(back)

Another Day at the Lube

It all started with the word money. I needed it and the only way I could obtain such a commodity was to get a job. I am related to the owner of all the Jiffy Lubes in Albuquerque, and therefore proved an excellent example of the adage: it's not what you know, but whom you know. I got the job and promptly began working. Little did I know what was in store for me; little did I know how this job would ultimately make me better.

There are two things I remember most about my initial day on the job. The first was an overwhelming feeling of being lost. I was entering into a new world, and I did not have the slightest clue what I was doing. When others explained to me just what I was supposed to do, I tried to remember, but as soon as I shifted my attention, whatever I had just learned slipped out of my mind and onto the concrete. I was a marble in a jar and somebody had just taken that jar and shaken the life out of it.

The second thing that impressed on my mind upon arriving is the unique odor that one finds at Jiffy Lube. Each oil has its own peculiar smell. The engine coolant reminded me of sugar burning on the stove. Mobile brand oil smelled nearly sour. It made me want to squeeze my face together as if I had just taken a big juicy bite out of a lime. These and many other oils, each with a unique scent, mixed together into such a stench that is quite indescribable, and certainly not pleasant. There was no escape from such a smell. It reeked everywhere and in everything. It is so deeply impressed into my mind that I am certain in twenty-five years, I will still be able to recall it.

After I overcame the initial feeling of being engulfed, I realized that the work was quite simple. The tasks were easy to remember, and were done so frequently that one cannot help but recite them in his sleep.

Jiffy Lube is extremely monotonous. Day in and day out, I did the same thing over and over again. The only changes that ever occurred were the variety of different cars the appeared every day. To this welcome relief, I applied the ample mental energy left over from the tasks at hand. I memorized everything there was to know about each car. Upon sight of a vehicle I could recite the oil capacity, oil grade, location of any fluid, and the appropriate tire pressure required to top it all off.

The work at Jiffy Lube was also extremely painful. My skin sizzled audibly when I wrestled with a stubborn oil filter. After yelping to one burn my fellow coworker remarked to me, "It's summer. Burns are just part of the job."

Another said, "Welcome to the burn club," as he displayed his blistered and scathed hands.

After working three weeks my hands were so pockmarked with burns and other scars, I hardly recognized them anymore. Despite the dark scenario depicted, there are, in fact, a few silver linings in the thundercloud called Jiffy Lube. Once I lowered my standards enough, I found a lot of fun things to do.

On the days the garbage men forgot to empty the dumpster, I looked forward with giddy excitement to scaling to the top opening and stomping down all the boxes and bottles poking out of the metal edifice. There was a bit of an elastic touch to the cardboard that could send me flying through the air if I jumped hard enough. Occasionally some employees and I stacked empty oil boxes one on top of the other and began playing "Godzilla". We uttered fearsome screams and began crushing entire subdivisions at a time, bringing utter destruction to the cardboard Tokyo. Despite the stares of both amused and confused customers, I quite enjoyed myself.

My tenure at Jiffy Lube ended with the word homework. School had begun again and I was getting more homework than I ever anticipated. Indeed, I was struggling to find time to do it all. My grades were plummeting and I realized I needed to quit. I put in my two weeks notice the first weekend after school started.

The final two weeks of my employment were long and agonizing. Each day passed as if everything were in slow motion but myself. Thousands of centuries passed in each moment I spent at Jiffy Lube. I ached to leave. Paradoxically, my very last day seemed to zip away before I could relish the thought of never coming back. It was as if my last day were a mere drop of water in the Pacific Ocean.

I recall a bit of nostalgia as well. I had spent over forty hours every week for three months at Jiffy Lube, and despite my utter loathing of merely being there, the place had grown on me. Something changed inside me while working there, and I did not want to leave what I had previously been. I felt older and more grown up.

Something inside me had worn down and disappeared forever. I would never be the same. Perhaps what I had gained in place of what I lost is best represented in what I call "the dumpster analogy". Although I had great fun with the dumpster, it was also the cause of much torment.

One morning I was the victim of a senseless act of management. "Steven," my manager said, "go wipe all the dirty sludge off the outside of the dumpster."

Only one thought ran through my head, "Why on Earth would someone clean a dumpster? Dumpsters are supposed to be dirty."

However, I went and did as I was told. I took several rags and a spray bottle and began cleaning. I worked on it for what seemed like ages. I sprayed the bottle and wiped off the slime-ridden steel again and again. By the time I finished, the dumpster looked nearly as dirty as it was before I started. Yet, to me, it glowed. I worked extremely hard at cleaning that dumpster and I thought I did a fine job.

Yes, the work was disgusting; yes, the work was demeaning; yes, it was extremely pointless, but I did it any way and that dumpster looked beautiful. So was my experience at Jiffy Lube, it was repulsive, degrading, and at times very pointless, but I stuck with it to the very end.

I learned to work hard on things I detested, and take pride in it as well. Now, whenever I face a task I abhor, I quietly whisper to myself, "Remember the Dumpster!" and go to work, just like I did at Jiffy Lube.

Article provided by