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BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?

02 Jun 01 - 12:10 AM (#474972)
Subject: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull

i read somewher that folk music is very popular with teachers/social workers so i wondered what jobs mudcatters have.ps i am a delivery driver.john


02 Jun 01 - 12:15 AM (#474974)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Amergin

I'm a professional computer geek....I answer the phone and try to solve other folks' computer problems....that is if I don't screw up them up worse....


02 Jun 01 - 12:28 AM (#474976)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Peg

Teach film studies at a local college

freelance film critic and writer

occasional aromatherapist and calligrapher

former/erstwhile artists' model


02 Jun 01 - 12:38 AM (#474980)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Oversoul

I jump to conclusions and get paid for not being clever or good-looking. Things are getting better! I love Turkish music, see?


02 Jun 01 - 12:38 AM (#474981)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: katlaughing

Now? Writer/jewellry designer/listener-healer

Past lives? Radio sales and collections, nurses' aid, emergency medical tech, storeclerk, artist's chief cook and bottle washer, advertising agency owner, promotional plastic junk salesperson (pens and things), assistant to director of development of a non-profit...all sorts of things with lots of good material for writing about!**BG**


02 Jun 01 - 12:41 AM (#474984)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: GUEST,Anne

I'm an editor of a catalog for public and school libraries. I was a librarian. Most of the folkies I know are social workers or psychologists or teachers.


02 Jun 01 - 12:43 AM (#474986)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Sandy Paton

For forty years I've done whatever seemed to be necessary to help keep Folk-Legacy Records afloat. Recorded people, edited tapes, done some of the graphics, written notes on the songs, packed records, answered mail, etc. Fortunately, I've always had someone else around to do the books. Until last year that was Lee Haggerty, now it's my younger son, Robin.

Sandy


02 Jun 01 - 12:47 AM (#474990)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: GUEST,AOG

Former sailor (military&merchant),hitch-hiker extrodinaire,printer, steel worker, set designer, construction carpenter. Currently woodworker, freelance writer, fiddler


02 Jun 01 - 12:52 AM (#474993)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: CarolC

Currently disabled and very slowly working toward a degree in Counseling (so I guess I fit your demographic).

Stuff I did before... wildlife rehabilitation worker, veterinary assistant, interpretive naturalist, zookeeper, backpacking outfitter sales person, weaver/textile artist, whitewater rafting sales person, and some other assorted stuff.


02 Jun 01 - 12:52 AM (#474994)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Chip2447

Then, a firefighter, a DJ, painter, computer geekazoid, switchboard operator.

Now, a full time dreamer at large, poet, wannabee novelist, struggling musician.

Soon to get back into the job market, "Would you like fries with that?"


02 Jun 01 - 12:59 AM (#474996)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Billy the Bus

G'day John,

I started off adult life as a teacher - running residential Outdoor Education Centres, in various parts of NZ. Basically looking after 70+ kids (and their classroom teachers) for a week, and exposing them to "bushcraft" and the "environment".

While training (and since), I worked at all sorts of jobs - dustman, roadman, sewer worker, camera shop assistant, field biologist (forests, island and seabirds), pesticide/herbicide applicator, soldier (and anti-Vietnam protestor at the same time), folksinger, musterer, shearer, fencer (not of the foil variety), but mainly layabout.....;)

After quitting teaching 20 years back, and moving to Stewart Island, I became an Outdoor Education Consultant, writer/illustrator, eco/adventure tour guide (month long trips through NZ) and finally, like you, a professional driver....

This involved carting freight, people on bus tours and meeting planes at the local airfield, which led to..

Air Traffic Control (wet finger and windsock variety) - I met a few thousand flight's and "talked" pilots in under more-than-somewhat dubious flying conditions.

Since the company I worked for was somewhat versatile, I also did garage work, cooked in the take-aways and did a bit of work in the brewery (for some reason the boss wouldn't let me work there alone).....;)

Umm.... about that time I built a house.

In the meantime, I did a bit of acting in local shows, built a website about my home on Stewart Island. I was happy as a sandboy...;)

Abou six years ago "Fox the Boss" pulled out. I bought Billy the Bus from him. Now, I'm just a boring old bus driver - carting visitors round the 12 miles of road on Stewart Island, and telling yarns. It's a living (just)...;)

Anyway...

Looking through the above - I've spent a pretty boring 60 years on this planet. Might have to do something interesting next time round.

Cheers - Sam


02 Jun 01 - 01:05 AM (#474997)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: GUEST,Norton1

I started playing music when I was a Cowboy - went back to school and am now a social worker - go figure.


02 Jun 01 - 01:24 AM (#475003)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull

billy, nice website, new zealand looks realy nice.forgive my ignorance, but whats a musterer?


02 Jun 01 - 01:27 AM (#475004)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: DougR

Semi-retired fundraising consult for non-profits. Before: CEO of symphony orchestras, development director for a professional theater company, owned an arts consultant business, owned a travel agency, worked at the National Endowment for the Arts.

DougR


02 Jun 01 - 01:30 AM (#475006)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Liz the Squeak

I've been a classroom assistant, vicars' secretary, youth club worker, bus maintenance assistant, waitress, painter and decorator, cleaner, catering assistant, mediaeval wench (themed catering), military museum assistant, domsetic engineer, historical researcher, seamstress, library assistant, small business secretary, toymaker, proofreader, and childminder. Now I work for the Inland Revenue (IRS).

And I'm not even 40 yet!!

LTS


02 Jun 01 - 01:40 AM (#475011)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Sorcha

Currently, a "home maker",and entertainer, but have been a pre school teacher, Motel Minder, caterer, seamstress,and hospital Ward Clerk (transcriber).


02 Jun 01 - 02:02 AM (#475019)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Lepus Rex

I print t-shirts, mostly. Sometimes I drive around in a big van. For the last... 6 years, I guess. Before that, I was usually unemployed, or employed for very short periods of time. I don't really like to think of work as "what I do," though. It's just how I get the money to afford to do the things that I do. :)

---Lepus Rex


02 Jun 01 - 02:18 AM (#475023)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Billy the Bus

LtS - I'm down on my knees and proposing.

Please come and marry/work with me, I need all your skills - especially the most recent IRS ones..;)

JiH - a "musterer" is a large scale shepherd - you muster (mother-up) a few thousand sheep (or cattle). It's basically an Aus/NZ term (I think) - you'll find about 30 songs if you check "muster" on DT.

Sandy, don't be so modest. Where is your link to Folk Legacy? You will never Proffitt without the blue clicky-links. All I can say about your last wasted 40 years is THANKS - ***VBG***

Cheers - Sam


02 Jun 01 - 02:29 AM (#475027)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: DaveJ

My official job title is 'equipment tech. V'. I'm also a CHESS operator. CHESS stands for "Cornell High Energy Syncrotron Source". I'm also the CHESS chemical safety officer. The rest is detailsyawn

I live in Ithaca, NY which is "centrally isolated" in upstate NY. I love music and learning about its history. I sing---off key. I can't play a single musical instrument, but I do know how to play my CD player. I somehow have managed to collect about 1200 CD albums. Most of these albums are from people like the musicians on this forum, who love making music but have never dreamed of being on 'top 40 radio'. I also help produce folk concerts for "The Cornell Folk Song Club." Though I am not a musician, music still seems to define me more than any other single passion...except for family.

Oh, my wife is a social worker.

DaveJ


02 Jun 01 - 02:55 AM (#475031)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: dr soul

I'm the knowledge manager for a state (US) utility regulator. For 10 years before that I was a policy specialist for the same. I didn't get a real job until I was 36. Before that: student, logger, laborer at a sand and gravel yard, street person, dishwasher, cook (Mexican restaurant), environmental activist . . . First professional (paid) band at age 46. It's never too late for new challenges. Okay, never say "never". But it's not too late yet.


02 Jun 01 - 03:18 AM (#475034)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: fat B****rd

Changeboy on the "Prom" bad rock'n'roll singer shop assistant (Gents Outfitters) clerk blue eyed soul singer paint stripper degreaser moulding machine operator picker packer mediocre drummer in "beat group". I also hate the notion that only certain types of people like certain types of music.


02 Jun 01 - 06:35 AM (#475063)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Jim Hancock

These days i make a living as a freelance sculptor / designer, plus publishing folk related material, performing and writing.

But I confess to spending some 20 years as a lecturer.

Your demographic isn't surprising really, most of the people of my age who were responsible for the U.K. folk boom in the sixties came from the student population, and in those days teaching was a popular route for students to take.

All the best

Jim


02 Jun 01 - 07:03 AM (#475066)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Mooh

Past: student, musician (country and dance band), labourer, painter, demolition guy, construction worker, forest ranger, musician (rock/folk/bluegrass/pop), store clerk, janitor, verger, occupational health and safety instructor, musician (celtic band), gardener, carpenter, musician ('70's rock band), union representative (negotiations etc), musician (Neil Young tribute band)...I forget what all else...

Present: school custodian (part-time), private music teacher (part-time), performing musician (celtic band, fiddle/mandolin and guitar duo, musical mercenary for hire)...

All this and I haven't grown up yet.

Mooh.


02 Jun 01 - 07:23 AM (#475072)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: John P

I've been making some part of my income as a musician since I was 15 (blues, pop-rock, hard rock, prog rock, new age, medieval, traditional folk). The rest of the time, these days, I'm the general manager of Dusty Strings, a company in Seattle that builds hammered dulcimers and folk harps and operates an acoustic music store.

John


02 Jun 01 - 07:34 AM (#475075)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Morticia

Yep, social worker...although I have run a book shop, and several other sorts of shop,been an au pair, worked in a factory,waitress,hair-dresser,barkeeper, telephonist, receptionist and singer in several bands.I even sold vacuum cleaners for a while but hey, I was young and broke!


02 Jun 01 - 07:54 AM (#475076)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Gary T

Auto mechanic, then auto repair shop manager, and now, having opened my own one-man shop, both.


02 Jun 01 - 07:55 AM (#475077)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: GUEST,Butch

Luthier (historic instruments), lecturer, historian (actually part time director of education at a museum). I can't stand the idea of only one job so I put together a package of jobs that fit me.


02 Jun 01 - 08:10 AM (#475080)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: kendall

I'm retired from the US Fish & Wildlife Service, (Conservation officer) And, I now get to do whatever I want, pretty much where and when I want.

less frequently now, I do after dinner speaking, and, an occassional festival.


02 Jun 01 - 10:53 AM (#475126)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Whistleworks

I play the whistles. Oh, and I read and interpret medical records for lawyers so that I can afford to nourish my WAD (whistle acquisition disorder). And before anyone asks me any medical/legal questions, you may first want to know my rates.

Bob Pegritz


02 Jun 01 - 11:30 AM (#475136)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Paul G.

During the week I handle regulatory compliance for a non-profit foundation that funds health care services for children in Florida, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland. On the weekends I put in about 15,000 road miles per year making music. I'm also president of Friends of Florida Folk and chairperson of the local organizing committee for the 2002 North American Folk Alliance Conference (to be held here in Jacksonville next February -- y'all come!)

pg


02 Jun 01 - 11:49 AM (#475145)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Sooz

I'm a teacher to get enough money to finance the folk habit. ( Gigs, festivals, expensive instruments etc) I also clean, cook, garden, decorate, organise a folk club and festival plus the musical lives of my friends who can't remember whats going on for themselves. I'm not completely sane.


02 Jun 01 - 11:50 AM (#475146)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Bagpuss

I put on my thinking cap and abley assisted by my friends (mice, woodpecker, toad and ragdoll) I fix things that people have lost and then leave them in the shop window so that the person that has lost it can come in and retrieve it.

Bagpuss


02 Jun 01 - 11:51 AM (#475148)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Big Mick

Wow.................let's see, beginning when I was a boy............paperboy, soda jerk, paint salesman, fry cook, singer trying to sound just like all the lead singers in Buffalo Springfield, member of Uncle Sam's finest squid unit in a place that was very green and I try to forget about, commercial hardhat diver, insurance salesman, warehouse worker, political activist which (to this point anyway) culminated in running Al Gore's campaign in Michigan, union activist and organizer, folk singer and Irish folksinger, amateur historian and linguist studying all things Irish, Community Activist on behalf of neighborhoods, homeless issues, environmental issues, United Way Volunteer, Arts Community Volunteer, trying to learn Uillean pipes at age 50 (I am too going to make it!!!), have jumped out of any number of perfectly good airplanes, penny whistler, bodhran player (that is NOT an oxymoron), friend of Sandy Paton's, friend of Rick Fieldings, friend of Dan Milner, friend of Catspaw (told you I would admit it to the world, Pat), friend of KT's, friend of Justapicker, friend of Kath Westra, friend of Katlaughing, friend of Willie O, friend of Tony Burns, friend of Little Neo, ..............and all the others.............and he who relentlessly pursues THE FAIR ONE over cyber hill and dale.........Want more?


02 Jun 01 - 11:55 AM (#475151)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: GUEST,Karen

In college I was a waitress, pharmacy delivery girl and lastly a ticker seller at Disneyland. Since college I've been working as a cartographer. I started there using ink, mylar, french curves and engineer scales. We "computerized" about 13 years ago. I am now a Senior GIS Specialist and create digital editions of our road guides...available on CD at a store near you! :-)


02 Jun 01 - 12:34 PM (#475170)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: GUEST,Dancing Mom

currently work as a Licensed Practical Nurse on a cardiovascular unit. Studying to be a Registered Nurse. Mom of four. Former jobs include preschool teacher/ van driver/cook, tech person for college theatre, waitress, tutor, library clerk.


02 Jun 01 - 12:42 PM (#475174)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Don Firth

Started at the University of Washington majoring in English Literature with the idea of becoming a writer of brilliant, literary, best-selling novels, then fell in with a small gang of folk singers (Walt Robertson, Sandy Paton, Rae Creevey, and a couple of others) and began roaming the city armed with a guitar. I didn't leave the U. of W. entirely — I eventually changed my major to Music. Made a marginal but thoroughly enjoyable living singing here and there (some television, a batch of concerts, regular singing jobs in several coffeehouses, no records, dammit!) and teaching guitar (classic and folk).

When a lot of the coffeehouses started closing up or switching to Rock 'n' Roll and new guitar students wanted me to teach them to play R 'n' R, I packed it in and went to work at Boeing. Production Illustrator (like drafting). Boeing did its big lay-off in the early Seventies and I wound up working in broadcasting (radio announcer, newscaster, disk jockey at a classical music station). Fun job, but very unstable. Worked for eight years as a telephone operator. Fairly good pay, good bennies, but absolutely soul-killing — like being a galley-slave. Quit and went to work for the Bonneville Power Administration as a technical writer in their power conservation program. When the program changed, I quit and retired.

Still playing the guitar and singing — for fun, but I'll sing for money if it's offered. I'm doing a lot of writing these days.

Don Firth


02 Jun 01 - 01:07 PM (#475182)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Chicken Charlie

Job title is "Archivist-Historian" for Ontario City Library. (California, not Canada.) I have taught at college level in what seems like a former life. Also moonlight as local history columnist for "a great metropolitan daily," as Clark & Jimmy used to say. Between those 1.5 jobs and music, that about fills up 24/7.

CC


02 Jun 01 - 01:18 PM (#475191)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: lady penelope

I feel positively "under jobbed" ! I've done a couple of temp posts - holiday co-ordinator for the maintenaince dept. at the stock exchange, school lab. tech., receptionist at a now defunct "clap clinic", hotel bookings clerk, but I've been a Medical Laboratory Assistant ( dogs body for a clinical lab.) for nearly 16 years (AAAAAAAArgh!) . Although I am supposed to be starting a new job as a procurements clerk soon.

To my knowledge I have never been either a social worker or a teacher. Even accidentally.

Billy the Bus - sounds like a grreat place, what with nothing being more than 100m from the PUB! Yeah hey! Query, main town called Oban, do they make whisky there? Mmm ? Hint?

TTFN M'Lady P.


02 Jun 01 - 01:42 PM (#475206)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: NH Dave

Semi retired now, I am retired from the Air Force and after working in technical sales and electronics repair, finally earned a degree in CIS, and began substituting in a local school.

Like most military, I've lived all over; England, Pacific Rim, and US, and done lots of things; Electronics Repair, Electronics Training, Airlift Management, and scads of support functions like SAfety Technician, Comptroller, and Logistics coordinator,which makes life very interesting now and gives me lots of background when I teach.

Dave


02 Jun 01 - 01:49 PM (#475212)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)

Air Sea Rescue Controller at the Rescue Coordination Centre Halifax.. Canadian Coastguard Officer ex British and Canadian Merchant Navy. I also teach/lecture on this subject to a variety of groups. Yours, Aye. Dave


02 Jun 01 - 02:15 PM (#475224)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Amos

Geez, whodda MOTLEY Crew!!! No WONDER the Mudcat never makes any progress! :>)

I've spent the last 8 years doing system engineering for the DoD developing training simulations. Before that, I've worked both serially and parallel as a SW coder, technical and fiction writer, essayist, commercial diver, salvage operator (marine), hard-rock scrabbler, troubadour, Pastor, counsellor, deckhand, quartermaster, ship's captain, robotics technician, treasure hunter, ne'e'r-do-well, and before that I think I was stably employed as a pothead layabout but I forget....

A


02 Jun 01 - 02:17 PM (#475226)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Metchosin

greenhouse worker, cone technologist (put the curl on top), nematology technician, medical lab assistant, forestry technican, diazo blueprint operator, park technician, park interpreter, carpenter's assistant, electrician, drywaller, draftsman, bookkeeper, receptionist, small business operator and best of all mom (managed to get laid a couple of times).

Oh yeah, I also brought CPFP to its knees when they tried to clear cut a local forest, but I had a lot of help with that one too.


02 Jun 01 - 03:10 PM (#475259)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Amos

Geez, Metchosin!!! Until recently I thought getting laid was what all these other things were about!!!

A


02 Jun 01 - 03:13 PM (#475262)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: JudeL

Social workers & teachers - I don't like being stereotyped, I must change my job

- Residential Social Worker (Adults with Learning Disabilities), Moving & Handling Trainer, Union Rep., Mum of 3,

Jude


02 Jun 01 - 03:33 PM (#475272)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Matt_R

COLLEGE STUDENT!! Actually, I'm off for the summer and working as a copy editor for the school newspaper, The East Carolinian. I am known as "The Hatchet Man"...


02 Jun 01 - 03:37 PM (#475274)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: katlaughing

Well if we're gonna list everything**BG**: welder's helper (m'dad's); horse wrangler; concert mistress through high school; intake volunteer at Planned Parenthood; pharmacy clerk; caregiver; store manager; bartender; cocktail waittress; political activist which led me to March on Washington, as have many of you, I am sure; PR person for non-profit human rights org.; humane society volunteer (there's a surpise!); and Mets has prompted a long-forgotten reminder of my second SO, whom I assisted in his profession of house-painting and putting up sheetrock (Dusty work!).


02 Jun 01 - 04:01 PM (#475283)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Amergin

well i guess I can say the few other things I have been in my short life...deckhand, bucket factory floor person...machine operator, wire loom operator's helper (or whatever they call it)....an Oil Spill Response Technician...unemployed for long stretches of time....amateur poet....student....as I said before now I am a tech support specialist....I specialise in crashing the customers' computers....


02 Jun 01 - 04:13 PM (#475286)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Metchosin

Up to a point Amos, after that you get tired and turn to gardening.*BG*


02 Jun 01 - 04:17 PM (#475290)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Rebel135

I started out as a child and I was overeducated at the University of Washington. I was in the US Army doing Order of Battle as an Analyst In the Ground Shop.(Im an expert on the military in North Korea in 1975.(What Are The Other Guys Doing. I became a fire claims adjustor for an insurance company. Then I went to work at a Bank and I counsel people and tell them not to Lease vehicles. I deal with a lot of help me, help me calls from people who have made poor choices in life.

There but for the Grace Of God go we. Lots of bad things happen to people, somebody has to help them.

Wes Prichard... Auburn, Washington State. Near Mt Rainier. A long climb but worth it to Point Sucess, 14,410 feet.


02 Jun 01 - 04:23 PM (#475294)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Metchosin

well if I really wanted to push it kat, I could add some more stuff which was unpaid, that I did when we built our house.....uh.....painter, concrete finisher, plumber's assistant, carpet layer.....carpet layer? Hey Amos, is that better?


02 Jun 01 - 04:24 PM (#475295)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: GUEST

Almost 30 years a seaman,retired, then went to university and am now a local historian with a leaning towards the maritime. Also part owner of a maritime museum.Not bad , I suppose, as I left school at 14, over 40 years ago.


02 Jun 01 - 04:29 PM (#475299)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Paul Mitchell

I'm a youth worker managing an information, advice and support project, primarily for "socially excluded" young people aged 14 - 25. So, as I use informal education methods in my work, I guess I'm about a close to a miox of teacher and social worker as you might get! The difference being that I'm not treated as bad as teachers, and I actually get stuff done, which is more than most of the social workers I know do.

Paul


02 Jun 01 - 04:34 PM (#475303)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Llanfair

Did training as an Occupational therapist, but didn't finish the course. Worked with Adults with Learning disabilities from '71 till '99 as residential social worker, day service officer, manager, co-ordinator, and finally, specialist social worker. Finished work at 51 burnt out.
Now I care for my elderly parents, create interesting things with driftwood,sing, develop the garden, keep poultry, and am, at present, working towards creating a Saturday country market in our town. I've made a CD, and we're working on another.
I can travel anywhere in the country by train for free, and I visit the Mudcat Cafe several times a day.
I have never been happier.
Cheers, Bron.


02 Jun 01 - 04:44 PM (#475306)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Dorrie

ooooooh i thought it was gonna say-'...when you all in love?' i'm a 6th form college student. love Dorrie p.s i study - Media Studies, Photography, Maths and Textiles but next year i'm doing- Photography, Textiles, English Language and ECDL

sorry that wasn't very interesting but i've always gor a lot to say on mudcat so i thought i'd tell u all


02 Jun 01 - 04:49 PM (#475309)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: GUEST,Hilary

I work with people with Learning Difficulties in residential community care- qualified as mental handicap nurse. (This is in between folk festivals & singaround sessions). A VERY long time ago I started a degree in applied physics.

One of the things I like about folk festivals + clubs is that you meet people of all sorts - BUT mostly over 35 & predominantly white.


02 Jun 01 - 05:17 PM (#475319)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Caitrin

Whee...

Well, jobs I've worked before amount to Movie Theater Cashier, accounts payable/receivable clerk at an industrial contractor, and properties apprentice at the East Carolina Summer Theatre.

Currently, I'm a college student at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and employed as the Assistant House Electrician at the theatre there. Well, actually, for -this- summer, I'm working for my parents, cooking and cleaning house. But at school, I'm working my way toward being a stage electrician and eventually (hopefully) a sound designer.


02 Jun 01 - 06:12 PM (#475337)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Philibuster

If I don't end up as a succesful musician, I'll be going into forestry or being a pathetic bum. Poor and happy, that's the way it'll go.


02 Jun 01 - 07:16 PM (#475357)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Bill D

after failing to become a Philosophy professor and a computer analyst, and being 'moderately' successful as a cabinet maker, I decided to serve out my declining years *grin* making 'stuff' out of wood...mostly round stuff like this and this and even this .....but not always round (making night-light type lamps with agate inserts there, using a router.)

lots of fun, and pretty dusty....I spend the rest of my time cleaning up the dust and seeing how much of my computer I can run on Freeware.....


02 Jun 01 - 07:44 PM (#475369)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Don Firth

Jeez, Bill D. . . . Bee-you-tiful work!


02 Jun 01 - 07:49 PM (#475371)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Amergin

wow bill....just wow...


02 Jun 01 - 08:07 PM (#475381)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: leprechaun

Before I became a jack-booted thug/oppressor of disenfranchised people/lackey of the corporate elite/foot soldier for the despoilers of mother earth I was a delivery truck driver/martial arts instructor.


02 Jun 01 - 08:27 PM (#475390)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: CRANKY YANKEE

I'm a Calligrapher, wood cutter. That is I make hand carved wooden signs. I also do a little stone cutting. I teach traditional Shotokan Karate in the Providence, Rhode Island public schools.(Those of you who know what I mean will know what I mean when I say my rank is "Go-Dan")I also sail as Boatswain-Chanteyman whenever I can and the money is right. I Rig "Square Rigged" sailing vessels, and occasionally hand hew masts, yards and other spars. Most of my income, however comes from singing gigs. I used to be an Air Traffic Controller (i5.5 years in the USAF) For you U.K. Cats, I was stationed at RAF Lakenheath for 3 years and RAF Bruntingthorpe (Near Leicester) for 1 year. Chief Controller at Bruntingthorpe, Approach Control Shift Supervisor at Lakenheath. 1957 to 1960. Enough, Cheez, I'm long winded.


02 Jun 01 - 10:18 PM (#475461)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull

thanks for replying evrybody,your jobs all look much more interesting than mine! im getting fed up being a delivery driver,so i might go to college in september and learn something new , maybe building or decorating.
metchosin -what is a nematology technichan?
bill - i like your wooden stuff, its realy nice i wish i could do things like that.maybe ill do a basic computer course ,im not sure yet.john


02 Jun 01 - 10:45 PM (#475478)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Bill D

gee, Don & Amergin, thanks for the kudos.....(I will be putting some things in the Mudcat auction as I get them sorted out, and 'soon'..(yeah, right)...a website to show off on....(now, if you are ever in the Wash DC area, come on by and handle the stuff!...I love to talk wood)


02 Jun 01 - 10:58 PM (#475485)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Yankee Gal

Former teacher for the deaf, now a homeschool mom of two(nearly three--adopting) and also Civil War reenactor who has fallen in with a great group of minstrel music lovers.


02 Jun 01 - 11:03 PM (#475486)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Yankee Gal

hey, Cranky Yankee, My dad was at Lakenheath in '55-56 and married a Norfolk girl. I think he was an E-6 , but later took atc school in the Indiana Nat. Guard at Camp Shelby in 1981, crashed a t-34 before he got a chance to do atc.


02 Jun 01 - 11:07 PM (#475487)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Caitrin

Wow, Bill...that stuff's gorgeous!


02 Jun 01 - 11:16 PM (#475489)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: YOR

I got a BS in education then did three years at a private technical school. I left because of the money and for the last 20 years I have been a electrical mechanical designer and a database developer for a major aerospace company contracting for NASA. Yeah, thats the standard 'game show' reply, I work for a company that has a policy manual about as thick as the Bible and just as important.

I have been a hobbist woodworker for about 30 years, (cool stuff Bill!). Working at calling myself a musician.

Come on Lotto!!!!Roy


02 Jun 01 - 11:18 PM (#475491)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Oversoul

I am known as the "yodeling repo man" and I dig graves on the side. Well, PBS wants to do a thing about me, but I would rather stay underground, see?


02 Jun 01 - 11:28 PM (#475496)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: YOR

Bill, I'm in the MD burbs. Roy


02 Jun 01 - 11:29 PM (#475497)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: GUEST,Lucius

I am currently an elementary music teacher, though I 've had stints as a cowboy, truck driver, short order cook, carpenter, pimp/hustler for various arts organizations, bee wrangler and vintner--all while supporting my true vocation: Music.

Lucius


02 Jun 01 - 11:45 PM (#475504)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: katlaughing

These are so fun to read! Bill I am so glad you posted some more links of your beauties! Is the tall vase, the "even this" link made of myrtle wood? It looks liek the same kind of wood as a smaller vase my bought in Oregon, made of myrtle wood. Just beautiful. I LOVE the first link, the "pink pearl with lid jar" if I read the fine print right.

Okay, Mets, if we're going for unpaid, too...well, all the mommee things...you know, etc. etc.:-)


03 Jun 01 - 12:12 AM (#475515)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Dave Swan

I liked some of the college jobs the best. Ditch digger, delivery driver, projectionist. I've also paid the bills as a scenic carpenter, phlebotomist, teacher, paramedic, and for the longest time in my present occupation as a firefighter. I've been a singer of traditional stuff for as long as I remember, for the last 21 years with the same guys. I'm also a founding partner of Lane, Fielding, Patterson and Swan, Layabouts at Large, a service for those folks too busy to lie on their own backsides whilst drinking other's beer and soaking up the free heat. We're a multinational corporation with an aggresive plan for expansion into new markets.

D


03 Jun 01 - 01:16 AM (#475553)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Metchosin

Lovely work Bill!

john in hull, nematodes are microscopic unsegmented worms. I spent many years extracting them from soil and plant material and fiddling around with them under the microscope, like cutting their bums off and other neat stuff. Thankfully, I worked mostly with plant parasites or ones in association with insects and not with animal parasites, like the ones found in pork. You may never want to chew your fingernails again if you have seen some of the stuff that I have looked at.

A personal friend of Dracula are you Dave?


03 Jun 01 - 01:30 AM (#475559)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Dave Swan

Members of the same union.


03 Jun 01 - 01:39 AM (#475561)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: marty D

I try to make people feel better about themselves. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

marty


03 Jun 01 - 02:03 AM (#475568)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Mark Clark

Wow! What an august assemblage. Pretty humbling list.

I've worked as a bottling plant laborer, assistant buyer in a large department store (toys and housewares), folk singer, factory supervisor, auto worker and secretary of a 4000 member UAW local, newsletter editor and photographer, computer programmer, consultant, bluegrass musician, city councilman, mayor and choir director. I'm currently an IT architect somewhere in the military industrial complex. Yes, I'm the guy Ike warned you about.

I also have a healthy list of hobbies including woodworking but nothing to match Bill's work. I don't even own a lathe.

      - Mark


03 Jun 01 - 02:48 AM (#475575)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: DaveJ

Dave Swan,

Are you taking understudies forLayabouts at Large? I have considerable experience in sampling BASS, GUINNESS, and other strong ales. I also have known to sample single malt wiskeies on frequent occasions.
Will loaf for grog. DaveJ


03 Jun 01 - 03:08 AM (#475582)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Billy the Bus

With all the occupations listed, it's no wonder that among the BS, there's also serious comment on almost any subject here on Mudcat!

Anyone want a lathe - going cheap? Excellent work Bill!

Alas, M'Lady P - that fine single malt Oban comes from the original "Oban" in Scotland not from here. Though you can buy it at the Pub (at a price)...;(

Speaking of which - must toddle the 141 paces from my desk to the bar, for a quick one....;)

Cheers - Sam


03 Jun 01 - 09:43 AM (#475663)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Bill D

more thanks to all for the compliments...I sure never had any idea 10-12 years ago when I first got a lathe that I could do those...it just got out of hand. Now I wish I had started playing the guitar or fiddle 40 years ago....

kat...the red one is 'Pink Ivory'..supposedly a VERY rare wood from S. Africa, but there have been legal harvestings the last few years, and a lot of it is currently on the market.. It is a protected wood, however, and simplt won't ever be available in quantities. I sorta doubt I'll ever have any more at the prices they charge

The tall vase is Spalted Holly! (spalted means the wood is dead or dying and infected with micro-organisms which cause discolorations prior to total rotting...but if you catch it early enough, you get wonderful colors)


03 Jun 01 - 09:44 AM (#475664)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull

metchosin-after reading yhat im glad im just a delivery driver.;-)


03 Jun 01 - 09:46 AM (#475665)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Gervase

Er, starting from the beginning; contract labourer, hod carrier, concrete finisher, flea-market trader, fire-eater, busker, journalist, own business.
The most fun was the early time in journalism when I was still in the regions and later freelancing, when I was spending as much time busking, trading and performing at fairs.
Being grown-up is so boring!


03 Jun 01 - 10:38 AM (#475679)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Midchuck

I wanted to be a bum and folk singer but lacked the courage of my convictions, and went to law school instead.

33 years now practicing mostly real estate law, solo, in a small Vermont town. It is possible to be a lawyer and make relatively little money, but you have to work at it.

The house is paid for, our part of the childrens' education is paid for, and they're both honestly employed. If I take early social security, I can do it in 2+ years. My health is still ok, if this nasty chest cold will go away....Maybe I can still be a bum and folk singer (apologies for the redundancy).

Peter.


03 Jun 01 - 01:18 PM (#475788)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Rick Fielding

Advertising agency flunky-fired. Street Cartoonist-not tough enough. Portrait painter for rich ladies-too tiring. Bank employee-lost big cheque. Oil company mailroom boy-too easily distracted. Kelly Girl- I'm not joking! Children's Aid Worker- fired for not doing the paperwork.

I kept moving lower and lower down the food chain till I became a professional folk-singer...still do it.

Rick


03 Jun 01 - 01:21 PM (#475790)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Amergin

forgive my ignorqance, Rick....but what is a kelly girl?


03 Jun 01 - 01:35 PM (#475800)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Hyla

Let's see....here is my career in a nutshell...factory worker, camp counselor, park naturalist (music skills came in handy for the campfire programs), program coordinator for an environmental education center (I got paid for organizing and leading whale watches, backpacking trips, nature walks etc.), manager for three conservaiton districts, and now a farmland preservation specialist(wow I have been at this last job now for almost 12 years...yikes).


03 Jun 01 - 02:14 PM (#475832)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: wdyat12

I am a crane mechanic at Bath Iron Works. I work in the air and have for 20 years. I have been a rock musician, a folk singer, a commercial artist/photographer, an art teacher, a museum guard, a Volks Wagen mechanic, a certified marine mechanic, and a pizza cook. I also write music, but not for money...never for money.

wdyat12


03 Jun 01 - 03:03 PM (#475872)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: GUEST

only on line could you find an assortment of people gathering with one common interest thank God for computers. me I work in a factory sanding and buffing corian part to go in R.V's not real exciting but hey it pays the bills :) mmm


03 Jun 01 - 04:19 PM (#475936)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Micca

storeman for TV rentals, Seaman, AB, wharehouseman, Lab Tech in school Lab tech University, degree in Chemistry, senior Lab tech, schools, Chief Lab tech, Superintendent Lab tech to Faculty of art and design in a University, Department safety Officer, redundant, semi retired, P/T lab tech local college,I like to sing and write songs...and use the internet,


03 Jun 01 - 04:23 PM (#475941)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Dave Swan

DaveJ, You sound like a promising prospect. A man with his sights set low. I'll mention you at the next meeting of the board.

Dave


03 Jun 01 - 04:30 PM (#475943)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Justa Picker

Quality control inspector in the factory where they make the little umbrellas for Mai-Ti drinks.

Gives me a tremendous amount of job satisfaction at the end of the day. :-)


03 Jun 01 - 04:39 PM (#475947)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Dorrie

John in Hull will you go to college in hull like Wyke thats my college and that would be too weird a mudcatter in my college. Sorry if i dont make any sense Dorrie xxx


04 Jun 01 - 01:11 PM (#476000)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Kim C

Full-time, I am an administrative assistant with a non-profit agency. Part-time, I play music, I sell makeup, I knit socks, and I make jewelry.


04 Jun 01 - 01:15 PM (#476004)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: mousethief

Program computers for Boeing.

Alex


04 Jun 01 - 01:38 PM (#476043)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Shields Folk

Started out as centre lathe turner, but found it boring (get it). Tried fishing, countryside management. Became a registered nurse got bored, just finished a history degree, oh and i'm a part time Lifeboatman. PS anyone got a job for me!


04 Jun 01 - 02:40 PM (#476122)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: mytoycar

I AM A STUDENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


04 Jun 01 - 02:43 PM (#476126)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: R!

Wow! Such a variety of interesting occupations. Formerly and part-time I've owned a custom cake business and been a dentist's assistant. For the past thirty (!) years I've earned a steady, if modest, income as an executive assistant. For no pay at all I'm a gardener at a local fraternal organization's headquarters. Once I bid the corporate world adieu I hope to become a healer.

Bill D, my Mister does lathe work also. The house is a virtual forest of his creations - all tall vase-like thingies. He's experimenting with vegetable dyes in the finish and has had some lovely results. Once used floor was on a holly piece; it came out looking like marble. Your work is gorgeous!


04 Jun 01 - 02:53 PM (#476135)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: black walnut

I used to be a Kelly Girl, too, Rick!

~b.w.


04 Jun 01 - 03:27 PM (#476179)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull

Dorrie is that the one on Bricknell Avenue? What do you teach? If its the one on Bricknell Ave its near to me, I live on Spring Bank West.john


04 Jun 01 - 03:29 PM (#476181)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Peter Kasin

National Parks Ranger (USA).


04 Jun 01 - 03:38 PM (#476187)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: mousethief

I was a kelly girl, too! In fact I was once "Kelly Girl Employee of the Month" -- the form actually had the word "girl" and they struck it out and put "Employee" above it in ballpoint pen!

Alex


04 Jun 01 - 03:46 PM (#476190)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Dorrie

yep it is i don't know wot they teach apart from wot i do which is up there some where!! dorrie xxx


04 Jun 01 - 04:02 PM (#476211)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Rick Fielding

Yeah, but at least YOU kelly Girls probably had skills! Sadly Amergin (it was you who asked wasn't it?) The Kelly Girl temp. Agency made the mistake of sending me (as a mailroom flunky) to the Gulf Oil Company. When my boss found me hiding in a basement storeroom playing my Guild 12 string (after about two weeks) I'm sure he gave Kelly Girl a good talking to...after saying I was a disgrace...and firing me. He was certainly right about that!

Rick


04 Jun 01 - 04:47 PM (#476239)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Metchosin

Don't feel bad Rick, I got fired from the Dairy Queen because, although I could put the curl on top, I had serious trouble producing cones that stood upright and even the simple task of making a milkshake was beyond my ken.

I once drilled a hole through one of the waxed milkshake cups and sprayed all the customers and on another occasion I turned on a tap, that was used to high pressure wash the interior or the milk jugs, from an attached spigot in the sink, and again, not only sprayed all the customers, but the whole interior of the place as well. And I won't even begin to explain what happened regarding my math phobia and making change.


04 Jun 01 - 04:58 PM (#476248)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Justa Picker

Me too.
I got fired from my first job at 16, at MacDonalds. The reason I was fired was that I was told I was "too efficent" at the cooking end of things. I had it in my mind that the burgers should look identical to the way they looked in all of their advertising. So I took additional time to put all the toppings and everything on so everything was perfectly proportionate and symetrical. Turns out speed was the name of the game as they were selling "fast food".


04 Jun 01 - 06:01 PM (#476282)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Mrs.Duck

I am sadly an Infant teacher but if I could find something else that pays as well I'd be out like a shot!!!!!


04 Jun 01 - 06:41 PM (#476305)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: GUEST,Challis (still trying to change servers :)

Hi!

I started as a mail clerk at the local Town Hall, kitchen assistant for a bit, lowly civil servant/slave for 5 months until I resigned before I was driven insane with boredom. Spent 5 years in Grounds Ops at London Gatwick Airport, spent 7 years in Darkest Africa first 2 as sort of PA to someone who turned out to be Gordon of Khartoum's great-nephew; remainder as Mother and "Memsahib" equivalent - learned how to cook, bake, sew, grow vegetables, survive resistant Malaria). Back in UK, impoverished and in emergency B&B, then moving from rented accomodation for 5 years with small children. Back to work as clerical assistant for Motor dealership; 2 years as Secretary to one of "World's leading Development Economists" resigned when I realised the "Emperor's new clothes syndrome" e.g., a question on nutrition from the UNDP revealed the alarming gaps in his knowledge (this is the scary bit) compared to my basic secondary school Home Economics - plus I was poorer than being on social!

Now, I've been a waitress most recently....but now have given it all up for a musical career, started singing at Christmas and running the only acoustic music club in this town of 100,000 ("sad but true") and wow! even did support for John Renbourn last night.

A great deal of peaks and troughs - but now that I am over 40 and still without a clearly defined career path and still on income support and no pension plan - I feel the most fulfilled and complete I've felt in my entire life.

God bless Mudcat and all who sail in her!!

Love, Hille x


04 Jun 01 - 06:48 PM (#476310)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Spud Murphy

Nothin'.

Spud


04 Jun 01 - 06:58 PM (#476319)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: GUEST

Aw, SPud! DOING nothing is a positive thing!!


05 Jun 01 - 01:40 AM (#476570)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: KAS

I'm an actor, director, acting teacher and coach in New York: acting technique, audition preparation, voice and speech, accents and dialects, movement, improvisation, and physical character work for theatre, tv, and film.

When worlds collide #1: The movie I coached this fall was written and directed by the very cool and talented Mr. Tim Blake Nelson, who played Delmar in "O Brother Where Art Thou?" Who knew?

When worlds collide #2: Watch for me as the thrillingly Mudcat-relevant "Folksinger" and "Blues Singer" on the Cartoon Network series "Sheep in the Big City." www.cartoonnetwork.com/sheep

My site: www.actortec.com

Cheers! See y'all at Mystic!

Ken Schatz


05 Jun 01 - 03:13 AM (#476588)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Will Bakker

I was a television designer for 32 years, retired now. I visited many of the BDA conferences (Broadcast Designers Association) so I saw a lot of the United States in the past years. I live in Holland, have a brother who emigrated to the States in the late fifties. I am a folkie since Lonnie Donegan made me familiar with Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie. We still perform with our group for those who were young in the sixties. And I am uncurably addicted to Mudcat. Is there a doctor in the house?


05 Jun 01 - 03:37 AM (#476590)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: English Jon

Sound Engineer. Musician.

EJ


05 Jun 01 - 03:47 AM (#476592)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler

I've been working in university libraries for over 30 years, maybe a couple more years to go if I don't get found out.
RtS


05 Jun 01 - 04:09 AM (#476600)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler

Of course I lied. Really I'm chief test pilot for Stannah Stairlifts and Thora Hird's stunt double.
RtS


05 Jun 01 - 04:13 AM (#476604)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Brian Hoskin

I'm a university college lecturer now, so I suppose I kind of fall within the stereotype, but I have had proper jobs in the past. The trouble is that after a while the more formal qualifications you get the less employable you become.

Brian


05 Jun 01 - 06:36 AM (#476638)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: GUEST,Scabby Doug AT Work

Fromn prehistoric times to now: Bank Clerk & part-time delivery guy (newspapers), Student (Speech Therapy) & Part-time barman, Local Government Clerk, Student (programming), Bar Manager, Encyclopaedia Salesman (well, non-salesman), Student (Business Studies), Computer Trainer, IT Developer, Database Administrator & Programmer

I'm sure there were other things I did... but I thought that was sort of enough for now.....

SD


05 Jun 01 - 07:12 AM (#476657)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Patrish(inactive)

Barmaid,Pharmasists Assistant,Junior Chemist, Nursing Assistant for Profoundly Handicapped Children, Usherette, Icecream Seller, Homeworking to include making car leads, packing streamers, packing christmas cards, packing christmas card holders, Child minder, Kitchen Skivvy, Computer Installation, Software trainer, Regional and European Business Support, and mum to 5 and I hope good friend to lots
Guess which ones I did when at home with kids!


05 Jun 01 - 07:42 AM (#476664)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Billy the Bus

Hey,

I'm patiently waiting for an explanation of the most intriguing trade in this thread,,,

Who/what is a "Kelly Girl"?

Sam


05 Jun 01 - 07:59 AM (#476669)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Bat Goddess

It used to be simple: I'm a typographer. But now I'm probably best described as a digital prepress production tech. (If it happens before the output device or printing plate, I do it -- with the exception of illustration; I'm not an illustrator.) Also freelance proofreader, copy editor and writer.

I've also sold rugs and carpeting, woodstoves and furnaces, and advertising.

My avocation is thanatolithology.

I think I'm working on what may not be a midlife career change so much as a career expansion -- lettercutting in slate. Got my first lesson this past weekend.

Oh, yeah, guardian to a nursery colony of Little Brown Bats.

Bat Goddess


05 Jun 01 - 09:02 AM (#476704)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Ella who is Sooze

Graphic Designer/typographer, during the day... which is usually a laugh, loads of deadlines to meet and sending stuff to people like Bat Goddess.. *grin*

Paint pictures when I get the opportunity, usually only for close friends and family, but considering selling some... or trying to..

Teach music once a week to a small community group.

E


05 Jun 01 - 09:26 AM (#476721)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Iguanaguy

Hey All,

Currently I'm a microbiologist with the CDC, working with Dengue fever(aka breakbone fever); ere that I was co-owner of a daycare center, where i was Mr Fixit(plumber, carpenter, electrician, landscaper, yoo-name it!) & kiddie hauler; 'fore that I was a Bioscience technician in the Army at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research...during all that I dabbled in some home re-modeling(my own, groan, oh me achin' back!). I still hike, snorkel the Caribbean, cook, raise tropical fish & Golden Retrievers, and re-habilitate tortoises, iguanas, & other scaly-type critters that happen my way. Oh yeah, I also play guitar..love folk music but am sorely frustrated as there is no American folk music to be heard where I live(PuertoRico) and I'm having a heckuva time trying to meld 15 female voices (more or less half & half sopranos & altos)into a decent church choir.

...'nuff said fer now...

Mark


05 Jun 01 - 09:34 AM (#476723)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: John P

Rick, sorry to hear you got fired for playing the guitar at work. I did it right -- I found a job where the fact that I am a professional musician was very attractive to my bosses. I get paid to sit around and play the harp. I get to talk about music all day. I say, "I need next Friday off to go play a gig" and everyone says, "Cool. Where are you playing? See you Monday." It's almost like making my living as a musician, without having to spend half my life on the road. This is a great job!

Kelly Girls supplies businesses with temporary employees, mostly of the secretarial sort. When the company started, anyone who would consider doing that kind of work was a woman, and women were girls. They changed their name to Kelly Services a few years ago.

John Peekstok


05 Jun 01 - 10:03 AM (#476737)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: JulieF

Studied Chemical Engineering at Edinburgh, was fired from being a guest house cleaner because I wasn't fast enough, worked with computers in a Yorkshire Steel works and now do computer system support at a college. I don't seem to have had many jobs compared with everyone else ( perhaps I'm just younger!).

Julie


05 Jun 01 - 10:11 AM (#476744)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Lyndi-loo

I never did get to be a ballet dancer - sigh - But I did get to be a librarian via the usual shelf stacker, waitress, barmaid etc. Let's hear it for the Librarians of this world; they get a worse press than social workers and town planners.


05 Jun 01 - 10:35 AM (#476756)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: sian, west wales

Ummm... playground leader, camp councillor/arts'n'crafts director, Ford plant cog-in-wheel (I put the little rubber pluggy things on the wire things in Ford truck transmissions for all of 3 weeks), KELLY GIRL (KG rules!), theatrical seamstress, costume designer, box office assistant, marketing/PR assistant, marketing (theatre) director, arts council perf. arts officer, TV/film production co-ordinator, arts co-ordinator, telematic consultant and (gasping for breath) Rural Advocacy Research & Development Officer.

Mrs. Duck - a friend and ex-Infants teacher assures me that a teacher's dream job is clerk in Marks 'n' Sparks. That's where she is now, and she's a new woman!

sian


05 Jun 01 - 12:05 PM (#476815)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Jim Krause

  • Whatever I please
  • I think, therefore I am
  • Smartass in my spare time
  • Volunteer at a computer lab
  • Fiddle around a lot
  • Pick guitar
  • Sing at every opportunity
  • Yodel
  • freelance web design and editing
  • and have been known to write a song every now and again.


05 Jun 01 - 12:22 PM (#476827)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Bat Goddess

Oh, and I used to be The Rubbersmith, a mailorder art rubberstamp company specializing in folk music rubberstamps, gravestone rubberstamps and Thomas Edison and phonographica rubberstamps, but then Curmudgeon opened a business and I had to support us. Rubbersmith languished on the back burner. Anyone want to buy a rubberstamp company?

Bat Goddess


05 Jun 01 - 01:08 PM (#476863)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Billy the Bus

Thanks JohnP,

I'm now totally confused about "Kelly Girls". I solemnly promise not to peek into the other stock of blue clikies in your post.... Well, almost...

Thanks - Sam


05 Jun 01 - 01:33 PM (#476891)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: GUEST,Melani

First job at age 12-library assistant. It sort of set the tone for the rest. I am now running an office for a library friends group--well, actually, I'm using their computer to goof off on Mudcat. I am also an NPS volunteer, which is how I ended up in this library, a Sea Scout mate, and a Renaissance Faire vendor.


05 Jun 01 - 06:20 PM (#477102)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: okthen

Used to make statues in "cold cast" bronze, still have most of the moulds / patterns to make molds from - I dream of taking them to S.E.Asia and getting them made in real bronze, but that's another story. Had to quit 'cos the fumes got me down, and I wasn't making much money,just another of Thatcher's small businessmen.

Luckily I was one of the last people to do a Gov. training scheme, and was screen printing in East End (London)during the week and home to Suffolk at weekend. In '91 my wife finally (after 15 years) got diagnosed for the problems she'd been having - turned out to be Multiple Sclerosis - and with 3 children, me away all week, she had a big relapse. So now I'm a carer, some days are better than others, and some days it's difficult to appreciate that all in all we're lucky to live in a society that is rich enough to make provision for people in our situation, but we all have our "off" days.

Today is my oldest child's 21st birthday, that fact and this thread have given me pause, it seems like yesterday. Whatever you do celebrate the fact that you are able to do it,and don't forget to gather a few rosebuds along the way.

cheers

bill


05 Jun 01 - 09:21 PM (#477215)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: GUEST,LD

WAY too many to mention completely, but...

Worst job: Hide cellar at Plankington Globe in Milwaukee

Hardest job: Chuck rigger on a heel boom, Idaho

Most exciting: Pilot, Korean conflict

Current job: Mathematics teacher at University

LD


05 Jun 01 - 11:32 PM (#477274)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: ddw

Started off bagging groceries, thought driving moonshine was more exciting and lucrative. They made me quit when I got old enough to actually go to jail if I got caught. Disk jockey through my last year and a half in high school, then spent a summer a blaster's helper on a big road project. Joined the USAF and got stuck into meteorology — weather observer, rawinsonde and pibal operator, then weather editor. Sang in cabarets in Tokyo during the two years I was in Japan. Worked for a while as the weekend news department for KTOK radio in Oklahoma City.

When I got out I worked for a couple of months as a slave trader. It was euphoneously called an employment counselor, but it was just slave trading. Great money, couldn't stand it. Also worked as a general flunky/bartender at a ski lodge for a winter. During university I sold wine and played whatever gigs I could get in/around Cleveland, Ohio.

In grad school I taught international relations and political philosophy to underclassmen and sang whatever gigs I could get in/around Hamilton and Toronto.

After I quit the PhD program I did supply teaching in the Hamilton schools and helped organize a bluegrass festival — did most of the publicity and organized the crafts area.

Went to work in newspapers — reporter for 10 years, then copy editor and copy desk chief for the last 16 years. They eliminated the CDC job and I'm a copy editor again, but they still pay me as a CDC. Now I work at being inconspicuous at work and playing blues whenever possible.

david


06 Jun 01 - 10:52 PM (#478075)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: WyoWoman

Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, I drove a truck for a construction company until I got fired because my husband-at-the-time blew out the tranny in his truck. He kept his job, they fired me. Go figure. I was a stewardess on a cross-country bus, a waitress at a German restaurant where i was greeted by the scent of stale beer and sauerkraut every morning when I went to work, a telephone operator, an ice-cream scooper and a teacher of 3-year-olds at a pre-school. For the past 20 years i've been a writer and editor. I'm currently a magazine editor in the job of my dreams. It's about time, is all I can say.

It's about time. It's about time. It's about time. It's about time. It's about time. It's about time. It's about time. It's about time. It's about time. It's about time. It's about time. It's about time. It's about time. It's about time. It's about time. It's about time.

(see, I told you ...)

ww


06 Jun 01 - 11:08 PM (#478081)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Susan A-R

Dental assistant (for my dad, off and on for 10 years) journailst, lobbyist, Rehabilitatiion Teacher for blind and visually impaired adults, manager in an Independent Livng Center (lo9ts of disability-rights stuff here) and now . . . I run a take-out restaurant, no staff, international food, all vegetarian, and I love it most of the time.


06 Jun 01 - 11:34 PM (#478103)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: blt

Seems like a renaissance in here. Everybody is doing a bit of everything,

So I began as a baby sitter, the first paid occupation of many women (I got 50 cents/hr), then I worked as a clerk in a hardware store, then as a grocery stock clerk and cashier, all of this in small-town, northwestern Connecticut.

1969 - moved to Columbia, MO and worked in the dining hall at Stephens College, then at Rome's Pizzaria, and then at Ernie's Steak House, home of Ernie's Famous Twin Chopped Cow. I also worked at the Skelly station right off I-70, an all night diner where, indeed, I worked all night, bashing drunk cowboys in the head with those brown coffee decanters and swallowing handfuls of white crosses. Still in Mo, but now in St. Louis, I was a barmaid, dressed in an unbelievably insane outfit featuring purple leotards and tights, at the Candles, a cook-your-own-steak joint, regularly patronized by guys who wore suits all in one color and lots of gold rings.

By this time, the East coast was looking good again, so by the mid-70s I was in Boston, landed a job as the secretary to the FM radio manager at WGBH. Very intense job that took me inside Symphony Hall, Jordan Hall, Tanglewood, all sorts of churches, learning how to set up microphones and record all sorts of music and lectures.

Left there in late 70s, worked in public radio in Toledo, OH, then in NYC. While in NYC, worked as a temp for some business that had a logo of a woman at a typewriter with a rose between her teeth. Temped at General Motors, TWA, Planned Parenthood, and the Holocaust Survivor's Memorial Foundation. Played music at night at Cornelia Street Songwriters' nights, Folk City, People's Voice, and another place in Brooklyn that I can't remember. Hired as guitarist for a bilingual puppet theater that performed in the schools. Hired as a secretary for the Assoc. of Independent Video and Filmmakers.

By 1981, love and stress propelled me to the West coast, ended up in Eugene, OR where I worked at Zoo Zoo's collective vegetarian restaurant and played at Mama's Homefried Truckstop and the Blair Island Restaurant--all, alas, gone now. Played several times at the NW Folklife Festival and did a very mini tour up the West coast to Bellingham, fighting with the bass player (we didn't talk during the entire set of gigs). Back in Eugene, began working for a farmer's coop in organic produce, went to school for 10 years, exited in the 90s as a, you guessed it, social worker with a degree in education and substance abuse counseling. Worked as an intinerant counselor in rural Oregon for 2 years until I realized people need to be able to sing and move to heal, so then I gave everything away, jumped in my car, and drove across country to study dance/movement therapy at Antioch New England in Keene, NH. Two years later, drove back, moved to Portland, OR.

Now it's 2001, I'm working in a psychiatric crisis unit with adults and children. I play music at open mikes when I can.

Thanks for asking.

blt


07 Jun 01 - 02:53 PM (#478578)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Jim Krause

Huh, one thing I see in common, no one can hold down a job (hyuck, hyuck, hyuck)
Jim


07 Jun 01 - 03:16 PM (#478596)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Firecat

I'm a student at Selby College. I do Theatre Studies, English Language and Literature (combined) and German. I also had to retake my GCSE Maths.
Mind you, I'm hoping to be able to get a showreel filmed for a children's TV presenter's job!!


07 Jun 01 - 10:55 PM (#478944)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: RangerSteve

As a kid, I wanted to grow up to be a sailor, fireman and police officer. I did them all. currently I'm with the NJ State Park Police, which means I get paid to hike in the woods whenever I want. I also play clawhammer banjo and harmonica, but it doesn't pay (but you all know that).My other childhood dreams: cowboy and railroad engineer, probably won't come true, since I'd lose my police pension if I quit this job. 3 out of 5 isn't bad. Oh, yeah, that part about growing up - I'm not sure I've done that, either.


07 Jun 01 - 11:04 PM (#478946)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Blackcatter

I've never had za job longer than for 3 years. I have Asperger's Syndrome and it's hard to keep demanding bosses happy for very long.

Here's a select list:

I sold watches at Walt Disney World

I've also sold bottled booze, fabric & groceries

I was a runner for 2 law firms

shelved books in a library

built decorative water fountains out of concrete

membership coordinator for a major museum

I am currently the co-owner of Orlando Hauntings - Orlando, FL's original ghost tours and history walks as well as a feature writer for a website www.oneworldfunding.com

that's about it.

pax yall


07 Jun 01 - 11:14 PM (#478951)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Mark Clark

Rick said he got fired for playing his twelve-string. I was once fired for playing my ukulele. I was working as a department store stock boy and bought a cheap uke to strum on my lunch hour up in the stock room. It turned out that a buyer in the camera department used his lunch period to sleep... in his stock room which was right next door to mine.

The firing didn't stick though. Personnel thought it was bogus and I was promoted to assistant buyer for toys and housewares.

      - Mark


08 Jun 01 - 07:04 PM (#479482)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Cobble

I drive a mac for the press, doing television listings. Cobble.


08 Jun 01 - 07:15 PM (#479489)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: doncam

Started out as a draughtsman, structural steelwork, reinforced concrete, precast concrete until I realised I hated it, went to college and emerged as a technical teacher. I am still a technical teacher. After 15 years at it, I haven't been found out yet! I am also the computer know-all in the school.


08 Jun 01 - 09:06 PM (#479532)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: GUEST,petr

started off as a computer programmer, taught handicapped (high lesion quadraplegics) to use computers, child care therapist with autistic children, atomic radiation worker, eigo no sensei (english teacher in Tokyo), I now run printing company and most of the work that entails from shipper/receiver, press operator, pre-press graphic designer, estimator, production manager. Also fiddle player, sculptor, artist, mostly non-paying work with the exception of the fiddle.


09 Jun 01 - 02:13 PM (#479765)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Spud Murphy

Bat Goddess:

Thanatolithology:

The study of dead stones?

The study of deceased stones?

Aha!! The study of the physical characteristics of tombstones from the dead sea!!! Yipee!!! What a gasser!!!

Spud


09 Jun 01 - 03:28 PM (#479791)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Bat Goddess

Thanatolithologist -- I do research on gravestones, particularly New England slate markers between about 1650-1815 (willows and urns make my eyes glaze over), ligatures on gravestone, and the stonecarver John Just Geyer who was the son of Henry Christian Geyer, also a carver. I just love the word -- pretentious as hell, but at least I can figure out who has a classical education!

Bat Goddess


09 Jun 01 - 03:48 PM (#479804)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Deckman

refresh


09 Jun 01 - 09:23 PM (#479970)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Joe_F

I am a freelance copyeditor specializing in technical MSs; I work at home. I have also been (in reverse order) a commune member, an assistant editor on a physics journal, and a graduate teaching assistant. That gets us back to 1962.


09 Jun 01 - 09:32 PM (#479978)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Joe_F

I am a freelance copyeditor specializing in technical MSs; I work at home. I have also been (in reverse order) a commune member, an assistant editor on a physics journal, and a graduate teaching assistant. That gets us back to 1962.


10 Jun 01 - 05:03 AM (#480098)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Liz the Squeak

Billy the Bus - did I mention wife and mother in that list?? If you have a motorbike, I might reconsider.... taking theory test on Tues and CBT 1st week in July... there will be another thread about this.....

LTS


10 Jun 01 - 02:04 PM (#480317)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Spud Murphy

BG

You're doing a pretty good job of exposing my unclassical education--

'ligatures'--

Medical, musical or alphabetical? or just plain allegorical?

Spud


10 Jun 01 - 02:09 PM (#480321)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: bobby's girl

In the past I have been a shop assistant, a barmaid and a chambermaid, but for the last 26 years I've been a Physiotherapist, for 5 years in the Royal Air Force, ant the rest for the NHS in York and Portland


14 Aug 02 - 07:42 PM (#765523)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Memphis Mud

Is this the question with the most responses you've ever had?

Print Sales.


15 Aug 02 - 07:48 AM (#765752)
Subject: RE: BS: WHAT DO YOU DO ?
From: Alio

Only just seen it. Used to be a head teacher in a school where all the children were Bangladeshi; now I'm an education adviser for the NSPCC. Far less stress! Ali