Show & Tell - first job

My first job was my absolute favorite thing ever. I mean, at 33 years old I'd happily go back to this job in a heartbeat.  It was the summer of 1998. I had just turned 16 and was itching to make my own money. So I got a summer job on the beach. I grew up "on the other side of the bridge" from all the beach towns. I'm sure you've heard of Seaside Heights, Seaside Park, Island Beach State Park, Ortley Beach and so on. Especially after Sandy.... Everyone pretty much heard of my hometown after that horrific storm. And everyone remembers this picture:

Ted and I went over to see it as soon as we were able to get over the bridge which was like 2 months after. Scary. 

Anyway....

My first job was at Water Works. 

The water park on the island. It was

The best place to go on a hot summer day. I started off putting on and taking off the paper wrist bands. There was a different color and pattern for each session which was 2 hours.  And they (we) made an announcement which I remember word for word to this day... 

Just for kicks:

May I have your attention please, it is now time for all customers wearing the blue star wrist band, that's the blue star wrist band, to please exit the park. As you exit, an attendant will remove your wrist band. Thank you for visiting Water Works and have a great day! 

Haha I love it. I had such a great time working there. I made lots of friends. Met my first boyfriend that I dated for like 4 years. I moved from wrist band attendant to slide attendant to lifeguard. I had allllll the gear. I had the stereotypical speedo lifeguard bathing suit. The shorts, sweats, tank top, long sleeve shirt, hat, windbreaker, you name it - I had it. We all thought we were such hot stuff working there. 

The rides were fun too. There was an inter locking twisty thing that went diagonally across the park called super twist. There was a 60 foot straight drop slide called free fall. There was a lazy river, a kiddie kove, a mat ride which eventfully went to a double tube ride.  As short crazy tube slide called octopus. It was awesome. I genuinely loved that job. I worked there for 4 or 5 summers. 

There were several shifts. I typically worked the morning or the break shift. And the break shift was the most fun. You basically worked the middle section of the operating hours and went around to several spots or "rotations" as we called it, to give the morning shift people their breaks then we had a long spot which we were at in the middle of our shift until the night shift and morning shift swapped out. Then we would go and give the night shift their breaks. It was fun. I loved that dang job. And back then I think minimum wage was like $5.25 so the money was minimal. But it was so fun just having that job. 

My best friend Amanda who now lives in Texas worked up on the boardwalk. So on my breaks I'd walk up and go visit her and get a slice of pizza. It was awesome. It was the best way to spend the summers at that age.

Not sure who this is posing -  but that big statue thing was referred to as Pepsi Man. To the right of that blue bench you can barely see was a guard station called "Pepsi River" because it was on the lazy river near Pepsi man. Haha. It was fun yelling at kids who weren't following the rules and kicking people off rides and stuff. Lol 

Now, it's transformed to Breakwater Beach. It's almost completely different. There's a lot of exchange students that work there in the summer now and it's geared toward kids. 

I made a lot of memories working there. And I made a lot of friends. It's definitely a part of my life I'll never forget. Nothing beats being young and carefree with no living expenses and major responsibilities. 😁

Can't wait to see everyone's first job! 

~Tiffany~

Linking up with Andrea