A Job is a Job is a Job

By any other name, a job is a job. I was reflecting on my past jobs. Make your own list and be surprised at what you are willing to do for pay.

First job: washing dishes for eighty cents an hours at St. Agnes Nursing home. Prying off the sticky, pastey, no need for chewing, hardened food from 100's of plates and sloshing them around in hot water is a JOB.

Stix Bare and Fuller kitchen help: prime responsibility of placing rolls on plates with butter, and filling water glass, and keeping catsup bottles filled. $1.25. Any idiot can do this job.

Life guard. Definitely a better job. Things are looking up. Wisely I kept the job for two (3?) summers. Pay was poor but the job was great.

Plaque Shack sales clerk. Relatives owned the store and I worked there one summer. No complaints.

Newspaper reporter--features. UMR paper. Very little pay! And a former judge threatened to sue the university over one of my article. Thus ended my life as a journalist.

Volunteered for three months after graduation to feed and read to the dying patients at a hospital in Rolla, MO.

First REAL job: Houston, TX. Records Management at the Offshore Company. Very interesting and good pay.

AEROBIC DANCE instructor-- i know, i know, you can't believe it. But it's true. Got my picture in the Peoria Newspaper--FULL PAGE. Really embarassing to see oneself so large in print. I have a copy. I'll have to make a copy and put it on the blog. Yeah, right!

Univ. of IL--Springfield co-host, director, writer of an NPR show for children. Absolutely a favorite job. Tons of fun. Never like the sound of my voice on the air, though.

Lincoln Land Community College-- English Instructor.

Antelope Valley Community College --English Instructor

[I'm beginning to see a pattern; though it sounds like I work an amusement park.]

Pikeville College --Coordinator of Corporate and Private Grants, Editor of Colleg Paper, Education feature writer for city paper [oops, back into journalism]

Music Teacher --grade school, part-time, including directing Christmas Pagent each year.

Kent State Univ. -- English Instructor. We didn't live there long enough to really even mention this job, but they hired me to teach. It counts.

Univ. of Southern Indiana -- Professor of English

Newburgh Historic Society --grants and publicity, mostly volunteer.

Meramec Community College--Prof. of English

UA campus minister

Teacher for Lay Ministry program

Editor for Catholic book publisher

Writer of x# of publications for various Catholic publishers

Hospital chaplain.

Teaching English at MCC, once again

And the winner is LIFE GUARDING. Great tan, good hours, free swimming, when you save someone from drowning or even if they die, you get the rest of the day off--but they don't pay you after you go home. I'm thinking of getting recertified and applying at the Y.

That's 22 total jobs. And still going.