Summer and Part Time Jobs

Duke

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What jobs did you work during the summer while in high school and/or college? Have you ever worked a second or part time job?
 
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I've been working full-time since I was 16 years old, and dad left. Being the oldest, I didn't have much choice. I still graduated with a 3.8 GPA even though I worked full time all through high school.
At one time I had two jobs, worked a regular day job in a lab and had my own company doing architectural renderings as well as printed ad layout by night for newspapers. Man, I could never do that today, too old and beat up. Carpal tunnel in both hands means my days as an artist are gone anyway.

One summer job in particular was grueling. I worked in a sand-blasting pit and it was possibly the hardest job I have ever done. The other kid working it with me that year didn't even make it through the summer. I also did concrete formwork construction for a while, that was hard too. Carrying a sheet of plywood and walking across a narrow beam several hundred feet above the ground when the wind comes up is not fun. I only did that job a few months before deciding that I wanted to live to see old age. Most of my co-workers were ex-cons and not a nice crowd to work with anyway.

Best summer job I ever had was driving a delivery van for a department store. Loaded up and gone by 9 AM, usually done by noon, one o'clock. I parked the van and napped the rest of the day, went back at 4-ish to punch out and go home. Some days I would pick up girls in the park and just cruise around with the radio on. They thought it cool to be riding around in a van from a well-known local department store (mid-seventies).
 
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From age 14 through the summer after my freshman year in college, I painted parking lots. The guy I worked for, a close friend of my Dad's, had contracts to do malls all over the eastern half of the US. I was on the road about 80% of my summers.

In college I had a coop job with a (then) major aircraft manufacturer near Dallas, but while in school I worked as a men's dorm desk clerk. I always worked the over night shift on Friday or Saturday nights, some great stories came out of that job.

After I retired, I worked for about two years for a "think tank" as a consultant. I had no intention of working post-retirement, but they contacted me and made an offer I couldn't refuse. I helped them write proposals and did some analysis, but it was a feast or famine kind of deal. I could go a month or so with nothing, then be required to write, review, or analyze something in very short order. I quit after one such assignment caused us to cancel a mini-vacation we had planned.

Best part time job I've had is taking care of my granddaughter. There is no pay, but there is overwhelming satisfaction. And how many 7 year old girls do you know who like airplanes, explosives, and football?
 
My first job as a teen was telephone sales, where I tried to persuade people to subscribe to the daily newspaper. Then in a fast food restaurant. My 18th summer was spent doing activist work for migrant pickers; boycotting, protesting in super market parking lots, and traveling by car to California to meet Cesar Chavez and continue the activism work their. My pay was 10 dollars a week.

While in college, I signed up with a temp agency and there were a variety of jobs on offer; some mind numbingly boring some interesting, some only for a week or two. They varied from telemarketing, data entry, work in a clothing factory, operating a credit card machine, etc. I also worked on campus in the non-credit office, filing, answering phones, etc.
 
Ever de-tassle corn for 8 hours? Don't. Ever pick strawberries for 6 hour shifts? Don't. I worked for a wonderful market called Johnson's that has the best sweet corn and strawberries you will ever find. However, field work was NOT my thing.

Babysitting had it's advantages...lol Free snacks you didn't have to pick.

Later worked for a dentist my junior summer. Even that was more fun than the farm.
 
I worked from about 12 almost every weekend in the golf pro shop for my step dad, I realized I was not a people person when I had to serve not so friendly customers so became a greenkeeper to keep my distance, lol.