Many of us here at the SDMB have had a varied work history. We’ve had jobs we loved --or at least liked-- and jobs we’ve hated.
What was your favorite job and why?
Here’s mine:
I once worked for Guest Services (read: waitress) in a National Park. I made pretty decent money and most of the people who I waited on were interesting people who were usually in a good mood.
The best part though was that I got to live in a one room cabin in the park for the entire summer. The cabin had a wood burning stove. Just outside of my door were the most magnificent trees on Earth. I saw black bears, deer and other wildlife on my short walk to work. On my days off I could hike to my heart’s content.
i was a lifeguard at a private pool for two summers when i was in college. the pool was on the roof of a 15 story apartment house. the apartment house was filled with mostly widowed senior citizens. hardly anyone went into the pool during the work week, i floated on a raft and read books. on the weekend however, all the grandkids would visit. the pool would almost overflow with people. the only downside was the incredible sunburns i would get. i was the only guard so i only had rainy days off. i still think i should have rainy days off.
I worked as a library attendent at the law library where I first went to college. I hardly ever had to do any real work, but I was allowed to talk to some really smart people to my hearts content. Plus, some of my coworkers were gorgeous and wore really tight clothes.
I worked at a Girl Scout day camp the summer I graduated from highschool. I was the “Boating Director”, which really meant I was the canoeing instructor. So, I taught girls how to paddle a canoe. They were all between 6 and 12 years old, so it was very basic canoeing. I had at most four 45-minute classes per day. 21 staff, only 3 of us were male, and almost all just of highschool or in college. If only they’d paid me a little bit more, I’d’ve gone back the next summer…
My first summer after high school 12 years ago, I got a job with a major airline. I worked at the front counter, and my entire job was to heave the heavy baggage from the counter to the conveyor belt three feet behind the counter.
This was to keep the ladies working the counter from hurting themselves.
And all of them were gorgeous. It was dreamy, being surrounded by so many beautiful women, and getting to talk with them too! But being only 18 years old, they thought I was just too young…
My favorite job was probably back in college, working the college box office. Only part time (though I wouldn’t have minded full… they just thought my classes were pretty important ) but a blast. I got to see the rehersals for all the shows the theater department put on, got to know everyone in the theater department pretty well… and the job was EASY. For two hours, I sat, worked on any homework I might have, or read, or chatted with my co-box-mate, and answered phones if someone wanted to reserve tickets, or take care of walk-ups. Then, during the nights of the shows, I stayed a bit longer, sold a few more tickets, and managed to have a great seat, because I’d kept mine out first!
When I finished High-school, my uncle asked me to go down to tasmania and work in his pub. At night I got to stay up and test the alcohol to see if anyone had poisoned it. I had to test a lot of alcohol…
I got paid $600 a weeks ‘work’ too. I love my uncle…
My favorite job has to be the one I have now. I get to surf the net on an OC3 I am sharing with about 5 other people, I take about 4 calls a night and most of them I can only tell to call back in the morning, and I have a free fountain drink dispenser 30 feet from my cube. I get about $60,000 a year for it, too!
You all will probably think this is weird, but my favorite job was the one I had during high school and part of college. I worked at a small, carry-out seafood restaurant in Maryland…the kind that sells bushels of steamed crabs and fresh fish. Sometimes I worked the counter, but mostly I worked in the back steaming crabs. It was really hard work. I had to lift huge, heavy pots and I frequently burned myself or got bitten by crabs. On busy days (4th of July, Memorial Day), the kitchen got up to 120 degrees. If I burned myself with a pot, I strapped a bag of ice to the area and kept working. My boss told me I was the only woman he’d ever want next to him on a battlefield. I came home reeking of fish and crabs. My mom used to make me strip naked in the garage before I came in.
I loved it, though. It was really satisfying to come home and be completely exhausted. I took a lot of pride in the physical work I did. I always did well in school, so my family always pictured a nice white-collar job for me, which I have. One day, though, I’m going to own a garden center or some other sort of business that requires more physical labor.
One, my sophmore year of high school, I worked at an Arabian horse breeding farm, cleaning the stables, grooming and washing the horses, etc. What was I paid? $50 per month (yeah, I know. I had “sucker” written all over me). But, I loved it: I got to be around horses (my passion at the time), work hard and I was supposedly to have free English riding lessons in this package although they never materialized.
Two, working for a home builder down in Nashville. Great company, great people, they gave me a lot of responsibility and treated their employees like gold.
A couple summers ago I worked at a sleepaway camp in Massachusetts. I wasn’t a counselor, but more of a gofer. I worked in the canteen and made copies. Such trivial stuff like that. But it wasn’t the work that made it my best job. One of my very good friends went with me and I met lots more amusing people while I was there. We also had Wednesdays off, so we would go into Boston or New York. Every Saturday was no work but we had to stay at camp, so we would play scrabble and monopoly all day. And every night, I would stay up in the guys room and just have conversations until about 1 AM. It was really fun.
Last summer I worked renovating an apartment building. The work was hard and satisfying, and I learned a lot, it was rarely boring. The days I did work I got 10 or 12 hours, but I would only work every other week or so, so I still had lots of time to have fun. It was fun working, my coworkers were great and my boss was really nice and she gave everyone a little bonus with most paychecks. I miss that job.
Had to be working in the lab for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. In theory, I was on a grant to compile statistics for the Native Food Fishery project and various derby statistics, but when I ran out of those, they kept me on being lab monkey until the grant ran out.
Wierdly enough, I had a wonderful time cleaning out the cupboards, organizing the specimen collection, shooting rubber bands at my supervisor, and learning all about, well, stuff. How to tell the age of a fish, which lakes were stocked when, what the lakes were stocked with, and what species are native to the Arctic.
I can still tell you where the best spots for fishing in the Yukon are.
My assistantship at UB. I got to create and maintain the School of Architecture and Planning Web site, teach a class here and there when one of the planning profs was out of town, and generally act as the school’s computer guru. It felt nice to feel really wanted, and I had a lot of fun in the meantime.
My best job was back in high school, when I worked in a costume/magic shop. We were encouraged to dress up, and could wear any costume we wanted. We had a huge supply of wigs and hats, masks and props. My boss was a religious Jew who wore a huge cowboy hat on top of his yarmaluke(sp?). I went in there about 5 years later and he remembered me
There was also a magician that worked there who would teach me simple magic tricks. There was the Spanish seamstress who repaired the rental costumes, and she would bring in homemade lunch for all of us. Some of the regular customers were anything but regular. I learned how to make fake brusies and gashes, wrinkles and sores. One day I could be Madonna, the next a vampire, and the day after that a dead girl (my favorite ;)).
I wish my job now was as much fun.
Rose
About twenty years ago I worked as a riverboat captain on a ride at theme park. We had a twelve-minute spiel we’d give to the thirty or so people on our boats that mixed a little history and some bad jokes. I don’t know if I entertained many of the people who rode my boat, but I certainly entertained myself. It also got me past my fear of public speaking once and for all.
curate: Is this phrase familiar? “That tiger weighs 1200 pounds and can jump 32 feet. But don’t worry we are only 20 feet away.”
Favorite for ease of work: Circulation desk of the serials department, Suzzallo Libary, University of Washington. It was great. I worked the 7-12:30 shift, nobody in the library most nights. The reference desks were closed so I got to help with reference questions (against the rules, of course) and I got a whole extra .25 an hour for working unsupervised (which I believe took me up to $5.75/hr.).
Favorite for the stories I get to tell: Quality Assurance tech in an Alaskan salmon cannery. Horrible, horrible job. Worked over 40 straight days without a day off, each of those days started at 6am and ended at 12 midnight. The cannery had 6 QA stations so in their wisdom they hired 6 QA techs, if the cannery was open I was working. I learned what it was to be truly exhausted, to wish injury upon myself so that I could just sleep in the hospital. But now that it is years in the past I really enjoy the stories I get to tell.
obfusciatrist: Yes, it’s familiar but not from the park where I worked. I worked for what was then the “We’re Number 2!” chain of amusement parks. The theme of our ride was a recreation of La Salle’s exploration of Texas, which never seemed to me to be the kind of topic designed to engage the imagination of the average visitor to a theme park. Sadly, although the ride has been gone for 20 years, I can still remember the entire spiel.
I also learned how to operate a steam locomotive while working at that park. Another fun, but not too marketable, skill.
) but a blast. I got to see the rehersals for all the shows the theater department put on, got to know everyone in the theater department pretty well… and the job was EASY. For two hours, I sat, worked on any homework I might have, or read, or chatted with my co-box-mate, and answered phones if someone wanted to reserve tickets, or take care of walk-ups. Then, during the nights of the shows, I stayed a bit longer, sold a few more tickets, and managed to have a great seat, because I’d kept mine out first!