Songs For Your Day

I gave 2 years of my life and a couple of tendons to making and delivering sandwiches for Jimmy John’s. And, though often enough, I woke thinking, “I could think of better things to do today than making no-tomato, no-sprouts Turkey Toms for sorority girls,” the job was easily redeemable by simply showing up for your shift and seeing who else you were working with–the old crew couldn’t be topped by any group of co-workers, ever.

We have our stories: punching out the frat guy on a delivery to Benji’s house, the burn stripe on our biceps, swapping sammich’s for pizzas, finding Derek sleeping in the storage room after a bender, farting on Joey’s leg, rock band karaoke Christmas, countless delivery stories, so on, so forth.

Enter Kelly Hake and her love for all things gypsy–which naturally includes Gogol Bordello.

We had figured out how to hack our Muzak player to play our own CDs. Anyone who has ever worked in a store that plays Muzak CDs knows how beneficial this hack can be.

Four in the morning. We’ve gotten the last of the drunks their sandwiches, and we’re locking the doors and grabbing brooms. We’ve had some drinks ourselves; on top of figuring out the Muzack, we also figured out that you can fit a beer with ice to keep it cool in a 32 oz. drink cup and drink it with a straw without any customers knowing the wiser. It made the shifts go by a little easier.

And now, Hake had put Gogol Bordello in and cranked it. Something about whisking around Jimmy John’s at 4 in the morning with a broom, and half-drunkenly shouting out loud to, “Start wearing purple, wearing purple! La da dada daaa!” just fits when you’ve the right people on shift.

It’s almost strange to remember those times, even fondly remember them. The old crew has scattered now–Derek, Benji, Kelly, Joey, Erick, Josh, Skinhead Joe, Louis, and all the others–have mostly gone their separate ways. A few people linger on, but I’ve heard it’s not the same, and I suppose that happens often enough. Hey-days come and go, and I at least know that should this economy bump me out of my cubical, I can still quickly recite what goes on a No. 9, Italian Night Club. Any JJ’s manager would hire me on the spot, right?

-christopher earl.

no joke. start wearing purple began to play on my iTunes about 1/2 way through my reading of this post…

(it’s tentatively on a mix i’m making for laura…)

Comment by Stevi Waggoner May 20, 2009 @ 3:48 pm

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yeah. Songs for Your Day now controls your radio. sucker. haha.

Comment by christopher earl. May 20, 2009 @ 3:59 pm

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I wasn’t there for the gyspy stuff, but if you insert Clutch, Guns and Roses or Slayer it still works.

Comment by Benji May 20, 2009 @ 5:17 pm

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this was great!
i’m glad i’m not the only one who loved working at jimmy johns. it was a sweet job. for the most part.

Comment by kelly May 20, 2009 @ 6:06 pm

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man, it was also pretty awesome working next door to jimmy johns. You guys made night shifts at the cup go by so much faster!

Comment by lcrelyea May 20, 2009 @ 9:52 pm

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I did not even work there, or should i say i wasn’t on the payroll. that was the best summer. Glory days. I am glad you hold it in your hearts.

Comment by jorie May 21, 2009 @ 1:30 am

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yeah….working with kelly…some of the best days ive ever had…you to dick face.

Comment by skinhead dude May 21, 2009 @ 3:03 am

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yeah. some damn good times were had. it’s funny to tell stories to some of the people at the Indy stores that i ride with these days. the stores here are pretty corporate, so when they hear the shit we use to pull, they just laugh and say they’d get fired if they did that here.

Comment by christopher earl. May 21, 2009 @ 9:17 am

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Although I enjoyed many nights drinking at the Jimmy Johns and telling customers to fuck off, I think my personal favorite is when Joe and I finished a half gallon of whiskey and couldn’t close the store. Those are some of my favorite memories of college.

Comment by Josh May 26, 2009 @ 8:32 pm

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dude i managed a jimmy johns for 2 years. I too have the same memories and feel the same about my irreplaceable Golden Crew. I went through probly 100 different employees those 2 years because I live in a town of inbred mongoloids where the average IQ level is wwaaaaayyy below zero. My blog focuses on rants and raves of stupid people. You should read my “at the work place” Its solely about retarded customers that came into my store. I’m sure everything I typed in it, you have dealt with also. I miss my crew.

Comment by fr0st3h August 5, 2010 @ 4:00 pm

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