Gainful employment
Cool story about a guy who washed dishes in all 50 states, then wrote a book about it. Worked my way through college manning a Hobart dish machine... loved the mindlessness required. Only summer job I ever had was at a country club in suburban DC... Congressional, hosted the USOpen about a decade ago... 7 summers, first as a burger cook, then as a waiter... I started taking crap from rich people long before I began writing about professional athletes.
Got a favorite job? One a little offbeat, maybe? Lemme know. Could be a topic on Sports Talk Monday night...
posted by Paul Daugherty at 8:14 AM
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Post a Comment*Grilling burgers at Coney Island for corporate picnics. It was mindless, hot, messy and the best Summer I had making less than $6 an hour. We got to hear every concert at Riverbend for free, plus we had all the free burgers and dogs we could eat.
Favorite job....Sports Editor/Writer for a small daily (Athens TX).High School Sports in TX is fantastically followed. Loved every bit of it...except the money (what money?). Would still be doing it if spell check came out on computers a year or two earlier.
You might be interested in a story Dishwasher Pete did for This American Life. It's a few years old, but the show just re-ran it last weekend. Very interesting story inspired by his love of Greyhound bus travel.
Peeling potatoes in the freshman girls' dorm at Marquette University. I could work when I wanted, as much as I wanted--as long as I kept a 50 gallon tank filled to the brim with taters.
It was a blast--I'd sit and listen to the radio, chit-chat with the kitchen staff, flirt with the girls. Best job of my life!
When life was simple--go to class, study, peel potatoes. Oh, what a joy...
Archival processing of the 1988 files of Strom Thurmond while I was a grad student at Clemson University. $5.15/hr. It was interesting to learn about the issues of the time. Don't get me wrong though, I have no particular love for Strom as a person though.
Also loved washing dishes in a popular west-side Cincinnati family restaurant--it was one of those places where as soon as you get a job there you immediately gain about 20 new friends.
Doc - you could be a comedy writer... that's no joke. Your last 2 articles on the Deds have killed me (laughing).
Loved this line from today's article on the Marketing Dept:
"Plus, if the game stinks, you can turn around and watch dead animals and truck parts float down the river."
Keep them coming, it looks like it's going to be a long summer down on the river.
Scott in Columbus
Worst summer job... a tie, between working in an industrial paint shack (sans proper breathing equipment or protective clothing), or manning the radial saw at in 90+ degree heat at a Ludlow lumber yard. One summer my hands were permanently stained green, the next my nose was full of caked sawdust.
It wasn't my favorite job of all time, but it was the one I probably learned the most from.
In college my roommate and I worked the night shift at the Columbus Airport as wheelchair runners and golf cart drivers. We were the only two natural born Americans on the whole shift. Everyone else was either Somalian or Ethiopian. Talk about insanity. Nothing is crazier or more surreal than waiting until 1:30 a.m. for a delayed Southwest flight from Dallas. If you really want to experience life go hang out in an airport for a day. Honestly, the oddest place on earth.
Hey, 8:44... we laugh to keep from crying...did the same throughout the 90s with the Bengals.. at some point, bad teams that refuse to change deserve to be made fun of... the Reds are approaching that... and thanks everyone for the cool jobs posts...
Cleaned airplanes in Detroit , back in the early 8o's , on the midnight shift . First night on the job they opened up the liquor kits , put a boom box on the intercom and turned into a big party. I couldn't believe it but soon joined in . You ask ,where was the supervisor ? He was the one who broke into the liquor kits .
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