I have been (semi-)gainfully employed over the years as:
Yard Care
Fast Food Flunky (window, taco line, grill)
PI (A very brief stint with Pinkerton’s)
Semi-truck cleaner
Camper shell construction and sales
Retail photo (think the Photo Hut in That 70s Show.)(We owned and operated out own chain of shops like that, which we also built.)
Photographer
Retail music sales
Owned and operated and maintained a courier service
Bartender
Recreational items sales
Teacher
Home brewing supplies, sales and instruction
I had a lot of internships. Mostly turned out to be personal assistant type stuff, despite the description being other wise. One summer, I signed on for an internship and wound up in a tent selling bbq sauce at the county fare. Don’t know how that happened all these year later. Just know the person above me hated the owner. So, I go to paid to basically walk around the county fare one summer. When I wasn’t doing that I was eating the bbq sauce on chips. No one seemed to care we literally sold nothing.
Other than that, I worked in retail at the mall for a few months in high school. My mom’s former friend had a daycare. I worked until lunch and never came back. I never worked much as a teen. I tutored some elementary age kids during the summer one year when I was in college. That worked out okish, but I don’t think I’ll ever work with kids again.
I had a data entry job my senior year. I don’t remember much about it.
Babysitter
Fast food worker
Candy Girl (movie theater concessions sales)
Box office sales (moved up at the theater)
Video store clerk
Day care assistant and teacher
Video transcription
Substitute Teacher
Temp office worker
Waitress
Bartender
What’s so odd about being a radio announcer? It’s what I do now. Heck, it’s what I went to college for. And when I say now I meant right now as I’m currently producing the Pirates/Red Sox game.
[ul]
[li]Collection driver for Olan Mills portraits (people would by photo packages from telephone sales crew, I would drive out to collect before they changed their minds).[/li]
[li]Bus boy at JC Penney’s cafeteria and an amusement park saloon (Frontier Village).[/li]
[li]Mailing Warehouse–shipped catalogs and merchandise for customers like National Semiconductor and GRT Records.[/li][/ul]
Not “odd” in the sense of peculiar, strange, weird, geeky or deplorable, just “odd” in the sense of a fill-in or temp job as opposed to a career profession.
My first “real job” out of college was as combo salesman/announcer for a one-lung FM station. Later I worked as full-time announcer at an AM station. In addition to those stints, I also did some weekend work and covering for other announcers while they were on vacation or sick or whatever.
I think it’s neat how some of the other “odd jobs” mentioned border on grad school prepared careers. It would be cool if some folks have had part time, temp, or “second job” tours as:
brain surgeon
astronaut
NFL player
member of congress
movie star
despot
assassin
cult leader
Of those listed, I ticked “grass cutting,” “fast-food prep,” “retail sales” and “phone sales,” although that last one may be a stretch, because it was for an environmental group in New Mexico, calling members who had lapsed or were about to do so about reupping.
Although not a paper route, I did deliver TV Guide once a week to subscribers.
Camp counselor
Landscaping (which meant raking rocks out of the top inch or two of soil before the hydroseed truck came through)
Manual labor on construction sites
Food handler at college cafeteria
Night manager at college bowling alley
Painted dorms
Pumped gas
Groundskeeper, porter (baggage handler), dishwasher-loader, etc. at ski resort one off-season
Security guard
Operator of a die-casting machine that made aluminum bases for bronzed baby shoes
Women’s shoe salesman in a department store
Operator of a roll-making machine in a bakery (think Lucy and Ethel making candy)
Door-to-door encyclopedia salesman
Department store loading dock worker
Garden supplies salesman
Operator of blueprint machine in architects’ office
File clerk in medical school library
Designer of sample books for paints, fabrics and carpeting
Operator of machine that printed things inside bottle caps
Department store display window assistant
Bus boy
Waiter
Supermarket inventory clerk
Set-up assistant for fashion shows and luncheons
Baby sitter
Proofreader
I worked as a “tray boy” at festival hall. That is going around with trays of ice creams and drinks and selling them. I saw acts like Bill Cosby and Jose Feliciano… woot
Wrote TV ads, been in a couple of them, and did voiceover for another.
Notably, though (I know I’ve posted this before but I can’t find it) my coworkers and I were once in the pub having a “what’s the weirdest job you ever had?” conversation.
I once got paid to play mandolin at a museum in Japan.
