I was pretty bummed out in December 2009. I had just started to recover from a life-threatening medical condition that started 6 months before and I was going broke quickly. I was losing hope because I still looked sick and didn’t interview well. My little brother and I guy got into a fight on the phone one night. He was drunk and belligerent and basically told me I was a loser for not having a good job at the moment despite him not knowing much about the details of everything that was going on.
I was so pissed off that I couldn’t sleep so I got online and made some very minor changes to my resume and I stayed up most of the night. I drifted off about 5 am only to be woken up by the phone at 8:30 am. The person on the line mentioned something being desperate and could I interview now. I said sure and told him that I could be available to interview in the next week. He clarified, “No, you don’t understand, I mean RIGHT NOW!”. I said OK and the phone interviews started right then and lasted about 15 minutes tops. He said he would call back in half an hour with more details. He called back before then with a firm and very generous offer with the condition I could start on Monday (this was Thursday) because I would have to do paperwork and background checks all Friday. I was skeptical because it sounded too good to be true but I still have that job 3 1/2 later and it is the best one I ever had.
It turned out that the person I replaced had assaulted someone at work and had to be removed but the consulting company I work for didn’t have any replacements available on such short notice so they had to hire a qualified person instantly or they would have been in breach of contract with huge financial penalties. Thank goodness I answered the phone that morning. Sometimes that is all it takes.
I was at a meeting for the pit bull rescue I volunteer with that was being held in the home of another volunteer. After the meeting, I got to chatting with the homeowner about her home business making gorgeous leather collars. It came out that she was looking for some part time help. Now I work part time doing office work for her.
I was going for a job involving computers and desktop publishing. I crafted my resume for my computer skills. At the interview, the interviewer said, “Well, your resume is good, but the job involves a lot of writing. What sort of writing skills do you have?”
I smiled. “I have a Master’s Degree in writing and am a published science fiction writer. And . . .” I reached into my briefcase, “Here’s my novel.”
I got my current job because they were hiring two people and designed the job description so they could hire someone they had worked with before. My background happened to match perfectly.
Spraining my ankle (and a little bit of nepotism) got me my first full-time job.
My uncle’s small business was in the process of moving inventory and offices from one warehouse to a new bigger one. He rounded up as many nephews, cousins, friends, and strangers as he could to help over 2 weeks. The first week went smoothly, and all of us went to play Wallyball Friday night where I sprained my ankle pretty badly. The next week I couldn’t assist moving boxes and machine parts, so they had me put the inventory location/quantity/additional info in the computers. My task continued long after the initial move as they continued to move things around to better fit the new space. I stayed long enough that my short-term employment became an official job that lasted 6 years until I left for graduate school.
I was in the park with my daughter after school and got a call asking for someone who wasn’t me. I said that’s not me, sorry, and they said, “well, we’re calling about a job - do you have any experience teaching English?”
I did. They mentioned that they had no books or any other resources. But I had a working printer and google…
I’d also been out of work since my daughter was a baby and just hadn’t been able to get my foot in the door anywhere. The company that called me had no contacts with any of the sites I’d registered on - it was simply a mistake.
So I arranged childcare and was off to Scotland 11 hours later for two weeks. It turned into a full-time job for two years and then lots of similar work for years afterwards.
When I was around 24 I got into a bar fight with some drunk asshole and basically just subdued him and tossed him out of the bar. The owner of a strip club saw it and offered me a job as a bouncer, which I took and worked there for most of my undergraduate college.
For my job, I picked up responsibility for presenting an hour long lecture on Maintenance Pricing for our company’s annual Pricing class. I picked this up because my manager was too busy to take a half a day off to travel to the location and give the pitch, and the Pricing Team Leader was too far away to travel in.
I handled this module for about 4 years when the company decided to cancel the live class and offer it as a video course. The last year of the class was recorded and put on the company website.
A manager in a different area watched my segment and was impressed with my knowledge of the Maintenance business, so he offered me a new job, with a promotion attached.
A guy who happened to own a live music venue came to a party at my house, he needed a soundguy to work parttime. I knew how the gear worked and love music but had never mixed a band, ever. I lied and told him I could do the job. That was 17 years ago, I have made my living that way ever since. I have toured big chunks of the world, teach and am paid quite well. Not bad for starting with a boldfaced lie.
I had been doing some odd jobs for a former employer while I looked for real work. One of Former Employer’s regular customers was a private investigator who used to bring us tapes he had dictated to have them typed into reports, so the guy knew I typed pretty quickly.
One day, the PI comes in and asks if I can come be his secretary for a couple of weeks. He hated his secretary really, really badly, and already had plans to fire her, but the new person he was hiring was still two weeks away from starting. If I could come help him out for a little while, he’d be able to fire his current secretary immediately. So I agreed. I started that Monday, with the intent of going back to Former Employer after this short stint.
That Friday, they have a problem. They have this huge new case that involves identity fraud on mortgages, and they’ve got in this new hot piece of software that is supposed to let them run reports on social security numbers. Only none of the PIs at the firm are tech-savvy, so they can’t figure out how to get it to work. After a couple of hours of listening to their frustration, I ask the boss if he wants me to take a look at it. He figures it can’t hurt. So I figure out how to get it running, and I teach everyone else how to use it, and we all work until 11pm that night running reports so they can hand the client a tidy summary Saturday morning, which they did.
When I walk in the door on Monday morning for my second and final week of secretarial duty, the boss — pleased as punch from last week’s exploits — pulls me aside and offers me a $3/hr raise from my temporary salary and a permanent job as a PI. And that’s what I spent the next 4.5 years doing.
When I was 17, I quit college and moved to NYC. I had never worked before, so had no resume. I saw an ad for an advertising artist, and my only experience was as the layout editor of my college yearbook. So I went to the interview without any portfolio of my work. But I made a deal with the art director. If he’d hold off hiring someone, I’d have a friend of mine mail him one of the yearbooks. Then he could decide whether to hire me. The yearbook arrived a few days later, and he was very impressed. I got the job.
I was 20 and fresh out of a two year college diploma program, living in a very small northern town (~3500 people) with my long term boyfriend. My immediate family lived in the area and I saw myself getting married, having kids, and living there forever.
I had applied for an admin job at the local radio station which was run by one of the highschool teachers who was also a family friend. This guy was one of those guys that’s got his finger in everything, because he was also the Fire Chief and the regional Provincial Emergency Program coordinator, which is important in how my story turned out.
I didn’t get the admin job, but two days later there was a large oil spill about 60 km’s south of town, in to the river we withdrew our drinking water from. It was pretty significant (media involvement, claims for damage, big spill response, etc.) so of course the guy who is the Provincial Emergency Program coordinator is involved. Two days after the spill happened I got a call from him asking if I was still looking for a job, which I was. He said ‘Come down to the radio station and meet your new boss’, so I did. The company that had the spill opened a local office to deal with the fallout and I was hired as the office manager.
After a year of that, they closed to office and my boss asked me if I’d consider moving to Calgary to take a job as his admin assistant. It was VERY hard to leave my family, but I went for it and never looked back. Twelve years later and I’m still in industry, in Environment, making a six figure salary, Masters almost complete. Never thought my life would turn out this way.
AT the time I was taking conducting lessons. I got fired from a job, and went into a panic. I thought of all of the things that I’d have to cut out of my life to save money. I called my maestro to tell him that I’d need to suspend my lessons for a while, as I just became unemployed.
He told me to come by his office to talk more about it. As I had nowhere better to be, I went down there. He put me to work then and there. The pay was crap, but within a month I got a huge raise, which was more money than I’d ever made before.
Back in the early 90’s I was the chef of our local Art Museum Cafe…It was a great gig, we were opened six days and one night a week. I took my Sous Chef out for a few beers at a local hole in the wall, I had never been there before. We ended up meeting the owner/bartender…he was pretty nice but also pretty drunk. I asked if he needed help he said “sure”…I ended up working there part time for about two year.
A couple of years ago, I was working for a bank and when I went to a nearby food court for lunch, I bumped into an old co-worker of mine. He asked me if I’d like to come work for him at a different bank. I said sure, and after a few formalities he hired me. And yet only a month later, he quit the bank to take a job at a software company, but I’m still working here!
I was one of a number of people interviewing for a temporary office position and it would be my first job in my field after graduating from college. They hired me and after a few months the girl I was hired to assist told me that after my interview the conversation went like this:
Girl to Boss: “I think we should hire Juicy.”
Boss: “But she doesn’t have any experience.”
Girl: “DUH! How is she supposed to GET experience?! You’re such an old fart you don’t remember being fresh out of school and needing your first break!”
Some slightly odd hires:
-In high school, worked with my girlfriend on a tiny organic farm for fun (the fact that we weren’t well-supervised made it extra fun, if you follow), and when I graduated, she hired me to milk the goats and do other farm chores.
-During college, I showed up for a job interview something like a week early, according to the sweet little old lady in charge of hiring. I hadn’t written the time down, so in retrospect she was probably right, but I was so polite and insistent that I was there at the right time that she interviewed me then and there and hired me. I felt kind of bad about it.
-During college, I temped all the time. Twice I was hired on full-time: once behind-the-scenes by an attorney who ended the assignment with the temp agency so he could sneakliy hire me (he was supposed to do that through the agency, paying them a giant finder’s fee; the agency were jerks, though, so I didn’t much mind his sneakiness). Once I was temping in an office while they looked for a permanent person, but they liked me so much they kept me on in a make-work position until I moved.
-After college, got hired on by an ex-girlfriend to write copy for her BFF’s internet training company. I was terrible at it; it’s the most nepotistic job I’ve ever had.
-Final interview weirdness: yet another interview where the interviewer told me I was a week early. This time it was definitely her fault, though, and in retrospect I wish I’d known better than to take that job.
In the hospital to get my appendix out and the guy down tha hall, in for a bone infection in his foot (nail puncture) ran a restaurant. First job at 15
Interviewed for my current job dressed as Supergirl, but it was Halloween.
These are super fun to read.
I got a cell phone and it turned out that the number happened to be *99-Taco. A couple of my kitchen workers suggested I quit my job and start a taco truck. We all kinda hated the owner. Fortunately a couple weeks later the cafe closed and by the end of the month I started a Taco truck with the server and called it *99-taco. And sold tacos for *.99 people could easily find us as it was the business name and phone number.
About 6 weeks ago.
My daughter tired of hearing me go on and on about someday working in Antarctica grabbed a spiral notepad I keep hanging form my rearview mirror and asked me what I had to do to get he job. The list contained about 20 items. The last one gets checked of tomorrow morning and I leave in less than a week.
My college roommate knew that I was looking for a part-time job in school when one evening the kitchen he worked in had several people quit, and they needed somebody NOW, so he called me up and told me to get down there immediately and I’d be hired.
I went. To the wrong place.
Basically, I just showed up out of the blue at the college cafeteria and said that I was told to show up for work. They said that something must be wrong with the paperwork, but if I was told that, then they would find something for me to do. I ended up working there uninvited for 3 of my college years.
If I ever get desperate for employment, I’m just going to start showing up at random places and telling them I’m supposed to show up for work. It’s worked for me once!
