Best /Worst Job List

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: pattyClink
Date: 27 Mar 02 - 02:15 PM

Lyle, wow! We need the stories behind your B&W!

This is an amazing thread, a suspect a person could take it on retreat and figure out the meaning of life.

Best: can't choose, I've had a lot of weird and oddly satisfying jobs, though none conventionally thought of as 'desirable'. Maybe mudlogging on a ranch in south Texas while bunking in a great hotel on the beach?

Worst: tie. Was it waitressing in the ancient restaurant where all the cooks were illiterate so you had to recite and request your orders over and over at just the right time? Or was it hacking rock in a dozer trench in the blazing sun, such that trench-digging laborers were looking at you with pity in their eyes.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 26 Mar 02 - 04:50 PM

Medical ones: Best: saving a life or bringing a new one into the world. Worst: removing long-forgotten tampon (Plastic bag and can of air freshener essential tools of the trade!) T B

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Jimmy C
Date: 26 Mar 02 - 12:42 PM

I have worked at a few varying jobs, such as - Cobbler -Truck driver's assistant - Cabinet Maker - Insurance agent - Gas Jockey - Musician - Power Tools salesman - Systems analyst and I even packaged soup mixture for a while. The worst was the systems analyst, it was the best paying but the dullest. The insurance job was awful. I really liked working for my grandfather, a real old professional cobbler.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Mar 02 - 12:05 PM

Norm MacDonald says it's "crack whore trainee"

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: reggie miles
Date: 26 Mar 02 - 01:33 AM

I used to work in Chicago, in a department store. I used to work in Chicago. I did but I don't any more....

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: GUEST,Mona
Date: 24 Mar 02 - 08:26 PM

I work in a consumer relations department.....formatting 150-200 letters a day. Michael Jackson's chimp could do my job!!!!

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: John P
Date: 24 Mar 02 - 02:34 PM

Best job: The one I have now, managing a company that builds musical instruments and operates a large acoustic music store. I work with and for people who genuinely like and trust each other. I've not had to deal with office politics for the last 12 years. I'm a musician on the side, with as many gigs as I want. It's a pretty good life.

Worse jobs: My very first job was working in a plastic factory putting chrome plating on car parts. I dealt with extremely noxious chemicals. The plant's philosophy was that safety gear was too expensive to waste on factory workers. I quit when I started puking every night after work. The place was shut down some years later when it came out that they were pouring the chemical residue in an open pit out back and had poisoned the water supply for the local high school. Next worse job was working for a video tape distributor. It was one of those places where people cared so much about the place that the normal way to quit was to simply stop showing up. It happened a lot. The worse management I have ever seen. No one was ever in any doubt that we were being used to exract as much money from us as possible before we found a job working for people who at least pretended to care. Shortly after I left it was bought in a hostile takeover and the entire management team (all of whom were members of the same family) was fired the same day. No one cried.

John Peekstok

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: GUEST,FORTUNATO RISING
Date: 24 Mar 02 - 08:35 AM

So, I met an old school chum of mine the other day... I took my grandson to Ringling Brothers Circus the other afternoon. We got there early and walked around a bit. We stopped by the elephant's area outside the show and low and behold, there was Rodger Sutherland. He had a huge fire hose in his hand and had his back to us. I yelled his name, but he didn't hear me. We watched as he advanced on the huge bull elephant in front of him. The elephant's feet were shackled and two other handlers had his neck in nooses. Rodger climbed up on a stepladder, raised the elephants tail and shove the fire hose up the elephant's ass. He jumped down, ran to the faucet nearby and turned on the water. The elephant began to trumpet and leap about. Just then the hose blew out of the elephant asshole and shit flew everywhere. Rodger was absolutely covered in the most abhorrent stuff you can imagine.

I yelled his name again and he came over to us. (A mistake on my part.) And I said,

My God, Rodger, what a horrible job. Giving elephants enemas. Why don't you quit and do something else?

And he said, "What, and give up show business?"

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 24 Mar 02 - 02:09 AM

LH, what's worm picking? It sounds like it makes busboy/dishwasher a glamour profession. Did you have to pick worms out of produce? Let's have the sordid details, man! :-)

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Mar 02 - 01:51 AM

Best Jobs -

JLS computers was darn good. We were making PC's back in the early 80's in Toronto. There were only 5 or 6 people in the company and it was lots of fun, and the pay was good. Our most advanced machine had 256k as I recall!

Rolling Thunder's Camp (late 70's)...chopped wood, gathered wood, took care of goats, chickens, rabbits and other critters, and did gardening and whatever else came up. No pay at all, but 3 good meals a day, a place to live, and marvelous company and shared ideals! Best time I ever had in my life. I wouldn't call it a job so much as a lifestyle, though.

Folksinging in a real folk club...well, it's hard to beat that, when you're in the mood for it.

Worst Jobs -

Assembly line work.

Tobacco picking.

House renovating. (I don't like carpentry much at all.)

Taxi Driving. (the worst pay in the world and the longest hours)

Worm Picking! (The absolute WORST of them all!!! Yuck!)

Radio Shack (with the boss from Hell)

Good jobs are hard to find...

- LH

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Melani
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 10:57 PM

Put comedian at the top of that list. Perhaps you should post some selected pictures of yourself and your co-workers. ;-)

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 23 Mar 02 - 03:01 AM

Worst job: washing dishes and busing tables in a cafe. I was constantly going back and forth between the tables and the kitchen, and in this place, it was literally a rat race. Yechh.

Best job: My current one - park ranger. It's like being an historian, teacher, guide, comedian, musician and actor all rolled into one.

chanteyranger

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: GUEST,Lyle
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 10:26 PM

Jerry Friedman: When were you at Los Alamos?? I suspect it was much later than me - left in the mid '60's.

Of the hundreds of jobs I've had:

Worst: Hide cellar at Plankington-Globe in Milwaukee, bundeling raw hides as they were removed from cattle.

Hardest: Chuck-rigger on a heel boom, Idaho.

Best: College prof.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: reggie miles
Date: 22 Mar 02 - 12:37 AM

Whoa Captain, too much info there!

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: GUEST,Captain Swing
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 03:39 PM

Surely the worst job had to be removing the lobsters from Jayne Mansfield's arse.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: GUEST,alliekatt
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 03:00 PM

Best job: Local Irish musician. Current work. I repented, quit my job, and slacked off...praise "Bob". Now I actually make money doing what I did as a hobby for 10 years. My husband is a Linux C programmer who did the same, his "lust for the machine" just kind of transformed itself into a roof over our head and lots of play money. His mom told him to do for a living what he would do for free and he translated that attitude into an awesome life; now he's helping me do the same.

My worst job was retail assistant manager under a total jerk who replaced the old manager. I held my ground and saved 2 grand before repenting and buggering off to Ireland for a month. Oddly enough, the job as graveyard shift security guard in a homeless shelter I had before that, had some interesting psychological rewards, though the pay was near nothing.

a

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 01:31 PM

Best job, worst job. Oh, boy!

Among singing jobs:—Almost all good. I've sung a few times for huge audiences (6,000 on one occasion) and that was pretty exhilarating, but I think my favorite form of performing is the house concert. Seattle's coffeehouses tended to be pretty nice places compared to some others I've seen (your elbows didn't stick to the tables), and coffeehouse gigs were generally pretty good. Of the Seattle coffeehouses, probably the nearest one to a pit, was Pamir House (started out to be an Indian restaurant and failed miserably). I sang there off and on for a couple of years. Usually there were two or three singers on at a time, and we'd swap songs, do off-the-hip duets and trios, and generally act like we were singing at a party. Fun to do, and the audiences seemed to enjoyed it. They kept packing the place. Good times!

"Day jobs." I worked for Boeing as a production illustrator (like drafting, only different) and the job itself wasn't bad, but a lot depended on the supervisor du jour. Some were great to work with, some were power-mad little b****rds!

I also worked for the telephone company as an operator. Eight years. That job generally has a fairly good image with most people (Lili Tomlin notwithstanding). The salary was okay, the bennies were pretty good, the physical surroundings were quite pleasant, but—! You are required to be courteous and accommodating to customers at all times (sometimes not an easy thing, because the customers have no such requirement regarding the operators) while, at the same time, getting them off your board as quickly as possible (the more customers you handle in an hour, the more money the company makes). Your calls were automatically timed, and if you spent an average of more than 25.4 seconds with each customer (AWT=average work time), you got chewed out. You also got chewed out if you were too abrupt with the customers. You were monitored constantly, and if you should inadvertently connect a customer to a wrong number, or key in a wrong "calling card" number (which the computer always caught and corrected), it went on your record. Three "errors" in a month called for disciplinary action. One work survey listed telephone operator as a higher stress job than flight controller, not because of the inherent responsibility, but because of the pressure put on you by supervision. Fairly good money and benefits, but I hated that job!!

A pretty good job was when I was a technical writer under contract to the Bonneville Power Administration (Hey! I worked for the same company Woody Guthrie did!). The writing was fun, but what drove me nuts was the boilerplate paragraphs of government jargon. I once tried to edit some of it to make it actually decipherable by normal humans and was told to leave it as is. All passive sentences. That way, nobody has to take responsibility for anything.

The 2nd best job I ever had was working as an announcer and newscaster at a classical music radio station. I got to program most of the music myself (the folks heard a lot of classic guitar and lute when I was on) and at the top of the hour I would read about five minutes of news. The rest of the time I sat back with a cup of coffee in my hand and my feet propped up, listening to music I like. And they paid me to do this!!

The absolutely worst job was telephone sales. I lasted for two weeks at that one. I couldn't take that much rejection. But I did earn enough money during those two weeks to buy my first Martin guitar (00-18, $95.00 back in 1953. Times have changed).

The best jobs were singing at The Place Next Door and trading songs with Bob Nelson, and singing at Pamir House and trading songs with Alice Stuart.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Sorcha
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 12:09 PM

Best Job--Mom

Worst Job--Mom...........(grin)

Other than that I don't think I have ever had a "good job". Had some pretty crappy ones.

Gott Mfg (now Rubbermaid) making ice chests, etc. Timed piece work.
Selling ladies clothing to toffs.
Housekeeping in a hospital ER.
Just crappy little "help out with the income" type jobs.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: GUEST,Hamshank
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 11:44 AM

Best Job: Sailor, U.S. Navy, landlocked in Scotland for 9 years. I'd kill to go back there, as a sailor or otherwise.

Next Best Job: Sailor, U.S. Navy, on "arduous" duty in Antigua, BWI

Worst Job: Part-timer in the lumber department at Home Depot. About the only enjoyment in that job was when some Einstein walked up to me, surrounded by nothing but wood, and asks me, "Is this the lumber department?" I couldn't resist replying, "Naw, this is a toothpick factory, and all this here wood you see is just waiting to be chopped up into little tiny pieces." (Here's yer sign!)
HS

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Bernie
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 11:27 AM

Steven Wright says his worst job was when he worked as an interperter for an incompetent mime.... second worst was working as an assembler in a factory that manufactured synthetic hairballs for ceramic cats ....

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: GUEST,Willie-O
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 09:15 AM

Interesting to see my previous post.

Since then I sold hardware at Canadian Tire for a year, which was fun but paid lousy.. For the past fifteen months I have been in that long-awaited "entry-level hightech job" where, just as Amergin was, I am currently a Tier 2 Help Desk tech for a large DSL provider. It's neither the best nor the worst job I've had. Working for a huge corporation is very much like working for the federal government, except that you're expected to kiss more ass and agree with more ridiculous statements in a corporation.

I miss building things. In fact I feel a bit silly commuting to the city every day in my pickup truck (60 miles each way) but I can't bear to get rid of it in favour of an actual commuting microcar...I work construction hours, too. (7-3:30)

And I;m doing some gigs but feeling kind of ambivalent about that at the moment too; seems like I've lost a lot of my fire for playing music.

Reassessing my worst-ever job, it was definitely hanging tobacco in a kiln in Tillsonburg. Your hands turn into nicotine blackened claws. I think I lasted five days.

Willie-O

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Midchuck
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 08:27 AM

I think that both the best and worst job I've had is performing as a musician.

Which it is, depends on the particular audience and general performing environment.

I am thankful, both that I can get paid for playing and singing - it allows me to get toys I couldn't otherwise justify - and that I've never had to depend on that income for food and shelter and such.

Peter

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: jimlad
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 08:13 AM

My worst job was as a "wringer-outer for a one armed window cleaner

My current job is the best I am a Coronation Flag seller

But really my best job is the one I am doing now, I am a Granddad to Lucy and Ben

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: GUEST,Amergin
Date: 21 Mar 02 - 03:51 AM

oh boy....the worst would probably be either working on the aasssembly line at a pickle plant (after a year of being unemployed beggars can't be choosers)....or working at a bucket plant in various positions.....both jobs the bosses looked for ways to get rid of you....

let me see....I was a security goon for a couple of months at the local paper mill....they got to be a bit nitpicking about everything there and I got tired of it and handed in my notice.....a ouple of weeks later I went in for my check and my old boss told me to give him a notice next time....I told him I did....I wrote down and handed in my resignation a few minutes before I walked out the door....that was ok....had another job lined up.....

I have done a little deck work....and engine room work....and galley work....fun that was.....cleaned the beach when the New Carissa ran aground....that was fun too.....

I am currently a level three technician for a DSL provider....this after a year of working as a tier two tech for cable internet providers.....have to unlearn half of what I did learn.....it is not a bad job...can be fun....but it can be a thankless tiresome job too....full of angry people who blame all of their connections (or lack of it) on you....

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Jeri
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 08:31 PM

I spent 22 years in the Air Force. I repaired aerospace ground equipment (generators, air compressors, and other stuff used on aircraft) for the first 4 years, then became a veterinary technician, environmental health technician and public health tech. (The job description changed, not the actual job.) In all that time, I realised what made a job "good" to me wasn't the actual tasks I had to do. It was the work environment.

The worst job I had in the AF involved working for a micro managing, egotistical prick who didn't respect, like or trust humans much. The best job was doing virtually the same thing for a supportive, trusting boss.

Had a job where I was hired to be an administrative person for a "home improvement" business and wound up being forced to do telemarketing. This didn't last long - I loathed it. In this case, the actual work DID affect my opinion more.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Anahootz
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 08:14 PM

Worst job: Deckhand on Codend tender in Bering Sea/Gulf of Alaska, Winter 1988...needs no further explanation.

Best job: What I currently do, Partner/Operations Manager for Salmon Processing Plant in Alaska. I have November to May off...again, needs no further explanation.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: DancingMom
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 07:48 PM

Ice Wolf, you're working at a job you hate to help get your wife through school? Bless you, you're a good man! My husband did that for me too,and I'll never forget it. It's paying off nicely now. My fast food jobs were awful. My experiences as a critical care nurse run the gamut from extremely exciting and satisfying to absolutely wretched and exhausting, and everything in between. As long as the good far outweighs the bad I guess I'm okay. Sharon M

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Amos
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 07:36 PM

The best job I ever had was skippering a 50-meter triple expansion converted traweler around the Med from Kerkyra through the Peloopenessian Canal, down to Rhodes, back to Malta, etc. Great crew, stout ship, easy budget, no worries.

The hardest job I ever had was hard-rock mining by hand in deep quartz veins up on Mosquito Ridge outside of Placerville.

But the worst job I've ever had is systems engineering on a complex project that depends for its success on cooperation between different branches of the DoD. Talk about a rock and a hard place!

The funnest was getting paid to do wide-pattern search diving off the coast of California.

A

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: X
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 07:18 PM

Worst job I ever had, spot-welding 8 gage hard wire into lobster cages.

Worst job anyone can have, Crack Whore.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Bullfrog Jones
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 07:14 PM

Can't honestly think of a 'worst job', but the best one had to be road manger for the Nolan Sisters (for our American friends, The Nolans were a kind of female Osmond Brothers) Boy, those girls could party!

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: GUEST,Catter - prefering anon for this one.
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 07:02 PM

Worst/Hardest Job - viewing a stack of 20 odd S & M Videos trying to identify (and suceeding) a prominant councillor who had, until then, ambitions to becoming a Member of Parliament.

Bst Job - Hand delivering copies of two tapes featuring the afore said Councillor to the London "Daily Mirror"

Anon Catter.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Celtic Soul
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 06:04 PM

Best work-a-day job: My current one (thank GOD!)

Worst work-a-day job: My last one.

Best gig: That's a toss up between the early days of doing a festival in the Florida Keys (before the Management changed hands), Cerredwins Coffeehouse, or "A Pyrate Home Companion". I would put the MD. Renaissance Festival here, but because of the time involved and length of the day, it takes a lot out of you, even though I enjoy it a great deal.

Worst gig: Toss up between singing places that are inadequately amplified when you're competition is loud speakers and/or the sound of horns or other amplified noises, any outdoor gig when the weather is *really* bad (way too hot/cold/wet), and any wherein we suck or tensions are high.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 05:41 PM

I used to be a lumberjack. I couldn't cut it so they gave me the axe.

(Hey! lardingo started it!)

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: lardingo
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 03:40 PM

Best job: Freelance entertainer. Worst job: None really. I usually liked all the jobs I have had, including teacher, janitor, grocer, entertainer, and clerk.

I was going to be a contortionist, but I didn't have the bent for it.

I was going to be a banker, but I lost interest.

I was going to be a tree surgeon, but I couldn't stand the sight of sap.

I finally became a baker, but I'm getting ready to retire: I've made enough dough that I can loaf.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 03:17 PM

Going back to the start of the thread, when I'm not playing music, I support my music habit by being a janitor. The park district I work at is very good about time off, when we get opportunities to play out of the area. I took the job part time, telling them I was a musician and would sometimes be gone on Fridays and some Mondays. Since bookings occur months in advance I've never had to run off at the last minute. I've also gotten many song arrangement ideas while working.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: mack/misophist
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 09:26 AM

The best was mending fences on one of the world's biggest cattle ranches - long, looong, stretches in the thicket all by myself and no place to spend my wages. The worst, without doubt, was tossing hay bales up onto the truck. They're heavy, hay gets down your back with the first one and you start to itch; then it gets hot. Farming can be the pits.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Troll
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 08:25 AM

Worst: 30 years with the post office.
Best:Being retired after 30...

troll

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 06:29 AM

Best job I ever had: deputy innkeeper in a small university town, when the patron was on holiday. I paid the rent and could keep all the money I earned in my time. Should have changed profession instead of graduating in the Philosophical Faculty.
Worst job: Orientalist librarian under a new head of department, a lying mischievous she-prof. Did it for ten years, then fled to university library.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 20 Mar 02 - 05:19 AM

Worst job =killing animals (licensed slaughterman) I spent all day covered in turkey poo (not pleasent)!
Best job-door opener (I worked in a christmas hamper factory, but the wharehouse door was broken, so I sat near the door reading newspapers and whenever a fork-lift truck wanted to go through the door they would sound their horn & I would open the door, very easy but unfortunatley this was a temporay contract!

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Jack (who is called Jack)
Date: 17 Dec 99 - 12:22 PM

Worst Jobs.

Phone solicitor (lasted 2 days) Counselor in a residential drug treatement center. Temp job striping a bad paint job off a factory floor.

Best Job. I am now an engineer/programmer in a medical research laboratory. Basically I do science all day long. That I get paid to do something this fun amazes me.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: kendall
Date: 17 Dec 99 - 09:58 AM

My best job was being Captain of the state of Maine patrol boat EXPLORER in the summer.
My worst job, being Captain of the EXPLORE in the winter.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Patrish(inactive)
Date: 17 Dec 99 - 08:22 AM

Worst, Making car leads at home for quarter of a penny each, Scrubbing stone floors in a college where they trained Church of England vicars, making and selling computers - if you sold a mouse to someone they thought they had free technical advice for life!
Best, Teaching kayaking, Teaching belly dancing, and this one (business support) - cos I get to use the internet and come here.
Patrish

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Mudjack
Date: 17 Dec 99 - 05:07 AM

I've been a maintenace electrician for to many years and have to say it has always been chalenging and never a lack of discovering new ways equipment and machinery can break down. I get to fix it.
Some years back after our steel mill closed, I worked about two and a half years for the Santa Fe Railroad as a shop electrician. That job SUCKED and so did the AT&SF. Idiots running it and wanting all its employees to be idiots and succeeding. It's no wonder they merged with Burlington Northern.
I really hate the work inviornment at the Aluminum Plant where I work at now, but the schedule, pay and benifets tell me to stick it out for six more years. My work schedule allows me 1 week off every month. Add that to the three weeks of vaction time, that is 15 weeks of time off a year. I have had some good paying music gigs, but some of my best and most enjoyable gigs have been donated or for expenses at folk festivals. The worst gig I ever did was for Jaycees here in town for a fair amount of money of which I donated half back, but I smelled trouble the minute they asked me to play and sing while everyone was dishing up their food. The whole experience was a bummer. Last year I played a smoke free Pub and was skeptical about playing loud beer bars. WRONG...it was a very rewarding gig. I guess we learn as we go along.
Mudjack

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: stupidbodhranplayerwhodoesn'tknowanybetter
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 05:56 PM

Give a listen to Ron Thoomasin of Dry Branch Fire Squad do his Parade Magazine story at the beginning of "The Cowboy Song". If you can't see them live, there is a good version on "Live...at Last" Cheers, Rich

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: JedMarum
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 09:35 AM

the best job I ever had has to be musician, the worst job has to be warehouseman ... I worked at a union shop, we had 30 days to prove our worth and make the transition to union employee. The management was pushing us to achieve a high but reasonable level of production, and the union guys were offering to brek our legs if we did. A contract battle was brewing between the two factions ... bad timing for me. I did my 30 days and got out, legs in tact!

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Terry Allan Hall
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 09:26 AM

Worst job: Telemarketting "artificial insemination" for livestock...now where's the fun in that!?!

Best job: singer/guitarist/entertainer...excellent money, if you avoid playing in bars/pubs (where at least 'round these parts, the money is the same as 25 years ago).

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: bassen
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 08:18 AM

Worst job: cleaning toilets for a large firm of international consulting engineers who worked mainly in north Africa and the Far East...did that for two years, which says a lot about me at the time.

best job: present postition, head of a regional museum. I can sit and mudcat as much as I want at work with the door to my office open. It's called field work, or research or somesuch thing.

bassen

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: IceWolf
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 07:49 AM

Best job: President and CEO of a company that existed purely to put on Science-fiction conventions. Didn't pay worth beans, but it was fun.
Worst job: My current situation. Senior help-desk for remote access for a global network. I have a manager who is an empire-builder and plays favorites (translate: the only people who get raises are a$$-kissers). Recently, we were "acquired" by another company which cost us all our seniority, including vesting in retirement. New company has much worse benefits, and has been laying people off left and right.

As soon as my wife gets out of school though, I'll be shaking the dust of this place from my heels.

--IceWolf

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: paddymac
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 06:05 AM

Worst was loot-man on a blacktop crew. Back before it became mostly mechanized and automated, the loot-man was the guy who spread the hot mix with a device best described as a toothless rake. Best? Probably running a rural bar/grill in college. Was in a small country town with a meat packing plant and an egg plant as the primary employers. Got paid a buck & a half an hour, but I was free to study on the job and made good tips on the unusual nights when it was busy. Had a patron from the meat packers who used to bring me what he called "head meat" (ground beef made from assorted muscles on the head of a cow). Great stuff. I'd take it back to school and sell it. Never had enough of it. Also had an "American Gothic" couple from the egg plant who brought me pullets and cracks for 15 cents a dozen, which I then sold back on campus for 50 cents. It's easier to survive that way when you're young and not responsible for a family.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Bruce O.
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 12:23 AM

I was a scientist, and a pretty good lab man, but since we had a lot of delicate equiptment, we couldn't let the janatorial staff in the lab, so I also cleaned all the chemical ware, changed the dirty oil in the vacuum pumps, swept and mopped the floors, and such like highly intellectual stuff.

You don't know what a dirty job is until you've had to empty a chock full septic tank with a shovel and wheel-barrow, and dig up and clean the old drain tiles, so you can reuse them. Once was more than enough for me. But maybe a nurse has just about as bad every day.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Wesley S
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 12:04 AM

Best Job - Working for a large record store chain where I got to order all the folk , blues and bluegrass.

Worst Job - No contest for me - midnight to dawn shift as a cook at IHOP { International House of Pancakes }. It was a decade before I could look at a pancake again.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: _gargoyle
Date: 15 Dec 99 - 10:44 PM

DAMN!!!!

can't believe I fell for one of the laughing cat's "zombie resurrections."

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: _gargoyle
Date: 15 Dec 99 - 10:41 PM

My best job ever was

Burro Wrangler

aka..."keeper of the ass"

The backbiting, kicking, braying, stubbornness, lazyness and just downright shit ..... prepared me for all the "administrative types" I would ever have to meet.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Willie-O
Date: 15 Dec 99 - 09:30 PM

Well this could get lengthy since I have a short attention span and have had more shitty jobs than Geroge Orwell. (That's a lot, look it up.)

But the worst, that's easy. That would be the first two treeplanting jobs I ever went on. This was in BC in '76. The first one, we were clambering around on an extremely steep clearcut mountainside on which the slash had not been moved or burned...the contractor had bid it too low, and after eight days of making about $20/day less camp fees ($100 was a good days pay for planting then, $50 about the minimum standard) we were shut down by the Forest Service for inadequate production. (Silver lining though: the cook on that job was Neal Hellman, a well-known lap dulcimer player and dulcimer-book-writer. There was a specific evening when I tried to jam with them, that Neal and someone else showed me how to play guitar with fiddle tunes---the jiggety jig thing. This was a breakthrough of sorts. Great cook too.)

After that contract folded I went on to another planting job farther north--got sick from planting in the rain too much, ended up wandering the streets of Prince George with a fever of 103, very little money, and a 60-lb pack. Yuck. I did quite a bit more tree-planting, amazingly enough, never got really fast but I ended up going to forestry college and later on was usually the foreman or subforeman, which was a not much better job.

My best job was perhaps doing lake trout fishery field work--mostly creel census on Eels Lake north of Peterborough. They give you a boat and you go out and talk to fishermen, find out what they're catching and offer to clean their fish so you can see what it had for lunch (you get used to this.) They started me out with an 18 hp rental boat, but after I demonstrated some nautical incompetence they busted me down to a 6 hp boat. This was o.k, since I still went out but my boat wasn't fast enough to catch up to anyone else's boat. (Lake trout fishers would much rather troll than talk to anyone) Occasionally I'd find someone bass fishing, but mostly my day's work entailed a leisurely cruise about six miles up this chain of lakes...counting how many people were out there fishing. When I got up to the far end of the lake there was a little island of cedar trees with a nice private clearing in the middle, and I had a chunk of hash about the size of yer thumb...I'd take a little interlude, cruise back, and go home. Now that was a job.

For satisfaction of doing something useful without sacrificing my independent nature though, I like what I do now which is being a small-time carpenter/handyman. Mostly building woodsheds, lofts, decks and stuff like that. It's got rather severe downsides like not enough work and money comes my way, and a minor injury can sideline me, as happened this fall, and I swear I'm out of it for good and going to get a nice dry high-tech job, but then another woodshed to be built shows up--happened today--and I like what I do again. Considering the season, I may include a manger.

Bill C

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: DonMeixner
Date: 15 Dec 99 - 08:03 PM

Silversmithing and Singing for me aren't jobs, but I do manage them that way. They are the joy of living and the music in my day. A job is different.

Best job I ever had was building fishing boats and yachts. I meet some of the best and a few of the worst people it has been my task to know. But the character of the crews I built for was never in question. Not always the case with some of the owners. I think i may have a few big boats left in me now, if Pete Culler could build them after 50, so can I.

Worst job was working as a factory deck ape for Carrier Corp. in Syracuse NY. The place I ever found that was like two warring camps held in check by a tenuous contract that both parties would scuttle at the least provocation. One of my five best friends still works there and says its all changed. Luckily I don't have to go back and see.

Don

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Jerry Friedman
Date: 25 Mar 99 - 11:43 PM

Best job: Graduate Research Assistant at Los Alamos National Lab in summer. Lots of friendly young people with interests similar to mine in a beautiful setting, and it was the last time I actually enjoyed physics. (Academic, civilian research--thanks for asking).

Worst job: teaching a solar-car project, right now. Would be great for someone with a little experience or talent in management, upper or middle. The project will be done in a few months.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Mudjack
Date: 25 Mar 99 - 05:56 PM

Mark Rolfe, I heard yet another BOSS backwards, Stupid S O B. I remembering telling my son when he went into business for himself and was complaining about having to do all the little jobs like cleaning the restrooms. Yeah, being the boss really is the pits. Being boss for some might be the worst job, the best job is watching your son mature in the manure as a entrepeneur. Jack

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Big Mick
Date: 24 Mar 99 - 10:01 PM

Sheye,

That sucks!!!!! Same thing happened to my daughter. I went very male and was about to rearrange the office into a carwash, but she asked me not to. Really hate these types.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: VAT (inactive)
Date: 24 Mar 99 - 09:54 PM

Best Job: What I do currently, private practice social work. I work mostly with criminal justice substance abusers in a low risk facility. Teaching Vocational Adjustment Training, Job Quest Training and Job Placement. The second best was Embalmer and the third best was a Mudlogger in the East Texas Oil Patch during the late 70's early 80's boom.

Worst job: Mid level management in a state facility for the mentally retarded and next to the worst was a behavior modification specialist in a state facility for the mentally retarded. I lived the clients but the staff was terrible.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Bob Schwarer
Date: 24 Mar 99 - 05:18 PM

Best "job" was when I was in the army. Got to go all over northern Japan(north of Sendai) doing a military engineering evaluation of the bridges. Across every little creek or river. At that time GI Joe was still somewhat of a novelty out in the boonies. Worst job? I don't know. I got paid & I did a fair days work for it so we all were happy. Probably worst was during the corn canning season following the trucks through the fields and throwing the ears into the trucks. Not a whole lot of mechanization then. Lot of bending. Along the same line worked on a pea viner(I guess thats the right name). You forked vines with the pods on into one end & got vines & hulls out the other end with the peas deposited in boxes. Stacked the vines like hay with a pichfork or hayfork. Canning season wasn't that long. It just seemed like it. If there were a lot of thistles in the field, they usually ended up with the peas. Things are better now, but I still remember eating "thistle 5's"

Bob S.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Bill
Date: 24 Mar 99 - 04:36 PM

The worst job I ever had was working in a factory, assembling mufflers. What made it so bad, besides tedious work, was dealing with the union thugs.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Mark Roffe
Date: 24 Mar 99 - 01:49 AM

U Utah sez: "Boss is a backwards double S-O-B"

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Sheye
Date: 23 Mar 99 - 09:10 PM

Wow, talk about tripping through your memories.

The best and the worst career job are both in the same line of work: accountant.

What made it the worst was the ###hole I worked for. I reported him to his peer committee for sexual misconduct and I was fired two weeks later for incompetence. Coincidence? Gee, musta been.

(I worked as a dishwasher for the summer when I was twelve. That was hot, dirty, work that never seems to have a accomplishing end to it. Yuck.)

What makes this current one so great are the colleagues, coworkers, and my own staff who are like family.

I spent one summer building playgrounds; that was a blast.

...and then there was the summer that I didn't work at all. I spent that summer learning how to walk and talk all over again after surviving a horrible car accident. I think I would have taken just about any crappy job as a trade that year.

Still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: DennisM
Date: 23 Mar 99 - 01:03 PM

worst job: working towards retirement best job: enjoying retirement

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Ross
Date: 22 Mar 99 - 05:09 PM

BalladsinginSue Good jobs are a myth... thats why they call it WORK..

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: AlistairUK
Date: 22 Mar 99 - 04:40 PM

Jack: Did it involve a cigar and a blue cocktail dress?

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: The Shambles
Date: 22 Mar 99 - 04:28 PM

Hop picking in East Sussex in September was the best.

Picking potatoes in East Sussex in October the worst.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Mudjack
Date: 22 Mar 99 - 11:34 AM

Monica writes, The best job I ever had was being an intern at the White House, the wost job was the one I did in the White House.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Roger the zimmer
Date: 22 Mar 99 - 10:27 AM

Coronatiion programme seller- One day's work and 40 years off!

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Susan A-R, Re: Pinewoods
Date: 22 Mar 99 - 09:45 AM

You never know what Nilos Never-the-less is up to. There have been times that a short term situation has worked. There is also schoarship available for kitechen duty through CDSS.

I guess that I'm saying that I really don't know, but I would encourage you to contact Pinewoods and CDSS, and check it out. Crew at Pinewoods is a highly reccomendable experience.

Bob Jovi

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Mar 99 - 12:44 PM

balladsinginSue....*grin*..the name is longer than she is..(if I understand correctly, she has the distinction of being the shortest known adult Civil War re-enactor)..but she stores an ENORMOUS amount of information and songs in there somehow...

Glad to see you, Sue

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Ferrara
Date: 21 Mar 99 - 10:25 AM

Well, I don't think I've ever had a good job, I've temped as typist and word processor for short stints, but was a computer programmer/analyst for 28 years. *Not* what I should have been doing. I'm convinced that computers, not the bomb, are going to destroy the fabric of society. All the best and brightest are sucked into the vacuum maw of the computer industry, leaving other areas to accept less and less qualified people for lower and lower salaries. This deep thought occurred to me yesterday after a frustrating encounter with a very pleasant but not-too-sharp hospital tech who caused me much discomfort.

If I ever have to go back to work, I'd like to sell my original crafts. "Wouldn't everybody?" I hear you say. Well, I can dream, can't I?

Hey, balladsinginSue! Glad to see you here! -- But your screen name is a little long, would you mind if I shortened it to ball'inSue? (DONT get the wrong idea anybody, Sue's been a friend for more than 20 years. Among other noble traits, she's a fine unaccompanied singer.)

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: o'hanrahan
Date: 21 Mar 99 - 07:01 AM

Best: 1984-present Teaching field studies/natural & cultural history to a variety of people(schools, colleges,environmental agencies, bird clubs, elders) in numerous settings (canoe trips, ocean study cruises, backcountry expeditions, day hikes) at beautiful places(Vermont, Connecticut River Watershed,Berkshires, Cape Cod, Everglades, Okefenokee, Maine)...not making tremendous dough re mi but is greatly rewarding with little stress compared to city commuter lifestyles...plus i get to share music as part of my work.

Worst:Textile mill worker for, need i say, a very short duration.

Most Difficult(stress):Teacher & Advocate for adjudicated teens

Other jobs i've enjoyed to varying degrees:Warehouse Manager(good bucks),Installing floors(sore knees & back),US Coast Guard( had to cut my hair but they paid fot college)

Katlaughing & Bob: have lived in Northampton & Cummington(plenty of good canoeing on the Westfield River) and have bantered around Granville, now & then, out at the reservoir.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: McMusic
Date: 21 Mar 99 - 01:13 AM

Balladsinging sue-- BRAVO!!!!!

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Susan A-R
Date: 21 Mar 99 - 12:26 AM

We ell, it actually should have gone to the appalachian thread in response to Catspaw, I already got a much shorter say in earlier. Say, what I REALLY want to know is whether there are any shorter term cooking/kitchen gigs to be had at Pinewoods Music camp.

Susan

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: alison
Date: 21 Mar 99 - 12:02 AM

copied from another thread... I thought it looked like it belonged here.... sorry if it wasn't what you inteneded Susan.

slainte

alison -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: RE: Mudcat Marrage Guidance From: Susan A-R Date: 19-Mar-99 - 10:52 PM

I worked at the Council of the Southern Mountains in Clintwood VA in the winter of '81/'82. It was a remarkable introduction to "the real world" it being my first job after college. The work was intense and terrifying in many ways. There were several mining disasters while I was there, and we covered them, tried to provide support to widows, etc. It was as the bottom was going out of mine safety regulation. I was the only person on staff who didn't carry a gun (even if I weren't legally blind, I wouldn't do that.) I got introduced to a lot of causes that are still near and dear to me, I learned a lot about writing under deadline, and even learned how to do layout the old fashioned way, and loved it when we'd go to the press up in Pikefille to pull "Mountain Life&Work off the conveyer belt. I heard Ralf Stanley and the Clinch Mountain boys. I spent an afternoon in a senior center playing music with Guy Carawan, I left the council and spent a month in Hinton West Virginia in the home of Jim Costa (along with about five guitars, " fiddles, several lap dulcimers, a few odd instruments for which I don't know the names, an autoharp and, yes, two ripped apart player pianoos. We went to kitchen sessions and music parties all over southern West Virginia. I had left CSM after too much death (56 miners in two months) and too much learning in too little time, and Jim's was a good place to decompress. I had not been playing the fiddle when I moved down to VA, but I am still playing it now, and still love some of the songs and tunes I learned down there. Wow! guess you uncorked something.

Susan

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 11:40 PM

Mary Ann: your posting just reminded me of what the "Rev." Pat Robertson said about feminism at the 1992 GOP convention, you've probably heard it:

"Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practise witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians."

What the man doesn't know or understand could displace all the water in all of the oceans! AARrrrrggghhhh!

Speaking of feminism, one of my favourite bumper stickers is "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in highheels!"

There's a great catalogue company, Northern Sun, which peddles "products for progressives"....great tees and bumper stickers, etc. AND they are always looking for good ideas (they could use some for folkies), which they pay for! www.northernsun.com

Sorry for the digression....

katlaughing

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Paul G.
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 10:18 PM

Well, since I started this thing, let me tell you about my day job...and yes, there are good jobs, I have 2 of them. One is the music, the other is managing the department of pediatric medicine at a not-for-profit children's clinic. No, I'm not a doctor, but I recruit them and figure out how to get them paid for all of the charity care we do. As a sub-speciatly clinic we care for the sickest of the sick. Heartbreaking frequently, rewarding always...and I sure need the music to carry me through the heartbreaks.

Paul

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: balladsinginSue
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 08:16 PM

There are good JOBS ?

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: MAG (inactive)
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 06:19 PM

Earning college money at HoJo's on the NJ Turnpike still ranks right up there with sucksville after 30 years. I had one god-awful printing job, but hanging out in a movement printshop (on S. Dearborn, before it became "Printer's Row," when there were still actual printshops there) was pretty cool, as was having my own small press and puttering. I gave it away to a lesbian collective who later claimed they "found" it in a basement, which left a permenent sour taste in my mouth about 60's idealism.

Kelly Girl sucked, too, but it was interesting doing one job in a manicure parlor, which unbeknownst to our manager was a TOPLESS manicure parlor, and yes, they offered me a job there. (It was a LONG time ago.)

chicago cabbying. I could write a book. The black hooker in the white peekaboos. Crazy Irwin and his basketball. Jerks telling me to take my hat off so they could see what I looked like.

And while I'm on the subject, let me mention a volunteer job working for the democratic candidate in 1972, not because I loked him, but because I hated Nixon so much. When I told a fellow canvasser I was feminist, he immediately wanted to know all about how being a feminist affected what you did in bed. I was so grossed out I left the campaign and didn't go back. Sigh.

And yes, I am a semi-professional storyteller, which rates the highest, so please don't steal my original material!

Mary Ann

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 03:57 PM

Bob: sorry...Katlaughing

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From:
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 11:38 AM

katlaughing: It was in Cummington, MA, thats about all that I care to remember, real bad situation.

Bob Jovi

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 01:25 AM

Bob: where in WMASS? We lived in Granville and Northampton. I also worked at the now-defunct Center for the Arts in westerly, RI. I like your description! The only time I "got the chocolate" was when I sang some fo my brother's songs in concert! otherwise it was pretty thankless.

Don, I'm jealous...I took one semester of metalsmithing...don't have the patience...want to see it done very quickly...so I design and make jewelry using gemstone beads and I love it...balances out the writing.

kat

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Don Meixner
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 12:50 AM

Worst Job: Working for Carrier Corp. Attaching things to things on an assembly line. The company made you feel like you were entering a prison everyday when you arrived or left work.

Best Job: Its a tie between building boats and being a silversmith.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Bob Jovi
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 12:45 AM

Let's see...

I've worked with the circus, on a cattle farm, as a winemaker, a truck driver, a public opinion pollster, and a few other things. The best job is easy, two years in the kitchen at Pinewoods Dance camp. I highly reccomend the experience.

The worst job is a dead heat, either managing an arts colony in western Mass. or fund raising for public radio in NYC. Arts administration is like working in a chocolate shop, and not being allowed to the goods.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 11:47 PM

Honestly I enjoyed most of my jobs from wiping people's bottoms and taking temperatures, to being an EMT, to selling radio adverts, tending bar, and running my own ad agency.

Besides being my brother's manager (classical composer/pianist prima dona/o),I have to say the one that gives me the most consternation is what I do now, which is write; it's lonely, frustrating, and requires way too much self-discipline! Plus, people think they can call all hours of the day, when you're supposed to be working and family members don't understand why you can't just drop everything and run an errand for them! But it is a Divine Compulsion which I cannot deny, so....I slog on.

katlaughing

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Susan A-R
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 10:41 PM

I LIKE being a chef. I DIDN'T LIKE being a lobbyist.

I have friends who are caught in management positions, or other work they hate who point to me as the one who got out. After fifteen years in human services/disability rights activism (hence the lobbyist position) I made the leap and now am happily working 60 hour weeks, making enough to pay my part of the mortgage, electric and heat (the food is awesome and well taken care of).

Don't stay in work you hate. Start planning your getaway NOW. Its worth it!!

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: LEJ
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 06:21 PM

Best job- worked one winter as assistant manager of an outdoor ice rink in Louisville in the mid-70's. Every Friday and Saturday night it was a complete party with friendly girls, mind altering substances, and Led Zeppelin blasting from the PA. I was 23 and the boss. Lookout.

Worst- either selling women's shoes (my first job), or being a printer, which I did for 7 YEARS. Ouch.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 05:45 PM

I was a chambermaid in Leadville, Colo. one summer. Bummer!

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: John OSh
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 05:28 PM

Worst Job: Being a therapist on a locked psychiatric unit

2nd Worst Job: Pumping gas at a full service station - rain or shine

Best Job: Tie between being a Bar tender (good money, good hours, good folks) and a lifeguard on the sunny beaches of the Windy City (mainly able to booze and party the summer away!)

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Allan C.
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 03:28 PM

Best job: What I am doing now, I run a copy center at a small college.
A pretty good job: Store detective
Worst job: Tied in last place are when I was a dishwasher at a Shoney's and when I worked as a 7-Eleven clerk.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Big Mick
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 02:08 PM

Best Job: Union Organizer/Singer

Worst Job: Union Organizer/Singer

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: reggie miles
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 10:21 AM

Jobs! (yech!!) How dare you use four letter words like that at Mudcat.

Reggie

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: AlistairUK
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 10:19 AM

*Groan* Steve

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 10:01 AM

So, Alistair - either your clients were interred or you were! **Fnarr, fnarr**

Steve

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 09:36 AM

I was a Lifeguard when I was sixteen. I lived away from home, worked at tiny beach where the only time I was forced to go in the water was to retrieve a few beachballs that had gone outside of the ropes.

Sunshine, bikini clad young women would actually approach me, although at the time I was too shy and naive to no what to say to them. Virtually no work, a place to stay that was share with the other lifeguard, no one telling us to clean it up, go to bed etc. And I got paid for it too.

There tend to be balancing forces in the universe. As an adult I worked for a leasing company that was beyond description.

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: AlistairUK
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 09:21 AM

Umm I worked in the sewers department of my local council..and in the sewers as well. And I spent a summer working as a grave digger in a local cemetary

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 03:23 AM

I had a weekend job in a pet shop as a kid; I had all the really tedious jobs, like sanding greyhounds down to whippets. My little brother got a job in a dolls' hospital, but he had to leave after a week - he couldn't stand the sight of sawdust.

Steve

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Mark Roffe
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 02:04 AM

My best jobs were: San Francisco cabbie; bar owner in the West Indies; deckhand on an oceanographic boat; glass artist; musician; dump truck driver; window washer. My worst job was: computer network analyst, which is my current job!

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: McMusic
Date: 18 Mar 99 - 10:24 PM

I've had a couple--loaded mattresses in an Arlington, VA bedding store in '74; was an infantryman in Viet Nam--now that really sucked!!

Subject: RE: Best /Worst Job List
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Mar 99 - 05:53 PM

well, I have been lots of things...including "Bean Counter" (inventory in a Pork & Bean cannery!)

Subject: Best /Worst Job List
From: Paul G.
Date: 18 Mar 99 - 12:57 PM

I was just reviewing the recently released list job rankings (250 job titles ranked best to worst) and noticed musician at #155. The really interesting thing is that "Musician" is placed directy between "Janitor" (154)and "Undertaker" (156). The first cleans up after us, and the second cleans us up after...this ought to get something going (perhaps a best/worst gig thread?)Personally, I think being a musician is the best possible job to have, if you discount the money part.

Paul G.