Job game

[B-Mental]

I was wondering about the other people on the network. What do they or did they do for employment. One of the things that limits what people can write about is what their experiences have been.

The rules are, you can only name one job per post. You must have actually performed the job. Feel free to comment on your thoughts about that job.Lets see how varied our experiences have been.

My game, so I get to start....

Flower delivery person... usually it made people happy to receive flowers, so you liked the job. Sometimes people would refuse the flowers, my boss would make me go back and they still refused the flowers, get angry, make a scene. I always wondered what the person had done to create the rift.

[subterranean]

I think that's a lovely job..the flowers part I mean

[Kaltrina]

I worked in a public campaign for "Illicit small arms control". me and some other colleagues handed out brochures to people, to inform them about the danger of possessing ilegal arms. and I actually had a lot of fun because I had to go to different towns in my country and I met a lot of people. and the contact with people was interesting too, because some of them were polite and some agressive and they even threw brochures on the ground in front of us, but it was ok, we still smiled. :) I liked it a lot... :D

[Logos]

I was an underwater ceramics engineer!
It was a great job!
I got paid really well!
met all kinds of exciting people!

:D

[Scheherazade]

My first paid job was stuffing envelops to send out the Fall Line catalogues for a very 'posh' store. It was interesting; we students advertsing the the stuff we could never afford (unless we licked stamps for a month to buy a scarf or something). Also, it was good to know that what the 1% of the country's population would be wearing next Fall even before they did! :D 20 years later, I am glad to inform you that I still cannot afford to shop from there! :D
I was an underwater ceramics engineer!
Sorry, Logos, but I gotta ask... What does an underwater ceramics engineer do??? Put tiles in fishie kitchen and bathrooms? ;)

[papayahed]

Yeah, Logos I'm curious also????

One of my jobs (and I've had a gazillion) was a cashier at a convenience store. The only good thing about the job was some of the customers were nice. The bad things were:

1.) underage kids used to come in all the time and try to buy alcohol and get mad at me when I wouldn't accept their fake ID's.
2.) Those same kids would try to bribe me to sell them alcohol (yeah, like their $20 would cover the thousands of dollars in fines if we got caught.)
3.) The rude customers who treated me like a dumbass because I was behind the counter.
4.) The owner was a butthead.
5.) The damn slurpee machine always broke down and the customers would complain to me about it.

[Satine]

Hmmm...

In high school I was a box office girl at a movie theater.

In college, I worked at a music store and then quit to work at Victoria's Secret where I worked for about two years.

Now, I teach music in the inner city public schools. Yikes. Fun job, but crazy at times.

[Nightshade]

I work in a charity shop (okay I volenteer) its fun you meet alot of people and always discover strange things. Though once we had a coat donated that was filled with maggots :sick:

[papayahed]

I think I'll go in order now:

First job:

Cleaning house during the summer with a friend of the family. Boring, basically I wiped down kitchen cabinets and vacuumed. I was paid 30 dollars a day, 3 days a week at the time I thought I was rich.

[mono]

My first job:
As a teenager, for a few years, I worked at an adult care facility through my family, but in the kitchen. For a first job, I did not hate it, but I did not enjoy it either, as the kitchen would get very hot - lots of cooking of mostly pre-made meals (for 100+ residents), lots of dishes, and cleaning galore!
During the few rare pleasures, some of the residents would stop by and ask for coffee or tea (or anything else), and I would often stop for a quick conversation. Most residents seemed very lonely, and some with poor health, but I loved conversing with them.

[shortysweetp]

My first job was a waitress at a chinese buffet style restaurant. I was the only first language english speaking person that worked there. I worked there for 1 1/2 years then got "laid off" on my 18th b-day. Then i worked as a carhop at sonic then as a waitress again at a small cafe and then a cashier and at the service desk of a farm/agriculture store and then a saleperson in shoe dept at walmart. So all I have ever done is work with people in some form of customer service. oh and once I sold shoes on the side of the road (like a roadside fruit stand but with shoes).

[papayahed]

oh and once I sold shoes on the side of the road (like a roadside fruit stand but with shoes).

Huh? Where the heck was that??

2nd job:

I worked as a busperson/dishwasher at a family style restaurant. I was 15 and the older (18-20 year olds) waitstaff used to make me stand gaurd while they took hits off the nitrous tanks that were used for whipping cream. They never let me try it though.....

[Koa]

5.) The damn slurpee machine always broke down and the customers would complain to me about it.

Slurpee? like in the Simpsons at Apu's shop??? Wow, does that thing really exist?

I havent had many jobs in my life really, and never for a long time as I've been mostly a student all the time...I'm actually really scared about finding a 'real' job...:blush:

The only good job I had was when I did a part-time collaboration at my Uni - students can apply to work for no more than 150 hours in total. I did it twice (on 2 different years that is) at the same office cos I loved it. It was the International Relations Office so even when my task was just to do some photocopies, it was often something in English or having to do with someone going somewhere... I mainly worked at the front-office answering lots of stupid questions from people that are even more naive than me, mainly about students exchange programs, and occasionally happened to have to do with foreign students, which was great. On the first year actually they often would send me to another office where the job was rather dull (all I could do was attach files as the rest was too complicated to teach it to someone who wouldnt work there for more than a few weeks) and at first I hated that part but then I got familiar with the people in the office who were really funny. This year instead I was some sort of authority among the students working there cos I was more expert and I really knew a lot and I even said that if they need someone to work there as a stable job, I'd love it... but I dont think they'll ever need me...
(ok this was too long :p)
Oh, and it also paid well :nod:

[B-Mental]

I took a job as a packer once in Montana. I would take supplies out to hunting camps with a mule train. The first time I went with a new guide, he got lost on several occasions, it started snowing, and by the time we fed the horses and mules, built the corral, stowed the saddles, and set up our own tent it was almost midnight. We were up the next day to cut wood for the camps at 4 AM. On the way out the guide decided to trot the mule train on a rutted dirt road, and the lead mare hurt her leg. The guide grabbed the mare's leg and she kicked him. Broke his nose. You can't believe the expletives I heard. Anyways this is just the short version of events, and Admin won't let me swear, so I'll have to leave the intricacies out. Two days work 36 hours netted me a whopping $100.

[Logos]

Sorry, Logos, but I gotta ask... What does an underwater ceramics engineer do??? Put tiles in fishie kitchen and bathrooms? ;)

Hahahaaa, nope, not quite ;)

Geeze I thought some people would have known..

"underwater ceramics engineer"


dishwasher at a restaurant

.
.
.
and I see papayahed was one too :p

[papayahed]

Slurpee? like in the Simpsons at Apu's shop??? Wow, does that thing really exist?


OHHH yeah......and it's a big sticky mess.

Hey alright Logos, I like the sound of that undewater ceramics engineer.


3rd Job:

I worked as a counter person at a cookie shop in the mall (My obligatory Mall job). Still to this day I can't figure out how they managed to pay me less then minimum wage and get away with it or why I was stupid enough to stay there - probably for the cookies....That's all I really remember about that job, pretty boring.

[mono]

Slurpee? like in the Simpsons at Apu's shop??? Wow, does that thing really exist?
I guess living in the U.S. my entire life, I take those silly Slurpee machines for granted, because you can find them in almost any convenience store - very common, very sugary, very cold, and very bad brainfreeze. :eek:

My second job, also as a young teenager, I worked in fast food, which I hated, so I will not mention that. :D
More interestingly, about the past 2 years, I have done a lot of volunteer work as a nurse's assistant, but in a different sort of setting of patients' homes - called hospice care, or terminal, estimated with no longer than 6 months to live. The specialty seems really interesting, but I doubt if I could ever specialize in hospice, due to much of the immense stress of losing patients.
True, when on hospice care, it usually means that barely anything in medical field can benefit health, and patients, doctors, and nurses must acknowledge the fact, but the loss feels inevitably horrible.

[Chava]

Oh dear, still being a teenager, I currently work as an assistant dance instructor. Primarily because i have to do socail service hours for school, and this way i get my excersise and i get my hours. And i like to dance anyway... :) Apart from that i have several times represented my mom (who is a consultant) at random conferences and debates.
Apart from that i work as a youth journalist for the world bank's youth magasine.

[papayahed]

4th Job:

I worked retail selling watches at the mall. (It was the same location that the cookies store I worked at previously). Another fairly boring job, although I did win a sales contest and won a watch I had my eye on since I started. That store went out of business also, must have been the location.

[Nightshade]

humm does this count as a job I got paid??
for 2 summers I "taught" more i helped incresase the english volcabuary (second summer I was teaching a teacher ) and the first summer I tutured her son to pass his comprehenshion exam. (he went to an american exam and there were thinngs in the next book like a story about that guy "the redcoats are coming" and the bostonm tea party.

[B-Mental]

Sounds like work to me. I used to be a radioactive materials supervisor/handler.

[Koa]

Uhm the first paid job I had (well except some babysitting, which I hate) was a quite awful thing, that is 'promotion' for some products... that is, you work for an agency and they send you for a week or some weekends or whatever to a supermarket or shopping center or similar place to kinda advertise a product, that is explain to people why they should buy it... Argh even thinking about it I get annoyed, I really didnt like it (I'm not that kind of extrover person, I usually just talked to people if I really had to :D) so I didnt do it that many times, I can't believe that there are people that do that for a living! (most people working like that were, and are, students like me who need something that doesnt keep them busy everyday).

[papayahed]

5 th:

I worked at a fast food restaurant. That was soooo much fun, well aside from those pesky customers. I made good friends there and we had a lot of fun.

[Kaltrina]

when I was 14 I worked in a publishing house, and it was so much fun. that was my first job and I had a great time there. I learned so many things, and it was a great pleasure watching the big machines work and watching how they publish books, magazines etc... I helped putting sheets of books together...and sometimes we helped sticking the pages of calendars... :D :D

[papayahed]

6th:

I worked in a group home for mentally handicapped adults. It was challenging and fun and rewarding. Then one day I grabbed a door knob and there was snot all over it, egads was that gross.

[Koa]

From next Thursday to Sunday I'm working at a trade fair or whatever it's called in English...there is a very important trade center here and they often hold events, though it's the first time I work there since apparently no matter how many CVs you send, you need to know someone to get to work there... long to explain, anyway I'm quite nervous about it but I'm happy to have something to do and it pays very well.

As for past jobs, related to the one I explained in my previous post, for 2 years in a row I worked for one month at a shopping center, they had a stupid game for costumers and we had to stay there and explain and such... The funny part is that, especially on the second year, we (we worked in groups of 3) learnt to work as little as possible and spent a lot of time just talking...it was nice, I even kept in touch with those girls for a while. The bad part was that the direction of the shopping center was really fussy so we had to wear a horrible skirt-jacket thing (which of course didnt exist on my size as if you're not supermodel-looking you're not allowed to live :mad: so I borrowed an even more horrible really old skirt from my mum) and black tights and they were even fussy about shoes, heels and stuff...

eheh I never had cool jobs since I've always put studies first and it's hard to find a good job that doesnt make you sacrifice the studying... it's a choice, at least here, you either study lots and work less and finish your studies on time, or take aaaages to do Uni but work all the time in the meantime so you pay your Uni tax and all the rest for longer....

[B-Mental]

I worked as a bartender in snow bar in Montana. It had big blocks of ice for barstools, the bar was built of snow, a shot luge, that was fun.

[Kaltrina]

3d job: I worked in a boutique. it was fun, because there came lots of people. there were civilised people whom I had the pleasure to serve and there were stupid and arrogant people who thought that they can treat me like nothing because they were the ones that bought stuff. but I didn't care at all, I was smiling all the time... the only thing I hated about the job was my stupid boss :smash: who argued :argue: with the customers trying to make them buy things they didn't want to buy :rage: and I hated when the customers started bargaining. I really hated that... :flare:

[Koa]

Ok this is funny: once during the Xmas period I worked in a shop wrapping presentes...things people would buy and wanted them wrapped... It was a bit stressful, some people complaining about wrappings not being perfect, the desk we used was so low and my back hurt...

...and actually, I had to argue about money... they forgot to pay me one day of work - cos it turned out that the person signing my presence paper had the same name of a girl who worked there, and when they payed me they thought that that girl had substitued me on that day... It wasnt a lot of money but I argued about it, because of the principle (I dont work for free, unless it's me who decides it...and the day of the argument was 24th December: if I hadnt wanted that money I would have just stayed at home, as since the beginning of the month I was everyday either at Uni or working, especially on weekends, with no rest for 3 weeks...) and because it was an amount of money sufficient to buy a book for Uni or stuff... Well it took me months to win and I had to argue on the phone (the stupid woman was accusing me of the mistake...how could I know that there were 2 people with the same name there...) but I was also proud cos I've always been the kind of shy person who always shuts up and is scared to argued with strangers, but in that case I made my points clear and I proved to myself to be able to raise my voice when needed...:)

[Scheherazade]

My 2nd job:

While still at university, I worked for a bank as a temp. We were expected to visit potential customers (with an account book in their names) and get them start using that bank. It was a difficult job because it required 7 hours of constant smiling and 'Yes, M'am/Sir.'-ing. However, the people I worked with were very nice. We had a lot of fun. OK, the pay was very good as well... especially for an undergrad.

[Logos]

I used to be a radioactive materials supervisor/handler.

Ok, is this a `joke' job like my dishwashing one?

or

what exactly does this type of job entail? I'm verrrry curious :)

[NNoah3]

B-Mental: I am very curious too.

When I was in High School I lived with an uncle and his family and they had a store where dairy products, cheese, meat, bread were sold. So after the school I worked there every day without payment. This last a year.

[B-Mental]

Ok, is this a `joke' job like my dishwashing one?

or

what exactly does this type of job entail? I'm verrrry curious :)

I really liked the underwater ceramics engineer/specialist comment, by the way. I would travel with radioactive sources out to docks in the Gulf of Mexico and then take a boat out to offshore drilling platforms. We would take the source out of a 'pig' (a special protective container) and then secure in a special type of drilling tool. We could tell what the porosity and permeability of certain rocks were by using these tools. It was definitely scary to handle the radioactive sources with these long poles, and 5 years later my pee still glows in the dark.

[Darlin]

First job was tutoring kindergartners. I remember one of them had a crush on me which was cute but strange, I was so young then. All in all a very fun and adorable experience and a great first job.

[Kaltrina]

my 4th job which my current job:
I work as an administrative assistant in an enterprise which deals with market research. I work in an office and whenever there is the time of research I assist the project managers in anything they need according to the project. it's a great job. I have a lot of time if I want to study. i meet a lot of people, and I learn so many things about surveys and many other stuff. it is really cool and I really like working here.... and yeah my colleagues are great people, including here my boss and his wife who are very cool... :D

[papayahed]

7th:

Actually this should be #1, for a summer I worked in my uncles Pizzeria. One of the workers came up to me one day and said "Don't think you'll get special treatment because your the niece" to which my uncle yelled from the other room "Your damn right she gets special treatment." Did I mention he's my favorite uncle?

[Helga]

I worked in a childcare zoo, the animals were great but man I couldn't stand the kids!!!

[Stanislaw]

zoo eh? thats pretty awesome! :thumbs_up

I have worked as a dog refuse specialist...

I picked up "chocalate" dog treats, from peoples yards. :sick:

[Pendragon]

First job with an "hourly wage"? Worked for two years with a lawn service. $1.00 per hour. Age when I started: 12. And, no, I'm not in the habit of lying nor do I exaggerate. Long, hot hours, and if anything went wrong the boss always blamed it on "The Kid".

[Darlin]

2nd job was working as a recreation aid at Encanto Park in Phoenix, AZ where I learned how to play ping pong with the kids I worked with and had more fun than a job should entail I later found out.

[B-Mental]

I was also a soldier during the first gulf war. I was 11C, mortarman, indirect fire infantry in a mechanized unit. Actually I filled multiple job titles...Driver/Radio-Telephone Operator/Check Computer all for the Fire Direction Control. I can honestly say that I've never fired a weapon or assisted in the firing of any weapon systems directed at another human, the only rounds I fired were in training. I ended up securing prisoners during the war.

[Darlin]

Interesting! I got out of the Navy right before that war. That was my third job. I was a yeoman 2nd class (E5) essentially a secretary for the officer's. Ton's of fun for ten years traveling abroad and meeting all kinds of people.

[yellowfeverlime]

I am lazy... i sit... i lose energy! lol. jk
i wk over da summa at my High School- Janitorial wk

[Darlin]

Janitorial work's not for the lazy usually. :D

[papayahed]

8th:

I worked as a cashier at a drug store. It was ok, one day I had a brain fart and I gave a customer the wrong change and the customer spoke up. This was in front of a high up manager over many stores. While I was waiting on the next customer I overheard my manager telling this high up manager "Oh No, she's usually very good at the register".

I left that job before I learned how to run the picture machine.

[Stanislaw]

I currently hold two jobs:
1. Data entry clerk
2. Self employed Computer technical support provider: WladTech (http://www.wladtech.com)

[Koa]

So I worked at the trade fair in the first weekend of October..it was cool, I was scared that they thought I wasnt good and sometimes I got paranoid, especially when a German customer was asking someting quite specific (it was a marble fair so I could only help for basic things) and I didnt understand much though I was even understanding the German... and a damn friend of the boss, who was there, came to help before I could even show I was kinda understanding... So I thought they were going to think I'm not good but they never complained so I suppose I wasnt that bad.
I got to speak looots of English, some French and even some Spanish, somehow... (I speak very little Spanish). The pay was great.
I had to stay outside and on Friday it was so sunny that I got almost sunburnt, while on Sunday it was so cold that I thought I was going to die, and it rained all day...

[Scheherazade]

My 3rd Job:

After studying couple of years at university, I felt all wise and decided to pass on my wisdom by giving private lessons:

1. To the kids who failed their English classes. This was really rewarding (mostly) because my students did better at school and their parents loved me for it and got spoilt a little! :D

2. To the bored wives of town's well-to-do, who did not have anything better to do and who could afford to dream about going abroad for their holidays. This was a lot of fun and VERY enlightening for me. I got to enjoy the afternoon teas with them, which meant delicious cakes every time (even though they would be on a diet between tea times). More importantly, even though I was a teen, they treated me like an adult and I got to hear all the town's gossip and had a scary, no censor peep into adult world and married life.

I have never been the same since! :D

[Koa]

(you had already done 2 years of uni as a teen???:eek: here we start at 19 - i've never had the guts to seriously give english lessons...except for my relatives, as in brother and cousin: at least I can shout at them! even when I put announcements, noone ever called me...uhm better for them I guess :D though you must have had a lot of fun with those ladies!!!)

Now I lost track of the jobs I described already...I never realised I had this many jobs but they were all for very short times...

Hm did I tell you of when I was giving newspapers... you know those free newspapers like Metro or stuff... well I was just giving them out, it was weird and somehow cool... It was hard to get up at 6 or 6:30 (work usually started at 7:30) but I loved to see the world getting up...and then I had the whole day for myself, as I finished at a time when i'd get up if I had nothing to do... Anyway even if it was a kinda silly job, it helped me a lot in overcoming my fear of people...cos some people were really nice, like they'd just smile at you and wish you a good day and I was like wishing them a great day cos they were so nice... It only was bad when I had to work near big streets with lots of cars and after 3 hours I was coughing my lungs out cos of the pollution...

[B-Mental]

I used to be a referee for Saturday morning american football games 4th graders. The job was a lot of fun, except for the parents complaining about the calls. I remember one time this kid was running with the football with 3 or 4 opponents hanging and dragging behind him. I was so excited watching this heroic display that I blew the whistle and signalled for a touchdown five yards before he even crossed the goal line. I was a little embarassed, but we all had a good laugh on me. The ball carrier did manage to cross the actual goal line regardless of my error.

[Pendragon]

Worst job I ever had was working tech support at night for an ISP service. I often felt like taking Dogbert's (of Dilbert fame) advice, after hearing the same old, same old night after night and just answering the phone: "SHUT UP AND REBOOT! as that usually was what I would have to tell them was to reboot anyway. Then when they would say, "Hey, that worked!" I could yell: "SHUT UP AND HANG UP!" But of course, I never did....Can you say "Coo-coo"? :crash: :crash: :crash: :crash: :crash:

[Ess]

(you had already done 2 years of uni as a teen???:eek: here we start at 19 -
i started university quite early, at 17 because i went to school early i guess.
oh well, i have worked at the national museums in our country for two years now.and no, i am not a curator, we are producing a sort of cultural day in our country. is it fun? uh, i dont think so. we get paid only when the boss lady hasnt used our money to pay her personal bills :flare: and the pay is mighty low so i still go grovellling to my parents for allowance even though i moved out. am looking for another job though.

[kilted exile]

Current job: Sewer Inspector for the regional municipality of york. I spend my days doing the following:
1) Processing clearances allowing construction companies to carry out work.
2) Going to construction sites to check on progress of work, and in some cases where I have not given prior clearance shutting the site down (you will respect my authorita')
3) Performing hyperzoom camera inspection of pipes.
4) Crawling through sewers inspecting them for fractures, leaks, blockages etc.

[B-Mental]

Any chance your hiring?

[samercury]

First job:
Working during summer at a bible camp.... it was fun except there were some really annoying kids there.
Right now- working afterschool at the library as a mentor (2 times a week)_ it's fun....most of the time :)

[Koa]

Yay...for two weeks I'm working in an office part-time doing data entry... it's kinda boring but we have good laughs at weird names ;) though we are a little sick of working always on datas from the same city so the villages and streets are all the same, we're looking forward to moving to datas from somewhere else though I doubt we will as one week is gone, we have only the next one...
And we're allowed to listen to the radio :D

As for Uni wow...I wonder why here they've always complained about us Italians graduating too old compared to other places... easy, we just enter Uni older than any other country I know...:eek:

[papayahed]

9:

My first real job. I was a co-op student at a chemical research facility. Now that was a fun job. I learned an awful lot about chemistry, not so much about engineering. But I did get to do cool things like put nickel, cobalt, and tungsten coatings on pennies and copper coatings on quarters.

[papayahed]

10th:

This goes along with the 9th job. After I graduated, I was hired back as a research chemist at the place where I did my co - op. And thats when it got boring, I had to be responsible and show "results".

[kilted exile]

My first job was working maintenance for MacDonalds....serious injuries almost occured on two seperate occassions:
1) I arrived for work one morning at 6 o'clock to find the manager (cute girl...but not the smartest knife in the drawer) going off her head because the fry vat had not been changed the night before. I asked her to put the pan under the vat whilst I got changed then would come and sort it. When I came back and opened the drain on the vat the entire contents (around 20L of scalding hot grease) came flying out and had I not jumped out the way, it would have landed all over my legs. This all happenned because she put the pan in the wrong way round.

2) My second week on the job - when I still cared and wanted to impress my boss - the owner comes over and tells me the compactor is jammed and I need to fix it. I find the culprit to be a protruding bun tray which someone attempted to force into it. So I start pulling at this tray to get it out of the jam, it finally gives and then as the compacting bolt slams back into action I realise I had forget to switch the machine off before I started work.

[B-Mental]

I shovelled snow for a winter. It must have been the most snow in years that winter, and I also was shovelling for free...my parents, both grandparents(paid in cookies and cocoa), my girlfreind, and for money my father's bar. This was right after graduating college, while waiting to go to winter over in Antarctica. I would shovel from about 4:30AM until early afternoon, nap for a while and then tend bar until 2-3AM. I swear it snowed every other day that winter.

[Scheherazade]

My 4th Job:

After graduation, I started teaching. I worked at a private language school. It was a school owned and run by a few young teachers so it was very hectic, tiring (worked about 50 hours a week) but a lot of fun too because none of us actually knew what we were doing exactly. 'Trial and Error' was our motto! :D

I learnt a lot during the time I worked there both as a teacher and as a person.

*nostalgic sigh*

[Idril]

I am the assistant director at a daycare that cares for infants and toddlers, as soon as they turn 3, they are kicked out the door. ;) For the most part, I like my job very much, I have a nice combination of office time and time with the kids and I get to move around from infants to toddlers, although most of my time is spent with the 1 year olds. Now if I could just get rid of my co-workers, my job would be perfect. :lol: Well...I wouldn't get rid of all of them, most of them are quite lovely but there are a few that I could most certainly do without. :p

[genoveva]

I'm so excited that I can say this...
I work for peace!
Woo-hoo! :banana: :nod:

[Idril]

I'm so excited that I can say this...
I work for peace!
Woo-hoo! :banana: :nod:

That is, indeed, a wonderful thing to be able to say :cool: , in what capacity do you work for peace?

[genoveva]

in what capacity do you work for peace?
I get *paid* to be a peace activist for a local non-profit! :banana:

[Idril]

I get *paid* to be a peace activist for a local non-profit! :banana:

That is quite awesome! :cool: One of my fondest memories was going to a peace rally in Central Park when I was living in Boston(obviously, I travelled to NY for the weekend) and it was such an amazing experience for someone who lived in "the sticks", I can't imagine how fabulous it would be to do it for a living. It must be a little discouraging at times but at least you can feel like you're making a difference at the end of the day.

[kilted exile]

My current job:

I work nightshift as a control panel operator in a municipal W/WW (water/wastewater) facility my shift is 11 at night till 11 in the morning on Sun/Mon;Mon/Tues;Tues/Wed and Wed/Thurs.

My duties are monitoring flow rates; pump running status; expected storm events; chemical dosage and treatment processes to ensure we dont spill or end up poisoning people. I also do some maintenance on pumps.

I started last Monday night, and I am still adjusting to working at night and not seeing much of the day. It is also likely to mean that any posting I do around here will be limited to the weekend from now on.

[IrishCanadian]

Adril, Scher, Genova! those are wicked!
Dang, Kilted (totally bummer job, haha just kidding-- its important) the bummer is we wont see you so much. Well when the real world calls there must be an answere to it eh.
My coolest job would be busking.
I started a year and a half ago and I know it sounds silly as a *job* but I ussually got about $20 Canadian for an hour if it was a warm weekend. I am a mime. Well I havent done any busking/birthdays etc since last summer, but I intend to continue so I can still say I AM a mime. I love busking. Its hard work but soo much fun.

[kathycf]

My first job:
It was 1982 and I had to get a special permit because back then if you were under 16 you had to have special permission. I worked as a "kitchen girl" in a private school for developmentally disabled children. Saturdays and Sundays 7 am until 7 pm with 2 hours off after lunch. I worked there for a year and a half (closer to 2, really) and spent all my earnings on clothes and books for school and boatloads of strawberrry lipgloss.(Dont judge me too harshly, I was only 15) ;) I think it was then I developed my insatiable and ongoing desire for caffeinated beverages.

[Isagel]

I used to work with makeup and styling + assistent to the director at a theater while studying. That was great fun, but I got really tired of "Waiting for Godot". Since it was a small production being an assistent was whatever the director wanted it to be, but mostly making sure she had a steady flow of coffee and suger because otherwise she had mood swings. I also got to tape an actors clothes in place - in the role for Lucky he was walking around in womens lingerie that was not enough to cover what it should unless fastened to palce with tape. We did not realise this until after the first performace when parts of his anatomy fell out its hiding place in the middle of his monologue.

The show went on.

[Niamh]

job no1
My first job was voluteery work at an old folks home when i was 13. Work one day a week (sometimes two) for a year helping the nuns and nurses look after the elderly.

[optimisticnad]

Sandwich Artist

no, its not drawing sandwiches. Making them for people who wont appreciate it, most of them plain rude and whoever said sandwiches are healthy? guess what, their not!!!!!!!!!! Another myth busted.

[papayahed]

After a quick search I'm now up to job 11:

I worked part time as a lab technician in a job shop. My job was to take samples from each process tank and do testing to make sure the levels of specific chemicals were in spec.

[Niamh]

:lol: my god Papaya, you really have had a lot of jobs!

jobno.2

summer during time working in Elderly home. Self and some friends decided to earn a few bob by washing cars. Sucked as people were stingy. for example... We washed the Car of Shane Lynch(was in boyband Boyzone at the time) and all he gave four of us was 50p. More or less 12p each. Stingy or what!:mad:

[papayahed]

:lol: my god Papaya, you really have had a lot of jobs!



I'm not done yet, I had a lot of jobs during high school and college.

[Shalot]

I was once a sales person...in the bra department. :( This was when I was in college. I applied for the perfume counter but the only opening was in bras so that's where I got stuck and I had a car payment and I quit my other in anger and haste so I had to take what I could get and it paid much more than I had been making before. But it was gross. Teenagers steal bras. They steal waterbras to be exact. They take them into the dressing room and put them on and walk out with them on and they leave behind their dirty crusty old bra on the hanger..... Did I say I hated that job????

Edit: I forgot to add an important tip: Always wash any undergarment you purchase before wearing!!!!!

[Shalot]

Hahahaaa, nope, not quite ;)

Geeze I thought some people would have known..

"underwater ceramics engineer"


dishwasher at a restaurant

.
.
.
and I see papayahed was one too :p

:lol:

that is awesome. When I saw "underwater ceramics engineer" I thought of underwater basket weaving, which is the imaginary class they always refer to in your freshman year of college (or at least they did at one time ---- I'm a bit dated)

[Niamh]

job no.3
My third job was babysitting (was doing this from age 14 to 18). Didnt mind it though. At one point i was babysitting for three different families. Th last family i babysat for (three years in total) started off badly. Kids drove me mad. My problem was i just couldn't say no to the parents. Everything started to go ok when i started making up stories for these two boys when they were going to bed.(my problem originally was i couldnt get them to go to bed.)
The two little boys used to be little trouble makers! By the time i stopped babysitting them they were little nerds!:lol: needless to say their teacher noticed the difference in them and praised them at a parent teacher meeting. Their mam said it was all thanks to their babysitter!:D
When David the older of the two was seven or eight i found him one night sitting in the sitting room reading a jack Lynch novel. He also told me one of his favourite writers was wilde. Hadnt babysat them in a while up to this point because of college. Was a tad bit shocked!:lol:
college ended the bebysitting.

[Shalot]

I worked at Sam's Club as a cashier for a while back in college.

Before the club opened, all the associates had to gather at the front of the store in the cafe area and do a cheer to get pepped up for work. How much bull is that?

And I had to wear a vest that said "May I Help You" when that was the last thing I wanted to do for some of those whining customers who wanted to use coupons. Sam's Club didn't take coupons at that time and I don't think they do now because the things they sell are supposed to be wholesale so you don't get to use a coupon fool. And yes you have to buy two packages of bagels because it's Sam's Club! When you go there you're buying in bulk for the most part. GET A CLUE and don't tell me that you're going to call corporate.

I don't know if I hated the job as much as I hate the general public! And why do drunks expect you to sell them beer when they can barely stand up? And then they're rude to the cashier as if the cashier has any control over State Law or store policy.

I feel sorry for cashiers and anyone who has to work with the public. I think people who pick on cashiers are scum and probably don't know what it is to have a job. :flare:

[kathycf]

I totally forgot I even posted in this thread. My mind is going..going...gone. :blush:

I worked as a furniture stripper/refinisher for one extremely dull and long week. Slop caustic chemicals on table legs, scrub with steel wool pad, get teeny cuts in fingers, caustic chemicals in cuts. Yep, one very long week.




I don't know if I hated the job as much as I hate the general public! And why do drunks expect you to sell them beer when they can barely stand up? And then they're rude to the cashier as if the cashier has any control over State Law or store policy.

I feel sorry for cashiers and anyone who has to work with the public. I think people who pick on cashiers are scum and probably don't know what it is to have a job. :flare:
Good grief, tell me about it. People are MEAN. I have experience doing that sort of thing too, but will save it for another post.

[Shalot]

I also had a job taking phone surveys for the local power company. It was the most BS job I have ever had, because the survey was meaningless....it didn't matter what anyone said about the power company because the power company I was asking about is the ONLY power company in town so what do they care if their customers are satisfied? Some professors from the University created the survey, probably according to some proven method of questioning specifically designed to elicit the most honest answer or some such poo....

It paid more than the grocery store and it was funny because we mainly goofed off and feigned flirting with the men who were climbing some huge power pole outside the window....

[B-Mental]

I used to work for a company that cleared property in the mountains to reduce forest fire hazard. We would walk through some rich persons property collecting all of the downed wood, thinning trees that were too close, and mulching the small ones. It was actually a fun job...get to work outdoors in the mountains, good physical labor, and fun people to work with.

[cuppajoe_9]

I currently teach drum lessons for a living. It's a fun job, but the pay is awful: $10 an hour and I only have three hours per week of regular students. If they don't show up, I don't get paid. It does ocasionally get tedious, as I have been playing music for 10 years and most of my students are just starting out, so I resort to playing in traditional grip (like this (http://www.drummingireland.com/images/traditional-grip.jpg)) or playing with one hand or with my hands reversed to keep myself interested while playing the most basic figures over and over. And then there is the problem of the student who has no interest in learning how to play the drums and refuses to practice. Gah. I get to work unsupervised, however, and I have more than enough tallented, hardworking and creative students to make up for the bad ones and the lousy pay.

[Niamh]

Okay job no.4

When i was 16 I worked for a couple of months in the coin swap cash desk of an amusement/casino arcade in bray. I did 6 hours a week and came out with £18.

[AdoreroDio]

I guess i'll start with my current job (I don't have to many to list since I'm only 15)

I work on Sundays,pretty soon to be Wednesdays as well, at my church- I'm a toddler Sunday school teacher "helper" but really there is no sunday school teacher for the toddlers so there are 4 "helpers" that do all the work. I'm the storyteller, snack maker, and cheerer upper (toddlers cry a lot). It's a fun job- even though changing diapers isn't to great. I don't get paid much but I enjoy working with children so I don't mind.

[Shalot]

So, in my present job, there are smokers who go outside and throw their cigarettes butts down before they put them out and they start mini fires. So, we get emails from the landlords telling us that they're going to ban smoking from the premises if the mini fires don't stop. I don't smoke and I don't care, but I always wonder how these people can't manage to make sure the cigarette is not squished up good enough before they throw it down in the grass.

Well, one day, in the recent past, I was walking down the hall outside the office suite and saw some suspicious brown spots on the carpet. I hoped it was mud. But it wasn't mud. And the landlords sent an email out stating that if you make a mess and it's human waste, you need to report to management immediately so that they can send the janitorial technician out before the stains set it... Can we not call in when we're sick???? Calling is discouraged in all instances and I believe that is why this happened and it pisses me off.

[dramasnot6]

I have dabbed in proffesional theater work, those were definetly my most rewarding jobs. Really stressful, paid less then you would expect, but the life experience you got out of it was incredible.

[kilted exile]

The current job: Working in a warehouse unloading & reloading trucks.....at least its good exercise. Considering whether to go to uni for another couple of years to turn my diploma into an actual degree. However, there is still the possible "prospect" of working on an oilrig in the North Sea.

[B-Mental]

don't get stuck working in the oilfield for too long or you will find yourself committed...I know I'm in the asylum.

[Niamh]

job no.5
17, worked in a newsagents for 4 1/2 months between secondary school and college. Got stuck on my own on the penny sweet counter with all the kids wreaking my head for most of that term.

[kathycf]

I grew up on a farm. My very first job ever was unofficial and extremely underpaid. Feeding animals, helping to clean out mucked up stalls and other chores...well, at least I liked the animals. (all this around began around age 7)

[littlewing53]

job number one in a million...pulling off heads and tails of prawns all day long..located in a small town called exmouth on the northwest cape in Australia...right on the beach, listening to rock n roll blaring...wearing rubber gloves..just abt the time we'd empty the big bin, they'd load up again....it was great for about a week...i ate prawns until i could eats no more....standing all day, my fingers sore, not being able to chat...they'd move us if we talked too much...it just didn't seem fun anymore...suddenly realized they watched us all day, standing there like jailers waiting...it was i came to the realization time to move on...

[srpbritlit]

Student!! (I am so young! Youth is a blessing)

[Asa Adams]

First Job?

I was a farm hand. Bailing hay, mucking stalls, feeding horses, birthing cows. etc. Great stuff. i loved waking up everyday and grinding your bones with hard labour! Quite different from what I do now! :lol:

[Niamh]

Job no.6

Worked in the Off licence of Irish supermarket chain for four months between college during summer. Loved it. was fun!

[kathycf]

These aren't in any sort of chronological order for me. I am just posting them as I think of them.

Makeup artist. Hanging around department stores all day when a particular cosmetics company was having a promotion. Basically, a woman would walk by and I would have to say something like:

" Excuse me, ma'am, would you be interested in a free makeover courtesy of {insert expensive cosmetics company name here }. We are having a gift with purchase and blah blah blah."

Then after being snarled at by someone who thought I was insuinating she was ugly I had the priviledge of applying makeup to some lady's sweaty face.

I guess I am making it seem worse than it was, I actually like doing makeovers...for my friends. And some of the people were nice and I liked doing their's as well. But most people were just kind of rude and I am not much of a people person to begin with, so the job kind of sucked.

[Shalot]

Once upon a time I worked in a deli. I sliced meat and washed dishes and scooped potato salad for mean customers while wearing a ridiculous hat. The sanitizer made the skin on my hands peel. The manager was stingy (or maybe the business was stingy) and there wasn't enough money in the budge to buy me a pair of rubber gloves for 2.99. And since that was more than half of what they paid me to work there for an hour, I felt that I shouldn't have to buy my own rubber gloves.

I knew that there were better jobs out there, but I worked there a while. They changed the uniform and required that we wear hairbonnets instead of the hat or visor. I quit after that. No way was I going to wear a hair bonnet.

[jmp]

Taught highschool special ed. Learned a great number of new and not so useful words!

Well, Maybe I've used a few of them!

[AutumnGal]

My very first job:

I was Grandpa's official "Champion Rabbit Catcher" on my grandparents farm in Ohio. I was bout seven or eight when my sisters and I first went to visit them during one summer oh-so-many years ago. No matter what cage repairs Grandpa had done the day before, every morning at least one of those wiley rabbits would need to be rounded up. My favorite escapees to hunt down were the babies because they were so cute and would squeal their high-pitched little squeal when I caught them. One time a doe got out, and I thought she'd be a quick catch. Well, she schooled me in just how wiley a creature a female rabbit could be--that darned doe had me chasing her through the barn, back outside into some dense, chest-high weeds behind the barn, all around the chicken coop, and after about an hour of running me ragged, she finally "let" me catch her. I'm sure there was a smug smile on her whiskered face when I carried her back to her pen. The job didn't pay anything, but I ate well! :lol:

[Pendragon]

Hired to help start the Hardee's in Marion. I trained four assistant-managers. When I graduated High School, they offered me an Assistant Manager-- in a town called Grundy, in the heart of the coal district. I declined and they begain to cut my 40 hour weeks. So, since I planned on early marriage, I quit and went elsewhere. Sometimes I wonder if that was a mistake... http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/AbsalomKane/BonApitite.gif

[Nightshade]

At the end of school I applied for several library assistant positions in the public libraries but they werent accepting because of no experiance so the school hierd me for a month and I got my first contracted council job. I worked in the school learning resource centre all I did was shelve really...developed the skill Im now most used for fast efficent shelving and shelf tidying.

[Bii]

When I was 15 I had a paper round delivering the local paper every Thursday. This involved treking up and down hills for several hours for the grand total of £0.80 per week. When I quit the newsagent offered to put my pay up to £1.00. I wasn't tempted - why, you may ask?

[kathycf]

Burger King restaurant. I lasted two whole weeks...I wore a rust colored uniform, scrubbed pans and fed beef disks into a mechanized broiler. Ick.

[Shalot]

My first job was at Wendy's. I remember being dead tired after that job. I was a "closer" which meant I served food until it closed and then I had to clean up after they locked the doors. I remember a greasy mop that only made the floor slippery when you mopped with it.

And they had a big vat of ketchup on the napkin/straw/spoons/fork/salt & pepper stand and part of closing was to take the big vat of ketchup and either clean it out or refill it. One day, one of the other employees (who was just a bit slow, I hate to say that, but that pretty much sums it up) went to refill the ketchup vat. After she had refilled the ketchup, she was taking it back to it's place, walking across the slippery floor, and she slipped and managed to pour all that ketchup on her face and on the front of her shirt.

[Scheherazade]

My 5th Job:

After a year of teaching, a friend of mine saw a job advertisement in a newspaper: an Embassy was looking for secretaries. Being very sure that we could never be the kind of people they were looking for, we decided to apply just for the fun of it (frankly speaking, our real aim was to be able to see the inside of an Embassy). Imagine our shock when both of us were invited for interviews *gasp* AND offered jobs *double gasp*

I worked there for almost three years as the PA to the Ambassador. It was exhaustingly hard work but always very exciting. I got to meet people from many different countries (countries at the time I didn't even know that existed) -diplomats, politicians, writers/journalists, thinkers... And, boy, did I learn a lot and grow a lot while working there: Keep smiling and carry on even if when you make a fool of yourself with your silly translations or gaffes! :D

Meanwhile, I could not give up teaching and carried on working couple of hours as a teacher every week during my work at the Embassy.

[Sarasvati21]

I revolutionized the local food bank. They had no concept of categorization or organization, so I took everything off the shelves, then put everything back on the shelves in a way that made sense. It was mind-numbing in its dullness.

Scheherazade, which embassy did you work for? That is actually a very cool job!

[Scheherazade]

Scheherazade, which embassy did you work for? That is actually a very cool job!I can't tell, unfortunately, but it was a lot of fun (though awfully stressful).

[motherhubbard]

Job 1

I spent a couple of weeks of the summer I turned 15 with my aunt and uncle in Florida. They were managing a hotel and the hotel restaurant. During the day I would babysit their four year old daughter and during the evenings I would wait tables in the restaurant. I learned that men were little more than adolescent boys looking for action. When I would take my niece to the pool grown men would smile a lot and try to make conversation. Sometimes they would even get in the water to make conversation. This was disgusting. All I could think is how my dad would never act that way toward a girl my age and how they should be snipped. We didn't make too many trips to the pool. It wasn't much better in the restaurant. I remember one man in particular that came in with his grandson. He was much older, I'm thinking 60's. He had his hair all slicked back, hip hugger pants, a shirt with a very pointy collar unbuttoned too far, and six or eight gold chains. He reminded me of Steve Martin when he was a wild and crazy guy. He kept on and on saying things and complementing. He asked me what I was doing after work... His grandson had the most apologetic face I've ever seen. The man pinched the most under part of my behind! I poured coffee on his lap when he did. He was so mad and he stormed out. His grandson couldn't even make eye contact with me as he paid and apologized. All men should be as honorable and wonderful as my dad, but men like that are a rarity.

[Taliesin]

Defining job as something I am being paid for officially,
Job nr.1: Part-time member of the opera choir
Well, that's very part-time, just for the production of "Il Trovatore" because the male part of the opera choir of the main theatre of my town is rather small and "Il Trovatore" needs quite a large male choir, they needed some extra voices. The choir where I go to as a hobby is in good terms with the theatre and so some lads of our choir took part at the performance of "Il Trovatore", including me.
At first there was quite a lot of work - learning all the parts, not just the words in Italian (which I didn't speak and I think that none of us actually did), but also the music, which, for the chorus often doesn't form a tune, but is rather an accompaniment, plus the stage movements and even a dance. The pay for it is quite small, but it wasn't done for money anyway.
The premier and the first performances were very emotionally satisfying - they also tended to be full houses. But as time passed, the performances didn't give that much adrenaline any more, just a job, you know, plus some evenings when you really don't feel like playing and think when it shall end. Also, the house tended to be quite empty afterwards, since opera isn't a very popular thing.
The last performance was about a month ago, and that actually gave quite a thrill, because the last performance before that one had been months ago so it wasn't so routine-like.
This summer we will give our last performance at an opera festival.
Mind you, I feel a bit nostalgic about it - the acting and the singing still gives some kind of a thrill although we are unnamed redshirts (being an easily manipulable, intolerant, sadistic bastard is actually very enjoying) and lots of fun stuff has happened- for example, I managed to break a prop rifle into two halves and drop them on the floor with a bang onstage in the middle of a chorus part, one other guy came to stage dressed as Rambo (no shirt, a vest, red headband and a rifle in both hands).
We also took part in a rock opera done by the same theater but they didn't pay us, but rather our choir, since the sum was too small to be divided among all of us.