Monday, August 20, 2007

The Parade Of Past Jobs!!!


Approximately two eons ago, I asked you to respond to a little survey concerning jobs. The questions were as follows:

1 - How many paying jobs have you held in your lifetime? I'd say include all full-time positions, as well as those part-timers that were held for a significant length of time; maybe a couple of months or more. For instance, I would include "paperboy" as one of mine. It was certainly part-time, but I did it for more than a year.

2 - What was the highest-paying gig you ever had? Any length of time on this one.

3 - Finally, what is the longest length of time you've been employed at one place?


Here are all of the answers you gave:

Barbara said...

1. About 14, although I could be forgetting a couple.
2. Probably my current job
3. 8 years and counting


Mushy said...

1. 14
2. Communications Manager - 8 years
3. 29 years


Jen Stewart said...

Oh geeze....um....

and then she also said...

1. At least 20. Between age 25 and 34, I worked a minimum of 2 jobs, at most 4 (although that only lasted 3 grueling months) concurrently. A lot of my jobs were for companies where I worked more than once, or where I had more than one position with the company, so I'd say at least 20, but probably more like 28.

2. Overall, my current job. But per hour? A place I used to wait tables in Hawaii. I'd come home with $150 in cash tips, after tipping out the bartender (unless the bartender was me), kitchen staff, and host, after 3 of work. It was only part-time, though, and the owner was volatile, and they went under anyway, so it didn't last.

3. Current job - 8 years, and I quite frankly hope to retire with them.


David Sullivan said...

1. 2 Full Time, 2 Long Term Part-Time, 12 Short Term Part-Time,2 under the table, 1 selling illegal substances between '84-'86.

2. Salary: Current Job

One Days Work: $300+ bartending a 150 person wedding with me and one other bartender.
One Minutes Work: $600, gained illegally and no it wasn't prostitution.

3. 10 years, current job is in 9th year.


DJ Big Mick said...

1. About 20, although one of those was recurring over about 8 summers.

2. One night in October of last year I made 1000.00...
Get your mind out of the gutter! I AM a DJ after all.. it was a wedding. Other than that, my current position is the best paying I've held

3. 8 years with a company you might be familiar with (since you still work there) and the summer job in Maine


While I certainly appreciate the time these folks took to answer the questions, five responses really isn’t a heck of a lot. When you consider that I get more than 100 visitors a day here, it actually kind of sucks. However, I understand that these were questions that you might have been reticent in answering. Who knows what pair of prying eyes might stumble upon the answers? Giving full and complete disclosure about your past jobs – and, more important, about the amounts of money you earned doing them – sets you up for all sorts of ugliness from the IRS, law enforcement agencies, ex-spouses, identity thieves, nosy neighbors and all other manner of troublemakers. In order to be completely comfortable in answering, you either:

1 – Have to have a past as clean as a whistle.

-OR-

2 – Be dumb as a post.

Paging Mister Suldog! Paging Mister Suldog! Please pick up line two!

Here is a list of all my past jobs, somewhat in chronological order.

(You may think that one or two of the “professions” listed below couldn’t rightly be considered jobs. If the qualifiers are making a profit and devoting many hours of work, then you can believe me when I tell you that they ALL qualify as jobs.)

Paperboy

Blackjack Dealer

Carnival Barker

Shoe Salesman/Stock Clerk

Dishwasher

Musician

Drug Dealer

Cab Driver

Gambler

Courier

Bowler

School Bus Driver

Street Cleaner

Mail Room Clerk

Warehouse Worker

Security Guard

Order Packer

Ice Cream Truck Driver

Proofreader

Fruit & Produce Delivery Driver

Order Picker

Purchasing Clerk

Customer Service Agent

Catalogue Writer

Voice-Overs & Commercial Production

That’s 25 jobs. Yikes!

That’s a whole lot of work to get to the middling position in life I now hold. If I had stuck to any ONE of them – except maybe paperboy – I’d probably be better off financially than I am. Oh, well. All of those experiences add up to make me what I am today – a complete and utter failure.

No, that’s not true. I’m fairly successful, I guess. I’m not rich, but I’m certainly not starving. I make enough scratch to keep me comfortably in peanut butter and crackers, and I occasionally have enough put aside to splurge on chocolate milk. I also have a job that involves very little heavy lifting, so that’s a plus.

(In addition, I have a lovely wife, caring relatives, good friends, nice co-workers, blah blah blah. We’re talking jobs here, so who cares about any of THAT twaddle?)

Now that you have the list of my past jobs, you pretty much have a roadmap of where this blog is headed for the next month or two. I’m going to bore the hell out of you by writing up some stories concerning my experiences in the workplace. We’ll start tomorrow with “paperboy” and work our way up my very rickety corporate ladder. See you then.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is fascinating -- carnival barker! I've had very few jobs really. Mostly as a journalist. Boring. Except for when I worked at People magazine...

fuzzbert_1999@yahoo.com said...

Geez, you've been busy...take a long break!

Stu said...

I missed this question when first posed, so I'll answer now:

I was, among other paid occupations (and these are in no particular order) -

Burger King closer (put away the salad bar, hot-hose the garbage pails, carry frozen beef around, etc.)

Typographer's Assistant

Journalist

Cashier

Marketing rep for the first Mac-based all-in-one web/mail/usenet/ftp/etc client.

Web-site designer

Computer technician

Shirt sleeve presser

Truck unloader for a place that sold store fixtures (like metal clothing racks)

Copywriter for Mattel

Tech support for Phillip Morris

Network engineer/designer for The Office Of The President Of The United States (no kidding)

Tech support engineer for Linotype Hell

Owner of a guitar shop

Personal assistant to a director of operations at Nasa's Code R (which was the technology center)

Tech Support/Network Engineer for Nasa's Code Z (at the time, it was the Office of Exploration)

Toy store sales clerk

Tour guide

Short-order cook

Unknown said...

That's quite a diverse list there Suldog. Seems to me we've heard about a couple of these jobs before, based on those I can't wait to read about the others.

Suldog said...

Rhea - I expect everybody could tell wonderfully entertaining stories about their workplaces, no matter how boring they might imagine their work to be. And I would love to hear some PEOPLE stories.

Mushy - My whole life has been a quest for a long break.

Stu - Wow. That's quite a list there. There are certainly at least a couple of those I'd love to hear about. Linotype Hell? Is that an opinion or an actual company name? And a shirt-sleeve presser? In a dry cleaners? For some reason, I find that totally fascinating.

Barbara - Thank you for the kind words. Yes, I'll be recapitulating a bit as we move along, but I hope I can add stuff that will make those days worth re-reading.

Anonymous said...

Suldog
Don't forget your dream job...Tour Bus Driver For Deep Purple
Goody

Anonymous said...

I also missed this question first time around. My list isn't quite so long. You are right, I am real twitchy about sharing stuff on teh internets. :)

I actually have what I think is a relatively short list.

some of the ones I'll share are:

-babysitting
-private math tutor
-paper route
-sales clerk at Sears in the bath department
-Sales clerk at various card and craft stores
-teaching assistant in engineering in grad school


I am looking forward to your stories.
:)

CapCity said...

i have to come back & read this in depth, Suldog. I'm sleepy now - but wanted to come by & say Hey! U r a TREAT! I had to laugh at yr comment to me over at Anali's. Is cook/chef one of the jobs you'll be 'discussing'? looking forward to your stories!