As a teaching assistant, I had a few duties: do research for my professor, proctor exams, and help with management training seminars. The latter job was pretty cool: the training seminars were residential and managers from various companies would basically live together for an entire week learning how to manage people. I helped out by serving during happy hours and passing out food. You gotta start somewhere! Proctoring exams was interesting: I've never seen so many people trying to cheat. Students didn't even try to hide it. I hated proctoring exams.
After my first year at Rutgers I applied for internships, three to be exact: IBM, M&M Mars, and Clorox. I flew to Mississippi for the Clorox interview; I forget the name of the town, but it looked like it was the armpit of the world. I didn't get any of the internships although my wife-to-be scored one with IBM in Tucson, Arizona. At about the same time, I found out that teaching assistantships were removed from the budget...I lost my free ride. I decided to look for a full-time job and found one with Samsung International, a television manufacturing subsidiary of Samsung, Inc., located in New Jersey. I was hired as the Human Resources Supervisor. I took care of all of the benefits, recruiting, employee relations, etc...all of that HR crap. But in Korean companies, the HR guy was also the facilities and office manager, so I was in charge of the sprinkler systems, HVAC, maintenance, janitorial services, and waste disposal. On the HR side, I also dressed up as a gorilla and Barney the Dinosaur for the company picnic. I did it all. I learned on the job. I had some book-learning from school, but this was the real deal.
Three months after I started the job, the television manufacturing was shipped to Mexico. I was in charge of letting everyone go. Part of the facility remained as a service center. I stayed on in HR. About a year later, I got a call from Rutgers: they found a full scholarship for me. I decided to leave Samsung and finish my degree full-time. When I returned, I took a job in the computer lab - minimum wage, but I was able to help a lot of people.
As I approached graduation in 1993, I got married and then started looking for a full-time, start-my-career job. Again, I checked the want ads and found a posting for an HR manager position in Passaic, NJ. The company was Dawson Home Fashions - an international manufacturer of shower curtains. With the possible exception of being a lot boy for Cortese Dodge, it would become the worse job I ever had.
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