First Jobs: True Tales of Bad Bosses, Quirky Coworkers, Big Breaks, and Small Paychecks

In this slender, innocuous volume, Watts pulls together 50 short first-person narratives about first jobs, edited from interviews she conducted. Her own first gig was telemarketing, hoping "no one would answer [the phone], saving us both the pained exchange that was to follow." A school counselor recalls that as a teenager in Florida, he would tag along to work with his father, a pet cemetery caretaker. A graduate student working behind the counter in an Aspen, Colo., shop served former president Bill Clinton and California's then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on her first day. A 16-year-old boy in a small town in Illinois was tapped to be the local newspaper's sports editor during WWII. Watts balances these everyday anecdotes with others from more famous people. Former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, for example, recalls shining shoes downtown when he was six years old, and designer Jonathan Adler worked the fax and photocopy machines at a talent agency in New York City before hitting on his true passion. What this collection offers in breadth, however, it lacks in depth, with the brief, episodic format not allowing for much background information or truly significant insight. (Apr.)