So there I was in the 1980s in the downtown office of a local temp agency, near tears as I was trying to explain to them why I had quit the seasonal job with the city of Fairfield they had assigned me a few months before. I won’t include the name of the temp company, but I had to EXPRESS myself to them.

Looking back, the issues that caused me to quit were all because of my immaturity and selfishness. But at the time, I blamed everyone else. That included the temp company for telling me that I would be doing simple things like laying out the chalk lines on baseball fields and light litter pickup at Allan Witt Park. On my actual first day I received a hoe and orders to hack up tough entangled plants at the park in the summer heat.