In my life...

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

Great words of wisdom (and truth) from John Lennon.  Yes, life happens as we are having visions of how we want it to go.

In my early teens, I remember wanting to be a nun, even though we weren’t Catholic.  This was when I still had leftover religious feelings, implanted on me as a kid.  I think at the time I saw it as a way to “prove” to God that I was a good girl.  Somewhere along the line, I remember envisioning myself, dressed in khakis, driving around in a Jeep, hair flowing in the breeze, looking for animals in Africa to save.  Then I wanted to be one of those guys (yes, mostly guys) sitting at one of those NASA stations, declaring “Go!” when they asked me if my designated area was “all systems go.”  “Cap Com—Go!” 

Well, I guess there must have been many other fantasy jobs that I’m forgetting about.  These come to mind at the moment.

But as John advised us, life tends to happen and it usually disrupts those glorious visions.  Not always and not for everyone, but likely for most of us.  A job usually ends up finding us, and not the other way around.

  • So first, tell me about your dream jobs that never came true. :(
  • Then, no matter how “great or small,” (all cogs in the wheel are important!) list as many jobs as you remember having over your lifetime.

Here’s what I remember, in somewhat chronological order, and I know I must be forgetting so many:

  • Cashier at different points (F. W. Woolworth's [first job ever!], supermarket, burger fast food joint, a DIY store, ???)
  • Ice cream cone maker (it took some practice to make those soft-serves look right!)
  • Waitress (Holiday Inn… still too young to serve drinks, so I didn’t get many tips. Breakfast crowd mostly.)
  • Dry cleaners (shirt presser… my cousin and I got a job there together)
  • Factory widget maker (those little lamps that go in the griddle cords)
  • Assembly line worker (putting together irons… I lasted one day on that one.  Those irons went by so fast!  Like Lucy and Ethyl at the candy factory!!)
  • Telephone Company (Info/Long Distance operator… things were beginning to look up)
  • Answering Service (got this when I moved to Calif and needed a job… anything!)
  • Payroll clerk (I was very good on the 10-key)
  • Data entry operator (moved into the computer room.  This was looking promising.)
  • System Operator (IBM/34 computer.  Want to hear something weird?  On the same day I was offered this job, I got a call from Western Airlines to come to work for them.  I decided to stick with the company I was with, Armstrong World Industries.  I did the right thing.  Western Airlines eventually went out of business.) :(
  • Jr. Programmer (I guess they thought I had promise.)
  • Sr. Programmer (I did.) :)
  • Programmer/Analyst (Kept working my way up. By now I had moved on to four other different companies, about two years apart, as a programmer, always increasing my salary with the next job. )
  • Library worker (Moved back to Ohio.  Board stiff.  First got a job in the stacks putting away books, then got offered Adult Services Office Secretary, then computer lab assistant, finally Inter-library Loan clerk)
  • Retired.

But what a trip it has been!
 (by Primordial Soup... Susan) 😉

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