Please go into detail about one of the jobs you've had

I

i_am_Lois

Member
So many people here listed the various jobs they've had. It would be very interesting to hear more detail about one of your jobs. Please share that.

The most unusual job I had was dog grooming.
It was also, by far, my favorite job.
I don't know if laws have changed, but at the time I worked, no schooling or certification was required to be a dog groomer.
I was in Philadelphia. During the summer most of the customers came in wanting their dog shaved down. We'd get every breed out there walking through the door for their summer look. One lady came in saying she wanted her dog to be shaved as bald as a cucumber. HA HA. That phrase still makes me laugh.
In winter months it was nothing but poodles & schnauzers. The busiest time was around the holiday season.
All dogs no matter what cut they got, went through the same process. First order of business was to cut their hair with the clippers. Next was a bath. Then off to a roomy cage with a small dryer blowing in it. It always amazed me how I thought I'd gotten every hair trimmed off, till I saw the dog after drying. They all needed to be clipped again, then hand scissoring finishing touches. Clip the nails, clean the ears and the dog was done.
I swear dogs know they look special when they're done. You should see their 'attitude'. They are so proud of themselves.
I worked that job about 4 years. I never got bit. I personally observed only one breed that consistently tended to be nasty & aggressive. That was cocker spaniels. All the cocker spaniels that came in seemed to have a zero tolerance for shaving & bathing. The breed of dog I found to have the most relaxed personality was lhasa apso.
I would be laid off for weeks at a time for lack of work during the spring & autumn, which is why I eventually moved on to another profession.
 
Lois, we've been grooming all of our Standard Schnauzers for many years now. My first one I showed for a short time, so I stripped his coat and did the full on show grooming, columnar legs, chalking, etc. We have a grooming table at home, and from the couple of times I tried a groomer, I was very disappointed in the results, clipper burns galore.

You're right, they do feel good and have attitude when all is said and done, lol. I heard that cocker spaniels were snippy at times, they look so meek, I'm surprised.
 
For over thirty years I worked in a large soft drink production plant and warehouse, it was a good union job and I enjoyed it because the positions always varied and most of the work was physical. The job involved large machinery operation, forklift and pallet jack, shipping and receiving, loading semi-trucks, hand stacking cases on pallets to fill orders, etc. For a short time I worked in the lab making the product, also was voted in as union steward and was a lead-person for a time. Went from the time where there were green and clear glass quart bottles that were returned to be re-filled, to the modern day plastic one and two liter bottles. I did a couple of office type jobs for a short time, but didn't like it at all. Being at a desk, answering phones and shuffling papers was not my thing, lol.
 
SeaBreeze I bet the work days moved quickly being physically busy and having various positions to boot. Much less boredom.

No dog ever got a clipper burn where I worked. While clipping we constantly placed the flat edge of the blade against our cheek & the minute it warmed up we'd spray with a coolant... and continue checking as we went. There is no excuse for clipper burns. There were only occasional show dogs. I remember spending a whole afternoon carefully grooming (hand scissoring-no clippers) an Old English Sheepdog for a show. He had to be perfect for his big day.
 
When I was a student, I got a summer job as a 'binman' as we say in the UK. What do you call them in the USA, garbage collectors ? At Christmas, I used to work as a temporary postman.

This was a better education in life than my university course. Some of the most useful things I learned are...

1. Never confuse the job with the person who does the job. Many of the council workers and postmen were clever, very shrewd people. Yet, all too often others regarded them as 'stupid' because of the job they did. Which leads me on to ...
2. Everybody needs someone to feel superior to or blame. You may be absolutely useless, but you can always say that you're 'better' than a binman etc... or it's the postman's
fault that nobody delivered the parcel that YOU forgot to order.
Interestingly, it was by far the professional people in the big houses who were the most polite. They had often done worse jobs in the vacation.

After a career in IT, I worked for a short while as a school janitor. The kids were a bunch of little ******s with the attitude that i was only the janitor and they could do and say what they liked. Some time later I saw one of the females working as a shelf stacker in a supermarket. I remarked that I saw that she had found a job - but as I added, she was only a shelf stacker!
 
I suppose the "job" that I've held the longest has been as a martial arts instructor, so that's the one I'll go with.

I started teaching as an assistant instructor under my teacher when I was 17, confined mainly to working with the little kids. I guess my teacher figured I couldn't do too much damage with them, or maybe he just enjoyed seeing them kicking me in the shins and running around screaming like little banshees.

The experience I gained from the kids qualified me to begin teaching adults when I was 20. I continued to teach adults at my teacher's school as well as starting classes in my own school. I left my main teacher when I was 24 and went full-time into teaching on my own, ending up owning schools in several states.

The teaching spanned everything from old hippies looking to achieve Nirvana through meditation, to street-bullies looking for a new "edge". The latter I usually closed my doors to, unless I thought they had "potential" - as it turned out, very few did. I had a lot of senior citizens taking my Taijiquan classes, again usually only for health benefits, but I also had a small core of "disciples" that wanted to learn the entire system of meditation, exercise, health maintenance AND fighting, so those were some of the more memorable sessions in my schools.

I'm now a "Grandfather" in that some of my students have students of their own - it's a nice feeling. :eek:

It's a useful knowledge in that no matter where I may move to, I'm sure that I can find a group of people that want to learn and are willing to pay for the lessons, so it's sort of built-in job security. I don't even need a school - just an empty lot or someone's basement or living-room.

I've also benefited from "side-jobs" - writing martial arts-related books and articles and getting several security jobs (escort, bouncer) because of my background.

All in all, not a bad choice for a life-long career. :D
 
Washing dishes at a local restaurant while in high school was something I enjoyed. My organizational skills really shone along with the clean kitchen. First thing I would do upon arrival would be to empty the two sinks for pots and pans. I would fill one with clean, hot, soapy water and use the other for rinsing. NOTHING went into the sink without being emptied of leftover gunk and soaked on the side first. Everyone soon learned not to dare come along and just drop a pot into my clean water! Then, for the dishes, there was a U-shaped area with room on the right for the trays of things from the tables, a big hole in the middle for dumping garbage with a powerful hose for rinsing and to the left, sinks for washing and rinsing. I would also clean all of this area first before beginning. I was a dynamo and loved it. Best part was emptying the garbage. Yep, you heard me. The big, heavy cans had to be lifted on to a rolling rack that I would wheel to the back door, hop on and ride down the alleyway . . . Woo Hoo . . . Surfin'!!!
 
Everyone's stories are fascinating. I hope more members contribute a glimpse into their work history.
 
Hi Lois, I had many many types of jobs, but the shortest and funniest one for me was working in the water department of this city in the 60's. I started in the warehouse that all the old and broken water meters were put for repair. It was a huge open space, and my job was to stack water meters onto wooden pallets that I would stack as high as I could, maybe 5 feet. This I did until there were no more to be stacked. That took me 3 or 4 days, and I worked by myself most of the time. Generally I only saw someone else when they came by to check on my progress.

At least there was music.

Next they put me inside where I was instructed to take the stacked meters from the the pallets that a forklift operator move from where I had previously stacked them, and I had to wash them with a wire brush and water, then restack the meters as high as I could up against a wall. That took me into the next week.

Next I was shown how to run a sand blasting machine, and you guest it, I started sand blasting those same water meters. I was still working alone, but the music made things go quicker. When I had finished that task, I was put to work taking those same meters off the pallets, and I was instructed on how to disassemble them, and put them into bins that were then wheeled into the building next to warehouse.

When I started my fourth week working, and I was taken into the building with the full bins. I thought, at least there will be other people around, and I was positioned at along table for reassembling the meters. By the end of the day, I realized that although several women looked at me, no one talked to me. So, I listened to the music and did my work.

On the next Monday, I went to work, only to be met at the door by several of my co-workers. They were not smiling, and I saw just how much bigger each of them were than I. They wanted me to quit.
It turned out I wasn't supposed to work as efficiently as I thought. Didn't I know how the city worked they asked. I was out working them, and they liked it the way they had it, and they didn't need me undoing their system.

Yup, I quit right then. :hide:
They were serious about busting my behind.
I could always find another job.
Believe me when I say I learned a few lessons from that job.
 
I was a medical and surgical photographer for many years. Anything you can think of, I took pictures of both still and movies.

Doctors were most of my customers. Doctors would bring up to the lab gross specimens and sometimes patients.

Plastic surgeons were one of my favorite clients because they'd want before and after shots. In surgery, I had to don the clothing that everybody else wore. Sometimes I had to wait outside until gynecological patients were completely "under"
because they didn't want any pictures of themselves "down there". (Can't blame them.)

One day I was sent up to two rooms next to eachother; a man in one and a woman in the other. Both were to have anal
procedures done. The man raised hell; didn't want his pic taken. His doctor finally convinced him that it was necessary;
so he spread his cheeks and I got my picture. Then I went into the woman 's room and told her why I was there. She
had no problem with it....simply rolled over, and I got my picture (Bless her heart!)

Our hospital had the first heart-lung machine and I shot a pic of a young man with an 8 inch vertical scar on his chest.
He was he first patient to have the machine used on him (The first human patient.)

A few days later THAT picture appeared on the front page of ALL THREE newspapers. I never got credit for it though. (BooHoo,
sniff sniff.)
 
Ina, it's a shame that doing a good job resulted in the manner that it did for you. Definitely problems with the system that need to be addressed. That Guy, I'm happy to hear that you also took pride in your work. I was always like that also, regardless of the job I was working. Kudos to all of us who had some work ethic, and was happy to perform our various jobs. :cheers: Nowadays, there seems to be less and less of that.
 
Sea, I never saw it as a shame. Funny yes, and I learned that I had a thing for efficiency. I also found out how rewarding it felt to take a mess and build something good of it.

I do believe my sence of humor is coming back. :lofl:
 
Falcon said:
I was a medical and surgical photographer for many years. Anything you can think of, I took pictures of both still and movies. Doctors were most of my customers.
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I had my arm photographed by someone like you. I had a skin test done on my arms for allergies. The reaction on one spot was extremely severe. The doctor made arrangements for a photographer to come in his office to take photos of my arm. I always wondered why they wanted pictures. The doctor asked me if I ever used a dandruff shampoo. I said no. He explained that I'm highly allergic to coal tar, an ingredient in dandruff shampoos & other products. He told me I should never use them. What was on my arm was a tiny spot with a minute amount.
 
Hm. I've had so many jobs over the years. Where to start? As a teen, I had the usual waitressing kinds of jobs. After high school my first real job was as a clerk-typist. We got paid once a month on the last day...my take home pay was a walloping $202.50.

The first job I ever landed that impressed me was as a typesetter...even back in the early 70s it was done with computers...I had no idea I could do anything "complicated".

In the mid-80s I went to work in Europe for a super-high-end auto manufacturer. It was okay, but even though I'd been in that country many times for weeks at a time, the culture shock nearly did me in.

I came back to the US and went to work in the telecom industry designing digital long-distance circuits. Yeah, me. The un-technical. Loved it. Hardest job I'd ever had...to start with. Just about the same time it got too easy, the company decided to "rightsize" (not downsize, mind you, RIGHTsize) and my job was going to go away. Yay. The deal was put your name and employee number in the computer, computer would spit out the location of your next job. My momma didn't raise any dumb kids...if my name and employee number weren't entered, then I got to retire! Woohoo! I had a year to prepare to hit the road. A chunk of money paid out on my last day, benefits, pension. Color me retired at 50.

Since then I've retired a few more times from ho-hum jobs that I took just for something to do. My all-time favorite part-time job? Like That Guy, I was a dishwasher in a restaurant. It was mindless and busy. The most "interesting" job? As head housekeeper in a hotel...I could write a book;)

My cleaning lady "career" now is what I've liked better than anything else I've ever done. There's plenty to do and every day is different. I can pick and choose my clients. And I get immediate gratification because I can actually see the fruit of my labor before I leave. Oh, and then there's getting paid every day. That's nice, too.
 
I also have had a variety of jobs, and have mulled it all over trying to decide which one is the one to write about; or even which was my favorite. I think they all had some great parts that i enjoyed, and things about them that I didn't like.
The job that I had the longest was just being a housewife, and raising my kids; and truthfully, of everything, that has to be the one that is most meaningful to me. I spent about 25 years doing that, so that covered most of my life that i could have been working. I got married before I graduated, so I didn't finish high school; which meant I had no experience at anything when i finally did look for work that i could do.

Most of my work has been in sales, since you work for commission, and it is not hard to find a position selling something. I sold vacuum cleaners, christmas trees, horses, puppies, life insurance, and about anything I could find to make a little money with selling.
Life insurance was the most interesting; I had a huge territory, and traveled an average of 1,000 miles every week, week after week. I just about lived in pokey little cheap motels. Some weeks I made $200, other weeks I made $2500.
I saw a lot of the little towns in several states, and was pretty much independent, and worked on my own.
If I worked long and hard hours, I could finish up my assignment sooner, and go home a day or two early. (Of course, my manager just wanted me to work longer, and make more sales anyway).
I won trophies, silver coins (which I gave to my kids), a fur coat, and even a trip to Palm Springs; so there were other perks besides the freedom and money.

Combined Insurance was started by W.Clement Stone, and we got a whole lot of PMA training, and were encouraged to read motivational books, and always look for the positive side, and keep on trying. I think if I were to pick the best thing I got from working, it would be this optimistic outlook on life.
By the time I was working for Combined, Mr. Stone was in his 80's; so it was a great experience to win the trip to Palm Springs, and actually get to meet such a great motivator in person.
 
SifuPhil said:
I've always admired people that can sell, because I'm terrible at it. ;)
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You have no idea just how hard it was for me to learn, Sifu.
I grew up fat, ugly, and cross-eyed; so being ridiculed was what I expected. I was about as much of a hermit as a child can become, and still go to school, and do all the required things we did growing up. Eventually, the Lion's Club paid for an operation on my eyes, but I was in my 30's by then, and my isolation was pretty ingrained.

When I started in sales, I would sneak back to the motel after everyone on my team had left, and just sit there and cry; I was so afraid to go knock on doors. All that forced me to go, was the knowledge that it was costing me to stay there, and I had to go and make at least enough money to cover my expenses.

I devised a strategy.
I would pretend to be my manager, and I would stride purposefully up to the door while saying to myself , " I am Bruce, I am confident. I can do this" and visualize myself as Bruce, who was a top salesman.
It never got easy for me; but it did get better, and I just sort of slipped into the "confident Bruce" role when I needed it.

Since I like people, and wanted to to the best for them, I usually did okay once I got into the house and was actually talking to people. I started thinking about what they needed for insurance protection, rather than my fear, and then the sales just fell into place pretty naturally.
 
HFL, That took a courage many of us don't have. And it sounds like your inner spirit prevailed. From what I've learned of you, you are a beautiful soul. Thank you for being just who you are. My:hatoff:'s to you.
 
Thank you everyone who has shared their stories. We all have so many different backgrounds and experiences. It's been fascinating learning what it would have been like if we walked in another's shoes.

Most of my jobs were active physically. But as a sewing machine operator I sat for 8 hours a day. The fastest operation in sewing is binding. You get the sensation you're flying. I put the binding around the outer edge of ironing board covers. I got 4 cents for each one sewed. I could sew 1,000 a day, so my earnings a week was generally around $200. The needles on the machine go so fast they turn red and smoke. The huge spools of thread need to be soaked in giant cans of solvent that strengthens the thread, preventing it from burning & breaking from the hot needles. I have a Singer machine at home, but to me it seems like a slow toy. What takes minutes to accomplish on a home machine, takes seconds on an industrial one.
 
Hi,
I guess I'll talk about my present job because I've had this one the longest (25 years.) I teach accounting/finance/business at a State College. I left public accounting in 1989 to take a full-time faculty position that turned into an administrative position, then back to full-time faculty. I've taught at least 20 different courses in my span.

I now teach 100% online from home. I am working under ADA accommodations because I have health issues that prevent me from going to campus every day. My day revolves around two computers and two iPads going full time, into the evenings and some on weekends.

I hope to retire in 3 years as it is getting harder for me to keep working. I've had a good run with this job and had some textbooks published, saw many of my students go on to become professionals in their field and met many great friends. The best part is that I graduated from the college I now teach at and that motivates my students.
 
Worked in a steelworks for 15 years dirty dangerous job seen a lot of accidents when I was ther lot of them stick in your mind then it closed so I was made redundant but a friend offered me a job in a bakery early start and a late Finnish but it's a job .:)
 
I worked from 12 years old until I retired at 63, picking one of those jobs as more interesting is tough. I guess I'd get it down to two choices; submarine duty aboard a diesel sub in the '60s and/or 40 years as an aerospace test engineer. Since the excitement as an engineer is highly technical and probably too boring for the non-initiated I'll go with the sub duty.

The submarines smelled pretty bad from diesel exhaust, various oil leaks, cigarette smoke, marginal hygiene (didn't have much water for bathing) and of course so did we, so much so that we would get overt negative reactions from other train or bus passengers and even customers in bars. Rode out hurricane Ginny(sp?) on the surface and numerous "interesting" North Atlantic storms; because of their design it was too dangerous to submerge during storms on the old subs. The motion was pretty much up and down in the forward end and figure eights in the stern with varying combination of both throughout the boat, of course it was a "guy thing" to see we could get others seasick. When we would head North the heaters usually failed so ice formed where metal fittings came through the hull and when we went South it would be pretty sticky, used to volunteer to stand lookout watches just to get some fresh air. Did manage to get to some great places like San Remo, Italy; Malta; Izmir; Turkey; Majorca, Spain to name a few

The new Nuke sailors have it made; clean air, lots of fresh water, fresh(er) food and the comfort of being submerged most of the time.

All in all it was definitely better duty during those years, '61 to '70, than the alternative, Viet Nam!
 
marinaio said:
I worked from 12 years old until I retired at 63, picking one of those jobs as more interesting is tough. I guess I'd get it down to two choices; submarine duty aboard a diesel sub in the '60s and/or 40 years as an aerospace test engineer. Since the excitement as an engineer is highly technical and probably too boring for the non-initiated I'll go with the sub duty.

The submarines smelled pretty bad from diesel exhaust, various oil leaks, cigarette smoke, marginal hygiene (didn't have much water for bathing) and of course so did we, so much so that we would get overt negative reactions from other train or bus passengers and even customers in bars. Rode out hurricane Ginny(sp?) on the surface and numerous "interesting" North Atlantic storms; because of their design it was too dangerous to submerge during storms on the old subs. The motion was pretty much up and down in the forward end and figure eights in the stern with varying combination of both throughout the boat, of course it was a "guy thing" to see we could get others seasick. When we would head North the heaters usually failed so ice formed where metal fittings came through the hull and when we went South it would be pretty sticky, used to volunteer to stand lookout watches just to get some fresh air. Did manage to get to some great places like San Remo, Italy; Malta; Izmir; Turkey; Majorca, Spain to name a few

The new Nuke sailors have it made; clean air, lots of fresh water, fresh(er) food and the comfort of being submerged most of the time.

All in all it was definitely better duty during those years, '61 to '70, than the alternative, Viet Nam!
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And I thought working in the steelworks dangerous.I hold me hat off to you sir.
 
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