1. strawberry picker & millet detassler — both really hard work!

2. babysitter/au pair — I spent the summer I turned sixteen living with a family two hours drive from my home. I was extremely homesick, but I took tennis lessons during my lunch break and still (occasionally) enjoy playing.

3. librarian assistant — As a student I worked in my college library for 3 years during the school year. This was a fun job — cataloging books, reshelving books, etc. I love being surrounded by books!

4. house painter — I worked for a student painting company for four summers during college. It was good to work outdoors and do something completely different from studying, though I was always ready to return to school by the end of the summer! After graduating I worked full-time as a house painter for another company for awhile. It’s a handy skill to have.

5. office clerk — I worked part-time in an insurance brokerage during my last year of college and then full-time in the same office at the worst job ever (in terms of matching my temperament and skills)…

6. …telemarketer of insurance policies for companies. Students who know me well laugh when I tell them that I was a telemarketer. Basically, I had to find names and addresses for all the operating managers of construction companies in a city. Write a letter, print out 100 copies and send them out. Several days later I’d call the companies asking if the letter had been received and would they be interested in getting a quote from one of our brokers? The rate of return…100 letters to 10 appointments to one successful sale…

That was the job that drove me into teaching (when my boss wanted me to get my insurance broker’s license, I knew it was time to leave…), so I am thankful for it. I learned a lot there and at all my jobs. But I’ve learned the most from teaching!

I see we share a few past jobs (paper boy, care worker/aid worker). I don’t share the McDonald’s or factory style work you had but the first ones perhaps explain why I keep thinking of great blog posts only to see that you have done them first!
(incidentally, I was sure – but could not find it – that you had done something like this post before…)

1. Newspaper girl – I think I earned about 60p a week, but I loved being out and about in the quiet of early morning.

2. Strawberry picker – backbreaking

3. Saturday shop girl – boss took after the Robber Baron, but I learnt to judge where to slice cheese off the huge rounds and get it within a couple of oz of the customer’s order. Not been a particularly useful skill since, sadly.

4. Packer in a packing factory. Got so behind placing the bottles in the right place to be filled, that the machine backed up and threw up its contents all over the assembly line. Was punished for all the downtime this caused by having to go and count plastic bottles coming out of the bottle making machine. For hours.

Tip: Boots own gloop in a bottle is exactly the same as more downmarket own gloop in a bottle. Only the labels change.

5. Reservations clerk at my uncle’s posh London hotel. Apparently my letter to “Dear Uncle Chan” amused the front of house no end – none of them would have guessed that psycho Chan actually had a niece. Fab job – loved both Chan and the experience.

6. Volunteer teacher for the Red Crescent in Hebron. One of the few real life-changing experiences in my life so far. Completely humbling and eye-opening.

Some of the more interesting jobs in my past have been:

1) Supermarket gofor (my first official job at age 16)

2) Part-time worker supervising adults with down syndrome and other disabilities in a workshop producing timber items (one of the most inspiring jobs I have ever done, to be honest)

3) Assistant manager of one of the roughest and most notorious pubs/tavern complexes in Darwin, Northern Territory in Australia (jeez did that open the eyes of a certain long-haired Melbourne Uni lad!)

4) Sales and marketing manager for Bass Brewing Worldwide in Melbourne (distributed a lot of the sample stock – including the notorious Tennents Super – at parties in our dumpy house in East Brunswick!)

5) Research and marketing assistant for the Victorian Wineries Tourism Council (a division of Tourism Victoria), which required attendance at a lot of functions I could not legally drive home from

6) Casual food and beverage attendant at Cirque Du Soleil performances in Melbourne

7) Hay baling during one summer
Manager of a dark and dingy bar called *The Frigate* in Melbourne;s Chinatown, where I earned an open invite to the most expensive and spectacular Chinese restaurants in town

9) Work experience at age 16 with Juke Magazine (at the time owned by Melbourne;s The Age newspaper). I was initially lumped with Greyhound Weekly, but the cool people over in the Juke section (a rock and roll mag) saw my pained expression and talked to some higher ups. Suddenly I was transcribing interviews with members of Crowded House, U2 and Simple Minds, and the great people at Juke even arranged a free subscription to the mag for another two years!

Ah – great memories…

Anyway, it is always good to hear ELT superstars have at some point been willing to get their hands dirty!

1. Tennis court maker – this was a really grim job that involved travelling long distances in the back of a transit van with a group of men, getting dressed up in paper sacks, and then spraying some kind of liquid tar all over the place. The tar would accumulate and gravel and other things would stick to it. As the 12 hour day wore on your legs would get heavier and heavier, both psychologically and literally. What better way to spend a warm summer.
2. Coca cola taster – a summer job working in the Forest of Dean where, thanks to my grade E at Chemistry A level, I got a job working in a lab and was responsible for quality control of coke. This meant that I had to do things like check fizziness and can strength, and every half hour, taste it. For some reason I was employed to work shifts – the thing was the coke production line only ran during the day, so I just sat in a room on my own in a dark factory for much of the time.
3. Clerk – me and a friend had a job working in a helicopter factory. Luckily, we didn’t make helicopters – instead we worked in a sort of glass box in the middle of a partially abandoned warehouse where we had to sort old invoices. We never really saw anyone; each day there would be a fresh pile of these invoices, which would take about an hour to sort and then we would just sit around until someone came along and took them away later in the day.
4,5 & 6. To make up numbers, also paper boy (paper youth?? paper child??), film producer, fruit picker and quite a few more.

I recently managed to get hold of a copy of Smallcreep’s Day by Peter Currell Brown (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Smallcreeps-Day-Peter-Currell-Brown/dp/1905177151/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274611210&sr=1-1) – the definitive description of factory work, which is still as fresh as when it was written – wonderful.

Pete

Before university started, I worked in a factory that made sewing kits and different things. I had to use lots of machines to assemble all the different parts of the kit. After 6 months I got told the company was going bankrupt and had to leave (though the 2 weren’t connected!).

Throughout uni I worked in a cinema – first as staff, then supervisor, then manager. Did a bit of everything there – sales, customer service, advertising, promotions, being the voice of the recorded information line. It was a good job and I stayed there for 3 years.

Also worked in a couple of bars for 1-2 years – one at a yacht club and one in a wedding reception centre. There were good perks like free food and alcohol, which was great as a student, as well as great tips if someone won on the poker machines.

In university I also worked as a research assistant/animal carer in the animal behaviour lab.

I also did a volunteer project, in Costa Rica, which involved construction work, social work, farm work and also teaching English.

Then back home I started some temp jobs – one in administration and data entry that was supposed to last a day or two and ended up being for 6 months. It would have been for longer but I ended up back overseas, hunting for my first EFL job.

While waiting for that job I did some bar work – one at a beach bar in Mykonos before it became infamous (and I quit when I saw the horrible way they treated staff and customers)… and another in a pub in England which burned down a couple of months after I left.

I must admit I’ve had no luck as a waitress – I survived 1 hour in an Indian Restaurant before running out as well as 1 day in McDonald’s before quitting.

Add to that volunteer work in an animal shelter, environmental centre and as a crisis counsellor and I think I’ve covered nearly every job possible! Can’t seem to crack the 3 year mark though at any one job (although I’ve now made it to 4 years as a teacher!).