9.5
For full credit, should have said “I’m giftwrapping like a motherfuck!”
From a college job typing order forms on a keyboard without a number pad I can enter long strings of digits very quickly with high accuracy, using the keys at the top of the keyboard. I never use the number pad.
I see. I also learned how to park cars perfectly from working at an auto dealership. Ahem, I mean, I am parallel parking like a motherfuck!
10!
Interesting. I grew up in the Central Valley of California and worked in the fruit packing sheds (peaches, plums, nectarines, oranges, apples, grapes) all though junior high, high school and the first couple of years of college. You’d never catch a guy actually “packing” the fruit, i.e. putting the fruit in the box. That is woman’s work. Men pick, bring the fruit in from the field, drive tractor, dump the fruit into the sizer/sorter, stack the finished boxes, strap, palletize, drive forklift and truck, etc. But they do not pack. Ever.
Really? I wonder why the disparity. This was as mentioned back in the ‘70s but when the fruit came in from the field (I’ve no idea of the pickers’ gender), men drove the trucks but it would be washed and then culled and if memory serves that was entirely by women. Then it would come down a conveyer and into 8 sections sorted by size from I think 8 large to 28 small cantelopes per box. Each size had its own specific packing arrangement. You worked for an hour at each station, then moved to the next because some sizes pack faster than others. All the packing positions without question were filled by men. And yes, I think men did the pallets and forklift into the coolers after.
Like I said though, the packing was hard, hot work, long hours and heavy boxes. Perhaps the gender distinction was due to the filled box weight. Or maybe is was because of the Latino culture in place. The oldest man, a “patron” if you will, definately ran the show, called the starts and breaks, etc. I was one of only two non-Latinos in the entire operation and we both knew the owner.
QFT. Many of the day to day tasks I did for 18 years in various foodservice positions completely send non-foodservice people into shock and awe. OMG 10 gallons of vinaigrette - from memory! In fact, doing most food without a recipe is the norm for me. This continually flummoxes some of the ladies I work with. I’m not hiding recipes or concealing trade secrets, really, I just do it all by eye and usually in great quantities.
Boning out & skinning fresh fish still comes in handy, especially when the fish aren’t 4 feet long and weighing 50-odd pounds.
Talking peace & calm into animals, and the wretched chore of bathing cats - from my stint as a veterinary technician.
Do they get washed by hand? I wonder if that’s it. I never worked a shed that didn’t have an automatic washer/sorter and the culling gets done as the fruit is being packed. I wonder if the weight also had something to do with it. The biggest boxes we packed are around 35# and those were special order lugs from a few specific distributors. Mostly they were around 28#.
I do know that when they field pack, like with table grapes, men and women will both pick and pack together.
I worked, very briefly, at Merry Maids (I think I lasted a week) during one of my college summers. Hated the job, but I did learn how to use a pumice stone to scour the mineral deposits out of showers, sinks, and toilets. Okay, maybe not a terribly useful skill, but since when I was growing up I never learned to do any cleaning stuff (my mom was very much the “if you want something done right, do it yourself” type person), it was kind of helpful to know.
I can carry an abnormal number of plates at once without tipping any of them, perfectly fillet a cooked fish with a spoon, and my silver service skills impress almost everyone. I can unjam photocopiers and printers without burning myself or hurting the machine. I can fold A4 paper into thirds and put it in an envelope at tremendous speed. My four times table goes up much higher than most people’s (because our basic unit price was 4p). I can mow perfect stripes into the most uneven lawn. I’m sure there are others.