Career Day

What type of jobs have you had? You don't have to say where or even label your field, but what kind of things have you done?

Basically i'm fishing for new ideas. I've had a lot of jobs over the years ranging from food to retail to factory work to computer gigs, and nothing has really felt worthwhile or fulfilling.

I recently read Factotum by Charles Bukowski and it resonated with me. The main character just kind of hops from job to job in order to sustain himself, but where he really finds himself is in what he does when he's not working the menial shifts.

So far, in order:

Retail (night shift)
Retail (day shift)
Call centre
Medical Manufacturing
Advertising (the absolute pits)
Digital Security

This current one is easily the most enjoyable. If I lived further South I'd be on much higher pay but I can't complain too much, I guess.

Did a short stint as a secretary and a cashier, and for most of my working life I've been a pharmacy technician. It was an easy way for me to crawl out of the minimum wage trap without going back to school. Stressful though, retail pharmacies tend to be understaffed, like anything else, but mistakes are bad. Pays for rent, food, and video games, so I can deal. And sometimes it actually does feel good, a retail pharmacy is the most accessible part of our country's health care and so we sometimes have opportunities to help people who can't communicate with a medical doctor.

Retail (stockroom)
Retail (product advisor)
Television (runner)
Television (logger)
Television (librarian)
Gaming (customer service rep)
Gaming (community rep)
Gaming (community & social media manager)
Soon: being laid off

Not sure what's next.

In order:
Childcare
Youth Soccer Ref
Movie Theater Attendent
Waitress
Nursery attendant
Service Store Clerk
Secretary
Assistant Manager for Retail
Call Center Rep
Accounts Payable and Receivables/Accounting Clerk

I'm funemployeed currently but I'm going to courses for Medical Coding and Insurance Billing so hopefully, that'll be my next career move. I also wrote a novel i'm trying to polish and get published. So maybe that'll happen this year too.

I worked in a craft store for a while, which was awful mainly due to management.

I work in food now which is ok. I’m a part of management. Company is good and my pay is decent.

I only got as far as doing some practicums and student teaching with regards to what I went to college for. I hated it and would have anxiety attacks just thinking about doing that for the rest of my life. People have been judgy about that since I’ve graduated college and said there was no way I could know if I’d like it just from student teaching, but I knew. I found that I had good ideas, but not good implementation. I also worked much better one on one, so I’d probably do better with something like tutoring.

I have an idea for something I want to make and sell, and it both doesn’t seem overly complicated while also not seeming to really exist on the market as far as I can tell. Over the next few years I’m going to be saving up and practicing making prototypes to see if it’s as doable as I think it will be. It’s a long shot, but if that works out my next step is owning my own business I guess. It’ll probably be the end of the year before I even know if this will be something I can seriously pursue though. If nothing else, I’d like to make my idea just for fun.

Catering, admin, sales, finance then admin again. My favourite job is the one I'm in now, because my coworkers are nice, the job's not very stressful, and it's a permanent contract. For right now, that's honestly all the fulfilment I need in my job.

Let's see, in order:

Office grunt
Cafeteria worker
Pizza delivery driver
Newspaper delivery driver
Writing tutor
Freelance sports writer
Social media coordinator
Writing Center coordinator at a community college

It's not exactly where I expected to be, but it pays the bills and I'm good at it, plus it lets me have a steady job while I look for the next big thing.

I started working in high school at McDonalds. Then after I dropped out of college I worked at a manufacturing plant making plasma torches. I worked a few retail and restaurant jobs after that. Worked construction for a bit, went back to retail. Farmed for a while and I've been back in manufacturing for the last several years first making soap, then socks and now for the last 3 years LED lights. I'd say manufacturing is my thing since farming for myself isn't really worth it anymore. Farming is my dream job and sadly unless you already have a large established farm or are a millionaire it's nearly impossible.

I've done: youth sports referee; local paper photographer; student ambassador; freelance writer (games); freelance copyeditor; private tutor; lecturer; academic; NGO director; chronic health conditions consultant + Indigenous Australia consultant; game dev. Currently being smurfed over by the university so it looks like the future might include some trash retail or something.

Very short stint as a bus boy. I knew the pay would be low, and you get a good size of your money through tips, but the effort to do what I was doing was not worth the pocket change I got for something like that. Mad respect to those who can survive in a world like that. I sure as hell couldn't.

Worked about a year doing data entry at the company I currently work at. This was literally just after I graduated high school. I haven't been with the company this whole time, as I went off and tried other things before returning to the company in 2007.

Worked in an ice arena pro shop for awhile. I mainly used it as a second job. I basically smurfed off and got away with playing video games all the time, even as going as far as to bring a Playstation with a screen attachment to play under the counter. I actually somehow met a girlfriend doing this.

Worked at the largest UPS facility in the country as a loader. Simple job. Hard work, but it kept me in shape for a couple of years. Pay was alright, but I gave into the temptation way too often to go home on light days. Had some miserable times there, but the last crew I worked with was fantastic. I should try to get in touch with those people some time.

Now we are back to the company I currently work for. I have done various things over the years from programming a laser cutting machine and a automatic punch press (I can probably look at G-code and see how it work in my mind's eye like the Matrix or something) to doing basic assembly, inventory, and powder coating work. Most of my years there now has been in quality assurance.

I worked as an admin to a WhatsApp group. :bigsmile: