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19 March 2009

@deborah: you asked for it! →[More:]

In roughly chronological order, my endeavors include:

Through high school:
day laborer
dairy farmhand
roofer
carpenter
plumber
electrician
Christmas tree poacher
concessions stand operator
racetrack maintenance and pits manaager
actor
auto mechanic
shoe salesman

College jobs: German Literature major
blood plasma donor ($15/2 pints/week)
fry cook
carnie
architectural antiques restorer
pot dealer
commercial thief

US Marine Corps vet: nuclear, biological and chemical defense logistics
Kelly Girl (typist temp)
fanzine publisher
solar energy appliance salesman
restaurant equipment mechanic
restaurant supplies wholesaler
female impersonator (back when I still had my body from the Marines)
property accountability manager
database manager

College jobs: Nuclear Engineering major
hotel night auditor
bed and breakfast evening manager
architectural quality assurance consultant

radiochemistry lab tech/manager
nuclear reactor inspector
nuclear medicine inspector
nuclear emergency response coordinator
software reviewer
collectibles trader
nail salon owner
day spa owner
bondage apparel shop partner
manager for a female impersonator
escort call center partner

College job: Computer Science major
landlord

enterprise server, storage and networks marketing consultant
website designer
grassroots activist
industrial automation engineer

In all of the above, I either made money as an employee or was involved as an investor. I could probably add a couple more.

Now that I am disabled and retired, I write fiction and compose music. I made enough money in Vegas playing poker as a professional to claim it on my income taxes, but that is a very boring occupation when done right.

I am considering getting into boutique publishing, but that is a long shot. I would love to get a clown outfit and do volunteer visits of children's wards in hospitals but I need to get a bit healthier first.

Ain'cha glad you asked?

post by: Ardiril at: 17:57 | 15 comments

Oh yeah, if I had not become disabled, I would probably be in nuclear medicine engineering today designing instruments for catheterization labs.

posted by Ardiril 19 March | 18:01

Wow, Ardiril, you must get bored easily.

posted by Melismata 19 March | 18:07

Ardiril - That's amazing! Female impersonator?? Carnie?

No WONDER you write fiction, fuck, you've lived enough lived there for hundreds of books!

posted by jonathanstrange 19 March | 18:14

... magician's offstage assistant ...

"you must get bored easily" - Nah, just always looking for a better opportunity.

js: My little black cocktail dress. It was a 10-minute lip-synch act I worked up for a strip club outside Fort Gordon near Augusta, GA. I only did it once because I was too damn scared of getting pulled over by the cops for some trivial traffic violation. Being a carnie was fun; I drove and maintained the kiddie train.

posted by Ardiril 19 March | 18:29

If statutes of limitations and whatnot permit, I'd love to hear more about 'commercial thief.'

To stoke the fire, here's an incomplete list of the jobs I've held in my life:
shopboy (bicycle shop)
shaved-ice maker
builder (bicycle shop)
telemarketer
dishwasher
busboy
delivery boy
research assistant
record-store clerk
adult-movie-theater clerk
copy editor
editorial writer
music critic
pollster
tutor
computer lab monitor/IT grunt
library worker

posted by box 19 March | 20:19

I love this sequence:
nail salon owner
day spa owner
bondage apparel shop partner
manager for a female impersonator
escort call center partner

posted by mullacc 19 March | 20:40

I am glad I asked. What an interesting life you have led.

Mine is very boring except for the whole moving to Canada thing.

Junior/high school:
babysitter
flyer distributor (threw most of them away)

Adult:
15 years with World Savings (started part time in HS) - went from document typist to loan underwriter.
Various temp jobs - always in offices. The most exotic was working in a mail room.

posted by deborah 19 March | 21:55

box: 30 years ago, so I think the statue of limitations has pretty much run out. Besides, I held a security clearance with the feds for 13 years, and I had to tell them all about it as part of my background investigations. They didn't raise a fuss, so by now, I am pretty much in the clear.

Yes, yes, get on with the sordid details. At college, I shoplifted used textbooks and sold them to guys on my dorm floor whose families couldn't really afford their educations. My father started teaching me sleight of hand tricks and other close-up illusions before I entered first grade, and one of the bookstores had virtually no security. This was long before anyone carried backpacks, and the store only required that shopping bags be left outside the books area. I picked the most beat-up used books because I figured I could pass them off as already mine if I got caught, although I never was. I sold them for a third of the used sticker price. I didn't tell any of the guys how I got them.

It's not anything in which I take pride, it's just something that is in my past. I have reached the stage now where nothing in my past has any real significance. My heart is in such bad condition that I couldn't resume any shady activities because the stress would kill me. Plus, I doubt the state prison system would want to take on my medical expenses as they would no longer be covered by Medicare.

mullac: That particular subset were my exwife's enterprises that I backed financially and oversaw behind the scenes. I had to make sure everything stayed legal and that her direct business contacts were legit because I had to protect my security clearance with the feds.

posted by Ardiril 20 March | 00:30

Oh, and to deborah: someday I may write up all the jobs I never had but made up to pick up chicks. I still can't believe I got away with the story about smuggling AK-47s into Turkey.

Conversely, I never had to embellish a resume. I could always find some verifiable experience in my past to qualify for every position that I applied for.

Oh well, enough about me...

posted by Ardiril 20 March | 00:41

No, no, I haven't had enough.

I've been a technician of some sort my whole life. Now I manage techs.

posted by lysdexic 20 March | 00:46

OK, one more but I never took money for this. At the time I was in the Marine Corps, the upper command was getting serious about cracking down on racial harassment. The problem was mainly staff NCOs bullying non-rates. The base judge advocate encouraged non-rates to report the harassment, and being the usual federal bureaucracy, that meant filling in forms describing the incidents. A lot of guys couldn't write a complete sentence to save their lives, so whenever I heard of an incident, I would get together with them to see if they wanted to report the incident, get all the details including statements from witnesses, and do a write-up for them phrasing the text as closely as I could to the way they talked naturally. Then they would copy my text in their own handwriting. Although I talked to half a dozen guys or so, only three had grievances that were supportable and my success rate was 100%.

I did this with full knowledge of the master gunny I worked for, a native Hawaiian, and I am pretty sure he had talked to the battalion commander about it. Anyway, my company first sergeant found out and he went livid. He wanted to string me up by the balls, but someone intervened and I never heard another threat. Still, I moved out of the barracks to avoid further encounters with him.

posted by Ardiril 20 March | 01:45

Here's me, mostly in order, though some were concurrent, beginning from age 12:

Babysitter
Beaded Jewelry maker/seller (I sold to fellow students)
Burger joint cashier
Ice Cream Parlor employee (it was a one-person shop, so I did it all)
Convenience Store cashier
Country Club bartender
Real Estate agency secretary
Real Estate agent
Graphic Arts Studio secretary
Graphic Arts Studio production assistant
Typesetter, weekly newspaper
Production Manager, weekly newspaper
Creative Director, Graphic Arts comapany
Owner/Creative Director Advertising Agency
Staff Writer, weekly newspaper
Managing Editor, weekly newspaper
Managing Editor, city magazines
Editor of Publications, city tourist commission (I worked in the Superdome!)
English teacher
Freelance writer/editor
Freelance web site designer
Voice talent for advertising/short documentary/promo
Layabout (mostly)

posted by taz 20 March | 08:10

My paid jobs (not listing volunteer jobs):
Sales clerk - jewelry
Sales clerk – fabrics
Seamstress (I got to where I could make a man’s 3-pieces suit w/ no problem)
Fabrication shop assistant: cutting, grinding, drilling, painting and general beating on metal.
Horse trainer
Research Assistant – architectural place-making
Associate w/ Collaborative Design Group – development of participatory design manuals
Graphic design and marketing for our business
Now I'm in architecture

posted by mightshould 20 March | 09:17

I forgot one: worked part-time for Mervyns for most of a year when I lived in Houston. Had to quit due to lack of sleep.

And like taz, I'm now a layabout.

What about stealing xmas trees, ardiril? Who did you sell them to? How did you sell them?

posted by deborah 20 March | 11:06

My father and I would go out into the neighbors' woods and pick out 6 or so pine trees of the right size and decent shape and cut them on a Friday evening. The next morning, he would take them to the abandoned village school parking lot and lean them against the truck to sell to passersby.

posted by Ardiril 20 March | 15:53

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