995, but I could be mistaken.

So, like I said, it was summer, so I wasn't in school.  Dad was working in High Level for the North Peace Tribal Council, which happens to be where he still is working today.  Mum and some of us younger kids went up to spend the summer there with him.  Under Dad's urgings, I went out and got a job while I was up there.  I was hired at A&W, where I worked at the till and in the dining room.  For whatever reason, the people who ran the place never made me a name tag.  Since it was against the rules to wear a uniform without a name tag, they made me wear the name tag of the guy who had worn the uniform before me.  His name was Erik.  And, therefore, while I worked at A&W, my name was Erik.  Mike MacKenzie got the pay checks, but Erik did all the work.

It was a terrible job.  That's no surprise to anyone who has ever worked fast food before.  Those jobs are, by definition, terrible.  What made it worse for me was the complete isolation I felt working there.  My co-workers all knew each other from school, and were friends as a result.  I was shy, and on top of that, I knew that I would never see any of these people again after my two months of employment were up.  So I made no connections with them even though I worked side-by-side with them everyday.  It didn't depress me or anything, but it made it harder to cope with such a crappy job.

My favourite moment as Erik would have had to come when I was mopping the floor one evening.  There were a couple of cute girls my age eating at a table near where I was mopping.  After ignoring a few "Hey Eriks" from them, I realized that, oh right, I'm Erik.  I turned to them with all of the teenage suave I was famous for and said, "Sorry.  My name's not Erik.  It's just what my name tag says."

"Oh," they replied.  End of conversation.

Aw, yeah!  I was a pimp, dawg!