Perhaps my introduction to branding or perception management came from my dad.

It was probably no later than 10:30am on this particular Saturday and we were already headed home – likely from an early morning at Home Depot. (Plus, CarTalk starts at 11.) Oh, dad had his projects. Around the house, there was always something to be done. Of course. Even if it didn’t have to be done. Naturally. My dad is an early riser and a hard worker; today still, he often skips breakfast. (Me too, actually. I’m just not hungry until I’ve been awake for 2 hours.) Anyway, at that age, I generally always enjoyed helping him with those projects; still, I did not rise quite so enthusiastically on Saturday mornings. In my younger years, the wafted smell from the kitchen of pancakes with his perfectly crisped edges made it easier, sometimes.

I’d eat 20.

I remember now just where we were on Wantagh Avenue – no more than a 3 minutes drive to the house, but today we were about to stop at the local Cards & Gifts shop on the corner to pick up the newspaper. Dad had cancelled our weekend delivery of Newsday because the paper was never fully wrapped in its plastic when it rained.

And wet news is no news to be read.

He had already called and complained a number of times by this point and had had enough. But mom still wanted the week’s Penny Saver coupons. Now, we’d been tasked with buying the Saturday paper ourselves at the local Cards & Gifts shop on the corner on the way home from mornings at Home Depot.

“You’re about to enter high school this year,” was likely how the conversation started. “Your mother and I think maybe it’s time you consider working a part-time job.”

I actually agreed.

“But,” he went on, “when someone asks how old you are – you’re not 13. You’re almost 14. It sounds better.”

It did sound better. I was more mature already.

How could I have known that just one minute later, as my dad parked in front of the store and waited in the car, I was about to have my first real job interview.

She must have been judging me as her tilted head curiously looked me over for longer than what might have been normal under circumstances of a typical $0.50 cash transaction. (And her squinted eyes, raised eyebrow, and closed mouth with slight chin uplift told me she wasn’t so subtle.)

I passed the scrutiny of her discerning eye.

“How old are you?” were literally the first words out of the cashier’s mouth.

“I’m almost 14,” I simpered, a little proud.

“Would you like a job?”

And that was that.

We’d no longer be buying the Saturday paper at the local Cards & Gifts shop on the corner on the way home from mornings at Home Depot.

I brought it home now. (Fo’ free!)

My first real job was assembling the newspapers at that local Cards & Gifts shop on the corner every Saturday morning at 7:30 and Sundays at 7. For four years, all through high school, I was paid one crisp $20 bill per weekend CASH (off the books, under the table, bada bing bada boom) for the almost 2 hours of work, not including the effort required of a teenager to never once sleep in. (Sometimes I was late. But a few minutes here or there never really mattered much as I saw it; the day’s news had already been printed.) I hated missing sleepovers or leaving a party early in those later high school years … but alas, such is life for the working man.

I’m still not an enthusiastic riser.

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