Jobs you had before you found your place in the world

[BmillsSkier]

I hope Parvo finds this thread.

We may need 2 new threads if so. One for Papapoopski and one for Parvo.

I’ll celebrate the arrival of both.

[Name Redacted]

McDonald’s
Philly cheesy steaks
Falafel
Papa Johns
Financial services
Painter
Bus boy
Helicopter pilot
Bartender
Brewer

[Meadow Skipper]

McDonald’s
Philly cheesy steaks
Falafel
Papa Johns
Financial services
Painter
Bus boy
Helicopter pilot <- Wait...what?
Bartender
Brewmaster

Helicopter pilot?

[Danno]

Maybe he was just making sure someone was paying attention?

[bennymac]

I’d buy a book if it was alternating chapters of true life stories written by mags like Papoopski and Parvo. Bmills as well.

“Stories from the third floor bathroom” can be the title. Coach and her shiny forehead can grace the cover.

[Danno]

-Then I went into business with a friend. Name: The Workin' Guys. Slogan: We'll do anything legal for $10/hr. Had more work than we could do. Hired a couple friends the second summer.

This is pretty funny, what I listed as "odd jobs" was really EXACTLY the same. We called ourselves "Ben and Dan's All-in-One Service", but our unofficial motto was "we'll do anything for $10/hr". We didn't want to work that hard so we mostly did landscaping and cleaning, about 30 hrs/wk. One suburban housewife had us come over to her house once a week (I wish this story was better) for 3 hours and just found stuff for us to do, like pooper scoop her yard, put together toys for her toddler, etc.

One guy was trying to get his house painted, so we enlisted a buddy who knew housepainting, but the guy was trying to be cheap and only hired us at first to scrape his house, wanted to talk about painting it when we were done. Well, when we were finished the buddy who knew housepainting was going back to school, we wanted to do other shit, so we told him we wouldn't be bidding on the painting job. He was pissed that he had a completely scraped house and nobody to paint it.

Yeah, I know, these aren't papapoopski-level stories.

[babybear]

our unofficial motto was "we'll do anything for $10/hr".

I hope you understand the privilege of using that motto

[Danno]

I hope you understand the privilege of using that motto

oh, totally. We were on the Main Line of Philly in super fancy suburbs. Even at 21, we were well aware of the implications and privilege there; that was sort of the joke.

There was only one thing we always turned down (though as noted, we didn't have to turn down a lot given the privilege): landscaping around poison ivy. If we saw poison ivy, we walked.

[Viva]

Helicopter pilot?

Heli-skiing pilot?

[muted]

Papoopski set a high bar, as have others, ha. I'll for now just admit to my dumbest job in high school. I signed up for a work-release program that would let me leave HS at noon every day of my senior year if I worked a minimum of 10 hours a week at a job. Yeah, just 10 hours, it was sweet. I was getting rejected by many businesses before the BIG deadline at school of needing to get a job or defaulting to going to school full time, then I finally I got a job: at a big box department store. I had to take it, no one else would hire me. So I sold Precious Moments, Godiva Chocolates, and greeting cards in my department. Lottsa weirdos made me take my precious key and let them hold their dream Precious Moment for an agonizing minute or five before they handed it back to me as they couldn't afford it just yet. uh, huh.

Security guy often came behind the candy counter with me and grazed all the expensive treats, so while that was awkward, at least i knew i could sample the goods too without getting fired.

Mattress salesman across the aisle from my department, who was in college, would loan me Playboy VHS tapes. Holy shit that was awesome but super weird in retrospect. He also told me how he got busted in his 2nd floor stockroom peeping through a hole in the floor, flat on his stomach with a nice suit on the concrete floor, viewing the woman's changing room below. His supervisor said, 'Don't do that again' and moved a shelving unit over the hole. Mattress guy moved the shelves when his supervisor got promoted elsewhere.

[gimpy]

parking lot acid salesman

[stealurface831]

I forgot about my gig as a bouncer at my friend's dad's nightclub-venue/organized crime den kinda place. Started bussing tables there around 13, worked my way up to bouncer by 17. Before I got my license, my parents would drop me off at like 5:30pm and pick me up anywhere between 1 and 5 am. I saw meetings between Dixie Mafia soldiers, picked up the teeth of a Hmong gang member who got jumped in the lobby of the main restaurant, got a gun pulled on me by a very drunk Crip who got mad when the DJ played Migos, and got lots of life advice in broken english from the sketchy Russian mobsters in track suits who were always around. A few other buddies worked with me and we had some good times with the bartender chicks. Joints were often smoked on the receiving docks around back. Buddy's dad would make the meanest chicken quesadillas and banana pudding. It was a good job.

[babybear]

I forgot about my gig as a bouncer at my friend's dad's nightclub-venue/organized crime den kinda place. Started bussing tables there around 13, worked my way up to bouncer by 17. Before I got my license, my parents would drop me off at like 5:30pm and pick me up anywhere between 1 and 5 am. I saw meetings between Dixie Mafia soldiers, picked up the teeth of a Hmong gang member who got jumped in the lobby of the main restaurant, got a gun pulled on me by a very drunk Crip who got mad when the DJ played Migos, and got lots of life advice in broken english from the sketchy Russian mobsters in track suits who were always around. A few other buddies worked with me and we had some good times with the bartender chicks. Joints were often smoked on the receiving docks around back. Buddy's dad would make the meanest chicken quesadillas and banana pudding. It was a good job.

Didn’t I see you mention elsewhere that you’re currently in high school?

[stealurface831]

Didn’t I see you mention elsewhere that you’re currently in high school?

5th year senior so i'm 19

[babybear]

5th year senior so i'm 19

You are clearly more advanced than I was at your age

[stealurface831]

You are clearly more advanced than I was at your age

I'm hoping to get most of my fuck ups out of the way now rather than later when i have actual responsibilities and shit

[BmillsSkier]

parking lot acid salesman

I just asked my friend and he wants to know if you were working the Blossom Music Center lot during Lollapalooza '92.

Cause if so, he says he wants his $10 back.

[hatchgreenchile]

I've had some fun jobs, both formally and informally, over the years. Junkyard wrenching, non-ferrous metal recycling, excavating, online book sales, golf course maintenance, street outreach, ski rental tech, call center bitch, cashier and "professionally", territory management in the electronics manufacturing industry. That chapter ended in January, and I'm now in sales operations in biotech. Who knows how long this one will last.

By far, the most unique one was the "Amish" kettle corn worker at the fair. We dressed up in long collared shirts, dark pants and straw hats. None of us could grow a full beard, but that would helped us "play the part".

Kettle corn is pretty easy to make, but when it's 90 degrees out and you're standing over said kettle all day, getting drilled by boiling hot kernels, it really sucks. Never again.

[stealurface831]

I spent another college summer working at a sea turtle conservancy off the cost of NC, where my main job was to drive a side by side up and down the beach all night and look for incoming turtles. When they arrived, I'd wait for them to start laying, then measure them, tag them (if they weren't already), and after they're returned to the water, put a cage up over the next so people/raccoons wouldn't dig up the eggs. The vehicles spent a decent amount of time in the shop so I put in a ton of miles on foot. 9 of us all lived in a beach house that was part of the conservancy and there was very much a "Real World" dynamic to the drama, which I thankfully stayed pretty clear of. As part of that job, I also spent a week basically on loan to a sea turtle hospital a bit farther up the coast. That was also really cool. We'd also go counting gators on other parts of the island with the wildlife guys, which was fun as well. Overall the pay was low, but given that housing was a beach house I wasn't paying for, I wasn't complaining. I made more than I spent. Also, it's unclear how I was hired as it was a somewhat coveted position and everyone else was a bio/marine bio major/master's student. I studied international relations and send the full page of the application reserved for "Relevant Coursework and Grades Received" back with "N/A" on it. I think they interviewed me just to see what I was thinking.

Bald Head Island, right?

[BmillsSkier]

I've had some fun jobs, both formally and informally, over the years. Junkyard wrenching, non-ferrous metal recycling, excavating, online book sales, golf course maintenance, street outreach, ski rental tech, call center bitch, cashier and "professionally", territory management in the electronics manufacturing industry. That chapter ended in January, and I'm now in sales operations in biotech. Who knows how long this one will last.

By far, the most unique one was the "Amish" kettle corn worker at the fair. We dressed up in long collared shirts, dark pants and straw hats. None of us could grow a full beard, but that would helped us "play the part".

Kettle corn is pretty easy to make, but when it's 90 degrees out and you're standing over said kettle all day, getting drilled by boiling hot kernels, it really sucks. Never again.

I drive through Amish country once a year en route to somewhere better and it never once occurred to me that there was money in impersonating Ishmael and the boys.

Kudos and simultaneous vibes Hatch, hope the burning kernels didn't scar.

[Mazderati]

[idahospud]

We don't have a cow.

[MakersTeleMark]

You are clearly more advanced than I was at your age

#POTD 19 was my last year in college.

I once delivered a locked briefcase over the GWB and pulled over next to a black caddy in my Mom's '79 CVCC, handed it to some goombas, and turned around.

I kept my job, but the trash guy we used at the restaurant had his truck burned down the next week.

I still got paid in cash in the walk in and we threw all the registers in the new guys' dumpsters.

[Viva]

I drive through Amish country....

Driving through Amish Country sucked on a motorcycle- fresh horse shit all over the road.

[Buster Highmen]

Acid dealer, Alta 1975-76

Myself and 2 friends got a ride from Lou from Portland with 300 hits and got dropped off in SLC mid December. We got an apartment on the North Hill, down below the Capitol building, but none of us had a car after Lou split. So we would hitchhike up to Alta/Snowbird or Brighton (Solitude was closed that year) usually at really early hours, like 6 am.

We got shaken down by the cops, having long hair and dirtbag attire, but after a while, they used to give us rides to the mouth of LCC. That was always fun. We'd throw our skis in the back of the cruiser and hop in to the handleless back seat and the cops would open the doors for us like a chaffeur to get our stuff.

We'd crash in the lifty lodge by Wildcat and spent a few evenings hopping from closet to closet as the supervisors made their rounds. We'd trade a hit for a fistful of water stained, single ride tickets When we'd hand these off, we'd get a knowing look from the liftys and a request to stop by later.

After a few days, we'd make it back down to the apartment which had no furniture and no utensil to cook something. Once time around Christmas, we roasted a turkey, got high as kites and had a turkey war, tearing off legs or chunks of meat and hitting each other with it. The carpet got some stains from those events.

One night, we tried to crash in the basement of the Peruvian and some little kids ratted us out, so the marshall showed up and made us sit in his cruiser while he ran our ids. We were pretty much always holding, but nothing turned up, so he let us go and we ended up finding an VW bug unlocked and spent a fitful night in that thing.

Did a lot of stupid skiing, sailiing off blind cliffs around Eagles Nest and sidestepping way out the Castle (Catherines lift had yet to be put in) and skiing the keyhole in avie conditions.

One highlight occurred when I was walking up to the tram at Snowbird from below and as I looked up Jackie Onassis and her entourage showed up at the edge of the pavilion looking down. I was blazing and decided to throw my skis and poles up in the air and loudly yell "Jackie". She adjusted her enormous sunglasses and turned away.