Wednesday, December 5, 2012

And the answer is ...

* Wrote personalized sweepstakes copy for a mail-order catalog company.

I worked for Fingerhut first as a temp, hauling the boards around, then as a copy clerk, then wrote for their sweepstakes department. “Congratulations, Title Lastname! You may have already won $100,000 (if we draw your winning number blah blah blah blah blah.)”

* Cocktail waitress in a college bar.

Weekend drink specials were 3-for-1 and cost $1.90. Sometimes I’d get tipped the 10 cents. On a good night, I’d make $2. Popcorn and soda were free for the employees, but the hotdogs were still 50 cents.

* Mapped and transcribed county cemeteries.
Paid summer internship which utilized my double major of Geography and Historic Preservation.

* Sold hats out of trunks at home parties.


Got laid off, and had to make money somehow. Oddly enough, I was their best salesman. Go figure.

* Costumed walking tour guide in a capital city.
When asked when the 2:00 tour started, I replied “In the afternoon.”

* Cartographer: made analog maps for cruise missiles.


First job out of college. Back in the dark ages before AutoCAD. We took the brown (land) and blue (water) plates from the topo sheet and shot a new image. By hand, we scribed what the missile needed to “see”, shot a new positive, digitized it (with a VAX!), and then assigned numbers to the elevation lines with a touch pen on a monochrome computer screen.

* Worked retail in a well-known fabric store.

Nope. This is the one I’ve never done.
* Nightclub disc jockey in the days of vinyl.

This was where I waitressed. The hours were shorter, but the aggravation was less. And I had a horrible case of mic fright.

* Provided admin support for an industry association which developed a set of audio algorithms.
Here. 

* Managed a handful of historic properties.


These belonged to a family partnership that was rather laid back. I learned all sorts of interesting things here … like patching roofs, and everything I ever wanted to know about toilets.

11 comments:

  1. Unfortunately, none of my jobs have been this interesting.

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  2. Mine either. But then, I'm not nearly as interesting as our blog host . But I do hate being wrong... ;)

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  3. LOL, I just 'cannot' see you as a DJ... Sorry... :-D

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  4. Damn.

    Yeah, I guessed DJ too. I thought the fabric store thing was a gimme.

    Nice to see you hanging around the blog now and then.

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  5. My jobs look boring. I kept airplanes pointy end forward. I slept in bad places. I ate really bad food (did you get these grits out of an MRE?) I got fired as an elf, and I sometimes my work clothes get burned. Somewhere in there I got shot at.

    Your jobs sound like WAYYYYY too much fun.

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  6. I've had a lot of jobs the only two that sound all that interesting are, working for the girl scouts, and working as a stripper.

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  7. "Cartographer: made analog maps for cruise missiles."

    Now THERE is an esoteric gig!

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  8. worked as a caponizer, eg, i castrated roosters the old fashioned way.
    bob

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  9. County cemeteries...huh. Wondering how that was.

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  10. Second worst job in the world.

    For $1/hr (Under the table, as I was also underage) I filled orders for a trapping supply company. Literally.

    I took one gallon jugs of fox, coyote, skunk, muskrat, beaver, etc. urines and scents and pour them into 8 and 16 oz bottles. Carefully boxed them up, wrote out the address and UPS labels (before the computer age), and shipped them.

    Mom made me take off my clothes in the garage and "Head straight to the shower young man." I think my clothes were then burned whilst I attempted to scrub the combo stink off. Dad said he'd been to rendering plants that smelled better. It was tough on my social life as well. :\

    Anyway, the only job that I could think that was worse then that was the guy that had to fill the one gallon jugs.

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