SKJSS (formerly Klayfish) said:I worked for a well known psychic/astrologer on her 1-900 line. Not as a psychic but as quality control.
Now I'm really curious about psychic quality control. Did you do followups to see if she was accurate?
SKJSS (formerly Klayfish) said:I worked for a well known psychic/astrologer on her 1-900 line. Not as a psychic but as quality control.
Now I'm really curious about psychic quality control. Did you do followups to see if she was accurate?
Growing up I was Shop Superintendent for https://www.toddlertables.com/ which meant I'd pick up all the scraps of wood cut from the 4x8 blanks and toss them in the dumpster.
I'm wondering how many people have seen these? They're all around the world.
In High School:
Shortest - Washed dishes in Chinese restaurant, 4 hours and done forever. Never did go back to get my magnificent earnings...
Best paying - All the crappy jobs in a cow hide rendering plant. The only good job was driving forklift but was reserved for the high-strung, yelling foreman.
Most of you know, I was a world-class enabler for about ten years.
I've helped spend a stupid amount of money on cars that weren't mine.
Spent 8 years as a whitewater raft guide, but more unusual was paying for college by cleaning bathrooms at the county fair.
For a dead end job being a rent-a-cop wasn't too bad, especially the graveyard shift. It worked well when I was in college because I didn't have to change my shift around my class schedule every semester.
Most of the time I was a blue blazer henchman at an office building, but sometimes I'd get overtime assignments looking after retail locations. Best one was in a mall literally watching paint dry but I had my laptop and was within range of the Apple Store's wifi. Worst was sitting in my car all night outside a store.
My first career goal was to be a professional photographer. While I was in high school I photographed horses in winter training at Ben White Raceway, a training center in Orlando for a harness racing publication called Horseman and Fair World.
I also helped my dad (equine portrait artist) photograph horses for his paintings.
I spent 12 years in the harness horse racing industry, as a groom, trainer, stable manager, veterinary assistant, and drove a few races.
We owned a few cheap horses, so owner, too.
One of my training jobs, we shipped into a fairground where I had only a few days to restore a neglected race track surface so we could train on it, so I've got some experience at that job (track man). Lots of hours on a tractor for that, but I was really proud of the results. I worked the track from sunrise to after midnight for three days, then maintained it for the rest of the time I was there.
This is a portrait of me in my driving colors painted by my dad when I was about 25.
I've had more jobs than I can remember. My side gig when I was a horseman was building high quality custom fishing rods.
I've done lawn maintenance, general maintenance, retail, cooked KFC, anodizing aluminum in a factory, call center (tickets to a country gospel concert to raise money for a police benevolent Association).
I painted the empty apartments for my crazy landlady in college.
A bit of residential and commercial cleaning. Fixing cars for other broke college students. Repairing surfboards.
Edit: I almost forgot, ten years of higher education, then 27 years and counting, practicing veterinary medicine.
I set trap for the local gun club for a couple of years in junior high. My job was to hang out in a little bunker and put clay pigeons on the oscillating arm of a machine that flung them out when the shooters called, "pull!" That arm was spring-loaded and could really clobber you if you didn't manage to stay out of its way. And those bunkers were hot and cramped and pretty nasty.
On the positive side, we made pretty good money. A big IPDA (?) meet might net $200 in wages and tips for a weekend's worth of work, plus all the burgers and dogs and soda we could put away. That was strong money for a junior high kid in the late 80s. It wasn't a bad way to earn some scratch.
A few more to add to the list:
In college, I worked for a toy store. The company that my dad worked for owned the chain. One day, I found my name missing from the weekly schedule. Turns out they let me go–by mistake. I figured it was time to move on. I also worked in the home office for a summer. It was very 9-5. I had my own desk in a big room full of desks. I did basic cash management. That might have been my most normal job, come to think of it.
In school, I wrote for the local papers. Both were owned by the same kid. Just before I graduated, he ran them out of business.
Thanks to various student activities, I also had a lot of unpaid jobs during college: I helped program movies for our school theater, tore tickets at the theater, and helped with promotion. We made our own signs, calendars, T-shirts, etc. This was pre-Photoshop, but we had access to a copy machine that had + and -. We also had a waxer. I once wandered North Campus while wearing a sandwich board in order to promote our showing of Lawrence of Arabia. We got one of two 35mm prints and had to fill the theater in order to pay for it. (We learned that showing some skin for our Friday and Saturday midnight movies helped fill the coffers, too.) Members of the various divisions of our University Union would help each other out when more bodies were needed, so I worked security for a few shows: Bob Dylan, Spike Lee, professional wrestling and probably a few others. Basically, you got in for free.
I also DJed, usually the late Wednesday night shift–midnight to 3:00 a.m.–but also did a few specialty shows over the years. My brother and I once co-hosted a Weird Al show–just a one-time gig. It was pretty awesome.
Septic inspection and evaluation.
It was a E36 M3ty job.
Not counting the short term crap jobs in highskool and a few years after, (the shortest term one being the job at a chicken hatchery, wherein I had to use fingernail clippers to cut the warts of the back of the chick's legs, that would otherwise grow into spurs. One shift was all it took), I've only had 2 jobs and one of em barely counts, cuz "commercial display pyrotechnician" tends to be a once-a-year gig. But I love it and this'll be year 40 having that license. Kinda wierd, but not all that wierd. My real job is hot air balloon ride business owner, since 1990, and yeah even now, I think that's an odd way to make a living. Prolly just as well I plan on retiring in a few years and won't need to shop a resume around, cuz I have a truly narrow-focussed and completely irrelevant CV...
Out of high school, I wanted to go to college, but I didn't have any money to do so for (reasons). So, I was a garbage man, back in the day when you ran behind the truck and dumped each can using muscle power. Garbage man pay was pretty berkeleying good in NY, but it permanently moved my sense of disgust way outside the median of the bell curve. Also, it's crazy what you learn about people from their garbage.
This was, by far, the best exercise routine I ever had. After this, I went into basic training for the Army and thought the PT was kind of cute.
Me, on the right, along with the two other rookie trash slingers of 1988. One of the others is now an art curator (far left) , and the other is a vice detective (middle). We all needed the money to get where we are today.
DarkMonohue said:I set trap for the local gun club for a couple of years in junior high. My job was to hang out in a little bunker and put clay pigeons on the oscillating arm of a machine that flung them out when the shooters called, "pull!" That arm was spring-loaded and could really clobber you if you didn't manage to stay out of its way. And those bunkers were hot and cramped and pretty nasty.
On the positive side, we made pretty good money. A big IPDA (?) meet might net $200 in wages and tips for a weekend's worth of work, plus all the burgers and dogs and soda we could put away. That was strong money for a junior high kid in the late 80s. It wasn't a bad way to earn some scratch.
Yo, same! And yeah, that arm scared the crap outta me...
After one shift everyone went to a superbowl party and I bought into the pool with my earnings for that day and hit it pretty big when I nailed the final score. I was probably 14 at the time and my buddy's parents decided to be douches and try to strong-arm me out of some of my winnings.
"Now the way we see it, you shot one box of shells so that's $5... there was the fuel we used to bring you to the party... (etc)".
I simply looked them both in the eye and said "Tell you what. You forget how to count right now and I wont tell my parents you were letting me gamble at this party"
Keith Tanner said:SKJSS (formerly Klayfish) said:I worked for a well known psychic/astrologer on her 1-900 line. Not as a psychic but as quality control.
Now I'm really curious about psychic quality control. Did you do followups to see if she was accurate?
I did a few things. First, I would call random customers to make sure they were happy with the experience. I also did anonymous calls to the psychics pretending to be a customer to make sure they weren't talking about religion, politics etc... Very strange people...on both sides of the phone.
I was also an auto insurance fraud investigator, out in the field in downtown Philadelphia. Fun times.
Hotel maintenance then security guard when it closed. Security guard was fun, as it happened in the fall. On Halloween night we pumped The Shining through all 77 rooms at once, in an empty hotel, on top of a hill.
Pump watcher. Yes, that was my job, 3-11, 7 days a week, I watched trash pumps drain a lake and kept them topped off with fuel.
One of the strangest was when Ghost Rider came out in theaters. I responded to a secret shopper ad, and got paid $16/hour in 2006 dollars to go around the theater Ghost Rider was playing in between shows and stick a card about the LG chocolate in the cupholders. The first day I showed up I did the job right even though nobody at the theater knew why I was there. The second weekend I just dumped the box of cards in the dumpster and got paid anyway.
Licensed medical pot farmer for a couple years was great. Everything that went with it sucked, but caring for acres of plants was awesome.
There was a brief period I was a social media slut for an onlyfans model. Push links, post previews, manage about a dozen Twitter accounts, thankfully not in charge of DMs.
Another time I was an ad pusher. I used adsense templates to rank bullE36 M3 websites on Google and other search engines that were loaded down with ads and drop shipping links. Did ok until the algorithm changed.
Beginning of covid I set myself up making silicone adult novelties until there came a platinum cure silicone shortage and prices quadruple overnight.
I've kinda made it a goal in life to never have a "regular" job again, so I'm always up to something to keep money flowing. 14 years so far, while I'm certainly not rich, I haven't been involuntarily homeless in 12 years, so it's working.
Crxpilot said:
Growing up I was Shop Superintendent for https://www.toddlertables.com/ which meant I'd pick up all the scraps of wood cut from the 4x8 blanks and toss them in the dumpster.
I'm wondering how many people have seen these? They're all around the world.
Is... is that a table made of children??
I forgot the one semester working the bakery at Michigan State. This is like a bakery that serves the whole campus. The regular dorm food is made at the dorms. My typical Tuesday was working the chocolate chip cookie making machine. One maybe 2, of those Hobart mixing bowls on casters, looks like 140qts, worth. Made about 30 cookies per full sheet pan. I think 40 sheets per rack.... Lots of cookies. Then on the scheduled Sundays, I got to make the cake donuts. Fill a 5-8qt drop bowl from the same familiar 140qt bowl via a flexible plastic bowl scraper. Easily could make 300 per my 4 hrs. Nothing like standing next to a hot vat of cooking oil for those 4 hrs. But it was shoved into a corner away from everyone so I got left alone with only an occasional check to see the progress or if I was still there. Errors were eaten.
Definitely opened my eyes at the scale of needed product and the shortcuts needed for cost or time constraints. The pies were just frozen chef Pierre from Gordon food service/sysco.....
In reply to Marjorie Suddard :
A hot-swappable flight of children. Not one of the stated benefits, but I'm sure we never asked where these were going.
In the last 35 years I've done a little bit of everything. I've dug ditches with a shovel and a backhoe, I ran a 20-ton P&H crane and a 65' boom truck. Done industrial electrical construction, mowed grass, and repaired all kinds of tools from shovels to generators. I've done inventory control for a large regional construction company and managed a hobby shop. I've installed and repaired automatic doors. Currently, I run a little company that installs and repairs commercial and automatic doors.
Probably the weirdest job I had was as a test technician for lineman's gloves and blankets. The gloves and blankets had to be tested every few months.
The test machine.
Gloves were tested to either 20k volts or 30k volts in the left side of the machine. They would come in boxes from the field. I'd wash, dry, and test them. The gloves were fitted to a rack that filled them with water with an electrode inside the glove. Then they were dipped in a tank of water with the other electrode where they were subject to the test voltage. If they passed, they were dried, powdered, bagged and shipped back out to the crews. If they failed you'd get a 20k-30k flash of lightning that sounded like a firecracker.
Since a picture is worth 1000 words.
The blankets were also washed and dried. We used an enormous washer and dryer for them. They were then tested in the right side of the machine between two plates covered with water saturated felt. When they failed it would literally blow a hole through the blanket. We were allowed to plug them once so we had plug cutters and vulcanizing machines for them.
All in, it was a super interesting job for about a month. People would look at you cross-eyed when you told them what you did for a living. I did that job for a year or so and after the first month, it was the most boring job I have ever done in my life. I couldn't wait to get out of it.
I did flat glass installation for 2-3 years. Showers, mirrors, windows, etc. All residential or remodels of dorm rooms in Tallahassee.
Not a weird job normally, but weird in that I was going into people's homes, and broadly speaking people just don't give a berk when tradesmen come in.
I lost track of how many "marital aids" I saw in bedrooms. Once every 3-4 months I'd be in a home and see boudoir photos of the wife on the bedroom wall (never the husband. Get with it, guys.) Once a coed just got in the shower as I was installing a mirror in her bathroom. Once a housewife answered the door with a very loosely tied silk robe on and nothing else.
One woman invited me to come do a modeling shoot with her and a group (actual modeling shoot, nothing kinky, the group was well known in town) and I got a wonderful headshot out of it. I should still have that in email somewhere...
Service writer for Pep Boys was weird as well, more because of the people. Store off 60 in Brandon, FL. About 10 miles west were a bunch of strip clubs. Lots of younger ladies paying off work in singles and fives.
OOOOO!!
I forgot my favorite short term job. While going through college a buddy I knew through antique outboard stuff got me a job at the shop he worked at.
Mostly I was doing CAD drawings and measurements. Every now and then I'd do some QC work on the various stages. Because of what the parts were, we would engrave a QC and our initials on them. They'd be assembled, tested, and sent to the customer.
Now, there are wave guides with my initials on satellites orbiting our planet. Growing up with the grandparent's house within sight of shuttle launches, and three or four houses north of a guy that directly worked with Von Braun, that always makes me kinda proud
In high school I crewed for a guy who did hot-air balloon flights in Taos, New Mexico, flying the balloon down into the gorge and even under the bridge(well before they banned him flying under the bridge, he still flew down into the gorge afterwards though). The gorge is a rift in the ground about 500-600 feet deep and something like 1/4(maybe 1/3rd?) of a mile across at the top where the bridge spans it. At the bottom lies the Rio Grande river. I didn't make much on that job...about $25 for 4 hours of work and a free breakfast. It certainly wasn't worth getting up at 4 in the morning for...but it was more for fun since I got a free flight out of it every so often. As crew you are pretty much responsible for helping to inflate/deflate the balloon and chase it during the flight. Landing the balloon requires crew to pile onto the basket to add enough weight to prevent it taking back off again. I remember one time I was the first to pile on, but then the boss decided he didn't want to land exactly there so he took off again with me still hanging on. Rather disconcerting to be flying 30-40 feet about the ground just hanging onto the outside of a balloon basket. He only traveled another thousand feet or so that way but it was an interesting weekend job as a teenager.
The first job I made real money at though I made smudge sticks(incense) from sagebrush on a contract basis. They paid me .75 for every smudge stick....and I was fast, so I could make over $20/hr doing it, which was good money for a teenager in the 90s.
Since leaving NM though the jobs have a been a lot more common with the only one unusual being that I worked at an auto auction in FL where I drove just about every type of car imaginable from Yugos to Ferraris both for the sales and just day-to-day when moving them around the lot.
Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:Out of high school, I wanted to go to college, but I didn't have any money to do so for (reasons). So, I was a garbage man, back in the day when you ran behind the truck and dumped each can using muscle power. Garbage man pay was pretty berkeleying good in NY, but it permanently moved my sense of disgust way outside the median of the bell curve. Also, it's crazy what you learn about people from their garbage.
This was, by far, the best exercise routine I ever had. After this, I went into basic training for the Army and thought the PT was kind of cute.
Me, on the right, along with the two other rookie trash slingers of 1988. One of the others is now an art curator (far left) , and the other is a vice detective (middle). We all needed the money to get where we are today.
Icy Hot Trashazz
Stripper.
Well, technically a film stripper working in a dark room at a print shop. But the business card just said "Stripper". It was fun a parties considering I was a scrawny 140lb long haired hippy.
Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:Out of high school, I wanted to go to college, but I didn't have any money to do so for (reasons). So, I was a garbage man, back in the day when you ran behind the truck and dumped each can using muscle power. Garbage man pay was pretty berkeleying good in NY, but it permanently moved my sense of disgust way outside the median of the bell curve. Also, it's crazy what you learn about people from their garbage.
This was, by far, the best exercise routine I ever had. After this, I went into basic training for the Army and thought the PT was kind of cute.
Me, on the right, along with the two other rookie trash slingers of 1988. One of the others is now an art curator (far left) , and the other is a vice detective (middle). We all needed the money to get where we are today.
Guy on the left missed his calling as a Will Arnett stuntman.
You'll need to log in to post.
