Working

[breakingnews]

I've never worked retail or in a restaurant. I've always wanted to, but ... I never did. I always found myself earning money by just kinda "fitting work in" with what I happen to be doing anyway.

The summer after junior year of high school, I started teaching tennis at a local club, but it was mostly traded for court time and the occasional private lesson. My parents also bought me a racquet-stringing machine, with which I made a buttload of money by undercutting all the local tennis clubs and shops.

Summer after senior year I took my first formal employment, teaching tennis at a local camp. At some point I was also contracted by Sports Authority to string racquets, which I continued doing on and off for about a year.

Summer after college freshman year, I interned with LogicalAd.com, one of those ludicrous dot-com startups with a fat bank account but absolutely NO business plan whatsoever. Ironically, despite business barely budging during my three-month stay, I learned quite a bit from my superiors. I wish I had stayed in touch with them.

College sophomore year, I started designing display ads for the student newspaper for $40 per issue. Meanwhile, I was being paid for writing sports articles, and toward the end of the year I was hired as an editor (although the pay was a laffable matter) and had to quit the ad stuff. I made so much more money working for the business staff.

That summer, I racked up a healthy $1,500 credit card bill in Europe. When I got back to school I did whatever I could to pay off that debt. How's this for conflict of interest? For the first two issues of the year, I sold ads, designed ads, wrote articles, photographed, did page layout and edited the entire newspaper. Meanwhile, several of our ad clients (local restaurants and businesses) hired me to help them with other design work, like menus and fliers. I paid off that credit card bill in under 3 weeks.

Summer after junior year was probably my most interesting job, working with a golf association as a media/PR person at their tournament sites. I traveled the entire west coast for 15 weeks in a conversion van with a trailer. Awesome.

Then after graduating I was hired at the newspaper in Bucks Co., where I worked for a year before jumping to a big newswire's headquarters in NYC.

Two years later, at 25 years old, I've already moved on and am looking for my next fortune ...

13 - Baby sitting my best friends bratty, little 5 year old sister. We used to lock her in the closet, steal my Mom's car and cruise around looking for drug deals.

14-17 - In juvie where they tried to make me learn how to sew aprons. I ran the sewing machine needle over my fingers the first day and got to spend the next 2 years in the medical ward. One of the doctors gave me the key to the Class I drug cabinet in exchange for wild, kinky sex.

18-30 - Hey, man, it was the 60's, hell if I remember. I know I lived on a commune for a while where we all "did our own thing." My thing was shop lifting.

30-45 - My parents finally caught up with me and sent me to one of those de-programmer places. I graduated with full honors, programmed to take my rightful place in society. I got my BA in two years while working as a shelver at the college library and nights at the student grill. I had a double major and graduated in the top 20% of my class at University of Colorado.

I won a scholarship to the University of Denver to study Library and Information Science. I managed to pull down a 4.0 average while working as a cataloger in the University library, an agent for AAA Auto, and ghost writing my ex husband's newspaper articles for him. All this, despite the fact that I had been diagnosed with 3 severe personality disorders and was alternately suicidal and murderous. The day I interviewed for my first professional job at the University of Idaho, I had just shot a policeman. I got the job, anyhow (heh,heh Who in Moscow, Idaho reads the Boulder, Colorado paper?).

Then I had some more library jobs of little consequence, managing $500,00 plus book budgets, selecting all the scientific books and monographs the libraries acquired, being in charge of all the reference librarians and the selection and budget for the reference collection. I learned to seperate the voices in my head from the actual voices of the real people around me and even stopped over-dosing for a year. I never missed a day of work, even though my stomach had just been pumped, so it was a moot point, anyhow.

Somewhere in there I went back to the University of Colorado and got my second Master's - this time another biology degree. I maintained a 4 point average there, as well, and even took courses on human physiology, cell biology and the like. I tried to hang myself the night before my final exam in molecular genetics, but my hubby cut me down just in time for me to make it through the door as they were passing out the blue books.

My final professional job was at the Denver Botanic Gardens Library, to which I commuted 70 miles each way through record breaking blizzards and sub-zero temps. I pulled down 50K a year, and this was TEN years ago.

After work, I tutored 92 children who had signed up for the local children's literacy program. When they asked about the fresh razor slashes on my wrists or my sudden bouts of uncontrollable crying, I told them that me and my kitty were having relationship problems.

Now, I live in luxury on $8,052/year plus $10/per month in food stamps. Best career move I ever made, although my time in juvie wasn't bad.

What was the question again?

[John Adams]

My work life has been so boring compared to all of you.

I started working as a caddy at 13 and did that till I was 16

At 16 I got a job at the college I ended up going to as a lab proctor/teachers aide/tutor (computers) kept that until I got my first real job doing prototype work for a large computer manufacturer.

After a few years there I moved to a very large financial services company doing security stuff (hardware based encryption etc) and stayed there for many years.

I went into management for a few years and now I am back doing what I enjoy, security work for a large backbone provider.

I only worked for 7 companies over my career. I am now going back to school to become an RN. I was born with a bad heart and after my last surgery when we didn't know if I would make it the RN's were just great, they really did a lot to help my wife and they also dealt with my attitude problems and temper tantrums (which I am still sorry about).