My First Job

"My very first job was working in a supermarket just up the street from my house in Oneida, N.Y. It was called Grand Union, and they hired me to work overnight cleaning fly specs-and other assorted unmentionable things-off the silver posts that held up the building.

"My job was to use a ladder and climb all the way up those posts with an S.O.S [pad] and a spray bottle, and scrub down those aluminum silver poles. I was about 16.

"I kept bugging them for a job, and they didn't have any openings for baggers or cashiers. They had that job, and I guess I had all the qualifications. I would work on weekends-it didn't last very long, and I went on to bigger and better things later.

"From that job, I learned to be very humble from the beginning. In retrospect, it also taught me that no job is easy. My dad always said, 'You give a man an honest wage for an honest day's work.' I always did honest work. I've always tried to give every employer everything I had.

"In a sense, it did influence me because it introduced me to a different kind of work. I knew I was going to college, and here I was working with guys who would spend their lives cleaning supermarkets after dark. I don't remember who they were, but I learned from them that every job is hard work.

"I've been very fortunate to be able to do what I've done, but I've never forgotten where I came from. Before I was in broadcasting, I worked at restaurants for years. I was a bartender; I mopped, did dishes, prepped for meals. I did everything. I've never considered any job beneath me."

-Interviewed by Katie S. Betz