...but I'm putting it here anyway.
Link: Jobs I've had from here, who stole it from here.
Jobs I've had:
Age 12-15 : Babysitter.
Commentary: Does every female my age start her CV this way? Thank God some boys are starting to do this as well!
Actually, I worked for my dad, for free before this, both in his shop and when he worked for Mountain Center (can't link, it no longer exists, long family-drama story involved here which I hope to NEVER GO INTO online). I used a torch, sorted nails, cleaned construction sites and folded brochures, among other eventful duties.
Age 16-17: Shelver (i.e. Page) at my local public library.
Commentary: It looked NOTHING like this when I worked there. I got the job because one of my sisters and my brother worked there before me and Mrs. Koestner liked them. She fired me. For being honest: I couldn't get all my shelf-reading done and I stopped lying about it after about a year. Oh well. At least she was nice about it and let my record show that I 'quit because of family health issues.' My dad had just had his second heart attack and first heart surgery. This set the stage in long career of waiting to get nailed for honesty, but continuing to be honest. Must be Protestant masochism....
Age13-18: Unpaid helper in the church nursery and preschool rooms.
Commentary: This was my way of getting out of going to Youth Group and/or church. I dealt with several classes of toddlers that I eventually got to see confirmed. Very cool. I like this job; because it was unpaid??
Age 17: Unpaid member of the puppet ministry team at my church
Commentary: I loved this. Wish I could get back to it. Too corny for now though.
Age 18-22: (at college) Language Lab Work-Study job
Commentary: I was so good at this that I was supervisor my senior year. heh. Consisted of putting tapes in machines when language students came in to practice their accents. Mostly I either did homework or slept. I loved organizining the schedules though. And it tied in nicely with my 'job' on the campus radio station where I had my own show(s) every week and eventually became station manager. And attempted to catalog the entire LP collection which probably consisted of over 5,000 albums. Obviously never finished.
Age 19-21: (summers) Christian Education Intern at my church
Commentary: Ministers swear! At least the CE one did. And he was great, in spite of having his marriage falling to pieces around him over the course of my time there.
I got to run the summer Sunday school program, and sort out VBS both summers. Loved the former, hated the latter. Probably wasn't all that great at either. Also evolved into general office work by the end of the second summer: running bulletins on the mimeograph machine (anyone remember those?) and typing.
Age 19-21: (summers) Temp worker for Adia
Commentary: Fascinating. Got paid more to sit at a desk and take up space but not actually do anything than to work in the kitchen at an Italian 'boutique' food shop making clam sauce from scratch. Learned to use some very complicated phone systems. Realized that corporate life was SO not me. Had to convince every place I went that I really could alphabetize properly. Occasionally worked it so that I was assigned to do boring work with friends (poring over lists of companies looking for specific data in their records, etc.).
Age 22: (summer) Campus grunt
Commentary: That wasn't my title, but that's what we did. We set up the dorms for groups to use them over the summer and inspected them after said groups left. We painted. We moved chairs (Two by two. Up and down stairs. Constantly; really that's what I remember doing mostly). We lived in a house together, the 7 of us. We had drama. We had a cool boss. We watched a lot of MTV (Sting's We'll Be Together, and Paul Young's Every Time You Go Away, and the LiveAid concert...).
Age 23-24: Work-Study job at my graduate school's Library Archives and Special Collections
Commentary: My introduction to Weird Librarians. Really. Nice guys. But REALLY REALLY weird. Cataloged the Henry Reiss papers, or at least tried to make sense of the original list of the collection. Discovered 1950s Playboy and the Marquis de Sade and really bad local poetry.
Age 24: (Christmas season) Swiss Colony
Commentary: My one real foray into retail was "Would you like to try a sample?" of cheese at Christmas at a cheese store. My boss was awful in every way. Awful-er by leaps and bounds than the weird librarians. He was the worst manager ever. I only worked there 6 weeks. It was awful. The longest 6-week job ever. Guess what everyone in my family got for Christmas that year...
Age 24: Intern at a small suburban library
Commentary: As a Children's intern. Decided this definitely wasn't for me. Really, I wanted to be a YA Librarian. Still do, but I'm too old now, I think.
This job eventually led to a paid position as an office/circ supervisor on Sundays. I covered and otherwise processed books and kept the circ desk staff coordinated.
Age 24-30: My first "real" job; not saying where since I'm going to slam the hell out of it
Commentary: Six years, summed up in this sentence: "I'll be damned if I leave before she [i.e. psycho-suicidal neurotic anorexic boss from hell who stole money from the library and blamed it on the employees] does! She'll have to fire me." I won from that standpoint. But really I lost 6 years. I learned enough to know that I never want to be a boss, and that sometimes people lie. Every time they open their mouths. And that you can't trust friends you make at work. Oh, and library boards are fuckin' clueless.
This library was a multi-community service area in an area with money. The people in these communities (well, three of them anyway) squeezed their money so tight it literally screamed whenever we looked at it. I was in the building again last summer for the first time in 5 years or so; it's a wreck: paint chipping (hasn't been painted since 1984), carpet ragged (ditto), dark lighting (in the underground area), wallboard so badly banged up that on corners it's just gone. Sad.
Glad I'm outta there.
Oh, and yes, this woman is still a director, at another library. Unbelievable. The board didn't realize she'd committed financial crimes till 3 years after I left and never pressed charges.
Age 29-current: (in perpetuity) Mom
Commentary: Depending on the day, either the best job or the worst. I'm not always good at it: no patience. But I sure appreciate a lot of the benefits. 'nuf said. If you aren't a parent, this is boring. If you are, you know it already.
Age 31-32: Newpaper carrier for the county paper
Commentary: Weird job. I actually liked most of it, except for getting up in the winter at 4 a.m. Once I was up I was fine, but getting up sucked. Walked around before dawn is actually wonderful. And when I got back home I managed to do a guided reading of the entire Bible that year before anyone else was up. I did not like the wages or the fact that the newspaper is less than organized in its delivery to the carriers.
Age 32-current: Reference Librarian and now Cataloger
Commentary: Started working 3 nights a week and one weekend day, plus every 6th Sunday, about 18 hours a week. Now work about 32. Great job. Great boss. Basically good people. More comfortable now than at any other time of my life (but that's not necessarily my job's responsibility now, is it?).
Volunteer positions: Sunday School teacher (1987, 1998-2004), VBS teacher and coordinator at different times (1995-2002), lots of other church volunteer stuff to the point of burnout (1995-2004), Habitat for Humanity (1994-1995), Parent-Teacher Organization (2003-2004), school volunteer (1998-2002). Other stuff I can't remember.
Sunday night
4 years ago
