BS: Your former odd jobs

Subject: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Jan 18 - 10:32 PM

It was fun to learn Rachel Maddow used to be a bike messenger.
I worked at a A&W Root Beer stand.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Jan 18 - 10:36 PM

I spent a couple of weeks working for a commercial museum in a ghost town.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 02:50 AM

I'm a part-time Latin tutor. Does that count?

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 03:09 AM

I have been:-

a paid baby-sitter
a dog-sitter
a part-time nanny
a sales assistant of children's vests and pants in Littlewoods
a canteen assistant for Littlewoods staff canteen
a short-order chef in a cafe
a dish washer
a temporary auxiliary nurse
a cleaner

I actually enjoyed all of these, but the nursing was the best and most interesting. (I was only 19 at the time)

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 03:42 AM

Bo Foaks, much-missed Cornwall folkie and stalwart of the Tenterden Folk Festival, (and who introduced me to the Mudcat), once employed me to ride his drag-racing motorbike in the days before he had his own driving licence.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Will Fly
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 03:50 AM

Seaside photographer
Washer-up in seaside cafe
Production line worker in linoleum factory
Gardener's labourer
Barman
Busker
Traffic census enumerator
Shop assistant in men's boutique

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 03:56 AM

The job itself was quite normal - Computer specialist - but I once had to install some computer gear in a massive tiled ex-bathroom in a Victorian built lunatic asylum!

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Iains
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 04:17 AM

I had a part time job for some years making gnomes(garden)

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 04:59 AM

A Saturday/school holiday job as a milkman;

Handing out toys to kids in a Christmas grotto before they went on to see Santa.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 05:54 AM

For a short time I was one of a group of volunteer planetarium operators during an exhibition.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 07:20 AM

I was a complete nitwit when I was young. (Husband would say, no change there then!) I had some right disasters when doing my 'odd jobs':-

I once let the potato-peeling machine run on for too long, and the thing grated and grated until the spuds came out the size of peanuts.

I put far too much artificial cream liquid in the big whisker, and it beat the stuff into a massive foam that flowed over the entire kitchen and engulfed everyone up to their knees.

I collected up the false teeth for the geriatric patients and cleaned them all beautifully. But I didn't make a note of which were whose. So had to go round trying them all in different mouths. I bet several got someone else's teeth!

And selling children's vests etc in Edinburgh, I wasn't familiar with all the different Scottish banknotes, and happily gave change for £10 for every £5 I was handed. No wonder I had a lot of customers!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Iains
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 07:52 AM

Senoufou. Welcome back!

Your post had me laughing all the way through. I think we can all claim similar disasters but are extremely reluctant to fess up.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: DMcG
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 08:03 AM

I spent some time as a brick unlayer.

It was a site where people were taught to be bricklayers and my job was to take all the walls etc to pieces and restack the bricks for future use. Ditto the 'cement'.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 08:26 AM

Hahaha DMcG!! Hope the people didn't see your demolition!

When I first started teaching, we were told to show the girls how to knit, and once they had made a small square, to unravel the whole thing, roll the wool into a ball and save it for the next class. I did this in secret, as their little faces fell doing it in front of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 08:35 AM

My most memorable experience of all was helping the theatre orderly in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. I was very nosy and wanted to know everything. One day, I found a gangrenous, blackened leg sticking out of a steel bucket in the 'prep room'. I actually picked it up (!!) carried it towards him and asked why it was so black, how it had been cut off and what should I do with it? He gasped and spluttered and told me to put the bloody thing back where I'd found it. (In fact it was destined for the Medical School next door)

I won't go into detail, but I still smile at Sister's stern instructions on 'How to give Men a blanket bath." I'd never seen 'a Man' before, and hadn't a clue what to do with one. She actually demonstrated on an elderly chap. I didn't know where to put my face!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: DMcG
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 08:57 AM

Because of obscure laws, shops with a sign that overhangs a street can claim ownership of the land underneath after a period (or could do some 40+ years ago). So councils would charge 'peppercorn rents' off the legal owner of the sign just to assert in law that the council owned the land.


So one of my flatmates in Uni days had a vacation job to ring up CEOs of multi-million pound businesses and demand a few pence off them.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 09:44 AM

Oooh, I bet they were reluctant to cough up!

This thread has awakened all sorts of funny memories of my youth.
I can still hear that Scottish Sister on the geriatric ward saying, "Mind now, nurrrse, always rrretrract the forrrrreskin!"

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: DMcG
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 11:21 AM

I am afraid the normal response was 'Why are you wasting my &@&@% time?"

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 01:33 PM

Besides being a 'paper boy' (during the Korean war) and being a grocery clerk during high school & college, I have
worked in a library shelving books,
sold scrap metal and 'other stuff' at a surplus store,
put up pipes & drapes & banners at fairs for a display company,
done various jobs (carpentry, painting, etc.)in the building & grounds dept. at my college,
sorted mail and proof-read Federal Register articles at the EPA,

routed incoming supplies at Beech Aircraft warehouse,
worked at an 'adult' bookstore for 3 years,
been an 'analyst' for a software company and worked in a cabinet shop for almost 5 years.

But, I can also claim that I was a genuine bean counter! I was cycle inventory person at a Stokely Van Camps cannery. I also counted the cases of peaches, corn, Gatorade...etc.

I also made $4000 in 2 years as a graduate teaching asst. in Philosophy. That was supposed to be my "career", but things, as they say, didn't work out. :>(

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 01:52 PM

'an adult bookstore...' Hmmm. Fifty Shades of Grey?

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Joe_F
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 06:12 PM

I was a meter calibrator.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 07:01 PM

Senoufou ... mostly red & yellow.. with LOTS of pink.

>this place I just started there and didn't know about the interview for awhile. I 'think' it happened before I started but just didn't published right away.

   There are many distortions in the piece, but it WAS different and they actually did have some club meetings for a short while. Both of the owners were very intelligent and educated women and I have some funny stories about the place.... a bit different from counting beans. ?

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Jan 18 - 08:13 AM

It may not be in your case Bill but getting a PH 'all but dissertation' has driven lesser people mad.
Today many if not most dissertations contain plagiarism. They are all warehoused in Ann Arbor Michigan. I think the rules for publishing have changed. I do not have a phd so my tangential knowledge may be wrong. Seeking PHDs can be a pisser that keeps on pissing.

I did circuit board assembly at IBM back in the moonshot days until I did a TINY mistake and went back to SUC Fredonia music school.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: fat B****rd
Date: 06 Jan 18 - 08:42 AM

During school holidays; Change boy and slot machine "mechanic" on the prom at Cleethorpes. That's when I discovered that grown-ups said F*** and nearly got mistakenly "filled in" by one of the boys off the Dodgems.
Left school
Dogs body in clothes shop
Clerk x 4 various offices
Concrete shipper
Clerk in accounts dept
Paint stripper in telephone factory
Degreaser       "    "       "
Press operator "    "       "
Storeperson    "    "       "
Temporary in foam factory!
Picker/packer/truck driver etc in domestic spares warehouse
Invigilator at local college
Layabout

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 06 Jan 18 - 08:58 AM

The first job I had as a kid was picking strawberries. After that I taught guitar lessons, worked in a printing plant, worked in a mattress factory for all of two weeks, worked at a department store camera and house wares departments, back to the printing plant full time, substitute teacher until 1985. In '85 after only having three days of teaching jobs in the month of February I took a part time job as a park district janitor. That wound up turning into full time. They were very good about letting me take time off to play music, so I wound up staying for 28 years and formally retired in 2013. These days we substitute teach again, but have pension income as well. So all the jobs had their odd bits.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Jackaroodave
Date: 06 Jan 18 - 09:19 AM

Donuel, as a holder of a doctorate and former university teacher whose mentors, colleagues, and friends wrote dissertations now on file at Ann Arbor, I'm surprised and would like to know your evidence that "many or most" of us are plagiarists.

On Topic: One summer I was the mouse-killer at the Detroit Institute of Cancer Research. Actually, I tended, monitored, and cleaned the cages of the mice bred for susceptibility to cancer, but once a week I'd go through the population with a big jar of chloroform and toss in the ones to be sacrificed or discarded. Got a lot of karma to work off.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Jan 18 - 10:03 AM

To further qualify claims of plagiarism I only have anecdotal evidence.
There are minor issues such as incorrect or absent sourcing and footnote mistakes , then there is the wholesale Melania type copying. Add ghost writing and other issues like overseas translations all together and it is significant but never 'most'. There are probably fields where cheating is impossible.   
I have no aim to disrespect the accomplishment but when Human nature has a will there is a way. The number of people involved in the agonizing process prevents most wrongdoing.

Too bad executive office does not require advanced degrees or any degree for that matter.


First jobs like paperboy does stay with us. It does with me.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Jackaroodave
Date: 06 Jan 18 - 11:13 AM

Thank you, Donuel,

I understand that you didn't mean to point a finger at anyone, and that any field has its scoundrels.

Let me add some reasons (not all distinct from yours) why I think it's unlikely that a given dissertation is plagiarized.

First, reasons of prudence:

In my field, English, at any rate, doctoral students who teach part-time spend too much of their time detecting plagiarism and deciding how to deal with it to feel it is worth the candle: Plagiarized portions of a paper written by a novice are obvious to an expert, and this can be expected to hold at the graduate--professorial level as well as at the undergraduate--doctoral student one.

The writers of dissertations are expected to master--and cite--all the sources that provide the background for their original work. They can expect their dissertation committee to have an even broader and deeper knowledge of the relevant literature. Consequently the probability of discovering a source which is simultaneously a significant, original contribution to the field, but is unknown to one's committee is not large enough to risk.

A student writing a dissertation has already put in from three to umpteen years pursuing a narrow specialty. The benefits of successful plagiarism--if any--are slight, and the possible penalties--loss of years of work, the end of job prospects, banishment from academia--are enormous.

As you point out, the dissertation is eternally preserved at Ann Arbor, so for even the successful plagiarists, the possibility of detection and disgrace remains throughout their careers--most likely at the breakthrough moment when a hiring committee considers a candidate seriously enough to take a look at their publications.

Psychological reasons:

As I suggested above, graduate assistants and ABD teachers are occupationally conditioned to detest plagiarism and other forms of academic cheating. Plagiarism is to academia as perjury is to law: Not only a serious offense, but one that undermines the foundations of the entire institution. For a would-be career academic to base their career on a forgery would involve considerable cognitive and emotional dissonance.

Finally, dissertation authors generally choose their topics: They write about what interests and motivates them. After laboring in the vineyards for years, they have an unprecedented opportunity for them to express THEIR ideas and feelings about what is truly important in the field that they hope will be their life's work. To surrender this opportunity to a covert source--without even getting the credit for discovering it--is something I believe would stick in the craw of most academic egos.

I agree that much plagiarism--probably most--at the undergraduate level is unintentional, and it's on us teachers to do a better job of explaining the rules and conventions--which vary from community to community.

And I also realize that my arguments cannot refute credible testimony of numerous instances of plagiarism. However, a huge number of dissertations are written every year, and I feel I have provided grounds for believing the vast majority are genuine original work.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Jan 18 - 05:35 PM

People like this
feed the prejudiced opinions.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 06 Jan 18 - 06:13 PM

The first job I got paid for was to produce some drawings of steam locos, side elevations, for my late father's book "Railways round Exmoor" (recent new edition I notice but they didn't tell me about it!).

So I started out as a "Technical Illustrator", which, I suppose, connects to my models that I sell now from time to time on ebay (look up millimodels.co.uk).

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Jackaroodave
Date: 06 Jan 18 - 06:14 PM

"People like this
feed the prejudiced opinions."

Beautiful! As West Virginians say about certain relatives, "She's one of ours, but we don't claim her." A perfect instance of the exception proving (probing, testing) the rule.

Sorry for the thread drift in response to an off-hand comment.

Back on track, during my misspent youth I was a

hot-dog vendor
gardener/groundskeeper
apprentice operating engineer
mouse killer
factory hand
dishwasher
dry cleaner
truck driver
nurses' assistant
homesteader and herb vendor
house cleaner
migrant academic laborer

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Mooh
Date: 06 Jan 18 - 10:50 PM

Besides my 3 major careers in building maintenance, labour relations, and music...

church verger/caretaker
paperboy
litter collector for a general store
babysitter
retail sales clerk
gardener
carpenter
demolition labourer
tree planter/junior ranger
union shop steward

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: mg
Date: 07 Jan 18 - 12:13 AM

my best job ever was selling carpet samples on a saturday morning. owner of store was also gold prospector. wanted to keep store open, would only let us take names of customers and sell dollar samples. might average 3 per morning. right next door to wonderful deli. right at time great folk music shows came on.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Jan 18 - 01:01 AM

Hmmm... as the only American adolescent in Abidjan who wasn't sent away to anglophone boarding school, I was not only pretty much the only babysitter, I was also (when needed) the Easter Bunny, Santa's Elf, and, every weekend, the ticket-seller to the Embassy movies.

The Embassy also hired teens during the summer; I was the warehouse receptionist, I typed up a book on anthropology of local tribal women, which involved not only stencils and mimeographs but running around a table collating; this was before smart copiers. And one summer, when they had nothing for me to do, the secretary for the Japanese ambassador, who worked mostly in French. I got to where I could send and receive telexes in the Japanese syllabary without understanding a word of it.

I also painted a house one summer in college, in a failed attempt to learn to like beer.

Lessee, here, I worked in a mouse lab one summer, and I was terrible at sexing the newborns so they kept having unauthorized babies... oops. Oh, and while I was in grad school I tutored the football team, including such stars as Terry Kirby and Herman Moore.

Interesting to see what weve all been up to!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Jan 18 - 01:06 PM

house painter. wild
roofer. hot
crawl space cleaner. ew

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 07 Jan 18 - 02:44 PM

You must be quite confident up ladders and brave with heights Donuel!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 07 Jan 18 - 03:52 PM

Not mine, but jobs some of my ex-patients had:
Chicken catcher - don't ask what happened next!
Banana ripener - loved his job, just had to keep turning them over.

Love Senofou's stories: I did work during vacation from being a medical student, on some of our hospital wards as what was then called a "ward orderly": might be "auxiliary nurse" these days. One ward was orthopaedics: elderly Jewish lady wakes up from anaesthetic after below-knee amputation. Her first question was , "Have you got it then?" "Have we got what?" says we. "My leg, my leg!" says she. Apparently, at least then in the 1960s, for those of the Jewish faith, any amputated parts had to be kept until the person eventually died, so that all parts can go together. So that's what all those things in pots were in our Pathology Dept!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 07 Jan 18 - 04:19 PM

Hahaha Tattie! I suppose one could have pickled their bits and pieces in formaldehyde and put them in huge carboys to display on their mantelpieces.

When working in the staff canteen, I was told to prepare several dozen salads (lettuce, ham, tomatoes and hard-boiled eggs), plate them up and stack them with aluminium rings between the plates. I started out on the counter top, and soon the stack was extremely high. I stood on a stool to keep adding to the pile. Then the canteen supervisor called through, "More salads please!" I seized the bottom plate and the whole stack (which reached the ceiling) teetered and swayed, then arched over and all the salads, plates and rings fell with an ear-splitting crash onto the tiled floor. I sat and sobbed...

Also, the supplier sent up a large tray of filleted fish pieces for the fryer. Instead of immediately putting them into the large commercial fridge,I left them on the side and completely forgot about them. In the hot kitchen, by late afternoon they began to smell dreadful, so I surreptitiously tried to push the whole lot down the waste-disposal machine, using the wooden poker thing. The machine whirred, then made a strange sound and stopped. Suddenly, with a deafening roar the thing regurgitated all the mashed-up fish like a volcanic eruption. The stuff sprayed over the entire area and the stench was unbelievable. People came running through to the kitchen, gagging and retching.
It was then I was sent downstairs to sell vests and pants...

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 07 Jan 18 - 05:03 PM

Hahahaha! (One more ha than you, Senofou!) Mainly cos I can't top that story!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Jan 18 - 10:45 PM

Tattie, in order to get my gall bladder back when they took it out (I just wanted it in a jar), I had to pretend that my religion required all my parts... and they did give it back!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 08 Jan 18 - 05:44 AM

People usually only want to keep the stones as eveivence of all the grief they caused!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 08 Jan 18 - 01:30 PM

Aged 20, I was a "special duties" orderly at an artificial limbs and appliance centre
for best part of a year while I got my head back together and applied to do a degree....
One of the best jobs I ever had.

No formal training, just handed a white cotton jacket, and told to do whatever the senior nurse told me to..

The job was mostly wheelchair pushing - but turned out the "special duties" was taking male patients to the toilet..
As I said - no training - I had to improvise when it came to double arm amputees..
Quite awkward when one proud old bloke insisted I accept a 50 pence coin as a tip.....

We had regulars who'd come in every few weeks to have another gangreenous toe amputated..

The young guys were mostly bikers, or soldiers who served in Ireland.
I vowed I'd never ride a motorcycle, or join the army.

It was while working there, I turned up to work one morning to hear on the radio John Lennon had been assassinated.

That was the turning point when I decided to definitely apply for a humanities degree.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Michael
Date: 08 Jan 18 - 04:37 PM

Th 'proud old bloke' probably felt that making it a business transaction would make you both feel easier about it.

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 08 Jan 18 - 05:51 PM

I'm sure all of us have been to some extent influenced by our former 'odd jobs'. I learned a lot during mine, but I was very young and naive, and jolly well needed to wise up and get with it.

Has anyone ever wished they'd stayed on the path they trod in those days, rather than progressing to different and maybe more challenging work?
I sometimes wish I could have stayed in nursing and become a Ward Sister.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Jackaroodave
Date: 08 Jan 18 - 07:20 PM

Me too!

When I was a nursing assistant, I applied to and was accepted by a nursing school, but at the same time I'd saved up enough to buy some West Virginia farmland, so I took that route instead.

Then New York State came out with one of the first distance degree programs, which cost almost nothing, so after homesteading for a couple of years I wound up back in school for the next 10 with an English doctorate at the end.

I often wonder about and sometimes regret that untrod path.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 04:24 AM

I think those are all equally attractive Jackaroodave. Nursing, farming and a doctorate in English - all interesting and fulfilling.

I have an MA in French and English Literature, involving Phonetics, Linguistics, Social Anthropology, Moral Philosophy and Psychology. I wouldn't have missed those studies for the world, but now I'm quite old, and reviewing my life a bit, I do wonder if Nursing leading to being a nun (!) and a missionary nurse in W Africa would have been better than a teacher. But naturally, as a nun I wouldn't have married my lovely Ivory Coast husband all those years ago.

I also adore living in the countryside in our small rural village, so farming would have been idyllic.
At least we had choices, which is more than can be said for many...

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 06:00 AM

- Shop assistant in a fish and chip shop
- Production line worker in a "pop" (sodapop) factory
- Driver's assistant on a pop delivery truck
- Dustman (garbage collector) in the days when bins were galvanised steel and kept at the *backs* of houses
- Road sweeper
- Clerk in an office
- General labourer in a woollen mill
- Production line worker in an injection moulding factory
- Gardener's assistant for Local Authority parks
- Assistant school caretaker
- Muesli mixer in a catering supplies company

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 06:52 AM

Most life wasting soul destroying depressing jobs - telesales / marketing: office admin clerk; DHHS Benefits admin

Jobs which should have been best in my life but turned sour
by treacherous despicable back stabbing middle class bastards [men and women] - Famous adverising & fashion photographers's studio assistant;
art gallery education outreach team leader;
local social history exhibition audio visual technician;
Adult Education Teacher

Jobs kept secret from my family - Life model for 3 Prestige London Art Colleges; sperm donor....

Job I most wanted to grow up to be when I was a child but never did - marine biologist

Job I now think I might have really enjoyed and excelled at if I could live my life again
and had better eyesight and more consitent health - Army training corporal or sergeant;

Most enjoyable jobs - Special Duties Orderly in artificial limbs and appliance centre; summer washing up at Butlins;
Waste Paper Recycling lorry driver's mate;
Concert worker at Hammersmith Odeon; various voluntary sector roles as photography and darkroom technician and tutor;
Punk Band Guitarist...

So these are the jobs [paid, self employed, or voluntary] I can remember for now..
Last time I printed out and looked at my CV was about 20 years ago

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 07:10 AM

..how could I forget Industrial Museum Photo Archivist - one of my best ever jobs...

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Jackaroodave
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 07:21 AM

Senoifou, "At least we had choices, which is more than can be said for many."

Indeed, and the luxury of an old age from which to look back with wistful regret!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 07:24 AM

Looking back, the jobs I really enjoyed were those (no matter how lowly) where I had lots of fun and a good laugh with lovely colleagues.
I had a ball with the other kitchen maids at the large dish-washing machines; we got up to all kinds of larks. Similarly, I really liked feeding old ladies/men, bathing patients and making up beds. I particularly enjoyed being sent to scrub out the sluice or sort the linen cupboard.
I got very fond of the three little Swiss children for whom I was a part-time nanny. And I've always adored cleaning, so satisfying and good exercise.
In the end, I spent nearly forty years teaching in various schools in Scotland and Norfolk. Well-paid, and interesting in its way, but it got stressful and fraught with admin towards the end. Ah well.

I wonder what sort of nun I'd have made? A very very naughty one I suspect!!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 08:44 AM

Senoufou, Perhaps you'd have been Sister Josephine?

Sister Josephine

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 08:56 AM

Hahahahaha Rob! I love Jake Thackray, but I'd never heard this song before!
I'm laughing my head, it's so funny!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 09:45 AM

I used to do the spud-bashing at me mum's chippie after closing time from about eleven years old. Feed the spuds into a machine that bashed them around to get the skin off then cut the eyes out before chucking them into a big wooden tub of water for next day's chips. It was dirty and hazardous and usually freezing cold, but I got half a crown per session three times a week. I was rich.

Remember when you had to do a morning duty at youth hostels before the warden would give you your membership card back? The worst one I ever got was emptying the bucket toilets into a cesspit at Achiltibuie hostel in Scotland.

Reading both the above, I'm glad that 'ealth 'n' safety sometimes goes mad!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 12:11 PM

'...laughing my head off' that should say.

Ugh Steve, how horrid, emptying smelly buckets!!
And your potato-peeling machine sounds like the same one I wrestled with in Edinburgh. If you left it on for too long, did the spuds come out really small?

I had to use the ham-slicing machine in that kitchen. I was a tiny little lass, weighing seven stone and very skinny. I was still only seventeen. And the whirring circular blade had no guard on it. You had to impale the great ham on a spiked plate, then slide it backwards and forwards into the blade after setting the number for 'thickness of slice'. It's a miracle I didn't serve up sliced arm!
I don't think there were any safety rules in those days.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 12:24 PM

I used the ham and bacon-slicing machines too when I worked at Victor Value. I was underage, and one day I cut my finger on the blade. The manager hustled me out of the shop, buying me a pint in a pub to try to keep it hush-hush (which I did). The pint was underage too!

Yep, that's the same spud machine. My mum threatened to sack me once for leaving the spuds in too long (they came out very small but there was no eyeing to do!)

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 01:20 PM

Tell me Steve, did your mum's chippie have a chipping machine as well?
The canteen did, and one had to select a 'thickness of chip' using a dial. I used to muck about for fun, and made chips as big as Mars bars, then weeny little matchstick ones. But the tiny ones used to fry as hard as needles, and I got complaints from the workers.

Honestly, I wreaked havoc in that kitchen, but they should never have employed a completely unqualified little girl!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 04:24 PM

She had a big metal gizmo clamped to the work surface, a bit like a massive potato ricer that forced the raw spuds through square holes when you pulled the lever, which was a bit like a big beer pump handle that you pulled towards you. There was no adjustment for chip thickness as far as I know. The chips were the best in the world, done either in beef dripping or lard, none of your namby-pamby unsaturated silly oils!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Jackaroodave
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 01:20 AM

When I worked the hot dog stand, we used a small cement mixer to peel the spuds.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 04:09 AM

It was a bit like a cement mixer, Jackaroodave. But the inside was lined with what I believe is called carborundum (just an abrasive surface) One filled it through a hopper, then set it turning (electrically)

The porter who used to come up with the large sacks of potatoes was a black chap called Sam. There were hardly any black people in Edinburgh in those days, and I fancied him like anything!

The artificial cream was a ghastly liquid (nothing like cream) which came in huge drums. I remember our school dinners had puddings liberally coated with this muck. It had to be whipped, and the machine for this was very big (up to my waist) It stood in a room called the Confectionery Pantry, and I always struggled to lift the drum and pour the gunk in the top of the whisker. I had no idea how much to put in. I closed the door and left it whisking, and the foam produced built up to astounding proportions. When the door was opened, the machine was being muffled by a massive tsunami, which forced its way round me and into the main kitchen. It was about two feet thick and everyone was engulfed. I had to fight my way back into the Confectionery Pantry to turn off the whisk. It reminds me now of the Sorcerer's Apprentice!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: MickyMan
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 07:07 PM

Demonstrating a cheap electronic organ during Christmas at a J.C Penney department store (1976). I didnt sell any at all!   I had very little keyboard skill, and all the nearby sales people hated to listen to me! LOL!
       It turned into a bit of a comedy schtick. They hired me because I was a college music student (french horn).

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 12:20 PM

Like Rob, I immediately thought of Sister Josephine when Senofou speculated what sort of nun she'd make!
My first ever holiday job was washing up in a hotel kitchen: no dishwasher, just me with sleeves up to the elbows. For that I got £5 per week + my keep - staying in a very old cottage down the road from the hotel. But after 5 weeks, I had enough saved to pay my train fare to Switzerland and back, to stay with my French penfriend and her family in the mountains S of Sion: wonderful holiday, so worth all the peeling hands and sore feet!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 01:23 PM

I did the same, Tattie. I saved up my pay, and took 'student flights' (my word they were cheap and an excellent way to see the world!) to many places: all over the Greek islands, France, Turkey, Spain, Morocco, all on my own. (There didn't seem to be the dangers that exist now for lone female travellers, although I was once offered marijuana by a seedy-looking chap in Tangier)

I wanted to ask Joe: Which Latin textbook did you use when tutoring Latin please? We had Kennedy's, and though almost Victorian, it was very clear and easy to follow. We only had two years to get the 'O'level, so we had very naughty English 'cribs' of Caesar's 'Bellum Gallicum'. I still remember 'Omnia Gallia in tres partes divisa est'. Yawn yawn zzzzzzzzz
But in Kennedy's, Marcus and his mates were always going down the forum and the schoolteacher seemed to be forever beating his pupils, which was rather more entertaining!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jan 18 - 08:25 PM

Ah yes, Latin!

Blum
Blum
Blum
Blee
Blo
Blo
Blah
Blah
Blah
Blorum
Bliss
Bliss

How's that, Joe?

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: JennieG
Date: 14 Jan 18 - 01:59 AM

Geez.....you have all had much more interesting jobs than I did.....

Nearly all my working life was spent in libraries, over 25 years of that in school libraries. I left when one too many teenage princesses flounced out the door when I wouldn't let her borrow any more books until the overdue ones (which were well and truly overdue by the way, not just a day or two) were returned; I'm sure she would have slammed the door behind her if it hadn't been automatic.

For a time I was the librarian in a veterinary research and development laboratory specialising in parasitology and learned more than I ever needed to know about animal parasites.....does that count?

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 14 Jan 18 - 03:47 AM

Jennie, libraries are my heaven! I've spent many happy hours lurking in local libraries browsing. Ours now lets one have eight books, and we have a mobile library which visits our village. That's a job I'd have relished (apart from the spoiled princesses of course - little madams!)

Tee hee Steve, that's about the measure of bloody Latin. I have to say I disliked it. I was studying for French and German A levels at the same time, plus English literature A level, when it became evident that to study in the Faculty of Arts in a Scottish Uni one needed O Level Latin. This gave me two years to get it. A very posh teacher called Miss Bailey-Reynolds (Oxford First and Rowing Blue) got me through.
We were a small group, and spent the time giggling at virgins running through woods and what Marcus got up to in the forum. Luckily there was no oral exam. Both Latin and German have far too many conjugations and declensions. Give me French any day!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 12:32 AM

Well, tutoring Latin for homeschoolers is an interesting experience. Many of my students seems to be the children of neo-conservative Catholics who are waiting for the revolution to bring a return to the Latin Mass that they are mostly too young to have known, and they really have no interest in actually understanding the language. So, it's a challenge.

I make a practice of asking students why they want to study Latin. Many want it for the religious reasons I suspected, but one student last year said she wanted to study Latin because she wanted to get into a "great college." It soon became obvious that she didn't actually want to learn Latin - she just wanted go get good grades with the elementary school series she insisted on using. So, she got a grudging "B." She dropped Latin the next year, apparently because "B" wasn't good enough for her.

I don't actually teach these students. They're homeschoolers, and I certify their work at the end of the semester. They often hire tutors who work with them once a week or so, but the tutors often seem to be test-oriented instead of interested in actually teaching a language. Since I've actually worked as a linguist, I take a dim view of this.

When I started, many of them were using something called "First Form Latin," which boasted a "grammar first" approach to the language. It just didn't look very good to me, so I contacted the publisher. The publisher said the series was meant to be a grammar-school introduction to prepare students for high school Latin. So - I refused to accept the series for high school Latin, and I lost a lot of students all of a sudden. But the tutoring company backed me up, because it just wasn't teaching the language to the kids.

My favorite Latin text is Latin for Americans. It gives a high school student a good, general knowledge of Latin during the first year, so that the students can read Caesar, Cicero, and Virgil in years 2, 3, and 4, I contend that if a student can't get a reasonable reading knowledge of a language in the first year, there's no hope. Later years should be for getting deeper into comprehension and conversation, but not for learning the basics.

The conservative Catholics seem to like the Henle Latin series, written by a Jesuit in the 1940s. It's a good series, but a bit too difficult. I was familiar with Henle when I studied Latin in the 1960s, but I was using a more modern text. But McGraw-Hill's Latin for Americans is just plain excellent. It's so good and so colorful and interesting, it's almost thrilling. And every once in a while, I get a student who actually wants to learn Latin. And that makes it worthwhile.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 03:11 AM

Very interesting Joe - thank you!

I used to accompany my Irish cousin to Mass (although I was an Anglican) and she lent me a little lace mantilla thing for my head. The service was all in Latin, and I quite liked it. I used to respond to "Dominus vobiscum!" with "Et cum spirito tuo!" (I was only about eight years old, but even then I adored languages, and soon became familiar with most of the Latin of the entire Mass)
Luckily, my father was very tolerant and didn't mind. (He was an extremely Calvinistic Scot!)

I think what put me off Latin was the fact that one couldn't natter away to people in it, as there's no country where they speak it. I like nattering (you may have noticed)

I looked up Kennedy's Latin Primer on the internet, and it seems it was first published over a hundred years ago, in 1888!
I wonder how many languages one's head can absorb. My husband speaks Malinke, French and English, plus an argot called Noushi. I speak French, German, a bit of Spanish, a bit of Mandarin Chinese, and some very rude Malinke words taught to me by you-know-who.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 05:56 AM

I doubt whether those ould Romans would have understood much of the Latin Mass, though I must confess that, as a smallish lad and we still endured such things, I found it rather poetic and I liked to try to match the Latin with the somewhat, at times, loose translation in the opposite column on the missal page. I can remember marching around our school playing fields on Corpus Christi on a hot sunny day (a rarity in Bolton), lustily belting out Lauda Sion Salvatorem without having a clue what we were singing about but hugely enjoying it anyway. In hymnis et canticis!

I did Latin to 'O' Level and passed the exam, though I might have done better had I bothered to learn the Virgil, which was a large chunk of the exam. I always regarded the translating of the poetry into English whilst trying to turn it into "poetic English" as well was a strain too far. I'm always glad that I did Latin for five years and regard it now as one of the most valuable parts of my education.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 06:12 AM

You just reminded me - I was an altar boy at my Grandad's Russian Orthodox church for a while. Not really a job but those Cossacks sure did tip well when they had a few :-) The transubstantiation was done in the Orthodox style behind closed doors so only the priest and altar boys knew what was going on. I can confirm it was no different to the 'open' RC transubstantiation but with the words sung in Slavonic it became quite magical. Even as a non believer I would be quite happy to go to a similar mass just for the experience. Maybe the incense had a narcotic effect too :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: DMcG
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 06:17 AM

 I contend that if a student can't get a reasonable reading knowledge of a language in the first year, there's no hope

Well, that describes me to a 'T': i was equally incompetent at all the languages I was asked to study. It didn't help that the first lesson in Latin was all gerunds and ablatives that were a mystery to me in Enhlish never mind Latin.

Having, time and again I have found what little Latin got in there useful. You can make a surprisingly good good stab at long museum explanations in Italian, for example.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: DMcG
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 06:20 AM

Autotext troubles there. 'However', not 'having'. Etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 06:57 AM

So, Dave, you met Cossacks while in your cassock...

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 07:04 AM

There's a Russian Orthodox church (St Seraphim) in Walsingham, here in Norfolk, and I've heard their Mass - it's breathtaking, especially those low notes of the singing. Absolutely beautiful.

I do have to agree with Edinburgh Uni's insistence on a working knowledge of Latin in order to study in the Faculty of Arts. It did indeed give me a sort of key with which to understand many words I'd never met before, and we had to do Vulgar Latin (not what it sounds like - it's the transition between Latin and French) As long as we just concentrated on the basic roots of words I was perfectly happy. I just couldn't hack all those conjugations and declensions.

I admire you Steve for getting the 'O' Level. I don't know how I did it in only two years. Some Public Schools start their pupils on Latin at the age of nine. Good old Miss Bailey-Reynolds!

By the way, she was so frightfully posh that she utterly forbade us to use an Italian-type pronunciation like the Pope, but to speak in a very upper-class English accent when speaking Latin. As she pointed out, no-one knows how the Romans spoke. We were little Cockneys, so 'posh' was as much a foreign language to us as Latin.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Michael
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 07:20 AM

I can decline any Latin verb; 'I don't want any Latin verbs thank-you'.

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 07:49 AM

My Grandad had the resonant bass I think is a must for Orthodox priests and my Grandma had a wonderful soprano voice. Both put my slightly lower than tenor but not quite baritone warblings to shame :-(

Funnily enough I rediscovered the tuning fork he used to get the key right the other day. I can't remember what note it produces but it is not quite exact whatever it is.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 08:11 AM

Hahaha Mike! My sentiments entirely!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 08:35 AM

I contend that if a student can't get a reasonable reading knowledge of a language in the first year, there's no hope

I was useless at languages at school. I got 5% in one of my Latin exams. French was not much better - I failed my O-level three times. However, I spent the last 30 years of my working life in a French owned company and, for most of my time there, spent two hours a week on French lessons provided by the company. In my 50s, I took my GCSE, gaining an A*, and went on to get A-level French. Now I have retired, I meet up with several of my ex-colleagues at a weekly French class in a local library.

No matter how shaky the start, there's hope for everyone.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 09:30 AM

Woo Hoo my wife is an author and I helped 1%
Just what I always wanted, to be a silent partner.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 09:46 AM

While it may take years, the brain can grow new connections and abilities at any age. Even if dyslexia may present in millions of different ways, imo it is safe to say it is not a life sentence anymore as Doug has proven.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Jackaroodave
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 10:33 AM

"I contend that if a student can't get a reasonable reading knowledge of a language in the first year, there's no hope"

Just for pedantry's sake . . . Japanese students learn the 2000+ Joyo (regular use) characters through secondary school. So technically, they haven't learned to read every word in a newspaper until they finish high school--though I'm sure most can acquire new characters through general reading well before then.

In addition, there are about 1000 more not on the list, used in personal or place names, or in common compounds like the "sho" in "shoyu," "soy sauce."

Since it's easiest for me to learn foreign languages by reading, Japanese was extremely difficult for me. "No hope" actually comes pretty close in my case.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 11:19 AM

I had a temporary job one Christmas delivering the post Well, it was better than walking the streets.

LFF

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 11:30 AM

I did the Christmas post one year too. It was a very cold runup to Christmas that year and I went arse over tit several times on icy paths and doorsteps. A big fat bloke who came to the door in a filthy string vest and dirty underpants gave me a hell of a row when I had to ask him for excess postage for a letter with no stamp on it. At one house a vicious dog on the other side of the letterbox snatched the mail from my hand with loud snarls every single day.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 01:35 PM

We have a Hermes courier who comes to our village a lot. He's quite old, a tiny little chap we call 'Mr Longnose'. He came to our door just before Crimbo with a parcel, and he had those steristrips stuck all over his face (and particularly his long nose) Apparently a lady had opened her door and her very vicious dog had sprung upon the poor bloke and savaged him. He told me he's always getting bitten, and he never does anything about it. I was so sorry for him. My husband gave him a Tesco Christmas pudding and a tenner for a tip. I gave him a big hug.

I do like dogs (well all animals really, except spiders) but people should be responsible and keep them under firm control.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: DMcG
Date: 16 Jan 18 - 03:01 PM

How could I forget the joys of Christmas post delivery? The route I had pretty much finished at the house I lived in. So I had to to travel 40 minutes by bus to the sorting office, then come straight back. post the letters, then travel back on the bus to the sorting office, then another 40 straight back to where I had been.

A premonition of commuting, perhaps.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 19 Jan 18 - 12:57 AM

During the days leading up to July 4 (that commemorates when we separated from GB)during three years, I worked in lumber and chicken coop wire shack selling 'safe and sane' fireworks for the celebration. There was only one door out of the place. Looking back, it was one of the dumbest things ever I did. One careless match and I could have been part of the entertainment.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 19 Jan 18 - 03:17 AM

Ha John, I reckon we were all very gung-ho with fireworks years ago.
My parents bought us a 'selection' for five shillings, in a cardboard box (!) and we lovingly took them out and gazed at them constantly in the days leading up to Guy Fawkes' Night. The box contained a Catherine wheel, several sparklers, a Golden Rain, a Roman candle, several bangers and two rockets. We did this on the rug in front of a roaring coal fire, the only heating we had in those days.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 19 Jan 18 - 03:38 AM

While I was doing my 'A' Levels, our grammar school was running a scheme whereby two pupils went together once a week into people's houses to interact with the children and mothers. The families were Pakistani, and had not long been in the UK. The fathers were out at work (usually for London Transport) but the mums and pre-school little ones were rather isolated at home and could speak no English. The aim was to chat (my forte!) and do a bit of language tuition (ditto!), and just be friendly and encouraging, helping them to integrate.

It was utter bliss. The ladies were absolutely lovely, and let us try on shalwar and kameez, and loads of bangles. My friend Susan (all my friends seemed to be called Susan!) was very, very fat, and I was skeletally thin, so we must have looked right dollies, like Laurel and Hardy in drag.

We took a plastic toy farm, and made up stories about all the animals, and sang little songs. Susan played the melodeon, and I took my Hohner harmonica. There didn't seem to be much furniture, so we all sat on the floor.
Then we were served samosas and other spicy snacks. Brilliant!

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Jan 18 - 06:57 AM

We did a sort of equivalent Catholic thing when we were in the sixth form, visiting mostly elderly people at lunchtime to help out or just natter. They all encouraged us to smoke in their houses, a bonus as it kept your forbidden habit out of sight of the roving becassocked brigade outside. The setup was called SVP (St Vincent de Paul) and you had to get permission to be in it. Saw an awful lot of poverty...

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Senoufou
Date: 19 Jan 18 - 07:19 AM

Things haven't changed Steve. I did Meals on Wheels for a couple of years about fifteen years ago, and my friend Anne (not a Susan this time!) and I were often on the brink of tears at what we encountered. The really old and frail elderly people we brought the meals to were ill, lonely, sometimes senile and cold. We had to inform Social Services if we had concerns, but I was often tempted to go back later with blankets, more food and some money for electricity meters etc. But this was totally forbidden. And Social Services didn't seem to care particularly...

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Jan 18 - 05:34 PM

There were no heroics involved but I did a suicide prevention hotline one summer. I did a much better job with my kids who faced middle school facebook suicide promoters . A group competed to drive victims to suicide.

Subject: RE: BS: Your former odd jobs
From: MikeL2
Date: 23 Jan 18 - 02:46 PM

Potato picking on local farms.
Bouncer in local dance hall - very lively !!!!
Barman at 3 Pubs
Guitar Tutor to young children - unpaid but very rewarding

MikeL2