Take this job and....

One of my favorite things about me is the varied work experience I have had over the years. Other than honoring my commitment to myself to never do fast food, I think I've covered quite a few bases....

1 - Babysitter (duh)

2 - Movie Theater Concession Seller - 11th grade - site of my most embarrassing moment and where I met my first skank skuzzy boyfriend (who ironically was from North Carolina...)

3 - Summer Camp Cook - I can crack 4 eggs at a time and man a griddle with 28 pancakes cooking at one time and have them come out PERFECT. I also know the secret correlation between camp cool-aide and camp jello, but I can't tell you, or I'd have to string your underwear up on a flagpole.

4 - Facilities staff at my college - I cleaned chalkboards and bathrooms after hours. Really, giving 20 college students the keys to the building probably isn't a wise idea.

5 - Nanny - CUSH JOB!!! 9 year old girl whose family had a lake house 10 miles away. Schedule - Get 9-year-old up, feed, pack Barbies & lunch - go to lake house - sit on dock/swim - lunch - sit on dock/swim/play barbies - take child home - go home. And they PAID me.

6 - Front Desk Clerk at Super 8 Motel. I loved this job, but it wasn't easy. Road-weary people tend to be cranky. But being a block away from the county fairgrounds made for some fun conversations... "So, you're here for the rare Poultry show? No sir, I'm sorry, we can't allow chickens in the rooms...."

7 - Special Sanitation - Green Giant - Yes, I worked for the Jolly Green Giant in a Pea/Corn packing plant. Special Sanitation is the group that comes in and cleans the machinery so that your canned and frozen peas don't start growing weird things. I worked in the freezers. A couple times I was sent over to the canning room. I'm not going to say much here cause I don't want to gross people out, just know this - I NEVER EVER EVER eat canned veggies. ONLY frozen. And there's a reason.

8 - Canning Line - Green Giant - 6 day weeks, 12 hour days, stand next to a canning machine and feed it lids... that was it. OH, and I was the only person who spoke English. The fun thing about this job is that you never knew when you were going to work. You had to listen to the radio at a specific time and they would announce who worked. WEIRD.... but I made enough money to buy my first car - an '83 Ford Tempo - Gray with a blood red interior. I know, you're jealous.

9 - Telephone Answering - this was an odd one. I worked for a company called Sports Score. It was me and 6 elderly men, sitting around a table. We each had a phone. People would call in scores from high school sporting events and we would write them on a little piece of paper and hand it to the guy who inputted it into the computer and THAT my friends is how your local TV station GETS the scores... newspapers too... Kind of an interesting job actually, and the old guys were funny as HELL!

10 - Housekeeper - Kings Canyon National Park - best summer of my life. I cleaned 9 cabins. Here's a pic of 4 of them. I had wheelbarrows that held my stuff. I was SO buff by the end of that summer. I will post more about that summer at some point. But in regards to working, my favorite story was that these are government owned buildings that are run by private organizations. But the government still inspects them, supposedly in a "surprise" fashion, but everyone knows they are coming. They inspect using a 5 star scale - 1 sucks, 5 rocks. The bath cabins had never gotten more then a 3. I'm a gal who likes a challenge like that (Just ask Mr. Van Overbeke - ha - I showed HIM), so I was determined to make SURE those cabins got a 4. Now, here's a picture of 4 of the cabins.

Not the fanciest of joints, and COVERED in pine needles and sand. A 4 was going to be hard. But I dug in - I washed, I dusted, I moved furniture, I scrubbed floors, I cleaned out drawers... Finally inspection day came. I watched them go in and out of my cabins, then leave... I couldn't wait to head down to the headquarters and find out the score, but alas I had to go help the flunky boys clean THEIR cabins so I had to wait. Finally the day was over and we headed back to the main building. I walked into my bosses office... he gave me this sad puppy face. "Beth, I'm so sorry... we didn't get a 4." I was CRUSHED! What did these people WANT?? It's the mountains, it's old buildings it's.. it's... NOT FAIR. Then he gets this HUGE sh*t-eating grin and says "We got a 5!!!" HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They bought me a steak dinner that night!

11 - Professional gift-wrapper. Anyone from the Midwest? Remember Daytons? I worked at the original Daytons in downtown Minneapolis. One heck of an odd job - feast or famine. Most nights were spent reading books or measuring the walkable distance behind the counter to see how many laps equaled a mile. But then there was Christmas... and Mother's Day.. and Valentines day. I proudly have a scar on my finger from THAT job.

After that I graduated from college (I know - that's a lot of fun for just college) and started working "Big Girl Jobs".... snooze.... If I could go back to any other them... probably the gift wrapper. Though for a SMIDGE more money.