Rick Rosner: I was trying way too hard. I’d sell a few people donuts on a Sunday morning, and I was allowed to eat as many day-old donuts as I wanted—so I limited myself to four.

So, donut shop.

Then I decided to return to high school and switch families, moving to Albuquerque. My dad—my real dad, not my stepdad—was not happy about this. Nobody really understood why I did it. He told me I could stay as long as I got a job, so he got me a job as a janitor and floor sweeper at Halbert Custom Cabinet Company in the southeast quadrant of Albuquerque.

And I did a shitty job.

One of his clients was Halbert—my dad was their CPA—and he must have told them, “I’ve got this fucked-up kid. Can you give him a shitty job?” And they did. I was the only person at the factory who didn’t speak Spanish, so I was fucking useless. Once, I rode on top of the garbage while they drove to the dump—to keep the trash from flying out of the truck. I lasted a little while there, then quit.

After that, I got a job at United Pet Center, in a shopping center in the northeast quadrant of Albuquerque. Mostly, I just cleaned up puppy shit. Not all day—I worked a few hours after school. But they had about 110 puppies in that little store. No way would that fly today. So many puppies crammed into a tiny pet shop.

And they all had fucking runny poo. I spent my time cleaning up their shit and changing the paper in the bottom of their cages. There were some kittens, too. And I was starving. I wasn’t making enough money to feed myself, so I’d sneak handfuls of dog food.

I tried puppy food once—that was a mistake. Apparently, it had ground-up bone meal in it. I got a splinter of bone caught in my throat and hated that. So, I quit sneaking puppy food and switched to cat chow.

So those were my first four jobs.

Photo by Lore Schodts on Unsplash

Rick Rosner is an accomplished television writer with credits on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Crank Yankers, and The Man Show. Over his career, he has earned multiple Writers Guild Award nominations—winning one—and an Emmy nomination. Rosner holds a broad academic background, graduating with the equivalent of eight majors. Based in Los Angeles, he continues to write and develop ideas while spending time with his wife, daughter, and two dogs.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for The Good Men Project, The Humanist, International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332-9416), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), A Free Inquiry, and other media. He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations.

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