Crappy Jobs

I thought it would be fun to blog today about two horrible jobs I had while working on my undergrad degree. Yanno, working crappy jobs helps you keep life in perspective. I mean, now I almost feel like nothing I do career-wise could be any worse than where I've already been. LOL

1--The first and foremost horrible job that has scarred me for life was working as an accidental death and dismemberment insurance telemarketer. Yeah, my sister and a couple of my friends worked there too, which helped ease a wee bit of the pain...but have you worked in telemarketing? Then you know how awful it is.

And not only is the job awful--calling and hounding people to just talk to me on the phone and not hang up or cuss me out--the product itself was not the most cheery thing in the world. "Hey, total stranger, if you buy our insurance and lose an eye and a limb in an accident, you get XX dollars. However, if you lose two limbs, you get XXX dollars. And if your accident results in death, you get the maximum price of XXXX. And all for the bargain price of X a month."

As you can imagine, most people didn't want to talk to me. LOL. I can't really blame them...no one wants to be reminded of their mortality, or their natural frailty as a human being--much less by someone who interrupted them at home in the middle of the day.

Yeah, I didn't last long at that job.

2--My second horrible job: I managed to snag a position at a place I thought would be super awesome...working as a tennis court attendant. The place I worked for had like 10 courts, with 4 of them indoors. I thought I'd work inside the snack building, selling tennis snobs and sweaty teens some Gatorade and signing them up to rent the courts, and that would be the extent of it. Totally cushy, right?

It wasn't until I started working there that I realized it was rather like being in a prison movie.

My first daily task was to use a big, awkward leaf blower to clear off the courts every morning. Anyone who knows me knows I have the most horrid allergies. So after complaining (and even having to leave work early because of utter facial misery), the company begrudgingly provided me with a face mask while I did this job. As you can imagine, I was sooooo attractive.

Yes, I did have periods of time working inside the air-conditioned building, selling Gatorade...but the bulk of my time was spent outside, doing manual labor/maintenance on the grounds. See, I was usually working with this woman who had to be in her eighties...like I was going to make her go do the back-breaking, craptacular work, which included such fun tasks as:

--pulling the weeds out from the cracks of the sidewalks and in/around the outdoor courts (my boss didn't want to use pesticides, so we had to HAND-PULL THEM OUT).

--weeding the gardens

--squeegeeing the outdoor courts off after the rain (absolutely horrible...we had these MASSIVE squeegees we had to use on the courts to push the rainwater off the courts)

--power-washing the courts

--DIGGING A DRAINAGE DITCH. That one was the worst.

After this, I knew I had to quit. I was tired, crabby, and pretty much hated the job with every fiber of my being.

Okay, so those are my worst two jobs. What about you? Any horrible jobs? Share, share, share!

Dream jobs

If you could do your absolute "fantasy" dream job, what would it be? I mean, something unrealistic that you'd be blissful to just do, much less get paid for (e.g., Mel may like giving tongue baths to Matt Damon, etc--LOL).

For me, writing is a dream job, but it's more "realistic" than "fantasy", because my dreams are coming true! I have a YA trilogy coming out end of next year. It's not an easy career path. I put a lot of effort into my stories, and I know my fellow Fictionistas bloggers do, too. Still, it's well worth the work.

If I were choosing a fantasy dream job, though, I'd love to be paid just to read. Not even necessarily to have to critique books, but just to have the utter bliss of settling in my favorite chair and getting caught up in books as much or as little as I wanted.

So, what about you--what's your fantasy job?

My sister and her hunt for a career

I don't think I've talked about my sister Lisa on the Fictionistas blog yet. Which is a shame, because she's truly provided me lots of fodder for my stories. See, Lisa is like me, but cracked out to the nth degree (no, she's not REALLY on crack--she's just crazy talk, like the rest of the women in my family, LOL).

Anyway, my sister has held a variety of jobs to date, including:

--carny

--telemarketer for accidental death and dismemberment insurance

--leech cage cleaner in a pharmacy

--night security for a trucking company

--bookstore employee

--waitress

--middle school sub for an art class (*shudder*)

Right now, Lisa works as a criminal justice/paralegal teacher at a local college, because her BA (in liberal arts), involved schooling in these areas. But she's ready to move on to bigger and better things--and what would be better than a career in criminal justice, her main area of interest?

However, my sister has a few specifications for any job she undertakes:

1. no involuntary body secretions or oozing (blood/sweat/etc.)

2. she should not have to run for her life at any point in the job

3. she should be nowhere near prisoners or shivs

These three factors alone rule out, like, 95% of all criminal justice jobs, LOL. So what about the other 5% that's left? Well, the rest of her specifications should knock those out quite nicely:

4. nothing that requires science on a middle-grade level or higher

5. nothing that requires a sense of direction

6. no math

However, Lisa thinks she has stumbled across the ideal criminal justice job for her: deputy coroner. Basically, she'd work with the coroner and medical examiner's office to determine how a person died.

And what's even scarier? My sister would be issued a GUN and would have the right to arrest people. She's stoked, because there's no training camp/physical fitness test required, which means no sweating (see rule #1). My mom is FREAKING OUT.

My sister. With a gun. AND the right to arrest people? God help us all. LOL.


So, what about you? Do you have any job specifications? Share with the group!!