A Lifetime of Work
It’s Labor Day weekend in the United States, the holiday that traditionally marks the end of summer and the beginning of the new school year. Officially, it’s intended as “a day off for the working citizens”.
Because it’s Labor Day, I’ve been recalling all of the jobs I’ve had in my life. When I was young, I wanted to be a business executive or an astronaut or a writer. I’ve actually managed to become the latter, but it hasn’t been a very direct path.
My first paid work came in junior high. During the summer, my friends and I would pick beans and cucumbers and strawberries at nearby farms. This was piece work, though, and I didn’t make a lot of money. I spent most of it at the video arcade. My first job where I drew a paycheck was planting cauliflower.
High school
During the summer of 1984 (between my freshman and sophomore year of high school), my friend Torey and I worked for a local farmer. We earned $3.35/hour (minimum wage!) walking behind a big tractor, planting cauliflower. The work was hard, but it was fun. I spent the money on clothes and cassette tapes. (I remember buying Tears for Fears and U2.) My father encouraged me to save, but I didn’t listen.
Also during high school, I worked other typical teenage jobs:
- I flipped hamburgers at Burger King (tedious)
- I sheared Christmas trees (hard work, but paid well)
- I flipped hamburgers at McDonald’s (loved it because my managers and co-workers were smart, industrious, and funny as hell)
- I spent a summer as a camp counselor
Most notably, however, I worked in the family box factory. On 31 July 1985, his fortieth birthday, my father quit his job to start his own business. In a dilapidated old building on our property, he built his own machinery and the family began producing custom boxes. I hated it. I wanted to be out with my friends, but dad insisted I spend my evenings making boxes. To show my disdain, I would play angst-ridden teenage music (The Cure, New Order, etc.) at full volume and sulk while I worked. I swore that after high school, I would never work for dad again.
College
During college, I held a variety of work-study jobs:
- Creating posters to hang around campus.
- Hanging posters around campus.
- Delivering A/V equipment.
- Answering telephones.
- Working at the information desk.
- Editing the literary magazine.
These didn’t pay well, though. For real money, I had to find work off campus.
For a couple of years, I worked a hotel 45 minutes away. I’d drive up on Saturdays and Sundays to bus tables (and, later, to wait tables) in the coffee shop. I kept this same job for a couple summers. It was my first introduction to the Real World, really. Before, I’d been working with other kids my own age. At the Holiday Inn, I was working with 50-year-old waitresses and grumpy cooks who couldn’t find work anywhere else. Still, I had a lot of fun and earned a lot of money. (Which I promptly spent on computers and those new-fangled compact discs.)
During my junior and senior years of college, I took a job as a resident assistant to pay for room and board.
Post-collegiate
During the summer after college, I was aimless. I found work at a Japanese school managing the audio-visual equipment. I was paid in room and board.
For spending money, I waited tables at the new Red Robin in town. The interview for that job was memorable. The manager told me, “Remember: the best way to increase your tips is to sell more food. Ask your customers if they would like a drink from the bar. Encourage them to order appetizers or side orders. Offer them dessert.” This had never occurred to me before.
Soon after this, I took a job selling insurance door-to-door around rural Oregon. This was truly the worst job I ever had. I hated it. People would invite me into their homes, and we would have a pleasant chat, but I could not get anyone to buy anything. I maybe sold ten policies in ten weeks. At $40 a policy, I was going broke quickly!
I quit the job with no prospect of another. I had several thousand dollars in credit card debt, I owed on a new Geo Storm, and I was paying rent on two apartments. It was a nightmare. I took temporary work to staunch the bleeding, but ultimately I did something I’d sworn never to do: I returned to work for my father.
The box factory
In January 1992, dad hired me to be his box salesman. This was better than selling insurance, but I still didn’t like it. I stayed at it though, because he was paying me the amazing sum of $20,000 a year. With that money, I could pay off my debt in no time! Only I didn’t pay off my debt. I bought comic books. I bought a new computer. Kris and I bought a house. I got hooked on the income and allowed myself to succumb to lifestyle inflation. When I got a raise, I spent it.
During my 16 years selling boxes, I did a variety of things on the side:
- I spent a year as a part-time computer programmer (I always thought I’d love this, but I hated it)
- I started my own computer consulting firm
- I began blogging
That last item is most important, of course. Eventually, my websites were generating enough revenue that I could quit my day job to write full time, something I’d always dreamed of doing. I always imagined I’d write science fiction novels, not articles about personal finance, but it turns out I simply love to write. I’m fortunate to be doing something I love.
Working for myself
In the four years since I first shared this article, I’ve experienced some big life changes. For example, I sold Get Rich Slowly and realized a large windfall. In theory, I could stop working for a period of time. In theory.
In reality, I’m driven to keep working, even if it’s not work in a traditional sense. Yes, I continue to work behind the scenes here (doing interviews, attending conferences, editing articles), but I’m also exploring other types of tasks. I’m learning Spanish. I’m meeting other bloggers, both big and small. I’m reading. I’m writing. There’s no doubt that this stuff is work, but it doesn’t actually produce any income. Who knows where it will lead?
Moving forward, I have plans to start another blog. Or two. Maybe even another blog about money. I feel called to write. Something moves me to do so, and for some reason people find they can relate to my voice. I can’t explain it, but it’s true. And so long as it remains true, I think I’m meant to keep writing, to continue sharing what I learn with people like you.
That’s enough reminiscing for one day. How about you? How many jobs have you worked in your life? Which was your favorite and why? What do you hope to be doing ten years from now?
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There are 145 comments to "A Lifetime of Work".
Oh boy! I’ve had so many jobs it’s ridiculous. In brief, since I was 12 I’ve babysat, worked at the local library as a page (re-shelving books as they came in) for $4.00/hour (minimum wage), worked lots of retail, worked at a daycare, worked at a Pizza Hut as a cook (we affectionately called it Pizza Rut), have done direct care for both mentally and physically handicapped adult males and on a Geriatric Psych floor in a hospital (both of which were stressful and depressing), cashiering at a health food store, secretarial work and am now back in retail selling over-priced textbooks to under-funded students. Honestly? Of all of those, cashiering in the health food store was my favorite. It was in Austin, TX, I worked with a lot of hippies, so was able to enjoy that aspect of my own personality, dyed my hair hot pink, learned a lot about self-care and good food and even got to meet and get the autograph of singer/songwriter Sara Hickman! She was buying diapers and other stuff and just was very nice and fun. I think that may have been the job where I was most able to be at ease and work with a very interesting variety of people. I, too, would like to write for a living. I’m searching for the spine to do so.
Your blog is inspiring at every turn – I started reading it for the financial insight as I started getting my finances on track and also enjoy all of the other insights you share. I giggled to myself the other day because I, someone who fearfully avoided financial matters, looks forward to the daily email I get from you. Thanks and keep it up!
I worked as a vet asst,waited tables (great money), bartended (better money), was an 800 operator (Grrr),cleaned toliets (YUK), and now work in the automotive industry. The latest has paid the most, been the hottest, coldest, dirtiest, and by far the best. Really the biggest downer is that I will lose it in a year or two from now. It is also an industry that has taught me the most and allowed me to further my education to a BS. Thanks for sharing!
Good stuff. Reminded me of some of my classics too. In particular, I detassled corn for two weeks. Wasn’t exactly for me. Riding the bus (unpaid) for nearly 3.5 hours a day to get back and forth for dirt wages wasn’t much motivation.
Right after high school I spent another two week stint working for the state. Another minimum wage job that culminated at a hot summer day scrapping dear guts from the road. Yummy.
Since you mentioned, do you plan to write a book in the near future? Would it be a personal finance or a sci-fi? It would be interesting to see you write a sci-fi.
Cheers,
A Dawn
http://www.adawnjournal.com
The best job of all time wasn’t a job so much as it was a part of my job. During high school I worked at the local Home Depot in the out door section where they sell mulch and trees. It was fun to get some fresh air, drive a fork lift, and pall around with the rest of my friends. But then one day it came.
Demolition day. As I’m sure everyone has been in a home improvement store at one point it time, you know of the miniature kitchen and bath setups in the store. These are actually owned not by the store them selves but the actual manufacturer. Once a reset is done you contact the manufacturer to pick them up. They never do. So we can’t sell them and the manufacturer doesn’t want them what do you do? Throw them away. Problem is that they are attached to a wall and don’t fit in the dumpster, that’s where I came in. I was handed a sledge hammer, a circular saw, and a crow bar. It was very fulfilling to destroy something, made you not care you were sweating profusely for maybe 8 bucks an hour.
The sad part was that I destroyed close to 100,000 dollars worth of merchandise, but I wasn’t as frugal as I am now.
@Aaron
De-tassled corn? Oh my word. That must have been awful. Farm work is like no other. Whenever I think of the jobs we used to do (and I didn’t list all the one-off things like hauling hay or cleaning out barns or planting seedlings in the greenhouse), I’m reminded of my favorite scene from Napoleon Dynamite.
My best job was picking wild mushrooms, called Chanterelles, and selling them to fine dining restaurants. They only grow in a hot and humid climate, so climbing the hills and carrying a heavy bucket wasn’t easy, but decisions were all up to me. It’s why I created my blog, to help launch my own business. I’m still a few years away, but I’m never giving up. It’s all about working happy.
Babysitting ($1 an hour, $0.75 if it was just one kid), delivering the afternoon paper, punching cards, proctoring exams, filing, being a teaching assistant, teaching, reading reports and doing miscellaneous paperwork for a grant program, web development, translation, teaching German. The translating and teaching have been the most interesting work, and the second boss I had at the grant program is the best boss I’ve ever had and that job wasn’t too bad. On the whole, though, I would say that the most rewarding experiences in my life have never involved getting paid.
In ten years I would like to be a sailing instructor and writer, so I’m still going to need a day job.
Babysitting, prep cook and weekend breakfast and lunch cook at the FBI Academy (yes, I can crack two eggs at a time, one in each hand, to fill a huge wheeled pot–it held dozens of eggs … one day a wheel got caught going into the walk-in and I came very close to losing all of my hard work), front desk clerk, waitress, retail sales person (lasted two weeks), receptionist and tour guide for a model home (I could quote all the specs easily), elementary school teacher (I still miss the kids, but not anything else), technical writer/editor, and quality assurance specialist. I enjoy the QA role because I am anal (LOL). I’ve been doing this type of work for many years on various projects. I am very good at it, but I am ready for something else. I lead a celiac/gluten intolerance support group. I love helping others become gluten free and healthy. So I am starting a blog on the side to teach people how to eat gluten free easily and inexpensively.
Maybe this is looking back with false memories, but I never considered New Order to be all that angst-ridden.
That being said, the unintentional comedy of John Barnes rapping on “World In Motion” probably never made it Stateside. 🙁
The people with the worst job at school were those who manned fresh fish counters in supermarkets. I’ll never forget them complaining about the smell lingering on them all week, then just about leaving them before they went back to the counter the next weekend.
Eesh, memories!
I was allowed to start babysitting when I was 12. I think I charged $3/hr and $1 extra per kid. Something crazy. My mom gets more than $10 when she babysits. Quite a bit more, I’m sure, as a lot of parents just toss cash at her gratefully after a good night out.
When I was 14, I was a receptionist at a hair salon. Learned some useful tips about hairstyles (I always try to bring in a picture and talk to the stylist about my particulars — curl, thickness, face shape — to help figure out how they’ll work the style to suit me.)
At 15, I started writing monthly columns for the Anchorage Daily News — I entered a contest and was chosen as one of 4; they asked me to stay on after the 6 months were up. I kept writing for around another year.
When I was 16, I started working a movie theater, which may be one of those places where humanity is at its absolute worst. I worked full-time in the summer and, in the school year, one day a week plus weekends.
When I was 17, I did some temp work in addition (I thought I was rich, making $10 an hour) for two months. That summer, I worked both the movie theater and Red Robin (as an expediter, checking the orders/getting condiments/running the food to tables) full time.
The summer after my freshman year, I worked full-time at the movie theater and part-time at Red Robin again.
Then I got sick at 19. The next year, I started working at the school paper. In the next two years I did reporting, movie reviews, various editing positions. All while working against an increasingly-obvious energy limitation from the illness. (Score one for denial.)
When I was done with school, I had $32,000 in the bank thanks to the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend and saving all my babysitting/holiday/job money. I was supposed to pay off my student loans but instead used it as a downpayment on a house. Ran a rooming house for three years, while also doing random part-time jobs to make ends meet. I worked part-time for a small paper; I delivered the UW Daily paper in the mornings (on the days I wasn’t too exhausted to get out of bed); I worked part-time for UW in an administrative position. I fought off the now-really-obvious fact that I couldn’t keep up any kind of work long-term.
Then I crashed severely, slept almost constantly for a month (I was awake maybe 9 hours a day), then money problems meant I got back out and got a resident manager job.
After I still couldn’t make ends meet renting out my house, getting free rent as as a resident manager and temping one to two days a week, I moved to a bigger apartment complex. Where I crashed and burned again.
My mom moved to the state and I moved in with her, and sold my house because I couldn’t make my student loan payments. The profits paid the loans plus about $20,000. I paid off my mom a ton of money she had loaned me — around $13,000 total. Then lived on the rest for a few months, trying to figure out what to do. It became apparent that I wasn’t even able to leave the house regularly, let alone work regularly. So I swallowed my pride and applied for disability and spent the time (18 months) building up my health again.
For about a year, I worked a few hours a week from home for a start-up corporation, cataloging business world relationships (which taught me a lot about the corporate world). Then the boss increasingly demanded I work from their office, which made my health start spiraling. Then a reorganization of the company meant I was no longer needed — unless I wanted to enroll in computer programming classes (on my own dime).
Two years since, I’m finally really healthy and being mindful of my limits. And really looking forward to figuring out some form of gainful employment. I have some very-PT work from MSN on a short-term project. Meanwhile, I am signing up with the Dept of Vocational Rehabilitation. That will help me figure out what I can do reliably and over the long-term, and hopefully will find me something with insurance so I can get off Medicare.
Did I mention I just turned 30?
In 10 years, I would love to have found a job working from home (maybe I’ll become one of the few bloggers to make this vaguely profitable but I’m not holding my breath). As long as there’s insurance and okay money, I will be happy as a clam!
My best job so far was launching missile targets as a contractor for the Navy. I got to play with JATO bottles, Military flares, and the world’s biggest, most expensive model airplanes! Downside-very stressful. One small mistake could literally cost someone their life. Worst job- Janitor in a company that made sliding truck windows and greenhouse windows. Cleaning up broken glass for 6 hours a day.
Jobs for pay would take out all the stuff I did for my parents at home and at the family business. Other than that:
High School:
1. Occasionally babysat neighbor’s kid
2. Brief stint tutoring shorthand
College:
1. Clerk/cashier at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory
2. Occasionally babysat neighborhood kids
3. Light housecleaning and cooking in exchange for room and board
4. Brief stint driving a little girl to her appointments
Law School:
No jobs besides helping family and family business affairs
After Law School:
1. Many different firms over 10 years
2. My own image consulting business
3. My own law school coaching business
4. Now my own blogging business : )
Throughout college I worked as a waitress. I learned an incredible amount about people at this job, and it also helped me learn how to manage a crowd.
Now I teach a few classes. Another teacher once observed that I seem to know how to handle a class effectively. Upon reflection, I realized it was a skill I picked up in my waitressing days!
And thanks for sharing with us about Max the “Meatball” cat. Cats are wonderful creatures when we get to know them.
I’ve had fewer jobs than many, and way fewer McJobs – I guess I’ve been lucky. In high school, I had a brief job as a dishwasher in a coffee house, which was boring, and had the usual share of babysitting and lawn-mowing jobs. I also worked cutting and de-pitting apricots for drying for $0.25/tray one summer. (The trays were big: you had to cut about 100 cots to fill one.)
My most useful job in terms of life experience was a summer job loading and unloading my uncle’s truck as we went cross-country; I got to see warehouses and the inside of little ol’ ladies’ houses from Seattle to Orlando, FL. And I had a close shave after nearly dropping a 300 pound dresser with a marble top off the truck on top of me in a place called Stuttgart, AR. (A bit of fancy footwork saved both me and the dresser…)
That job convinced me I’d better go to college – after having a very indifferent high school career. I aced the first couple of years in junior college, took a FORTRAN class (it was 1980), got a summer job as a programmer at National Semiconductor, and made enough money that summer to pay for room & board. I ended up at UC Berkeley as a JC transfer, majored in math and CS, and got summer jobs at Lockheed, where I wrote a piece of software that they still use (and ask me about from time to time).
After graduating, I worked at Lockheed again for a couple of years, before going back to UC Berkeley as a staffer on a research project. The project went well, and launched me in my career specialty: database engines and internals, where I spent the next 20 years, mostly in startups or consulting.
Good topic and post, JD! It’s labour day in Canada too. My favourite job was bartending, which I did at nights & weekends from the age of about 16 through 24. I still dream about having my own pub, to the point that I’ve scouted locations and prepared a decent business plan. I’ve also waited tables, worked in a tennis pro-shop in connecticut, and worked for architects and contractors and construction consultants, as well as picked up some side money making signs, of all things. Ten years from now? God, who knows, but I hope I’m working less hours than I currently do.
The “half slotted container” on your box site is rather nifty looking, by the way, I don’t get enough products in boxes like that.
This is going to take some thinking on my part… however I remember my first job… I was 15 and I was a kitchen aide and receptionist for the convent that was next to my high school. Elderly nuns lived there and I helped serve their meals, wash dishes, and answer phones… I remember that my shifts were usually about 4 hours long, and no matter what we always got to sit down and eat the meal and were not required to clock out for this break… lol! I think that was probably the cushiest job I ever had… After that I decided that I wanted to work with boys because I want to an all girls high school and worked at a convent, so I realized that I really had NO way of meeting guys to potentially date… So I got a job as prep person at Friendly’s Restaurant… I made desserts. Every once in awhile I was allowed to make a grilled cheese, drop a basket of fries, DECORATE an ice cream cake (haha!) or wait tables… I thought these little breaks in the monotony of making ice cream sundaes was AWESOME! I also took great pride in making my ice cream sundaes look like artwork… to this day I say there is an art to the scoop. =0)
Anyways, after about two years of working at Friendly’s I got bored and frustrated with working there because my boss was prone to MAJOR temper tantrums, and his two sons spent a lot of time in the dishwashing room blairing David Bowie and smoking pot… I realized I got sick of the toxic environment and moved on up the ladder of food service jobs to being a server at Steak ‘n’ Shake… Steak ‘n’ Shake was a fairly new restaurant to the area I lived in, so it was kind of trendy… and I got to be a server… which meant for the first time I got tips… there is nothing like being 18 years old and counting your tips after a long day and realizing that you made 60 bucks in a 6 hour shift… NICE! That was more than I could have ever dreamed of at the convent… I actually loved working at Steak ‘n’ Shake… I had regular customers, there were boy co-workers to flirt with, and I made friends with the other servers on staff… some of whom went to my school. I worked there on and off until I was about 20 years old… during this time however I also went away to school… about three hours from my hometown… and I worked all the while I was there too… My first semester I got a job at a place called the Galley because this guy I had met online (who was going to be a sophomore at my University… woohoo) told me I should work there… What he failed to tell me was that the Galley was this greasy little snack bar in the basement of my residence hall that fried EVERYTHING and that I would basically be relegated to running the dishwasher in the backroom for the first year because I was a freshman… One day I got up and didn’t feel like going… so I didn’t go… and yeah, I can say now that this is the wrong thing to do… you should never no-call no-show… believe me, that’s about the least professional and least respectable thing you could do. Don’t let people get that idea of you. So I went for a few fancy free weeks of unemployment while going to school until I realized that I had no money to spend and that nice credit card that i had been signed up for wanted me to pay ’em… yeah… my first credit card… so now I was 19 and I had credit card debt, in school, spending like a wild woman with the nice windfall I got from my student loan refund check (my reasoning was the interest was low and it would be easy to pay back later… hahaha!) and I needed a job. Guess what was right across the street from my residence hall??? That’s right… McDonald’s… I got a job working at McDonald’s… this was an interesting experience… I got to see the powdered onions that they use for like EVERYTHING… and I got to make McFlurries… the highlight of my employment there… I also loved the culking gun looking things they used for the Big Mac sauce and mayonnaise… that was the best part of dressing sandwiches… It may have come to your attention by now that one of the things that excites me the most is how things are laid out visually… putting something together with a lot of detail… some employers have appreciated that about my work… others have said that I work too slowly… I think that some of my work environments have not been suited to the individual attention and attention to detail that I like to give things… so it is no wonder some of them have gotten frustrated with me for taking too long on projects. I only worked for McDonald’s for one semester, because I did not enjoy smelling like french fries all the time, wearing a ball cap, and working with Phil who liked to tell me “Yuk! Yuk! If you got time to lean you got time to clean.” Thanks for the sentiment Phil… did I ever tell you that you sort of remind me of Goofy from Mickey Mouse and friends??
That summer was an interesting one… I started out deciding with my friends that we wanted to work at Kings Island amusement park because we heard they paid really good and you got a free pass if you worked there… so we signed up… those lucky dogs got jobs in games… I ended up in *drumroll please* food service… Lovely old food service… I wound up being a cashier at a place called the Stunt Crew Grill in the Paramount Action Zone part of the park… My stunt was standing for 9 hours a day selling overpriced hotdogs, hamburgers, nachos, desserts, drinks, and beer to tourists… tourists who often got angry at me for asking to see their ID (we had to ask everyone) or that the teeny weeny beer they were buying cost $5.25… do you really need a beer that bad people? They got mad if I didn’t give them their change fast enough… they got mad a lot… We also listened to a KISS FM radio station where I got to here the NSYNC song “It’s gonna be me” like a million times… I also developed a crush on my supervisor… he was a little older and went to Ohio State… dreamy… I worked there for about a month when my friends decided to quit, and suddenly I realized that I was driving about an hour and half round trip every day to get there, and it just wasn’t possible to keep doing that in my broken down little beater 1985 Toyota Tercel… the whole car shook if I ever went faster than 60 mph… So then I got my next job that I stayed at for quite awhile… I was a server at Tumbleweed… Tumbleweed was a big step up for me I felt at the time… I was going to be a waitress in a nice casual dining restaurant, serving appetizers, steaks, alcoholic beverages and the like to people… the prices were higher… and the tips were better sometimes. I liked working there and I had a reputation for being a good worker there… so I kind of felt like a valued employee and that made me want to stay there… I actually had a really hard time quitting when the time came to move on. When I went back to school that semester I got a job working for Instructional Media Services on campus… I was so afraid they’d find out about my no call no show at the Galley that I told them about it in my interview and my boss said “everybody makes mistakes, so don’t worry about it.” I set up computers, video projectors, and other A/V equipment in the main lecture hall on campus… I worked there all year and loved it… that was a really easy job and I felt like I was finally away from food service… then I went home for the summer and worked at Tumbleweed again… This time I worked days and nights… I was working hard so that I could pay my cell phone bill and my credit card bill, and so I could go out with friends… I didn’t grasp the concept of saving back then… I had a boyfriend by this time, and all I could think of was how much I missed him… lol… oh how young and funny I was back then… I remember very clearly that fall of my junior year in college… my best friend and I moved into an apartment off campus… I felt so ADULT like! I had to pay for rent and utilties… we would grocery shop, clip coupons, clean the house, and it felt like we were playing house… lol… our boyfriends were even roommates, so we would double date with them… that September she and I both got jobs working at Dining Services on campus… she got a job at Founders food court… and I got job as a server at the Silver River Cafe… I felt pretty big time there because I’d been a waitress at Tumbleweed… haha! Well pretty soon my efforts were noticed and I got promoted to Student Supervisor… and then the university opened the new Student Union and I signed on as a transfer employee to the new union… I was going to work in the office as a Student Personnel Coordinator… however, I think I was too outgoing for that position because I never quite got the hang of working with the spreadsheets and databases… and they suggested that I could be an office assistant if I wanted too… and I said “Well I was going to be a student supervisor” at my old job and they said “Do you want to do that here?” And I said “Heck yes!” So I got to be a student supervisor… I spent the summer on campus that year, and went out pretty much every night… and spent all of my money… I had broken up with my boyfriend and was mending my broken heart by going out every night and partying… well it didn’t really work… but it was fun anyways… I worked really hard at my job and at school that summer and I was asked to go into a training program to be a student manager. I was thrilled! That had to mean I was doing well… During that time I got to work at university concessions, at the on campus pub, the on campus pizza parlor, all the food court areas, and a campus cafe… I really felt like I knew my stuff and I took pride in doing a good job as a supervisor. This is so cute to me now… I worked there for about 4 years combined… I took my skills from there and my final summer in college I worked as a day care worker and as a bartender at a golf course. I liked the bartender job better… you know why? I got to serve something, interact with customers, and I got to do something in the “entertainmentish” area… I got to work some wedding receptions and I loved doing that.
My degree was in Child and Family Community Services/Human Development and Family Studies… I had the noble idea that I wanted to “help” people although I think in doing that that I neglected my natural skill for customer service, selling a product, and attention to detail.
After college I have had far fewer jobs… and stuck with them longer… it’s been about 3 years since graduation… and in that time I had a short stint at a mental healthy agency as a housing case manager… this was not a good job for me… I couldn’t really help the people because most of them had much bigger underlying issues than homelessness… most of them were chronically mentally ill, had substance abuse problems, criminal records, and little or no education or work history… I was much too green and naive for such a field… although I didn’t think so at the time. I was depressed because my strong work ethic and idea of solving everyone’s problems just was not working out… people really do have to help themselves first folks… no good can be done by those of us who want to help until a person has made the commitment to change.
My next job was short term to help me find a job after I quit at the mental health agency… I was a store clerk at Cincinnati Natural Foods… again I had the opportunity to interact with customers and help them select products, sell them a product, and I was actually helping people… even if it was on a short term basis… plus I was interested in natural foods and healthy living. If the pay was better I would have thought about sticking around for a longer time… but I still wanted to pursue something in my field… and that is when I got a job at a MR/DD services organization… I worked in transition services for youth and adults with physical and developmental disabilities. I loved this job for awhile… I worked for a non-profit and it was very laid back… so laid back in fact that I really was not given any training… and that was difficult… I had to orient myself to how to spend my days, what would be a productive use of my time, and to how to teach classes within the first month of employment. I learned however that I LOVE to teach… I absolutely love to teach people new concepts… specifically about things like personal finance, careers, job searches, etc… I could see lightbulb moments in my students lives and it was just so wonderful. However, I never got the adequate training and support that I needed, and the organization that I worked for had such a high level of turnover that I had several different supervisors in the two years that I worked there… that got to be very hard to deal with because I had all the responsibilities in the department when there was no department head, but not authority over the department at all… I interviewed for the department head position and was turned down because an individual with a masters degree (who incidentally quit at exactly the same time I did) was offered the position. I left that organization for the opportunity to work with a nationwide non-profit… a scouting organization just last May… I am happy in the job, but at 27 I still feel like I am trying to find my niche in careers… I don’t quite think I’ve found it… but writing this blog here today has helped me to notice some patterns from the past. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to write about this.
I really love getrichslowly.org btw!
In high school:
Made burgers at Burger King
Dough maker and Baker at my dad’s bagel shop
In college:
College Admissions office tour guide
Resident assistant in dorm
Out of college:
Nursing assistant in a nursing home
EMT for an ambulance service
Back in college:
Writing tutor in the student resource center
After college:
Court officer in criminal and family courts
Child support case worker for the state
Paralegal for state child support office
Stock broker at a wirehouse firm
Financial planner in private practice
My favorite is my current work as a financial planner. I don’t sell products or manage accounts. I work directly for clients and get paid only for my time to deliver advice. I’m self employed and love my work. I would like to write more and get paid for it.
I hope that in ten years, 1/3 of my working time is spent advising clients about financial planning, 1/3 writing about financial planning, and 1/3 lecturing about financial planning to individuals and other financial planners.
Hope I don’t miss anything, I have delivered newspapers, worked in my mother’s book store, worked in recreation and security at a campground, on an apple orchard picking and delivering, at Toys “r” Us, I was in the Coast Guard, worked in a boat yard, on a concession stand on the ferry’s to Martha’s Vineyard, as an EMT and now am working as paramedic for a small town and part time for a large company. I am also an on call firefighter and was a part time police officer.
I am planning on going back to school for nursing in the next few years. The list will just keep getting longer.
Thanks for sharing a bit of your life with us!
I’ve had a few jobs:
High school – piano teacher, cashier at a craft store
College – cafeteria worker, resident adviser, serving wench at the Utah Shakespearean Festival, waitress
Post college – cashier at farm store, Classified ad salesperson and office manager for local newspaper, freelance writer
My favorite job is the one I have now — freelance writer. I realized in high school, when I was a piano teacher working for myself, that I wanted a job that I could do from home and set my own hours.
In 10 years, I hope to have written a book. And had it published and doing well 🙂
I saved most of my money from the jobs I had in high school and college, but looking back, I kind of wish I had just spent it. While it seemed like a lot of money at the time, I make more in a week at my current job than I made in 5 years of delivering newspapers.
Then again, I guess it’s good that I got into the habit of saving from an early age. I worry about my younger sister, because she seems to think that she is required to spend money as soon as she gets it. I hope she grows out of it when she has to support herself (she’s in college now and my parents pay for everything).
I have (chronologically from sophomore in high school) pumped gas (back when they used to do this), dug graves, worked as a laborer on a petroleum pipeline construction crew, roughnecked on several different oil rigs in Oklahoma and Texas during the late 1970 early 1980 oil boom, became a journeyman lineman for 15 years and now work as a system operator in an electrical transmission control room. Every one of these jobs has helped make me what I am, and I don’t regret a minute of them.
I have worked just 2 jobs in my lifetime and now I am slowly becoming an online entrepreneur as a full time job, with my blogs and other website flips
During my lifetime I have been a writer, stockbroker, photographer, librarian, banker, mom, counselor, poet, third-shift postal worker, painter, academic psychologist, sister, English teacher, and firefighter.
Not always at the same time. Not necessarily in that order.
Which did I like best? Probably the two that are a combination of several: creator (writing, poetry, photography, art), and teacher.
Why? One allows me to share what I already know. The other allows me to share what I do not yet know myself.
What do I hope to be doing? In good health, creating and teaching! 🙂
Started at 16 at the local record store, great perks, cheap Beatles albums! Moved into making pizzas, managing pizza parlors, flipping burgers, to bartending.
Then when I quit drinking and I moved into more retail, now in jewelry. Tried my hand at making jewelry, having my own gallery and when that didn’t really pay much I’m now back at retail in a new venue for me that I like.
Where am I going with this? Don’t know but I have had a great life and have met lots of interesting people. I wouldn’t change a thing.
I think I’m on the younger end of the average reader spectrum here. I started in high school with a job at a small video business run out of a guy’s home. I transferred people’s old home films to DVD (felt slightly voyeuristic at times) and occasionally manned a camera at events he filmed. After high school I got a full-time internship with a small business in another city doing graphics, web, and print media design and web application development. After a few months there I was asked to stay on with the company after my internship ended, which I did. This was my first introduction to living on my own and managing my budget and finances.
After a year with that company, and looking for a change, I decided to go to college. While at school I got a job with the publications department doing graphics/print design and some web programming. Because of my growing passion for photography, I also started working as one of the school photographers and a free-lance photographer for the school newspaper and yearbook. I also donated my graphic design and photography skills to campus clubs and organizations in order to gain more experience.
After my freshman year the company I previously worked for asked me to come back for the summer, which I did. I headed back to college in the fall, then took this past spring semester off to travel. My travels helped me build my photography portfolio, from which I have licensed a few images. This summer I found a job close to home (my parent’s home, that is) yet again doing graphics and print design for a printing company that was seeking to offer better print marketing solutions. I gained valuable experience as the small graphics department manager. I also learned a lot about printing and why printers commonly get peeved at graphic designers. 🙂 While there the owner launched another company geared towards web marketing solutions. I was able to receive four days of invaluable training and become certified to offer the search engine optimization and other web marketing packages through our partner company.
Now that I’m currently back at college I’m still doing lots of photography, working remotely for the printing and web marketing companies back at home, and putting in a few hours on a project for the college publications department. Needless to say, I’m a busy guy, but I still take time to read this excellent blog. Thanks J.D.!
In Order
HIGH SCHOOL
1. Local fast-food restaurant, taking orders at the drive through
2. Barista, local business
3. Hawaiian Shaved Ice maker in a booth in a grocery store parking lot
4. Babysitting
5. Service at a local restaurant
COLLEGE
1. Gap Sales associate-moved up to management
2. Waitress
3. Nanny
4. Bath and Body Works (horrible)
5. Barista
(many at the same time)
POST COLLEGE
1. Waitress
2. Spa Appointment Taker
3. Spa Manager (different spa)
4. Spa Group Sales (changed spas again)
5. Spa Manager (again, different spa)
6. I worked at the Gap for extra money sometime in there, because I was single and trying to afford SF, CA Marina neighboorhood rent
7. Waitress/ Bartender for a summer(moved back home so I could head out to Europe for a month or so)
8. Nanny and ABA tutor for the best family on earth (still do this!)
9. Lululemon retail sales. Absolutely MISERABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
10. ABA tutor. I still do this. Working with children with autism is my true calling, and will continue my education in this direction. It took me 20+ years to figure out as both of my brothers have autism.
I like to figure things out the roundabout way!
I’m a young reader too–I’m 18 and just about to start college. In middle school I took video production classes and got offered the opportunity to work with one of my teachers to film birthdays and weddings. That paid very well, and I loved it. But it wasn’t reliable–just a few jobs here and there. I tried doing it by myself recently, but it’s harder without multiple workers who will edit/film something you missed/lend you their fancy equipment.
In high school, I figured if i wanted a job, it should be something I like. I started pet-sitting for the neighbors, and I’m still doing it. I’ve built up a network and done big jobs, like four months with a house and a cat while the owners were in Singapore. Since pet sitting mostly booms when people are on vacation, I do babysitting the rest of the year. Now that school is starting, I have one job lined up to be regular two days of the week, leaving time for my classes, homework, and leisure. And if I have extra time or need more cash, I can take jobs here and there from other clients. A great thing about babysitting is making myself available to the customers that I really like and being able to turn down the ones that don’t go so well.
I wanted to get a job at a bookstore, but it would be less lucrative and more time consuming than the jobs I have now, and the experience would probably be equal in value.
I’ve always thought about doing something with art but for now, this really works for me. I’m going to study art and figure out if it works as a financial support for me. I don’t want to make things I don’t like just so they sell, like at an ad agency or something. But at the same time, the fun jobs tend to pay less or be harder to get. So I figure for now, I’ll stay with the pet/baby/house-sitting. And I’m constantly saving so that I’ll be able to afford the most important things to me: education. traveling, and going out with my boyfriend. My job isn’t the ultimate dream yet, but the work I do now pays for the experiences (like going to art galleries or shows in LA on the weekends and networking with other local artists) that will get me where I want to be later. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that one of my clients whom I babysit for is a professor at a design college and works in the field!
My stepfather was a general housing contractor, so I started working for him at $1 / hour when I was 8-9. As I got older, the work got both harder and more interesting, hours got longer, pay got better. By junior high I was making more than minimum wage, and getting about 40 hours a month during the school year. When I was 15 I went to work for his framing contractor as well, and kept doing that off and on except for a semester during undergrad when I tried delivering office supplies for $5.5/hour (a pay cut from, I think, $8/hour framing new homes but I thought I could make the schedule work better with my classes) – turns out I hated the delivery job and went back to framing for a couple of years.
The final two years I spent in undergrad (aerospace engineering) I worked as CAD draftsman for an engineering firm.
Went to grad school and started teaching undergrad courses – Engineering Mechanics and programming classes for engineers. Got my Master’s in aerospace and went for a PhD out of state, which meant that I finally quit working for my stepdad’s business – I had at least two jobs from the time I was 15 until I turned 25. I had taken the slow method through a state college and graduated with no debt and a nice chunk of money in the bank.
At the out-of-state college I worked as a Graduate Research Assistant – I managed to get into a top research institution with a research assistantship and a relatively nice stipend. I also managed to save money during this time as well, but I didn’t get the PhD. Eventually I burned out and took a year off, living on my savings – I don’t regret that I took the time off, but I wish that I had made my ‘vacation’ about four months or so instead of a year.
After that, I moved into a nice position at an aerospace consulting firm, mostly doing work for NASA’s Constellation program, though we have customers other than NASA.
Since ‘building space ships’ is what I’ve wanted to do since I was about 12 years old, I feel pretty lucky to have ended up right where I was aiming to be.
Overall, I’ve been relatively happy at every job I’ve had except the office supply delivery job. Even the graduate research position was a nice job working with and for great folks – it was the academic jump from a Master’s at a relatively laid-back school to the PhD program at an elite school that I couldn’t handle.
I’ve given some consideration to turning one of my hobbies into an income-earner for variety, but to be honest, my job is flexible enough that I can work extra hours and get paid extra. That might not appeal to folks who don’t like their jobs, but it suits me just fine. I went in today (yes, on Labor Day) for 5 hours because I’ve been working on an interesting problem and I was itching to get back to it after spending Sat and Sun thinking about it…
Really interesting reading everyones experiences! My list is pretty long:
Student jobs –
babysitting, working in a fruit and veggie shop, working in a deli, sold christmas trees, shelved books in a public library (best job ever!), took a year off to be a nanny in the Caribbean, worked as an office temp, a child minder in the swimminpool creche, croupier and at Baskin Robins.
Professional jobs:
Part-time conservation officer
Various positions in a big state government department
Poorly paid contract work at a federal agency (after we moved interstate)
Finally a really good job at a Federal Agency, unfortunately with a very unstable supervisor
Current job doing spatial database administration, business analysis and tech support for a really great company.
Do I mention I just turned 30?
: )
I did telemarketing for about 1 and a half days. Probably the most soul destroying job in my entire life…
*shudder*
my job list is very small. my first job i work at josph’s italian resturant for about 3 days as a bus boy. from there i worked for my dad, as mechanic on and off through high school. during that time i also worked at kyrstal’s fast food restaurant. i also worked at burger king for a while. i got tired of food service, and went to ups. ups sucks major butt when your new. you do the hardest work for the lease pay. it only gets good when you have seniority. i never got seniority. from there i went to coach (the purse people) for a few months. my highest paying job to date. (11.25 h) after that went to sears warehouse for about a month. i left and became unemployed for about a year. then i started at walgreens, which is were im still at for a little over a year now(longest job i kept) where i work as a pharmacy technician. i like the job, but not enough money to live on. i plan on going to school to become a pharmacist. im only 20
I too worked at a day camp and also a theme park. They may not have paid much, but required alot of effort. I remember being tired every night.
Thanks for the fun article,
MiningOilGasGuru
http://www.stockresearchportalblog.com/
i had a couple formal jobs in high school, between 1 and 4 jobs at any given time in college, and now i’m contractually obligated to spend all my time on my education. that’s ok, i do that at more than full time.
my favorite was retail management- it taught me that i needed to stay the hell away from retail but managing people is something i can do. i had a blast with my employees. my second favorite is the work i do for my education currently. it gives me the skill set i need to have to get into my future. and it’s just cool.
I don’t think I’ve had as many jobs as most people around here – part of me thinks that’s just an attitude I was brought up with. I was always taught to stick it out, and never quit. Which isn’t the advice most young people get nowadays – it’s all ‘follow your dreams, don’t settled for second best!’. Most of my younger friends have gone through way more jobs than I have purely because of that…
Anyway, my first job was doing the mail in an accounting office at 15. Which was fine, pay seemed amazing at the time (of course now I know it was below minimum wage!) and I liked the people. But it was temporary, and I had to leave after a few months. My next job was in my local convenience store, working for my older brother who was a supervisor there. Hated it. After I was robbed at knifepoint for the second time(!) I quit, and my brother followed shortly after. Then, aged 18, I got a part-time job in a baker between classes at University. I *loved* this job, and still miss it today. The early mornings were tough, but the work was rewarding and I could really feel like I was learning a useful skill. Baking bread is an art, and I was being paid to practice it! Plus it’s the only job I know of where you smell better at the end of your shift than at the start 😉 Sadly I made a mistake and left this job when I was offered a role tutoring struggling students at the University. It paid twice as much and I felt it would be more useful on my resume. I liked it just fine, and it was very easy to not have to leave campus to do a shift. But I missed the bakery, and sometimes I still do.
Aged 21 I joined the navy. By accident. That’s another story though!
Aged 22 I did a few internships at law firms and was offered a graduate job for later down the line. I was also given a grant to finish law school, so I didn’t have to work until graduating at 23. I’m nearly 25 now and work in a large international law firm. Honestly, I don’t much care for it. In terms of ‘worst-to-best’ jobs, it sits somewhere in the middle – and I can’t help but think that the job I’ll be doing for the rest of my life ought to be right at the top of that list.
I’ve worked at a theme park (push the green button to make the ride go 🙂 ). I’ve also worked in a beach store, in a bank and baby sitting. Nothing too exciting.
Now I’m a professional spreadsheet geek and part-time problogger.
Let’s see…:
Paper route when I was 12 (lasted about a year, I decided I liked sleeping)
Various work around house paid by Dad (he paid me the then exhorbitant rate of $5.00 an hour, I was the envy of all my friends)
Stock room boy at Nordstrom during my junior year in high school (for less than the $5.00 an hour my dad would pay me for odd jobs). I did meet a girl that worked there that worked for a modeling agency, which led to…:
Being a small-time fashion model who did some small amount of work (it did pay, but most of the money I made never recouped the money I spent on pictures and promotion).
Ran a grill at a combination restaurant and ice cream parlor while I should have been focusing on school.
Started driving and delivering pizza’s when I was 18 for Dominos. This was the job that helped me start funding my “music career”, i.e .as a singer in various rock bands over a ten year period.
After two years of delivering pizza’s and running two cars into the ground, I cleaned houses for a few years along qwith being a musician.
Decided that perhaps a temp agency might be able to help me get better work, so I went with one that sent me to a small networking company in 1991. Decided any company that hired long haired freaks like me by the dozens had to be a place I’d love to work, so I did all in my power to tget hired on full time. I worked in the manufacturing groups, and ultimately got hired on as a lab admin/cable monkey.
Worked my way up from cable monkey to tester to quality assurance engineer over a ten year period. Left that company at the beginning of 2001.
Took a chance and a big pay raise by moving to a smaller company in 2001. Worked there for a year until I expereinced my first ever layoff.
Landed another job a few months later that also lasted about a year. However, both my manager and I determined that what they wanted to have me do and what I could actually deliver on didn’t quite match.
Took that opportunity to go back to college, and while I was a full time student with a wife and three kids, took a job as a video game tester. Fun job, lousy pay, but the pay was helping to slow down the burn rate on my savings, as that was the intention for while I was in school.
Finished school and went to work for my current company, first as a technical support specialist and then back into QA again.
So that accounts for my work life between age 12 and age 40 🙂
My list is way shorter than most.
1) lifeguard during summers in college
2) 1st job out of college. Been there 5 years. Plan to be there till I retire. Maybe in 10 years?
I disagree with the idea that kids need to work in HS and during college to learn responsibility. I think it’s much better to focus on your studies, assuming that you have other ways of paying for school.
Hey JD!
My job list was marked as spam! 🙁
Rachel211
When I was 15 i got an ‘under the table’ job at a hall serving dinner at weddings and bachlor parties. I hated this job as the men would lear at you and I usually spilt somehtign hot on myself (coffee, lasagna)
My next job was with Swiss Chalet at 16 as a hostess. I was good at this job and i enjoyed it but i butt heads with one server and when she got promoted i got fired.
the summer after that i worked at a local burger joint for about a month got paid terribly and left to enjoy the rest of my summer.
I then began working at a grocery store. I worked there for a year from the are of 17 until nearly 19. I began working for my mom in the summer when i was 16 two days a week to cover for the receptionist who had a three day work week. I continued to work there each summer and in the summer i turned 18 i was working at the grocery store, the airport with my mom and a golf course working 7 days a week often 14-16 hour days.
When I left the grocery store i kind of scrambled for a good job to do while attending university. I put in my resume everywhere and the first to respond was Harvey’s so i worked there for about a month when i got a call from Shoppers Drug Mart offering me a cashier position there.
So i did that for about a month and then got fired. I had left University for college and my mother offered me a full time position with her company and the airport so I did that for 6 months, at that point my mother left that company and I stayed on there for another month before joining her at a different company at the airport, this is where i am now.
So at 20, and in 5 years, I have had 9 different jobs.
And i am only now beginning to save money.
Worst job experiences:
Getting fired from the ice cream shop – my first non-babysitting job – for giving too much ice cream per scoop and mouthing off to the manager when he asked to me to weigh the scoop before putting it on the cone.
Worse/Funniest:
Answering the phone for a personal ad service. I learned a lot about the depths of human depravity which was miserable at the time, but makes for some hilarious stories now.
Best job:
My current situation as a librarian at a university.
My favorite job was the least paying–I drove a tractor around a golf course’s driving range collecting golf balls. It was fun work because I was outside, I could listen to a Walkman (remember those?), and I got to play golf for free. Being a target for people practicing their drives was an added bit of fun!
I can’t pin-point a job and say it was best or worst. There is good and bad in everything but I guess there are a few things that stand out.
I was a photographer at JC Penneys for about a half a year. It was fine until Christmas came and half the staff quit. We were so busy and most of the customers were just terrible no matter how hard we tried. I’m also not a big kid person and thought I would have problems dealing with them. I was suprised to find that the kids were the easier and the parents were the worst. On the flipside, I got very familiar with child development and found it fascinating how a week ot two could make a difference in how well a baby could sit up, smile and react to different things.
I spent a summer after college working for an aviation insurance company. They had just centralized their operations, switched to a new database AND raised their premiums across the board. Most of the customers were disgruntled because on top of paying more money, they lost the agent they had been working with, they didn’t have a local office and no one really knew what the hell they were doing. On the other hand I got to do some really cool things – I got a ride in a B-17 and an old Ford Tri-Motor, met a few aviation type celebs like Chuck Yeager and Paul Tibbets (pilot of the Enola Gay). I also got a ride with Gene Soucy in his open-cockpit bi-plane (basically a souped up Ag-Cat). Ride included a few barrel rolls which is way way cooler than any roller coaster I ever rode.
I worked as a revenue management analyst at a now defunct airline. Pay wasn’t very good, and the whole job was a HUGE bore but I could hop on a flight like I was hailing a cab. I flew me and my Mum first class out to San Francisico for my cousin’s wedding. I flew to Michigan to make a New Year’s Eve party some of my friends were throwing. I went to San Diego and Martha’s Vineyard for the heck of it. I saw a lot of America that year.
The job I now hold is the longest full-time job I’ve ever held – 5 years. I’m a trade show manager. The job is stressful, but can be energizing too. I work with some great people and again I get to travel a lot which allows me to rack up a lot of miles for free travel.
Always restless, I’m thinking about going back to school at the ripe old age of 42. I’m leaning towards something in law.
My first jobs (grade school through high school) were a mish-mash of babysitting (hated it!), petsitting/housesitting (loved it!), and a series of summer jobs at the county fairgrounds – watering the new landscaping and doing the cashier/ticket taker job at the main gate during the fair. I also had a job cleaning up every other Sunday morning after the “Swinging Singles” Saturday night dance in the main hall at the fairgrounds. It paid well, but it was enough to steer me away from janitorial jobs for ever after.
After high school, I moved right in to an office assistant job with an HVAC company that the owners ran out of their basement. Boring job, but my real regret is not walking out the day the boss decided to give me a really nasty tongue-lashing over the way I answered the phone. (Which was the way his wife had told me to answer it!) After that, I had a series of temp jobs – receptionist, stock clerk, etc. – until I started at the local community college, going after my AA degree and an ATA in Horticulture. During that time, I spent two years in retail, pulling down $5.85 an hour and hating every minute of it. But, it paid for school.
Then I transferred out of state to complete my 1st B.A. (and paid a year of out-of-state tuition…BIG mistake!) THE PLAN was to move back home afterwards and complete my 2nd B.A. …but half-way through my last semester, I met my husband. Bye-bye plan! My last few jobs – phone survey taker (worst job ever!!!), collection agency clerk, receptionist, marketing assistant, and investment coordinator – have all been taken with an eye toward getting my husband through school and then paying off some of the debts we acquired for ourselves during those lean student years.
BUT…I finally start back to school tomorrow. Night classes, since I’m still holding down the investment job from 8 to 5. I’m getting back into Horticulture (since my previous classes are all 15 years out of date), and hopefully by the spring hiring season, my current classes and my older classes will be enough for me to get my foot in the door at one of the local greenhouses or garden centers.
I’m sure the people here at the financial planning firm I work for will all think I’ve lost my mind…leaving their elite company for a lowly blue-collar job. But I know that working with plants will make me a lot happier than what I do now.
Most of my jobs have been unmemorable, but one stands out as the best and most fulfilling business project I ever had. I scavenged and bought, then repaired, restored, and resold, vintage arcade video games. There was nothing quite like buying a gutted out Galaga, Tron, or Street Fighter 2 for$50-$100 and making it look and work like new again, then selling it to a doctor or lawyer for his rumpus room for $3k.
Most of my jobs have revolved around education, from teaching high school girls how to spin flags to tutoring ESL students to my current teaching life. I’ve daydreamed about a million and one jobs, but always seem to be stuck in school!
My first job was when I was 14. I was a camp aid for a month. I got to shovel horse crap and wash infirmary laundry covered in vomit, while living in a tent and using an outhouse, for the grand total of $320 before taxes.
Hmm… Reading for the blind, secretary, receptionist, graduate teaching assistant, newsletter editor, freelance writer, magazine editor (x 2), mother, wife & society matron, university lecturer, senior editor. Not many: only 11.
The jobs that were hands-down the most fun were the two magazine editorial positions. Journalists drink a lot, laugh a lot, and party a lot. The best of them all is my current job, in which I earn a living wage for a fraction of the amount of work I did in any of the earlier incarnations.
Worst job was working as a secretary for a demented market research guy. What a creep! The final straw was an insulting note he left on my typewriter, which I found the following morning when I arrived (as usual) before he did. I dropped the keys in the middle of the floor, pulled the door shut behind me, and never looked back. Except for the complaint I filed with the labor department to get the pay the SOB owed me.
In ten years? Hope to be retired. And still living.
I’ve been…
a greengrocer (ok)
a substitute teacher (terrible!)
a book reviewer (for free actually)
a desktop publisher (deadly boring)
a book editor (great!)
This is great, thanks everyone.
I grew up on a farm, so lots of walking beans, castrating hogs, putting up fence, driving machinery, etc. Hard work, but good to be with family, outside, know the seasons.
Worst jobs: Not the blood/mud/animal shit of the farm! For extra spending money in high school I cleaned the grocery store’s milk & dairy & veggie cases on weekends. It was totally gross, wiping up spoiled milk and rotten vegetables. One college summer I was a Rent-a-place guy, and we had to set up and clean up port-a-johns. Ugh.
Best jobs: The Rent-a-place also had giant party tents that I learned to set up. They were always going for weddings or fun events, and people were happy to see them go up. Lots of beer offered to me that summer. Worked as a carpenter for several years, and the combination of hands-on work plus thinking of structure and form was wonderful. Also wonderful to occasionally play with sledgehammers and crowbars, like an earlier poster noted.
Current job: also the best paid, a federal planner. I get to travel a lot, to some amazing places. Not much physical activity involved, but at this pay rate I can join the rock-climbing gym and buy gear.
I once told my boss that I’d never stay at a job I didn’t enjoy. He told me I’d eat the words, but so far so good!
Interesting Posts!
Pre-high school:
1) Paper Routes X 2
High School:
1) Dishwasher at a nursing home (barf)
2) Grocery store X 2 (pretty good)
3) Cook at Pizza Hut (stunk, but ate well)
4) Warehouse stocker (not terrible)
5) Enlisted in the Navy (sweep, sweep)
Post-College:
1) Back to the Navy (now I told people to sweep)
2) Financial advisor (anxiety)
I would really like the financial adivising biz if it weren’t so hard to find clients. No wonder there is such a high attrition rate!
10 years… Microbrewery, baby!
Hi!
I noticed some common aspects with my ” past” story..comics terrific spending, insurance sales, never been satisfied with jobs…seems that US is not different from us in Italy!!
I hope you are making good money with your websites..to us your experiences and advices are very helpful!!
thanks again!
enrico
my first job was after high school.. i was an assistant at a law firm that dealt w/ car accident cases in san francisco.. i actually got paid pretty well considering it was my first job.. but it was only temporary
i also worked as a temp for a warehouse where they made wine bottles.. our job was to pack literally thousands of wine bottles into large boxes daily.. it was boring as hell.. but it helped me get rims for my car =D
i delivered pizzas as my 3rd job.. i always had money in my pocket from tips which i liked.. the guy paid me under the table for a while too
fourth job was for bank of america.. i was a proof operator (10 key).. i basically typed the amount of the check on a machine and ran it through.. i would do thousands of checks daily.. yes.. very boring!
fifth job is where i’m at now.. it will be 9 years in october.. i work for the phone company doing customer service / database / analyst stuff.. i really can’t see myself doing this forever.. but i can’t complain either.. it’s a steady income..
i’m happy where i’m at.. but i’m always keeping an eye out for other opportunities and/or streams of income
even though most of these jobs were pretty redundant.. all of them taught me discipline and self-control.. sort of like learning a martial art or something.. at least that’s the way i see it
I love what I do now, I had about a gazillion jobs before, but I love blogging.
Writing about money is my passion! and it only took me 33 yrs to accomplish it.
It has been so great to read everyone’s background. Glad you have so many young readers, too; I learned about the time value of money as a bank teller and have never regretted starting to save at a relatively young age. Hope all your college-ish aged readers take your advice and learn from your experiences. My jobs:
Store clerk
Cafe cook/cashier
Receptionist
Resident Assistant
Bank Teller
Bank Manager
Bookkeeper
Accountant
Volunteer Farmer
Accountant
Best, by far, was the three months I spent farming for room and board on various organic farms. I came home hoping to make it the new reality and am instead working as an accountant again. I don’t mind this work, but I am still working towards farming. With a little luck I’ll have my farm within the 10 year time frame.
Jobs I’ve had (that I remember):
-ride attendant (go-karts, bumper boats, etc)… had to work food services with them a few times
-maintenance technician at a amusement park
-state exam test tutor
-mainframe computer operator
-control system designer for a contractor
-engineer
-cashier at a Chinese fast food place $4.40/hr in 1992 – San Antonio, TX
-Cashier at a computer store Dallas, TX
-call center tech support for a Printer Giant Dallas, TX
-call center tech support internal at a PC Giant in Boulder, CO
-wedding catering server
-Engineer at a large satellite TV company – Denver, CO (best career growth)
-Program Manager at the Software Giant in Redmond, WA (Worst people I have ever worked with)
-Project Coordinator at the Chip Leader in Hillsboro, OR (Best people I have ever worked with)
-Currently an Engineer at an electronics company (great steady income)
-Future job: my own business working for myself (want to start this on the side)
Let’s see… I like many was a camp counselor (CIT) one summer. I don’t remember if I was paid or if my parents paid to have me out of their hair for the summer. I don’t remember seeing any money from it.
My first “real” job was as a Radio Shack sales guy pushing “TSPs” (Tandy Service Plans) with every purchase.
I worked for my mother in her office (university) and for my father in his office (as a helper to the tech guy, but I never really did much of anything there).
In college I worked in the music library, I worked with local high schools teaching music and marching, and I was a “consultant” for university departments and professors who wanted to build their own websites (in 1995-1998).
I’ve worked as a teacher in middle school and high school, worked for a non-profit arts organization, and eventually found myself in accounting and finance. Now I do mostly financial reporting and performance metrics.
Also, my blog brings in about twice my day-job salary.
nothing really all that exciting, i will have to admit. its the things i don’t get paid for that have always been more interesting.
but that changes this year (coincidentally, turned 30). am off to go to field research in a country i’ve always wanted to visit and will be paid a modest sum. am also looking to start a new venture that, while not bringing in big bucks, should at least pay for itself and then some. 🙂
What great posts from you, J.D., and everybody! Truly fascinating reading.
Here’s my list:
Jr. High/High School/1st two years of college:
1. Worked as a page at my local library, and I consider it the best part-time job I ever had. The head librarians, my co-workers, and the patrons were nice, interesting people, and I remember having a blast virtually every day I was there. Since I wanted to go to school to be a graphic designer, I was always called upon to make posters, signs and brochures for library events, which made working there even more fun.
College:
1. Worked for a summer as a laborer in a hat factory. By contrast, this was the worst part-time job I ever held. It was hot and dirty, with the bosses and supervisors very demeaning to the workers. I felt very sorry for the women who had to work there on a permanent basis – no one should have to put up with those kinds of attitudes on any job, no matter how humble. The only thing I gained from working there (besides never wanting to see the place again) was weight on my 98-lb. skinny frame from being constantly on the go running the machinery and delivering boxes of the partly assembled products elsewhere in the factory.
2. Tutored remedial English (my major) to freshmen who were failing the course, with mixed results. Only one of my students cared enough to bring her grades up from an F to a C; the other two thought that since they were in other fields of study (business and – incredibly – journalism), they didn’t really need to bother with freshman English. “You have to pass this course to graduate.” I told them. That pretty much fell on deaf ears and I never saw either of them again.
Post college/art school:
1. Worked as a cashier in a grocery store while I attended art school during the day. This was definitely the best paying part-time job I had thus far, and it was OK, for the most part. The best part was getting to work on the express lane – I was committed to getting people out of the store as fast and as efficiently as possible. Later on, I was always asked to train new cashiers. The worst part was the four-month stint working in the deli department – the sight of lunch meat would make me retch for years afterward.
Post art school graduation:
1. My first real art job out of school was nothing to write home about. It was in a family owned screen shop/lettering outfit that manufactured lettering on jackets and t-shirts for high school sports teams. My job was to illustrate and prepare the lettering – sometimes script, sometimes block – for the patternmakers and seamstresses. One of the better things about the job was that I was the only artist there, I got along very well with my boss, and I could set my own pace. The lousy thing about it was that it was a proverbial dead end job, which did nothing to increase my art skills. I discovered just how lousy that was when I was laid off and the place went out of business.
2. Talked my way into the art department of my local newspaper, knowing absolutely nothing about newspaper advertising and was hired part time. I’m still working at that same newspaper, having had three different jobs within it.
2a. Eventually was hired full time and worked as a designer in the advertising services department for about eight years. I enjoyed many aspects of it – got to exercise my creativity and design ads for the various merchants in the circulation area and the sales reps would bring them back with only minor modifications. One of the bad aspects was trying to cram reams of used car copy, photos of new cars with descriptions and other assorted paragraphs into one full-page ad. Most of my coworkers in my department were cool and fun to work with, but there were the occasional few who were memorable because they were very irritating personalities. Fortunately, our interactions with each other didn’t last long, and none of them were my bosses.
2b. Transferred to the pre-press department as a photo technician for about four years. This job was my first experience getting used to a swing shift, as the newspaper became a 24/7 operation. But I found many things to like about that job, in addition to gaining valuable experience in print production.
2c. Transferred once again to the editorial graphics department, and that’s where I work today. I really enjoy this job – its capacity for creativity and learning and its laid-back atmosphere. Recently, I was hired to teach part-time at the art school I attended, which will be a new experience for me. Hopefully, I’ll be able to share my love for graphic design in a classroom environment.
You were such a busy boy and lucky enough to have such opportunities.
Well, I have been working since I was 10. Not that I want to, but I need to. Being born in a very poor family, I was forced by life to earn a living instead of enjoying my childhood.
They were odd jobs such as selling street foods, washing taxicabs, getting clams at seaside at 5am to catch up with the morning market rush, fetching water for neighbors and the worst job I had – selling cigarettes in the bust streets of Manila at the age of 15.
Oh well, I cannot help but wonder where my earnings went, as they did not seem to help my family live normal.
Anyway, I became an engineer after all that hard work, and has worked in different electronic companies locally.
But now that I am in my early 40s, I found the real career that I wanted – to communicate with others through blogging.
Just sharing though.
Thanks!
I’ve worked at Nordstrom and Amazon. I’ve worked in film as a make up and FX artist and photographer.
Marketing and research are my thing and now I do online publishing.
Every now and then for friends I’ll do film gigs like AD’ing, writing, FX and photography and I actually say no a lot. I should broker these jobs out!
My plan is to never have another job. So far it’s been nine years!
@Enrico: ciao! I’m Italian too.
Yeah, the US are in a recession too. Anyway it seems that it’s a bit easier for the American youths than the Italian ones. When we get out of University we’re being told that we are “too skilled” and offered a temporary job a call centers… Or other kinds of shitty jobs which won’t last.
I don’t hear about people having good jobs at 25 here.
In elementary school I would pick and sell flowers and strawberries. When it snowed, my brother and I would shovel the local doctor’s sidewalk and steps for a buck.
At 11 years of age I was babysitting, making a princely 75 cents an hour. Two of the families I sat for a lot had kids who were only two years younger than I was!
The summer of my 13th year I started picking tomatoes inside an explosively hot greenhouse in high summer. Two-mile bike ride to get there, and I’d come home literally green from being brushed by plants on all sides. Seriously: When I washed my hair, green suds flowed over my hands. That earned me $1.35 an hour.
The same greenhouse operator hired me now and then to help pot chrysanthemum starts, too. Thousands and thousands of them.
Other jobs I’ve held: housecleaner, glass factory worker, clerk at a big-city newspaper, pet-sitter, secretary, freelance writer, apartment house manager, produce stand salesgirl, typesetter-proofreader, doughnut seller and newspaper reporter.
I’ve mystery-shopped, participated in medical research, typed term papers, sold my blood, and even baked cakes for a chicken farmer in exchange for free eggs.
Now I’m writing the Smart Spending blog for MSN Money, which is technically a part-time job. (Technically.) I also manage the apartment building in which I live, and take the occasional babysitting job from families whose kids I really like. I consider it timeshare grandchildren. I also make a lot more than 75 cents these days: $10 to $12 an hour.
Oh, I’m also in school full-time. My scholarship, from a private foundation, includes some money left over each quarter for books and living expenses. I guess that means I could add “student” to the list of Every Job I’ve Ever Had.
Since I expect to have to work a lot longer, I’m looking forward to what’s next on the list.
1) Paper-shover in a public administration
2) IT jockey
3) Translator
My cat* is much less ambitious than I am:
http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/funny-pictures-your-cat-will-sleep-for-food.jpg
*This is not really my cat
This is a great post… inspires me to make a similar post on my blog
In my 12 years of working life I have changed 3 companies and 3 countries. But, the nature of my job always has been the same, IT, first a coder, then designer and now a manager.
Have a nice week end all.
Thanks J.D. for this article. I appreciate you sharing the details of your work life, it’s interesting.
I did a lot of babysitting in my pre-teen years and my first offical job was as a swimming instructor (at age 17) for $6.71/hr. in 1971. Other jobs included camp counseling, pool maintenance, coaching a swim team, library page and working on an assembly line in a frozen food factory. At age 22, my new husband and I started the first of four businesses we would operate together during our thirty-year marriage.
After divorcing, I returned to school to get my BA. mainly because it was unfinished business and for my personal satisfaction. I thorougly enjoyed school.
Shortly after remarrying, my husband and I started two businesses that we still operate. I work part-time at the businesses and also write.
My real passion is writing and my goal is to disengage myself from the operation of our businesses to pursue writing full-time.
JD,
No disrespect to the other writers that you have brought on board, but the quality of your writing is so much higher. There’s a pleasantness and warmth to your style. I always enjoy reading the articles written by you.
I agree. There’s a simplicity to J.D.’s writing that I like, and I certainly don’t mean that noun in a pejorative way. On the contrary, I think that oftentimes big sentences and lots of extraneous words are a weakness instead of a strength when it comes to writing. I know not everyone will agree with me on this. I think if an idea or a story has power, a writer shouldn’t need too many words to express it.
I was oftentimes criticized in academia for being too concise. For a while the criticisms got to me, but I decide ultimately to take it as a compliment. I could get my point across quickly.
Also, I think J.D.’s posts have more gravitas, because they tell personal stories without over-sharing. This is a difficult balance to achieve.
I miss JD’s voice too, and my attachment to this blog has changed a lot. I was thinking that JD should be better at marketing his current writing to us, because I would seek it out, but now it sounds like writing isn’t currently happening? Maybe it’s a time of recharging which will hopefully have future payoff. Ah well, the nature of the world is change, right?
I started out with a paper route in 7th grade. Next I caddied (golf) at a local country club between 8th grade and high school, then changed to a different country club throughout the rest of high school, because that’s where my high school friends caddied. During one Christmas break, I worked for a classmate’s father’s moving company for a couple days. When I went to college, I found a job at another country club, picking up the practice range and looking after their golf carts. During one school year, I worked at a bar, cleaning in the mornings before it opened. I also worked at a Subway, delivering sandwiches. I worked at another Subway in a different city later.
My first real job was when I joined the US Air Force. I suppose one could consider that one job, but my duties were quite different at each location and as my rank increased over the years. I worked at least 16 different jobs/locations/units during my Air Force career (22 years).
When I retired from the Air Force, I took a job teaching people how to use software and did that for one year. This was probably my least favorite job. I did not enjoy teaching and I think I was underpaid based on my experience. I spent two and a half months unemployed after retiring from the Air Force. My retirement as an enlisted Senior NCO was not enough to support myself and my family, and I was getting further into debt.
In January of this year, I started a job with another company as a Defense contractor. In this job, I am in an advisory position, mostly helping software engineers understand what the customers are really asking for. I spent 22 years as the “customer”, so I am uniquely qualified to understand where they are coming from.
My best job was probably when I was in the Air Force and stationed in Hawaii. I spent three years there doing challenging and rewarding work. I worked swing and mid shifts (I am not much of a morning person). I played golf pretty much every day for about two years with one of my co-workers. We were able to play after work during mids, and before work during swings. He got out of the Air Force when I had about one year left in Hawaii and I lost my golfing buddy.
In ten years, I hope to be working the same job I am working today. I am tired of moving all over the world and I like it where I am now. The company I work for is awesome and I hope they are willing to keep me until I reach retirement age.
Ah, retail! While all my friends were working at the local burger place, I ended up at the mall. I had a knack for customer service and an eye for detail. I ended up doing that type of work for many years, ending up in the upper echelon of management. What helped the most? A mentor I worked for early in my career who made me feel as if I worked ‘with’ him and not ‘for’ him. Combined with all the other lessons I learned, it was enough to build a lucrative career that actually paid more than what I would earn with a college degree—and, no, I am not advocating skipping college. I’m just saying make good use of the lessons you find all around you.
I started with helping on my grandparents farm. Fast food. Receptionist. But my favorite job was newborn photography at local hospitals. 🙂
I got pregnant while working that job and had to quit due to complications and have stayed at home raising our growing family for the past 5 years.
Yikes – how many jobs? I’m not sure – somewhere between 50 and 100? Comes from a lot of temp work when I was younger and contract work later in life. The two most enjoyable were as a dishwasher on campus in college with my BFF’s and financial reporting (consolidations and writing quarterly + annual reports) with another group of BFF’s.
I can’t project what I’ll be doing 10 years out or even a year out. The gods laugh when I make plans. The only sure thing is that there will be change and that I’ll have to be agile and adapt.
I started out babysitting in high school, which I absolutely hated. Once I got to college, I worked at a daycare center (hated), and an art gallery (loved). Then during the summers in college I was a summer camp counselor, a “bedmaker,” and I worked in the university archives. After college I taught for a year, managed a coffee shop for four years, and I’m now a bookkeeper working on becoming a CPA (2 sections passed, 2 to go). Whew.
My favorite things to do so far have been my bedmaker job and the accounting stuff. As a bedmaker, three other girls and I were basically the hotel staff for all of the conferences that happen over the summer at my university. The work itself was physically challenging and could be considered drudgery by some, but we all got along so well that it was a wonderful summer. It really taught me the importance of working with good people.
I enjoy doing accounting because of the work itself. I have three part time bookkeeping gigs, and could support myself fairly well on that, but my aim is public accounting. What I’m really hoping for is to work in an office with good people– that way I get to do work I like with people I like.
Over the years I did a lot making my way through school.
Before Highschool graduation
I Detasseled corn and walked beans for 2 summers
I did it all at Little Ceasar’s Pizza
Stocked shelves at a retail store that was just opening in my town
Walmart Cashier
College career
Super saver (grocery) cashier
CD store at the mall
Lingerie department in a large department store. I think this became my dream job. Someday I hope to open a boutique.
manufacturing job two summers in college (kept repeating the mantra “This is why you go to college”)
Grad school
I finally interned as an architect. My field of study. I’ve since worked at 5 firms in 4 cities and really enjoy what I do.
Working such customer service related jobs taught me that people have no clue what is going on in anyone else’s life and we need to be kinder to one another.
Working manual labor feels good. Its hard work. Ultimately I prefer my office job.
Ah, detasseling corn, every Iowa girl’s favorite first job! Never did walk beans, or get to ride a machine like some did.
My part-time job throughout college was working at the performing arts/sports complex on campus, ushering, bartending, leading orientation tours, etc. Loved this job, super fun, with concerts, plays, sports events, and we all went out to the bar after work! Mostly, it saved me from having to work in food service.
After graduating college I spent many years in the housing field, in both a public agency and mortgage banking. It was definitely not a good long-term fit, though I enjoyed several of my jobs. I was so much a square peg/round hole with all that paperwork.
I’ve wandered around a lot since then, and am now looking forward to taking a certificate program in communications and public relations, starting in January. I like the topic focus, and am more interested in working with people than paper. I’m a little nervous being back in the classroom, but I love learning.
Ah! detassling corn – every Iowa kid’s first job! I had so many older siblings that did that, that I got “wise” and opted for the “youth conservation corp”! OMG – we were sweating our guts out by 5:00 am every morning, 1/2 hour for lunch – don’t remember any breaks other than for a drink of water or to run to the bathroom and didn’t quit until 4:30 pm. I have never been so exhausted and filthy dirty as I was doing that job – and you know what? I absolutely LOVED that job.
Detasseling Corn! Not so common for Iowa kids nowdays and Mommys and Daddys dont want Little One to have to work so hard. So now migrant workers pick up much of the slack. Jr High, High School jobs were- mowing lawns, shovel snow, pick up down ear corn, detasseling, pitch sh#t,(Cow/pig/horse) bale, walk beans, wash dishes at resturant, work at service station, wash semi-trucks, pour concrete, work at cannery, farm work in general. Walking beans has almost completely vanished because of modern chemical practices. Did all those jobs plus out for football and track in H.S. Feel sorry for kids now in rural towns now because many of the jobs we had in the past arent there anymore.
I started out babysitting for several families. 20 years ago in my little town I got paid a whopping $1 per hour. The family with 3 kids paid me $2 per hour.
At age 16 I began waiting tables at a little diner. I got $2.25/hr plus tips. Most people were idiots and stiffed the servers so we didn’t get much for tips. I worked there for about a year then I quit and got a job cashiering at the local grocery store, making $4.75 per hour (minimum wage). I worked there until I went to college.
At college, I found a workstudy job in the biological sciences department. I was a biology major, so this was great. I earned $6.75 to $8.25 per hour throughout my 4 years, getting a small increase each year. During the summer after freshman year, I went home and worked in the grocery store. The summer after sophomore year, I stayed in my college town and managed the front office of a social service agency. I was basically a secretary, doing mailings, sending and receiving faxes, backing up computer tapes and greeting clients. Summer after junior year I TA’d the lab portion of a high school biology class where they’d get college credit for course completion. It was hell. I quit after 3 weeks and spent the rest of the summer at my workstudy job and participating in paid psych experiments.
After college graduation, I got a job working for the university as a research technician in a mouse lab. I worked there for 15 months until I quit to go to graduate school.
In graduate school, I got a part time job working in a lab on toxic chemicals that cause cancer. It was hell because everyone refused to speak English, they would only speak in Hindi. Not so good for me. I quit after about 10 weeks. Then I got a fellowship that paid my tuition and gave me a stipend.
I also began a paid internship at the state health department. Upon earning my masters degree, I got a fulltime position at the state health department in my field of expertise.
I was promoted up two levels during my 8 years there but not into management, just more advanced work within my line of work.
3.5 years ago I began freelance and ghost writing to earn side income.
I quit my fulltime job 1 year ago to be a SAHM. I still do freelance writing. I don’t earn a lot, but it’s enough that I can fully fund my Roth IRA this year and pay for swimming lessons for my kids and yarn for me, even after taxes and my small amount of business expenses (printer, toner, paper, pens, portion of internet access).
I wonder why people pay pennies to babysitters in small towns…grr
I started babysitting for my neighbor kids’ when I was 12 yrs old. I got paid $60 per week to babysit 3 kids. Pennies..sucked.
I babysat other kids ever since for extra money.
I have worked for a non profit as an administrative assistant. It was fun, paid $10/hr. I worked during my senior yr of high school and the summer after my freshman year of college.
Worked as unpaid intern, worked at start up, unpaid.
Finally, landed a job with a company after grad school. It pays well.
Sometimes I dream of doing something else, but I don’t know what it is yet.
In my case, the job title remains the same, but, the responsibilities change over time.
I have to agree with ShackleMeNot: I love your voice and I love how you tell a complete story with beginning, middle and end in your posts. In fact, if you decide to try SF, I’d be interested in reading it because I think your voice is similar to JC Hines’.
I had nine jobs in five countries. At first, they were all related to IT because I started programming at 10 and I get computers and they get me. (Sad, I know.) Five years ago, I needed a change and switched to accounting because I like numbers (even sadder) and have been doing a mix of IT and accounting ever since. That combination’s been good to me and I have enough of a cushion now that I can semi-retire at 32, i.e. work at McDonald’s and still survive, or fully retire at 45.
All the while, I’ve been writing fiction. I never made enough to consider quitting the Clark Kent job, which is fine because I actually enjoy the Clark Kent job…until this year. But I’m not going to make the leap anytime soon. I plan to bank the Clark Kent salary and live off of writing royalties until the royalties meets my salary. It could take a few years, but I can wait.
Of course, other writers tell me that’s insane because only writing full-time will I hit six-figures since I write at a snail’s pace and haven’t turned in a new book in two years. (Crazily enough, you need to write more books to sell more books.) They may be right, but I have a family to support and can’t afford to take that big a risk.
I started babysitting when I was 12, and then in high school worked at a wedding dress store for 2 years, as a camp counselor for a summer, and as a bartender for a summer.
During university, I didn’t work while attending school, but in the summers, I worked as a banquet server at a resort, in a women’s clothing store, doing food prep at a specialty grocery store, and as a server in a cafe.
After graduating, I spent 2 years as a live-in caregiver for people with intellectual disabilities, then 8 months doing research on a violence prevention project at a women’s centre, and then 10 months at a shelter for women who are homeless. Then I went back to do my MA, and had a position as a teaching assistant. My TA position ended in the spring of my one year program, and so in the summer I worked in a computer lab helping youth who had dropped out of high school but were working towards their equivalency. After graduating from my MA program, I began the position I have now, working for an organization for people with intellectual disabilities doing advocacy and support work.
Someone else mentioned it above, but the people I’ve worked with have had such a huge impact on my enjoyment of any one particular job. I’ve also begun to really narrow in on what it is that I want out of my career. I like working in the not-for-profit world, particularly doing front-line work with people where I can see tangible results from the care and support I’m offering. I’m thinking about going back to school for social work in order to increase available opportunities in this area, but if I’m able to find a position that feels like a really good fit before that time comes, I’d stick with the job rather than school.
Thanks for your work as a caregiver/advocate. My youngest sister just graduated and was hired to do similar work. She describes it as challenging, but really satisfying. I wish society valued it more and paid better for it!
Not counting baby sitting, my first job when I was 15 was selling Arthur Murray Dance lessons over the phone. We called people and told them they had won a free lesson.
In two months I never got ONE person to come in for their free lesson. I think I quit seconds before I was fired.
Started my first fast food job at 17. In college did another fast food job then moved up to temp admin jobs. (In college I also briefly did a sales/telemarketing gig for a non-profit–yee gads it was horrible.) After college got re-hired directly by one of my temp assignments. That business folded and I went to the non-profit sector. Moved from that area to the govt and have been doing that since. Currently getting up the gumption to apply for a part time job with pizza.
As an immigrant who has very limited English, my first job was waiting tables at my aunt’s Chinese restaurant. I saved quite a bit of money (approx $6,000) for 14 years old. After she sold her restaurant, I ended up in retail clothing store as a cashier and worked there throughout high school. When I started college, I ended up again in restaurant business at a Japanese stake house as a waitress and soon became a bartender. I supported myself throughout college with the income from bartending job.
My first professional job right out of college was a staff accountant/book keeper position at a small IT company. I was getting paid only $30K. However, I thought I was making a lot compare to my prior income. I worked there for 3 years and moved to an insurance company as a senior staff accountant. I worked there for 2 years and found a job cost accountant position with a construction company. I just took another position (Treasury Analyst) within the same company. I can’t complain much about my career. I have been pretty bless with a job in this economy when some of my friends are struggling to find jobs.
Sam
My first job was picking strawberries. That meant crawling around on hands and knees picking berries and filling a little wheelbarrow with about a dozen pints in it. I was paid by the “flat” and I didn’t make a lot of money, because I probably ate more berries than got into my flat. But it was a fun job, and taught me responsibility, too.
Next job was scooping ice cream – loved that job, although sometimes I’d wake up in the morning after a late shift, and have sticky ice cream dregs up to my elbows.
In high school, I worked for a department store, and I absolutely loved that job. Loved the job, loved my boss, loved helping my boss with her paperwork (on my own time, from home, even!). I just loved working. That job made me want to be a buyer for a department store, but my parents didn’t want to pay for me to go to the Fashion Institute of Technology, so instead I went to college and studied finance and accounting.
Dropped out of college full-time after 2 years, and spent one very challenging year as a nanny. Then worked various administrative jobs while I went to school at night. Thought I’d figure out what to be when I grew up after I finished my degree. But what really happened is that I joined a mergers and acquisitions firm as an admin, went to school at night, and slowly moved up within the firm to representing clients, even before I finished that degree. And now here I am, 25 years later, still selling businesses for people, and having gotten both a BS and and MBA at night while doing so.
It’s funny how sometimes life has its own plan for you, that you could never imagine as you’re growing up.
I babysat through middle and high school, until I began a two year stint in retail prior to heading off to college. I remember spending every penny of my first paycheck from that job on a pair of tennis shoes.
I worked on campus during college, as a switchboard operator, then moved on to a substitute teaching position at a local daycare, and finally, upon graduation, I landed a job as a personal assistant to a private art collector. I spent the next year or so tending to the collection of paintings in various ways, and dropping of clothes at the dry cleaners or picking up meat at the deli (cow tongue, usually!).
I made the move to East Asia to teach English for a period of time, making pretty decent money for a 22 year old, and eventually came back to the States to start grad school. While back in school, I worked in the university’s donor relations office and worked for a fresh cut flower company. Having an unlimited supply of fresh-cut flowers sure did make writing papers a more pleasant experience!
Post graduation, I worked in non-profit positions throughout the U.S. and abroad. Glorious times and many, many hard lessons learned during that period. Just a couple of years back now, I realized that savings was something I needed to get serious about, and I made the move to the for-profit world. The wisdom of that move is something I still question; I miss my low-paying but fulfilling NGO world in a million ways, but I appreciate the newly-found financial security of my current position. Perhaps the next chapter of my career will involve a merging of these two parallel tracks, fulfilling work and financial security.
I too have had many, many jobs over the years starting with babysitting, farm-stand, and Cinema before I was even out of High School. I’ve been unemployed now for just over a year and this has been an interesting time. I’ve enjoyed the pause, and done a lot of reading and self-reflection along with all the job-search activities. I walk every day and volunteer regularly. I’m ready now to get back to work, and hopefully one of my recent interviews will come to fruition. Reminiscing, I recall the kind Manager at that Cinema job oh so long ago. He always said “thank you” as we said “good night” at the end of a shift. While I thought it was odd to be thanked for working (after all, I was getting paid), it’s a practice that I adopted later in my career when I became a Manager. I think it’s made me a better manager to be appreciative of those working with and for me.
My first job was as a file clerk at my dad’s brokerage firm. It was acquired and they had to re-do the entire file system. I was, I think, fifteen.
After that, it was waiting tables at Pizza Hut, slinging sundaes at Dairy Queen, and on-campus jobs. I lived at home till my senior year of college and had a full scholarship, so my expenses were very low.
After college, I moved to the big city for graduate school. Took a variety of temp jobs, from renting dorm-room refrigerators to general office work (got a commendation for showing up at a job on the day of an ice storm). Worked for a while as a search assistant at a rare-and-collectible bookstore, then moved to an outlet book store as an assistant manager and finally manager. From there (all this in grad school) jumped to a law office, where I could make more as a file clerk than I did managing the bookstore.
I’ve worked in legal support ever since, moving across the country and changing jobs several times (there’s a lot of mobility in my branch of the industry).
I’m fortunate to have fallen into a line of work that not only suits my talents, but is generally congenial and very well-paid.
First job, painting classrooms in my former high school. Talk about cushy – 8a to 1p, Dunkin’ Donuts runs at least once daily, boss didn’t care what we did, basically unlimited access to the paint supply store down the street… those were the days! Alongside that and after, I worked in the business department for the schools, doing filing, data entry, whatever they needed me to do. Didn’t work during college except summers (oops) until junior year, when I had a work-study in the law school. I pretty much sat around and did my homework while babysitting the office in the evenings. Occasionally I would have to make a photo collage for one of the administrators. A few months after graduating, someone in my temp organization saw that I had “legal experience” (heavy on the sarcasm!) from that stint babysitting the ofice, and I ended up in a corporate legal department helping prepare for an audit. They hired me full-time shortly after, and I’ve been here ever since (end 2008).
Whoa, forgot to include my awesome part-time work at the mall! I started just before the assignment at my current job because I didn’t think it would last, and have also been there ever since. I love it there – the customers can be difficult at times, but the management team is great, and I really feel valued. It’s pretty rewarding for me, since I can make a direct connection between my behavior and the store’s performance.
I honestly can’t remember how many jobs I’ve had but Ill try starting with the age I started working:
14-16: I worked for a day care after school and during the summers taking care of infants and toddlers.
16-17: Restaurant job as a hostess
17-18: Starbucks
18: Department of Health – admin assistant
19: Small law office – legal secretary
19-20: Large law firm – legal secretary. I hated it and they hated me. I was too young for that type of job, I think.
20-21: Fortune 500 (more like Fortune 50) tech company.
21-22: Small dot com companies as a contractors (ended during the crash).
22: Smaller tech company (laid off after 3 months)
22-24: National Laboratory
24-28: Several financial services firms sometimes as a contractor and as an employee.
29-30: Architecture firm
This was before I got sick and moved to Oregon from California when I was 30. Now at 33 I contact part-time for a web design company.
As you can see, I had very little direction. Believe it or not, that’s not all of the jobs I’ve had.
In terms of what I see myself doing in 10 years, I would be happy if I can still work part-time. I’ve always had plans and goals, but they were either unrealistic (and I fell flat on my face) or I didn’t know how to go about accomplishing them.
“I used to be a hot tar roofer… Yeah, I remember that day!” RIP Mitch Hedberg
In high school and college I was a lifeguard. Which I loved, taught me how to respond in emergencies, management and how to deal with tons of different people.
In college, I was an RA and worked in the on campus pub during the school year.
After college, I worked for a start up sustainable consulting firm, then moved on to Adaptu.
Like JD, I began my work experience under parental supervision in my dad’s oil & gas delivery business. I prepared price sheets, answered phone calls, and helped him “computerize” his customer base (this was in the mid 90’s). After this, I went to work in a medical office where I handled tasks like filing, simple coding, and insurance claims.
Then I moved on to the retail sector, working for a very popular lingerie store whose initials begin with VS. This was probably my least favorite job because of the evening hours, working on my feet, and dealings with the general public. I nearly lost my job when I had to take time off to attend my senior prom! In college, I worked a few shifts per week as a bartender/waitress to generate extra spending money, and after college I worked full time waiting tables while I looked for a “real” job.
After about 6 months, I was hired by a 3PL company and relocated to the city of my dreams! Even though I wasn’t making much money, I was happy to be on my own. I enrolled in an evening MBA program while working full time and then I got married. I stayed with the 3PL for seven years until I was recruited by a vendor to manage the same sales territory. I have been in that job for a year now and it is the best job I have ever had!
My first job was working for my father, loading boxes at the airport for his shipping business(talk about a crappy job, I would get up at 3:45AM during the summer to go into a oven-like open air warehouse, in Phx AZ, and sort/load boxes onto trucks). I did that until I graduated college, but because I graduated in the middle of a recession, I wandered aimlessly for a few years doing all sorts of random things. Telemarketing, temporary office work, setting up computer and A/V equipment for a university, data entry… Eventually I landed a tech support job that I hated more than anything else Ive ever done in my life. I despised my boss, I dealt with angry people all day, and my co-workers were less than reliable.
Thankfully, I landed a job with a start-up company doing software development, almost completely on blind luck(one of the people working there was the roommate of a friend of a friend from college, and there was just enough of a connection that he reccommended me).
After that, I’ve worked for 4 different companies, all in IT. I have also done tons of side work. Some freelance writing, both fiction and non-fiction, as well as some development work.
The article about the worst job JD ever had is still my favorite one, here. It might be the best blog post on the entire internet. Its the article that first hooked me on GRS. Its very relateable. For me, the worst job I ever had was what really motivated me to work hard and better myself. It was a turning point in my life, where I finally started to take control rather than just drift purposelessly.
My first few job years were your typical babysit/fast food stuff. When I was in college I only worked in the summers but I had to hustle to save my share of my college expenses!
I graduated college maybe a year after JD did, and got my first job as a teller in a bank. Then through the power of (accidental!) networking I got a totally different job working in the communications/marketing department of a rehab hospital. After a couple years I quit my job and moved to Oregon and got a bad job managing an office. Finally in 1997 I got a job in software, back when they were in ‘butts in chairs’ mode and hired anyone with a pulse.
Software was a good fit and I spent 4 years doing various things (training, QA, project management, business analyst). After being laid off two years in a row (good thing I had minimal expenses!), I went to library school and worked in libraries a while, and now I work for a library-related software company.
So the first probably 10 years of working was total floundering, but from 1997-present there is a kind of pleasing pattern though I admit a lot of it was accidental. My job is now evolving and I’m going to be a remote employee for my current employer, which is going to be a whole new kind of challenge, I think. I hope I like it! My fear is that I may get a little lonely and weird.
I like reading everyone’s lists, so here’s mine:
Helping at Dad’s law firm (6-15 yrs old)
Jasper’s Giant Hamburgers cashier/cook (15-16 yrs)
Golfland/Sunsplash cashier (17 yrs)
College Years:
Yogurt Delite Employee (17 yrs old)
Yogurt Delite Manager (18 yrs)
Various college jobs– tutoring, peer advising, TAing, disability resource work (18-21 yrs)
Post College
Returned to Dad’s law firm. How depressing. (21 yrs old)
Coffee Shop barista (22 yrs)
Coffee Shop manager (23 yrs)
Stupid drunken accident leaves me on disability for a year
Legal trouble
Here’s where employment turns around!
Temp worker at my old University (24 yrs old)
Adviser at my old University (24 yrs)
Sr Adviser at my University (25-30 yrs [present])
I thought that I was supposed to go into food service, because that was most of my work experience. I’ve come to realize that generally I do not like food service. I like OFFICE WORK! (Maybe all the time at my Dad’s law firm molded me?)
This is an interesting question. I feel like I’ve been in my job a lifetime, but that makes sense looking back. Until I graduated from college, I did lots of job hopping/working multiple jobs. After graduation, not so much:
Before college: Tons of babysitting, ice-cream parlor, K-mart cashier, copy girl (yes, I was paid to make photocopies), bank teller.
During college: Janitor, sandwich maker, cashier, resident adviser, resident hall desk clerk, on campus mail delivery, bank teller, receptionist.
After college: Technical writer (12 years and counting)
Ten years from now – I don’t know. I’d like to be doing something else. I would like to figure out a way to transition my career rather than completely start over, but haven’t come up with any solid plans yet. It’s a work in progress.
What’s interesting to me about this article is that through following a dream, JD found his passion – that being writing. I wonder how many other people find their passion by accident, so to speak. I know this was true for me as well…
I enjoyed rereading this article for a variety of reasons, but perhaps especially it made me want to track down my Tears for Fears CDs. What a great band!
Let’s see…I have worked for a newspaper, as a server, as a tutor, teacher, academic advisor, freelance writer, and standardized test writer. More, I’m sure, but that’s what I’ve got off the top of my head.
All the replys are a great look at growing up middle class in America.
Teaching pottery at a kid’s summer camp
Retail position at a plant nursery
Parimutuel teller (taking bets on horse races)
Landscaper at botanical gardens
Deficiencies manager at office furniture distributor
Landscape architect (and still am)
Lets see…
Age 14 – Dishwasher at a local Dennys-wannabe for the summer.
Age 15 – Sole employee for a local computer software “company” run by a guy who didn’t know what he was doing. I ended up doing pretty much all of the work that didn’t require someone over 18 to sign for things.
Age 16 – Telemarketer selling credit cards
Age 17 – Misc tasks on a fruit/vegetable farm. Some lab work.
College (ish):
2 years – Managed a college computer lab
2.5 years – Managed the network, servers and helpdesk for the Biochem department at my university.
After college:
2 years – Network Security for an Insurance Company
5 years – Working for a small game developer. Did online community management, copy-writing, game testing, software packaging, partner relations, and a bunch of other lesser things
Now – Digital distribution manager for a very large game retailer (1.5 years into the job).
LMAO!!!! Love these replies! Reminded me of several jobs I did that I had forgotten about – who got a “work permit” at the age of 14 so you could be gainfully employed after school – the job you rode your bike to and from (in the dark – with no lights on your bike)? It’s so good to read these ’cause we are now a boomerang family with a kid who gradutated from college, travelled abroad, studied abroad and got his pilot’s license – ALL at his parents’ expense. Oh am I ever going to show him these replies. I think he’ll be delivering newspapers and pizzas by tomorrow afternoon. Thanks everyone!!!!!!!
Junior high to high school: Babysitting (including one summer as a nanny) and scorekeeping for girls softball
College:
Summer after freshman year – Waitress
During soph year: staff at University Welcome center (I lovingly refer to this as the job where I got to make brides cry.)
Summer after soph year – Lab intern at Chemical company
Summer after junior year – Production unit intern at difference Chemical Company
Summer after senior year – receptionist at solicitor’s office in London
Since then – 10 years with same oil/chem company, roughly 6 different positions.
Wow, I have had quite a few jobs in my time. I wonder if I can remember them all.
First job age 13 – summer day-camp counselor
High School – babysitting, clerk at a convenience store
College – convenience store clerk, note taker for a deaf student, college dorm front desk receptionist, telephone survey interviewer, sleep-away summer camp counselor
Post-College – convenience store clerk, waitress, radio disc jockey/producer/promotions assistant/traffic manager, actress for touring children’s theatre company, actress for murder mystery dinner theatre, Christmas Elf at Macy’s Herald Square, receptionist for temp employment agency, telephone survey interviewer, accounting clerk/operations assistant for brand marketing/design firm, executive assistant to CEO of media licensing/trademark company
Grad School – waitress, pre-literacy tutor for pre-school, pretend patient for medical school, soft-ware tester for voice-recognition program, research assistant for simulated language lab, therapeutic support staff, summer camp counselor center for autism
Post-Grad School – Speech Language Pathologist (SLP)
So, I am finally down to one profession and am finally making decent money. I am glad that I did not pursue my current profession right out of college. I would have been much better off financially but my life would not have been nearly as colorful. I also believe that I am a more effective clinician due to all of my past experiences. In addition, I would not have so many great stories to tell!
Happy Labor Day!
From reading through the posts, I’ve noticed several things –
– JD doesn’t just have readers, he has a fan club (count me in!)
– GRS readers tend to have started working early. Most of these posts mention jobs in high school or earlier. I wonder if that’s common to all GRS readers.
Is working in high school still part of growing up? It seems that volunteering is considered more important now as a CV booster. But, I think kids are missing out if they don’t have a chance to work, for money, even if the family has money.
My partial list of jobs, just because –
– grade school – graded papers for my mom, a high school teacher (I was a smart kid…) – no pay, though! (unless you count room and board)
– babysat starting at 11
– yardwork at 13 – found that a traditionally boy’s job paid better than babysitting, a traditionally girl’s job. Learned THAT lesson early!
– first job with paycheck – fast food. Three months, and by the end I was the senior employee. Never again!
– typing papers for the richer college students (this, of course, was before PCs…)
– pushed people in wheelchairs
– ward clerk at a hospital – that’s when I decided I didn’t want to be a doctor.
– pin setter in a bowling alley. most places already had machines to do what I did.
– research lab – killed rats, mice and unborn chicks and harvested their cells. worthwhile research, but definitely not for me, either.
– peace corps! the toughest job i ever loved!
– and since then, international health work in a ton of countries. Also all jobs I love/d.
I, too, wonder what the norm is for American kids today. My parents divorced and we moved after my sophomore year, and I don’t remember any friends having official jobs before that, even in the summer.
After we moved I was friendless for the rest of high school (I don’t think I spoke to anyone my entire junior year…dang, adolescence was brutal). ETA: I should clarify that I meant that without friends junior and senior year, I had no window into how many kids in my school were working at that time. I got my job during the summer between junior and senior year and I seem to remember hearing that my friends back in my hometown were working summer jobs by then (although at least one of them didn’t start working until she was in college). I don’t remember anyone doing volunteer work either, but this was back in the day when just getting a bachelor’s degree in ‘whatever’ meant you had a good chance at a decent job, so the pressure on the kids was less.
I don’t have kids, and most of my local friends don’t either, and most of my peer group friends’ kids are still too young. I’d be interested in hearing from the parents on this board…
It’s fun to try to remember all of the jobs!
Age 11-wrapping fruitcakes for my mom’s boss
and typing labels
Age 12-16-babysitting
Age 13-16 corn de-tasseling in the summers
Age 16-18 waitressing at at mom and pop local restaurant
Age 18-21 summer work at a factory (night shift-yuck)
Age 18-21 worked at college office, university rec center (so much fun!)and hostessed at a local restaurant and a small job cleaning a man’s home
Age 22-first post college job at large credit reporting firm
Age 24-worked at a bank in mortgage credit center and worked part time cleaning offices
Age 26-worked as a loan officer at a mortgage company and worked part time at a dentist’s office
Age 28-worked as a customer service supervisor at a small mortgage company
Age 30-worked as a manager at a large corporation going from supervisor to mid level manager
Age 45-went back to school
Age 49-work as Special Education teacher (love it!)
I feel very blessed. Other than the night shift and the hostessing, all of the jobs (and most of the co-workers) were great and I learned a lot from each one.
That selling insurance job sounds like it was awful. Good thing you don’t have to do that anymore!
I started out charging 50 cents per hour for babysitting-no matter how many kids. Parents always gave me more, though. And this was in the suburbs!
I also was a waitress/food server for a cafeteria and counter (grill area). I was a substitute teacher (with good days and awful days), a computer order entry clerk for a steel distributor, a hospital patient accounts rep., a clerk for the Federal Govt. answering requests for veterans’ personnel and medical records, and finally a 5th grade, 2nd grade, and language arts teacher. I’m now retired.
My kids detasseled corn, too, in Northern MO and southern Iowa when they were in high school. What a tough job!
I was a babysitter as a kid. I did the retail thing (was horrible at it but was known for my comic relief so they were always happy to have me around) during summers when I was in college and when I taught. I worked for my dad. (He was a professional golfer and was running for a position in the Professional Golfer’s Association. I helped him with his campaign. He passed away right before the election so that is probably the job that I cherish the most. I learned so much about him.) I now do personnel for a University. What I enjoy most about my job is that I believe in our “product”.
What did your dad think when you quit working for him? You had been with the company for a long time. Just curious.
I have worked too many jobs to count (most of them crappy), but I would say 20 to 30. The bad jobs always made me anxious to go back to college so I could get a better job, which I did.
My 1st job was flight attendant when I was 18 and fresh out of high school.It lasted for 4 years when I decide to quit to have a family.
Worked for a diamond shop for about 5 years when I realized that I missed flying.
Started working for another airline 4 years ago after 4 kids and couldn’t be happier.:)
I have a track record of being hired by failing businesses for a month or 2 before they close down, and so I’ve worked for free a couple of times. I worked for a cookshop when studying for my A levels, that shut down because of poor management, and then earlier this year I worked at a pub that had poor management and a terrible location and that shut down too. Both times I got stiffed out of wages and couldn’t even get hold of my boss to get paid.
But my worst job by far had to be the waitress/service staff gig at Royal Ascot. You get told by the catering agency that you’re going to be waitressing in a private box and get a bunch of tips. In reality you’re standing up for 12 hours, getting constantly wet and cold from dishwater up to your elbows (had to wear a long sleeve shirt!), and getting shouted at by horrible chefs who are preparing disgusting frozen meals.
Worst smelling job? Data entry in a Pathology lab at the hospital. The general lab wasn’t too bad, but the chlamydia room smelt so bad. There’s a way to encourage safe sex, just bus teenagers in to smell that gross gross room.
Best job? Probably this summer’s. I’m working for a bar and restaurant guide so I’ve learnt the location of loads of amazing little hideaways and foodie paradises in London, plus the staff keep giving me FREE COOKBOOKS. It’s awesome!
As a little ad-hoc gig I transcribe interviews for a design journalist and that’s fascinating. I love jobs where you learn about a world that most people barely know of.
Jobs:
Babysitting,which I hated. As soon as I turned 16 I got a job at a combination ice cream/hamburger joint. The people there were a bad influence on me and I loved working with them.
Lunch waitress in a restaurant/bar. Better pay and helped me realize I did not want to end up in a dead end job like that.
Worked for my Dad on his farm. Hard but fun.
Room and Board and College paid for.
Parts runner for a small airfield/Piper maintenance base. I drove an old pickup with 3 speed on the column and no air conditioning picking up propellers and such. In my non driving time they had me cross referencing ADs that had piled up for the last 10 years.
(those are Administrative Directives or technical bulletins) I learned I was not going to be a pilot and that I liked doing detail work.
TA in a biology lab & chemistry tutor.
Rowing Coach. All in University. All unpaid
Research lab at University Medical Center. I liked this job and the people were great but the pay was terrible. I started taking computer classes at night and I ended up taking accounting classes also.
Accounting jobs. CPA firm. Business Journals.
Now with a small business for the last 25 years.
I am pretty sure in 10 years time I will be retired but who knows.
I’ve worn many hats. I came to this country with $20 in my pocket with the dream to earn a Master’s degree in Engineering. But, soon after receiving my degree, I felt passion for business.
With merely $28K in savings, I purchased my first hotel. And, in the last 12 years I’ve bought and sold over $12 million worth of commercial real estate.
I think you can achieve any realistic goal as long as you are passionate about it and work hard for it.
I’ve been a fruit picker, a babysitter, a kitchen hand, an accounts clerk, Santa Claus’ photographer, a careers adviser, a business analyst, a research assistant and … finally … an editor. I LOVE being an editor and hope it takes me through to the end of my working life.
JD’s post may be a rerun, but I’m reading it for the first time, and I think it’s great. I love reading the comments and reflecting on my own past work history.
As a kid, I worked:
age 11 – 15 babysitting in the evenings
age 12-14 fulltime summer day-job as a blueberry picker
age 15 fulltime (45 hrs/wk) summer babysitting gig
age 16 production art assistant at Nordstrom’s advertising department
age 16-18 waiting tables 4:00-midnight at a cafe
As a university student:
age 18 washing glassware in a university laboratory
age 19 shelving books in a science library
age 20 menial work in an exciting research lab
age 21-22 electron microscopist in university research lab
After that, I was in grad school and then became a teacher, so I’ve been teaching in one capacity or another ever since (25 years).
It’s amazing what a strong impression my early jobs made. Of all my early jobs, I learned the most about real life from the waitressing job. And, as others have emphasized, stellar colleagues can turn a dull job into a delightful work place.
I miss J.D. If we were close personal friends, I’d call him up and invite him over for BBQ. Alas, All I can do is wait for him to publish something new. I understand he’s busy doing other things, though. Hope to see you soon, J.D.
Like, Like, Like!!!!
Gas station clerk, weight room attendant (best job ever minus getting paid 5.15 an hour), bartender, accountant, professional poker player, day trader, author… who knows what the second half of life will bring!
I agree with the rest of you, I love JD’s writing and would like to be able to chat with him over a coffee!
It’s really interesting for me to see the career paths other people have taken as I am very lost on my own journey in life, maybe you guys have some general advice/ideas you could throw my way??
My run down is as follows
12-16: Delivering Papers
16-18: Mechanical Engineering Apprentice
18-19: Completed just over a year of a degree in multimedia computing
18-19: Many short term part time roles waiter, bar tender, data entry, cashier at service station and sales assistant for Bang & Olufsen. The customer service roles were always the worst as people feel as though they have the right to speak to you like dirt when you work behind the bar 🙁
19-22: Fell into a data analysis/managment information team leader
23-27: Continued further down the technical route and into IT as a database developer
27-30: Working as a freelance IT developer
I do not enjoy working in IT and haven’t done for some time. I do not like working in a office and the politics you have to wade through just to get your job done!
I do however enjoy having responsibilties, leading people and providing direction. I have a real passion for business in general but after many months of sole searching I have very little idea about what to start to look for in a job.
I have very recently became a father for the 1st time and it has changed my entire outlook on life.
Thanks all!
These are fun to read!
I agree with what Becky said above, that it seems like I’ve been doing the same job forever now, and that earlier jobs were much more instructive and vivid. On the other hand, I’m better at making steady incremental improvement now, and I tend to think of failures as opportunities to figure out what not to do, rather than self-flagellate and tell myself how much I suck.
The ages are approximated:
Age 20: McDonald’s lasted two weeks. Afterwards freelance personal tutor, lasted a couple of years.
Age 22: Blogger and intern in a bank. Blogging is something I still do.
Age 23: Intern in a Internet company, kept blogging secretly.
Age 26 until today: IT consultant.
My experience is that I need something creative and where I don’t get bored. Blogging and consultancy good, working in a bank, the internet company or flipping burguers almost killed me.
I’d like to try stuff like bartending or waiting tables, but I’ve got no time at all.
CHILDHOOD
Paid babysitting; and a lot of unpaid care of livestock, garden, siblings, house.
Lesson: I like animals and plants, often more than people.
HIGH SCHOOL
17-19: First job at privately owned video store. I was introverted and terrified of entering the working world, but I knew I had to take the plunge. I loved movies, so I just walked in on impulse and talked my way into it.
Good: I LOVED THAT JOB! Great boss and co-workers; really built my confidence.
Lesson: Pay attention to your rare impulses to take risks.
COLLEGE
20-21: Summer jobs: wildlife research on urban raptors.
Bad: Brutal long hours, often unpaid. Love/hate thing with boss.
Good: First introduction to wildlife field research, which I love to this day. Learned a ton.
22: Summer job: Unpaid (stipend only) research on raptors in N. California.
ALL GOOD: terrific boss, great coworkers, isolated barracks in a beautiful setting, autonomy.
Lesson: Being forced to live/work with strangers in the middle of nowhere can be good.
23: Attempted to replicate joy of first job with gig at Blockbuster Video. EPIC FAIL.
24: Summer job: Field research on a rare hawk, in the desert near Tombstone. The usual brutal field conditions and hours, but I was working with friends and it was AWESOME.
24: Attempted to replicate joy of first job with gig at privately owned video store. SUCCESS! Hung onto this job throughout grad school.
Lesson: Great boss, great coworkers, and autonomy often more important to happiness than actual work tasks. Also, corporations suck.
GRAD SCHOOL
25-27: Still working at video store. I also was paid halftime for thesis research on burrowing owls.
27: Did a month of unpaid research on hawks in the Luquillo rainforest in Puerto Rico.
Lesson: You CAN handle overloaded schedules if forced to, esp. if it means work opportunities in the Caribbean.
POST COLLEGE LIMBO
28 We moved for husband’s post doc. After a few months of screwing around, I finished thesis and defended/graduated. Depressed, isolated, and unable to seek permanent job. Did contract work writing research reports (mostly poor ones) for state agencies.
Lesson: At this stage, you aren’t good at time management absent a workplace structure.
On impulse, I took job as a ‘cookie’ baker at specialty bakery/caterer.
Good: The food.
Bad: Gained 15 pounds. Hated my fake, glad-handing bitch of a boss with a passion.
Lesson: Avoid the food industry. Also, avoid evil bosses or you will eventually lose your shit and quit in a majorly loud, profane, and public scene.
29: Husband still hunting for a permanent job. Very difficult time, emotionally and financially. Stupid adult life!
I worked at a nice mindless retail sales job at World Market.
Also worked my first ever admin assistant job for…wait for it…a personal financial planner! At nearly 30 with debt and no assets, I was suddenly employed to assist people with their personal finances. The light dawned and fire was lit under my ass.
Lesson: Corporations aren’t all quite as bad as Blockbuster. Fee based financial advisors are the way to go. You suck at telemarketing. YOU NEED TO GET YOUR FINANCIAL LIFE IN ORDER.
After 9 months or so of juggling these jobs, I was offered a professional career track job in the state we were in, but husband was simultaneously offered his dream job, which paid a lot more. The catch was it was in Texas. Not the nice part of Texas.
THE YEARS OF THE ASPHODEL FIELDS
Moved to Texas, and began ‘adult life,’ finally: house, car, furniture, etc. And debt, of course.
I had no desire to lock myself down in a 9-5 job while living in this city 5 hours from anywhere remotely pleasant or attractive, so I began a series of contract jobs: writing technical reports, running field crews, etc. One notable job was inventorying museum vouchers housed at National Parks in Texas and NM.
Good: great opportunity to spend some time in the parks…Big Bend was especially fantastic.
Bad: Job parameters were unclear, and I was suffering from depression associated with undiagnosed chronic illness, so I sucked at this job.
Lesson: If you are unclear about job parameters, you will get overwhelmed and suck at it.
32-35: Got a part-time job doing office support and editing for a professional wildlife journal. Didn’t pay that well, but I was a good writer, an ok editor, and I could learn on the job. A turning point.
Also, started unpaid annual field research on migrant and resident birds in the British Virgin Islands, which continues to this day. SCORE.
Lesson: The flexibility to do things like annual research in the Caribbean often beats a big paycheck.
35, the wildlife journal was discontinued, but I was head-hunted by a professional publisher to continue doing technical editing for other scientific journals.
36: On impulse, I took my first ever teaching position, and taught an undergrad class in natural resource management. Exhausting, but a great experience.
Lesson: Your instinct to impulsiveness is rare, and you should listen to it (see first ever job). Also, teaching well is hard and takes unbelievable amounts of time.
37-current (41) Still doing contract editing work. A few years ago, the wildlife journal I’d worked for went back into publication, so I got that job back, AND I have started to delve into the world of textbook editing.
My income has gone up, but is still low (~25K, typically). The tradeoff of low pay has meant the flexibility to take advantage of a metric ton of travel opportunities.
However, I have been feeling restless. I’m not sure whether it’s lack of new challenges and experiences in the work, or the being chained to the damn computer, or just plain old mid-life crisis due to other issues (like where we live, etc).
Lesson: All things in life involve trade-offs. Do you want to spend the rest of your working life chained to a computer? Perhaps you aren’t correctly weighting the options…
Hey Tracy,
This maybe some random craziness but I noticed you hate to be chained to a computer, so…
I work a lot in front of the computer, and I don’t mind the computer itself; what bugs me is to have to SIT all day– it makes me physically ill and it gives me weird aches and pains even though I have a pretty good office chair that I can sit on for 14 hours a day.
So I’m switching to a stand-up desk with the option to sit if/when tired. I know maybe this isn’t the holy grail of work improvements, but is the physical environment something you could maybe modify for some benefit? No guarantees this will make your work more enjoyable, just a thought that maybe it could help.
Yes! I have been thinkng this too…perhaps I should ask for a standing desk set up for Xmas…
It would definitely help and I wouldn’t be as stiff and achey all the time.
I’m thinking this + a laptop = teh win, untetherable.
Also, a nice couch + a lap desk. (prolly works also with nice hammock under a tree if yr screen is bright enough)
I just got a free mini desk to start my home office – but a lecturn for the laptop- wified to a big screen TV for a monitor, that’s got me thinking!
J.D., I felt for you when you wrote about being a door to door insurance salesman! I can’t imagine. I worked selling cellphones, had people coming to me to buy them, and still had a difficult time “meeting quota”!
I was once a canvasser for U.S. PIRG. In two days of work all I got was a $10 contribution and a bad cold (it was the dead of winter). I never made it to the third day. 😀
Retail was definitely the worst job I ever had. It was awful. People are SO, extremely grumpy when it comes to shopping and it was long hours and just very exhausting. My favorite job is the one I’m working in now – challenging!
I was a latch-key kid. Growing up, I would do odd jobs around our property alongside my chores and this earned me my allowance. During the summers, I would do piece work on the side (way under the table as child labor is illegal!) making jewelry to supplement my action figure, pogs and frozen lemonade addiction. I made quick work of the share I was given and often demanded more. I made about $230-300 a week doing this work while watching Power Rangers and Mickey Mouse Club. In hindsight, that is a boatload of money for an adolescent. Other than holding illegal summer jobs, I was focused on school the rest of the year.
My first real paying job – paid by check, was working for a local frozen lemonade company. Remember my addiction? Well, this was like sending Whitney Houston to work at a cocaine cooking camp in the foothills of Colombia. I made $7/hour plus tips. Tip amounts varied anywhere from $2-20 a day. They were often spent on take-out Chinese after work or beer – shhhh! Don’t tell the authorities! I started out peddling frozen lemonade from a cart at various sites throughout the state – the zoo, local parks and special events. I graduated from the cart to the truck as time progressed. I was in charge of managing my own stock and maintaining three different trucks. It was definitely a cool job!
The summer after my freshman year of college, I decided not to go back to lemonade. Freshman 15(more like 35) coupled with lemonade would not have been a good choice. Instead, I took a job tutoring and monitorinig kids during a summer learning program. This job was fun as each week we got to go on field trips and take part in many activities. I enjoyed this very much as I take pride in being a example for children especially those that are under-privileged and it brought back joyful memories of my school years. Fun!
During my college years, I didn’t do work-study or held an off-campus job. I took to using my stipend to bet on football games, gained some capital and used that to grow my money each week by placing very well thought-out bets on NFL, NBA and NCAA games. My initial investment of $200 netted me close to $12,000 by the end of football season. All tax free. I would also buy textbooks from students and sell them back to the bookstore for small profits and even took to writing papers for some folks at $50 a pop. Very kosher!
My next job was as a data entry zombie making $9/hour. It was for a family-owned bank specializing in home mortgages. I would enter customer information from a sheet that was populated by the call center downstairs and handle some day-to-day operations. I sorta kinda single-handedly dissolved this job within the entire company by opening up my huge mouth. I was having a late lunch in the breakroom one day and the owner/CEO came in to buy a water out of the vending machine. We got to chatting and I mentioned that it would make much more sense if the call center entered the applications as they were speaking with the customer. This would save the middle man(my job) from having to enter them at a later time. Well, needless to say, he thought it was a swell idea and an organizational change took place within months. Knowing this change, my manager quickly shuffled me into an underwriting program and I was saved from losing the job that I killed off myself! OOPS! The underwriting gig paid a hell of a lot more than my previous job – I started at $15.75 and made as much as $20/hour before the bubble burst and it all came crashing down. I was out of a job anyway.
Not much of a resume. Currently, I’m a project manager for a biopharmaceutical company making oncology drugs for various indications. I’m making more money than I ever have and am sad to admit that it wasn’t until this job that I started being smart about money and saving it.
Going forward, I’m hoping to save enough money to start my own food truck or a small brick & mortar operation. I really wished that I saved all of the money that I earned throughout the years, but I have no regrets. My quality of life during that time was priceless and I wouldn’t have done it any other way!
“Not much of a resume”? But a darn creative one! I wish I was more of an out of the box thinker…
I’ve worked for:
Boy Scout camp
Christmas tree farm
Outdoor school (two of them)
Christian camp
“Property preservation”
That last one was home foreclosures. Evicting people, changing their locks, throwing away their belonging, driving hundreds of miles a day, getting paid by the job (and usually late). Not the most rewarding job.
Unlike most of my friends who worked during school, I did not get my first job at a local department store until I was 19. Luckily, I had a father who taught me how to work hard.
I’ve worked a number of jobs over the years, but the one thing I want to not have to do in 10 years is still be working. I may CHOOSE to work, but I want to be financially secure enough to not HAVE to work.