I was looking over at Kurt Busiek's message forum the other day and ran across something he'd posted back in December about the jobs he's had.
http://cwn.comicraft.com/cgi-bin/ikonbo ... =24;st=100
It got me thinking about the assorted jobs I've held and which ones were out of the ordinary. My work history has been pretty stable most of the time, but there was one year where I held a number of different jobs.
The ones that stick out were:

1. My two weeks a credit collector for Sears. It was one week of training (which went fine) and then a second week of actually collecting. Trying to get people to pay their bills and hearing the sob stories was too much for me. I had to move on to other things. In that brief time, I did get some good tips on how to stay ahead on my credit card bills and how to work with the company if I get behind on payments.

2. Working in Sears Product Services (where people call to schedule repairs to their lawnmowers, appliances and such.) That's a job where you get people on the other side of the credit card issues. It still had its stressful moments, such as someone who's appliances still weren't working after multiple repairs, but it beat the credit card job.

3. Putting inserts into the local paper. I only did this four or five times (they called me in when they needed extra help). I had to go in around 11 o'clock at night until about 5 in the morning. My memory is pretty fuzzy on that because I was half awake most of the time. The main thing I remember from that was we would put the Sunday special inserts in on Wednesday nights after the Wednesday paper was done. That was for things like the Parade Magazine and lifestyle sections that wouldn't have content change between Wednesday and Sunday.

How 'bout the rest of ya'll? Any jobs out of the ordinary that you purposefully neglect to put on your resume?

Comic-book message board Moderator.

Hostess of the John Byrne Forum.

By far the oddest work experience I've ever had was when I moved back to Savannah in 1995 and was hired by a (supposed) computer software developer called "Integrated Data Systems" working in their art department. I would go in every morning and ask if there was anything that needed to be done and I would usually be told "We'll let you know if we need anything." In the six months I was in their employ, I did MAYBE two weeks worth of work. They payed me by the hour to basically sit around and do nothing. The weirdest thing was one week I worked 38 hours instead of 40 and they fired me. Just a bizarre experience all the way around.

This past summer I worked at Previews. Not exactly a weird job, but a fun thing to mention in a group of comic book fans.

-Comp

What I'm about to describe wasn't a paid position. It was a one-time duty for an event where members of my high-school's National Honor Society donated time to assist the Red Cross in obtaining blood donations on campus.

I ran a perforating machine that pinched the tubing just on the outside of the blood package, heated the closed tubing to seal it, then split the tubing apart from the package neatly.

This event happened in 1983, before HIV concerns had caused any real special handling procedures for the blood.

Jim

Bouncer at a titty bar.

Donut Fryer at a local grocery store. I couldn't eat donuts for years after that job...

I have had more jobs than I can shake my **** at...

Oddest? Christmas Tree Harvester? Septic Tank Cleaner? Librarian?

Too hard to choose.

Favorite Job? Bouncer, for sure. Me used to like to break people for money.

After seeing your pics a while back...I just knew bouncer was somewhere in your resume. <g>

Edward

And how about you?

Horse drawn carriage restorer.

My first summer job after graduating HS only lasted a week. I worked at one of those big car wash places and my job was to spray down the cars as they passed me before they entered the actual wash. I quit after a week and worked the rest of the summer as a cashier at a Krogers grocery store.
My first job in college was a work study job, as a research assistant for a grad student doing a study on dietary habits of the wild ducks in the area. My job was to open up the dead duck's abdomen, remove the intestines and then squeeze out what was in the intestines into a dish. I lasted one semester at that job.

Taco Bell. My manager was psychotic. She screamed at us often and if I had had more balls, I would have walked out during one of her tirades. She once made the decision to use Gordita tortillas that had mold on them and serve them to customers.

I also didn't have the balls to ask out a cute gal who worked there.

I lasted one summer there up until July 4. I wanted it off, they wouldn't give it to me. So I quit.

Security guard in London. 12 hour shifts, usually night shifts, in the beginning 7 nights a week, because I was greedy for money. Got to see Michael Jackson that way on the BAD tour. Was also a security guard for Prince Charles once and on another occasion for the Queen Mother.

The one I have now. "Librarian" may sound dull, but in the course of this job I've cleaned gutters, climbed around in attics, moved a humongous indoor plant that someone donated to us, written grants, designed displays, killed a snake, helped to capture thieves, hosted a large mobile aquarium, and repaired electrical cords. Among other things.

Today I served as secretary for a one-and-a-half-hour Board of Trustees meeting before heading straight to a local Rotary Club meeting. It was kind of a hectic morning.

Charging people £1 to use a toilet in an "upmarket establishment" where I even had coins thrown at me by angry punters....sometimes I was even fast enough to catch them !!
It left me with a misplaced sense of toilet humour for a while.

Didn't we do this in another thread? I remember someone winning the thread by having a job where they pushed animal organs through a hole in the floor.

One guy delivered food to the Rolling Stones.

Darin wins the thread.

He made them bounce?

When I got out of the Navy, I decided to work in computers. Only it turned out to be a cold sales job selling AS-400s. Bleah.
Later, I worked at Domino's Pizza, first delivering pizza, then helping prepare them. Not a bad job, but it doesn't help in the field of education.
Just before I went into teaching, I worked as dispatch for the local paper, helping the paper distributors know what houses had errors in delivery, who needed to have delivery stopped or restarted, and which paperboys hadn't even run their route that day.

None of these are shameful, but I won't go back to them... well, I might for Domino's if gas prices go down.