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I never set out to hold a bunch of different jobs, but I guess it just ended up that way. No single one is really that weird, but when you put together the whole list it is a bit strange. Here are all the different jobs I have had over my life.
Golf Caddy - Edgewood Country Club - This was my first job. I think I was 12 at the time. I work as a caddy for 5 years. It was a great job. Lots of money, all in cash, and I got to spend my days outside. Kinda like the movie Caddy Shack, only funnier.
Factory Worker - Mr. Bracket - Now this was a weird one. One of the members at the country club owned a company called Mr. Bracket. They packaged electronic accessories for cars like cigarette lighter adapters, radar detector mounts, cell phone holders, etc. Notice I said “packaged” not manufacture. All this company did was buy surplus accessories from China by the thousands and repackage them with a huge mark up. They would print on the box “Packaged in the USA” with an American flag next to it. I think they were trying to trick people into thinking it was built in the USA. So my job was to either package all this stuff or take off the “Made in China” stickers. Talk about a repetitive and boring job. I would stand at a vacuum packing machine and package 1000s of cell phone chargers or sit in the warehouse peeling off those little stickers.
Sandwich Artist at Subway - Not really that weird, but it was actually a fun job. My friends used to come in and I would give them free food. Plus, we invented the “Subway Olympic Games” to fill the times when we were bored. I was a master at the Onion Bowling and Knife Throwing.
Car Porter - Dick Morris Chevrolet - I worked in two different departments here. I worked in the repair shop for awhile (that really sucked) and did a bit in new cars. My job in repairs was to drive the shuttle for people that were getting work done on their cars, wash customers cars (really sucked), and general clean up of the shop (really really sucked). If you ever been to a repair shop, you know what I mean. Nothing like emptying out used oil drums and cleaning out old cheese burgers from under the seats of people’s cars. New cars was a lot better. Do you ever wonder why your new car is so clean or how they get the cars at the dealership all color coordinated in perfect rows? Well that is what I did.
Flower Planter - Ever wonder how corporate buildings or entrances to neighborhoods have all those huge fancy flower beds? Well, it is people like me on my hands and knees for 8 hours a day. Did this for half a summer and quit. Not fun.
Balcony Inspector - Yep, this was an odd one. I don’t even remember how I got the job. Essentially what I did was go around to apartment complexes and inspect the balconies. The company didn’t give us keys to the apartments, but instead they gave us huge ladders to climb up. Some of these apartments were 4 stories tall! They also were supposed to tell the tenets before we came, but most of the time they didn’t. You can only imagine how much we scared some of the people in the top floors.
Cafeteria Worker - U of M - I think everyone has worked at a cafeteria at some time. I had the best job. I was the guy who would swipe people’s meal card at the door of the dining hall. Kinda like the bouncer of the cafeteria world. Oh yeah, also did a stint as a dish washer (that sucked) and assistant cook.
Asbestos Inspector - Nova Environmental - I could write 3 pages on this and still not fully explain what the job was. Nova would oversee the companies who removed asbestos from federal and state owned buildings. We did a lot of on site air monitoring, testing samples, and inspection work of asbestos removal. Got to wear those cool protective jump suits and full face respirators. One of the fun parts of the job was to go and inspect while they were removing. They had to enclose the whole build in plastic with different air moving equipment attached to the windows to keep the asbestos contained. One time I had to crawl on my hands and knees through 1 mile of steam tunnels under a high school to make sure they removed the asbestos correctly.
Automotive Test Engineer - Delphi Automotive - The was the coolest job of them all. I tested the latest cars with prototype antilock brake and traction control systems. Most of the time I was up near the Michigan/Canadian border at our winter test facility which was an abandoned Cold War bomber base.
Subsea Engineer - ExxonMobil - This one isn’t weird, but it is really interesting. Get to travel all over the world, ride in helicopters, and visit offshore oil platforms.
So there you have it, a full history of my jobs.
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