Also, a nice couch + a lap desk. (prolly works also with nice hammock under a tree if yr screen is bright enough)

That last one was home foreclosures. Evicting people, changing their locks, throwing away their belonging, driving hundreds of miles a day, getting paid by the job (and usually late). Not the most rewarding job.

After we moved I was friendless for the rest of high school (I don’t think I spoke to anyone my entire junior year…dang, adolescence was brutal). ETA: I should clarify that I meant that without friends junior and senior year, I had no window into how many kids in my school were working at that time. I got my job during the summer between junior and senior year and I seem to remember hearing that my friends back in my hometown were working summer jobs by then (although at least one of them didn’t start working until she was in college). I don’t remember anyone doing volunteer work either, but this was back in the day when just getting a bachelor’s degree in ‘whatever’ meant you had a good chance at a decent job, so the pressure on the kids was less.

I don’t have kids, and most of my local friends don’t either, and most of my peer group friends’ kids are still too young. I’d be interested in hearing from the parents on this board…

It would definitely help and I wouldn’t be as stiff and achey all the time.

My first real paying job – paid by check, was working for a local frozen lemonade company. Remember my addiction? Well, this was like sending Whitney Houston to work at a cocaine cooking camp in the foothills of Colombia. I made $7/hour plus tips. Tip amounts varied anywhere from $2-20 a day. They were often spent on take-out Chinese after work or beer – shhhh! Don’t tell the authorities! I started out peddling frozen lemonade from a cart at various sites throughout the state – the zoo, local parks and special events. I graduated from the cart to the truck as time progressed. I was in charge of managing my own stock and maintaining three different trucks. It was definitely a cool job!

The summer after my freshman year of college, I decided not to go back to lemonade. Freshman 15(more like 35) coupled with lemonade would not have been a good choice. Instead, I took a job tutoring and monitorinig kids during a summer learning program. This job was fun as each week we got to go on field trips and take part in many activities. I enjoyed this very much as I take pride in being a example for children especially those that are under-privileged and it brought back joyful memories of my school years. Fun!

During my college years, I didn’t do work-study or held an off-campus job. I took to using my stipend to bet on football games, gained some capital and used that to grow my money each week by placing very well thought-out bets on NFL, NBA and NCAA games. My initial investment of $200 netted me close to $12,000 by the end of football season. All tax free. I would also buy textbooks from students and sell them back to the bookstore for small profits and even took to writing papers for some folks at $50 a pop. Very kosher!

My next job was as a data entry zombie making $9/hour. It was for a family-owned bank specializing in home mortgages. I would enter customer information from a sheet that was populated by the call center downstairs and handle some day-to-day operations. I sorta kinda single-handedly dissolved this job within the entire company by opening up my huge mouth. I was having a late lunch in the breakroom one day and the owner/CEO came in to buy a water out of the vending machine. We got to chatting and I mentioned that it would make much more sense if the call center entered the applications as they were speaking with the customer. This would save the middle man(my job) from having to enter them at a later time. Well, needless to say, he thought it was a swell idea and an organizational change took place within months. Knowing this change, my manager quickly shuffled me into an underwriting program and I was saved from losing the job that I killed off myself! OOPS! The underwriting gig paid a hell of a lot more than my previous job – I started at $15.75 and made as much as $20/hour before the bubble burst and it all came crashing down. I was out of a job anyway.

Not much of a resume. Currently, I’m a project manager for a biopharmaceutical company making oncology drugs for various indications. I’m making more money than I ever have and am sad to admit that it wasn’t until this job that I started being smart about money and saving it.

Going forward, I’m hoping to save enough money to start my own food truck or a small brick & mortar operation. I really wished that I saved all of the money that I earned throughout the years, but I have no regrets. My quality of life during that time was priceless and I wouldn’t have done it any other way!

This maybe some random craziness but I noticed you hate to be chained to a computer, so…

I work a lot in front of the computer, and I don’t mind the computer itself; what bugs me is to have to SIT all day– it makes me physically ill and it gives me weird aches and pains even though I have a pretty good office chair that I can sit on for 14 hours a day.

So I’m switching to a stand-up desk with the option to sit if/when tired. I know maybe this isn’t the holy grail of work improvements, but is the physical environment something you could maybe modify for some benefit? No guarantees this will make your work more enjoyable, just a thought that maybe it could help.

Paid babysitting; and a lot of unpaid care of livestock, garden, siblings, house.

Lesson: I like animals and plants, often more than people.

HIGH SCHOOL

17-19: First job at privately owned video store. I was introverted and terrified of entering the working world, but I knew I had to take the plunge. I loved movies, so I just walked in on impulse and talked my way into it.
Good: I LOVED THAT JOB! Great boss and co-workers; really built my confidence.

Lesson: Pay attention to your rare impulses to take risks.

COLLEGE

20-21: Summer jobs: wildlife research on urban raptors.
Bad: Brutal long hours, often unpaid. Love/hate thing with boss.
Good: First introduction to wildlife field research, which I love to this day. Learned a ton.

22: Summer job: Unpaid (stipend only) research on raptors in N. California.
ALL GOOD: terrific boss, great coworkers, isolated barracks in a beautiful setting, autonomy.

Lesson: Being forced to live/work with strangers in the middle of nowhere can be good.

23: Attempted to replicate joy of first job with gig at Blockbuster Video. EPIC FAIL.

24: Summer job: Field research on a rare hawk, in the desert near Tombstone. The usual brutal field conditions and hours, but I was working with friends and it was AWESOME.

24: Attempted to replicate joy of first job with gig at privately owned video store. SUCCESS! Hung onto this job throughout grad school.

Lesson: Great boss, great coworkers, and autonomy often more important to happiness than actual work tasks. Also, corporations suck.

GRAD SCHOOL

25-27: Still working at video store. I also was paid halftime for thesis research on burrowing owls.

27: Did a month of unpaid research on hawks in the Luquillo rainforest in Puerto Rico.

Lesson: You CAN handle overloaded schedules if forced to, esp. if it means work opportunities in the Caribbean.

POST COLLEGE LIMBO

28 We moved for husband’s post doc. After a few months of screwing around, I finished thesis and defended/graduated. Depressed, isolated, and unable to seek permanent job. Did contract work writing research reports (mostly poor ones) for state agencies.

Lesson: At this stage, you aren’t good at time management absent a workplace structure.

On impulse, I took job as a ‘cookie’ baker at specialty bakery/caterer.
Good: The food.
Bad: Gained 15 pounds. Hated my fake, glad-handing bitch of a boss with a passion.

Lesson: Avoid the food industry. Also, avoid evil bosses or you will eventually lose your shit and quit in a majorly loud, profane, and public scene.

29: Husband still hunting for a permanent job. Very difficult time, emotionally and financially. Stupid adult life!

I worked at a nice mindless retail sales job at World Market.

Also worked my first ever admin assistant job for…wait for it…a personal financial planner! At nearly 30 with debt and no assets, I was suddenly employed to assist people with their personal finances. The light dawned and fire was lit under my ass.

Lesson: Corporations aren’t all quite as bad as Blockbuster. Fee based financial advisors are the way to go. You suck at telemarketing. YOU NEED TO GET YOUR FINANCIAL LIFE IN ORDER.

After 9 months or so of juggling these jobs, I was offered a professional career track job in the state we were in, but husband was simultaneously offered his dream job, which paid a lot more. The catch was it was in Texas. Not the nice part of Texas.

THE YEARS OF THE ASPHODEL FIELDS

Moved to Texas, and began ‘adult life,’ finally: house, car, furniture, etc. And debt, of course.

I had no desire to lock myself down in a 9-5 job while living in this city 5 hours from anywhere remotely pleasant or attractive, so I began a series of contract jobs: writing technical reports, running field crews, etc. One notable job was inventorying museum vouchers housed at National Parks in Texas and NM.
Good: great opportunity to spend some time in the parks…Big Bend was especially fantastic.
Bad: Job parameters were unclear, and I was suffering from depression associated with undiagnosed chronic illness, so I sucked at this job.

Lesson: If you are unclear about job parameters, you will get overwhelmed and suck at it.

32-35: Got a part-time job doing office support and editing for a professional wildlife journal. Didn’t pay that well, but I was a good writer, an ok editor, and I could learn on the job. A turning point.

Also, started unpaid annual field research on migrant and resident birds in the British Virgin Islands, which continues to this day. SCORE.

Lesson: The flexibility to do things like annual research in the Caribbean often beats a big paycheck.

35, the wildlife journal was discontinued, but I was head-hunted by a professional publisher to continue doing technical editing for other scientific journals.

36: On impulse, I took my first ever teaching position, and taught an undergrad class in natural resource management. Exhausting, but a great experience.

Lesson: Your instinct to impulsiveness is rare, and you should listen to it (see first ever job). Also, teaching well is hard and takes unbelievable amounts of time.

37-current (41) Still doing contract editing work. A few years ago, the wildlife journal I’d worked for went back into publication, so I got that job back, AND I have started to delve into the world of textbook editing.

My income has gone up, but is still low (~25K, typically). The tradeoff of low pay has meant the flexibility to take advantage of a metric ton of travel opportunities.

However, I have been feeling restless. I’m not sure whether it’s lack of new challenges and experiences in the work, or the being chained to the damn computer, or just plain old mid-life crisis due to other issues (like where we live, etc).

Lesson: All things in life involve trade-offs. Do you want to spend the rest of your working life chained to a computer? Perhaps you aren’t correctly weighting the options…

My experience is that I need something creative and where I don’t get bored. Blogging and consultancy good, working in a bank, the internet company or flipping burguers almost killed me.

I’d like to try stuff like bartending or waiting tables, but I’ve got no time at all.

I agree with what Becky said above, that it seems like I’ve been doing the same job forever now, and that earlier jobs were much more instructive and vivid. On the other hand, I’m better at making steady incremental improvement now, and I tend to think of failures as opportunities to figure out what not to do, rather than self-flagellate and tell myself how much I suck.

It’s really interesting for me to see the career paths other people have taken as I am very lost on my own journey in life, maybe you guys have some general advice/ideas you could throw my way??

My run down is as follows

12-16: Delivering Papers

16-18: Mechanical Engineering Apprentice

18-19: Completed just over a year of a degree in multimedia computing

18-19: Many short term part time roles waiter, bar tender, data entry, cashier at service station and sales assistant for Bang & Olufsen. The customer service roles were always the worst as people feel as though they have the right to speak to you like dirt when you work behind the bar

19-22: Fell into a data analysis/managment information team leader

23-27: Continued further down the technical route and into IT as a database developer

27-30: Working as a freelance IT developer

I do not enjoy working in IT and haven’t done for some time. I do not like working in a office and the politics you have to wade through just to get your job done!

I do however enjoy having responsibilties, leading people and providing direction. I have a real passion for business in general but after many months of sole searching I have very little idea about what to start to look for in a job.

I have very recently became a father for the 1st time and it has changed my entire outlook on life.

Thanks all!

As a kid, I worked:
age 11 – 15 babysitting in the evenings
age 12-14 fulltime summer day-job as a blueberry picker
age 15 fulltime (45 hrs/wk) summer babysitting gig
age 16 production art assistant at Nordstrom’s advertising department
age 16-18 waiting tables 4:00-midnight at a cafe

As a university student:
age 18 washing glassware in a university laboratory
age 19 shelving books in a science library
age 20 menial work in an exciting research lab
age 21-22 electron microscopist in university research lab

After that, I was in grad school and then became a teacher, so I’ve been teaching in one capacity or another ever since (25 years).

It’s amazing what a strong impression my early jobs made. Of all my early jobs, I learned the most about real life from the waitressing job. And, as others have emphasized, stellar colleagues can turn a dull job into a delightful work place.

With merely $28K in savings, I purchased my first hotel. And, in the last 12 years I’ve bought and sold over $12 million worth of commercial real estate.

I think you can achieve any realistic goal as long as you are passionate about it and work hard for it.

Lunch waitress in a restaurant/bar. Better pay and helped me realize I did not want to end up in a dead end job like that.

Worked for my Dad on his farm. Hard but fun.
Room and Board and College paid for.

Parts runner for a small airfield/Piper maintenance base. I drove an old pickup with 3 speed on the column and no air conditioning picking up propellers and such. In my non driving time they had me cross referencing ADs that had piled up for the last 10 years.
(those are Administrative Directives or technical bulletins) I learned I was not going to be a pilot and that I liked doing detail work.

TA in a biology lab & chemistry tutor.
Rowing Coach. All in University. All unpaid

Research lab at University Medical Center. I liked this job and the people were great but the pay was terrible. I started taking computer classes at night and I ended up taking accounting classes also.

Accounting jobs. CPA firm. Business Journals.
Now with a small business for the last 25 years.

I am pretty sure in 10 years time I will be retired but who knows.

But my worst job by far had to be the waitress/service staff gig at Royal Ascot. You get told by the catering agency that you’re going to be waitressing in a private box and get a bunch of tips. In reality you’re standing up for 12 hours, getting constantly wet and cold from dishwater up to your elbows (had to wear a long sleeve shirt!), and getting shouted at by horrible chefs who are preparing disgusting frozen meals.

Worst smelling job? Data entry in a Pathology lab at the hospital. The general lab wasn’t too bad, but the chlamydia room smelt so bad. There’s a way to encourage safe sex, just bus teenagers in to smell that gross gross room.

Best job? Probably this summer’s. I’m working for a bar and restaurant guide so I’ve learnt the location of loads of amazing little hideaways and foodie paradises in London, plus the staff keep giving me FREE COOKBOOKS. It’s awesome!

As a little ad-hoc gig I transcribe interviews for a design journalist and that’s fascinating. I love jobs where you learn about a world that most people barely know of.

Worked for a diamond shop for about 5 years when I realized that I missed flying.

Started working for another airline 4 years ago after 4 kids and couldn’t be happier.:)

I have worked too many jobs to count (most of them crappy), but I would say 20 to 30. The bad jobs always made me anxious to go back to college so I could get a better job, which I did.

I also was a waitress/food server for a cafeteria and counter (grill area). I was a substitute teacher (with good days and awful days), a computer order entry clerk for a steel distributor, a hospital patient accounts rep., a clerk for the Federal Govt. answering requests for veterans’ personnel and medical records, and finally a 5th grade, 2nd grade, and language arts teacher. I’m now retired.

My kids detasseled corn, too, in Northern MO and southern Iowa when they were in high school. What a tough job!