I loved May in the financial aid office, not just for the weather that didn’t yet require air conditioning the building didn’t have, but because it was the slowest month of the year. The school’s fiscal year was July through …
I had been a financial aid counselor for only a few months when the manager of the bullpen had a disagreement with his boss and stormed out of the office, never to return. After three days, a colleague and I …
Because my goal was to get promoted from secretary to financial aid counselor, I decided to dress like what I wanted to be, instead of what I was. Only secretaries wore sweaters. The sweaters had to go. After I’d saved …
The first year I worked at the University of Minnesota, I didn’t know what program I wanted to enroll in, but I did want to take advantage of free classes. I took drawing, and ceramics, and graphic design, and weaving. …
To tell this story, I’m making up some names, using ‘Brenda’ for my boss’s pretend name, and ‘Doug Russo’ for the pretend name of a patient. It was a Tuesday morning, and while the Transplant Clinic was hustling on their …
I did things at Hennepin County Medical Center that most hygienists never do: I cleaned someone’s teeth in the O.R. I asked a teenage sex worker about her practices, to inform my opinion of the ulcerated lesion in her mouth. …
After the dentist fired me from ‘the good dental practice,’ I quit the pedo mill. It was ruining me as a hygienist. My next two part-time jobs were in a Minneapolis community clinic that catered to the LGBTQ+ community, and …
My first career was as a dental hygienist, and the first job I got after graduating was in a ‘pedo mill,’ meaning a pediatric dental office where the hygienists saw a ridiculous number of patients each day. Our schedule was …
When I was thirteen, it seemed that the only way to make money was a paper route or babysitting. Boys had paper routes, girls babysat. I didn’t particularly like children, but they were a necessary part of the enterprise. Fifty …