Teenage/20s jobs

[nev gash]

"Suckin' in the 70s - Ponderin' that Decade" (Polymath Autumn 2018)

Just fine-tuning the chapter on the Aviator Shades/Flannel Shirt/Walter Becker nexus.

[zoomboogity]

every job I've ever had has been a "teenage job"
can I borrow the car?

"Mom, I tore a big hole in the convertible."

[LeBaron]

Cook at amusement (water) Park
Food manager at the same park
Factory grunt/landscaping grunt at gypsum/Sheetrock factory
Overnight radio dispatcher for college campus cops
Record store dude
Overnight counselor at inpatient head injury rehab center
School bus driver

[Jimbo]

School bus driver

Reminded of that fake trade school ad in National Lampoon: Everyone wants to be a bus driver!

[sloopjohnc]

Tree climber / surgeon

I'm sure there are a few I'm forgetting. Of those listed I did the tree work longest. It was brutal, dangerous, the pay was shit but I loved it. You really felt like you had done something badass when you got home.

I bet. We had a chain saw at home. My water polo coach/gym teacher asked me and a couple buddies if we wanted to clear a road in the coastal hills where he was building a ranch. The deal was we could keep the wood and sell it for firewood - no pay. Like dummies, we did it for a couple months. Problem was, the majority of wood was Madrone, which burns like shit. No one wanted to buy it.

The best part of it was a local radio station was playing Beatles A-Z one weekend so we could listen to that on trips up and back to the ranch.

Not as dangerous as your job, but I can relate. You felt like you actually did something physical afterwards. Chain sawing is fun.

[sloopjohnc]

Oh, and I was night janitor at McDonald's on weekends for about 6 months. I had to take out the garbage which was stored in a small room in the basement. I had to climb in the pile of bags and put them on a conveyer belt to the outside. Problem was that inevitably, some bags would get stuck and get torn up. I had to clean that too.

Part of my cabinet gofer job was on Fridays the shop would close early. I had to clean the whole place. We're talking 10,000+ feet workshop and warehouse, including two big bags of sawdust that went to the ceiling and had accumulated from the week. I'd collect it, put it in big metal trash cans and lug it all out to the dumpster with a handtruck. Sometimes, it was 15-16 big cans. When I first started, I'd try to hurry and a can would dump. Which meant, I had to clean the sawdust from the parking lot. I learned not to hurry and take my time even though I just wanted the job to go away.

[Harvey K-Tel]

-Paper route, first with the Cornwall Standard Freeholder, then with the Ottawa Citizen (I wasn't a teenager at this point)

I can't remember the exact chronological order of this next lot...

-Waiter at a hotel dining room. Part of this required making Caesar salads and omelettes at tableside. I lasted maybe a week before getting fired.
-Factory grunt at:

• Autosystems - my job was using Krazy Glue™ to fasten metal washers to plastic headlight housings
• Procter & Gamble - packaging feminine hygiene products and diapers at the end of the production line
• Mobil Chemical Canada - end of line at an extruded plastics plant. They made coated film that's used in chip bags, candy wrappers, etc.

-Part-time maintenance worker at a seniors residence, mostly taking out the trash, helping in the kitchen, and painting apartments.
-Busboy/waiter at a few restaurants in Toronto, one which was part-owned by Dan Aykroyd. He came in once and asked me to watch his pickup truck which was idling on the street out front.
-Book store shipper/receiver
-Furniture/prop rental shop lackey
-Bicycle courier

[PresMuffley]

Tree climber / surgeon

I'm sure there are a few I'm forgetting. Of those listed I did the tree work longest. It was brutal, dangerous, the pay was shit but I loved it. You really felt like you had done something badass when you got home.

I bet. We had a chain saw at home. My water polo coach/gym teacher asked me and a couple buddies if we wanted to clear a road in the coastal hills where he was building a ranch. The deal was we could keep the wood and sell it for firewood - no pay. Like dummies, we did it for a couple months. Problem was, the majority of wood was Madrone, which burns like shit. No one wanted to buy it.

The best part of it was a local radio station was playing Beatles A-Z one weekend so we could listen to that on trips up and back to the ranch.

Not as dangerous as your job, but I can relate. You felt like you actually did something physical afterwards. Chain sawing is fun.

Goddamn greedy capitalist water polo coaches taking advantage of innocent naive youth trying to make an honest buck. We must bring this system down!

I've never played water polo, but it looks like a helluva lot of cardio is involved so at least you were in shape for this lesson in life.

The worst part of that tree gig was the people I had to work with. But I've found that tends to be the case. A couple guys there were cool though, and I really enjoyed working with this older black guy. He was an ex-con, did time for burglary apparently. He said he used to climb into the second-story windows of houses since most folks never locked them. When he got out of prison he decided to put his climbing skills to lawful use. Good guy. He always had a spliff ready for the crew in the morning and would work you till you damn near dropped, but you always felt safe with him.

But yeah, chainsaws are fucking great. I actually just bought a newer, bigger Stihl early last month. Been putting it to good use around here cleaning up the property.

[K]

Pot Washer in a local hotel that was usually used for cheap weddings and birthday parties.

[sloopjohnc]

Pot Washer in a local hotel that was usually used for cheap weddings and birthday parties.

Another job I forgot was working for a caterer on the weekends. One of my classmates in grad school asked if I wanted to work for his family's catering business. You'd bring out dishes, refill water, wine and then clear plates and wash dishes. It was hard work and you were on your feet all night.

[nev gash]

Pot Washer in a local hotel that was usually used for cheap weddings and birthday parties.

Fostering your nimbyish, shrieking dislike of others enjoying themselves without your participation!

Hodg-life!

[Quaco]

Janitor for parents' business
Shell gas station attendant
Jewelry maker
Legal deposition transcript summarizer

[Darkness_Fish]

I only had one part-time job as a student, and attempting to describe it just triggered the evil BCB filters which kicked me out for a while. Suffice to say that I was on the phone lines for an industry which accepts money, and occasionally rewards customers, depending on the outcome of certain equestrian or canine speed-related activities. I was always slightly mystified by the tech, the horse's names were printed onto a sheet of paper, which was sellotaped to a big plastic board attached to a computer. Jabbing the horses' names with a clicky pen-type instrument would display the correct horse's name on screen. I guess it was some positional thing, but the positioning of paper & sellotape didn't seem particularly sophisticated enough to be accurate.

[Goat Boy]

As a teenager:
Paper boy for YEARS
Paper sorter. One day a week
Argos warehouse. I worked on the tills for one day but was pulled because I useless

I had various jobs in Australia mostly working on farms picking fruit etc or building sites including:

Brickies labourer (sacked after an hour)
Banana picker (sacked after one day). Fucking nightmare
I worked at the duty free in Sydney airport which I quite liked though


I had various office jobs:

Data entry clerk
Helpdesk guy (quit after a month)
General admin type crap including one job where I was sticking letters in envelopes. They let me go after a week
Database admin
Assistant planner
Data Analyst (paid off after month)
“Frame agreement admin”. Whatever the fuck that was. “Sacked” after three months i.e. contract not renewed

I had loads of shit jobs in my 20s

[sloopjohnc]

Janitor for parents' business
Shell gas station attendant
Jewelry maker
Legal deposition transcript summarizer

That's quite the potpourri. I'd combine the last three with a drive-thru or convenience store. After getting gas, you could get some jerky, Gatorade, jewelry and your legal deposition summarized.

[Count Machuki]

That profession surely has one of the highest turnover rates of any.

This is 100% true.