A Teenager’s Guide to Avoiding Actual Work

How in 1982, a one-bit hack let me skip out on a summer of filling in potholes.

In the summer of 1982, just months before I would go off to college, my mother took me aside and told me, “Your father wants you to get a job this summer, to pay for your living expenses at school.” I was 18 and had yet to hold any kind of job, and to be honest was still kind of scared of the idea. I was a nerdy, stay-at-home sort, and to be honest, generally a bit lazy and uninterested in working. But I knew better than to fight this one, because I understood my fathers point of view.

He had worked hard all his life as an auto mechanic fixing cars, since an age way younger than 18. College was not in his wheelhouse, but he luckily supported sending me to school, and also funding it with money we got from selling my grandmothers house after she passed away. I was privileged enough in this way to get a (mostly) free ride to school, but I was expected to help out, somehow.

My father would not directly confront me on these types of things, and would go through my mother. But I knew this job thing was serious, and it would be a big disappointment if I did not figure something out.

And my mother as always was there to help. She found some local ads in town, including one for summer jobs at the highway department. I…