Pizza Hut Delivery Driver. Fun fact: don't let your car insurance company know you use your vehicle for work even though this is how man MANY delivery joints work.
Pizza Cook. Low pay but free food. Free food means a lot to me.
Baker. Donuts only. Felt like working an assembly line with only 5 or so different movements used through a shift. Learned a lot about back pain.
Aluminum wheel manufacturing. Hot side with the furnace. Clipping off odd bits of metal from orange glowing wheels about 11-13,000 times per night. Now THIS is assembly line work.
Cook. Spent a year at an elder care facility to pull together a resume that might land me a job in the tourism industry that calls for similar 3-meal-per-day approach to a captive audience. End of life care and noticing people my parent's age with dementia made me reevaluate how I spend my time. I kept remembering how the number one "deathbed regret" is whishing to have worked less.
Assistant Chef. Guest ranch by the big national parks. Free housing, food, electric, etc. This was the first time all that reading about ERE felt tangible. I was saving 85-90% of my pay.
Chef. Breifly, right before covid, I worked on a schooner in Maine. I meant to be a chef but ended up mostly sanding, painting, "fitting out" a boat. Man, the beds on those boats are small.
Kitchen Manager. Moved to town 30 minutes from the ranch. Burned out and saved less per month but I got too see how a small coffee shop can try to expand, add a new location, and tinker with menus.
Hospital cook. The pay was good enough to keep a 60-70% savings rate and people often threw returnable cans in the trash which are easily collected as I was the last person to leave the kitchen.
Catering Chef. I took on seasonal work again. This time in Alaska. It paid about double the hospital and lasted 6 months. Free housing, food, car+gas, flights in and out included. I must have saved over 90% of the pay.
Now I'm back at the hospital. They have been very kind to have kept me on insurance even when I'm out of state working a different job. I need 1 or 2 more years of work until I'm just barely in ERE territory. Alaska and Wyoming have been great places for me in terms of savings rates. Many jobs come with room and board as well as zero state income tax.
What kind of work/job do/did you guys all do?
Re: What kind of work/job do/did you guys all do?
12-15 cutting laws at $20 each.
16-19 grocery store night clerk/parcel. summertime manufacturing.
20-21 sales clerk electronics store
21-21 bank teller (great recession termination)
22-24 tech support and moved to insurance rep at call center
25-27 express care technician/write/driver
28 apprentice
28-32 tech advisor (during this time graduated from undergrad)
32-33 project manager, warehouse manager
33-current inventory/ops manager
16-19 grocery store night clerk/parcel. summertime manufacturing.
20-21 sales clerk electronics store
21-21 bank teller (great recession termination)
22-24 tech support and moved to insurance rep at call center
25-27 express care technician/write/driver
28 apprentice
28-32 tech advisor (during this time graduated from undergrad)
32-33 project manager, warehouse manager
33-current inventory/ops manager
Re: What kind of work/job do/did you guys all do?
My work history, which is fairly extensive given that I just turned 60, is also pretty odd in that there have only been 2 or 3 years in which I earned absolutely no income since I was age 10 (year I was a college student in very rural setting, year after my second child was born), but also very few years (5 or 6) in which I held a full-time job working for somebody other than myself. So, it's kind of like I have a collection of revolving interests, and once I've established a means by which to make some money based on one of these interests, it then becomes part of my revolving collection of means by which to generate some income, which I might pick up or put down in accordance with druthers and/or need for cash flow. And it is also the case that these same interests were involved in my preferred play activities prior to age 10.
1) Babies. I have always liked human babies in much the same general way that many humans like rescue animals these days. Before age 10, I would visit and play with the babies in my neighborhood, and some of the mothers started paying me to help around age 10. My sister and I created babysitting business cards when we were age 11 and 12 and distributed them to all the mailboxes in our suburban subdivision and the new one being built adjacent. When my own children were babies, I also provided care for one of my nephews, the babies of three different unwed female university students, and a neighborhood kid whose parents were highly dysfunctional. My going rate for these services was something like $2/hr and/or barter and/or gratis. I currently occasionally teach pre-school or kindergarten groups at semi-volunteer pay rate.
2) Entrepreneurial Ventures. Around age 10, I also started my first micro-business. I purchased cinnamon oil and toothpicks and manufactured cinnamon toothpicks which I sold on the playground at my elementary school. I also attempted some trade in giant size marbles, door-to-door sale of sunflower seeds, garage-based musical theater production, and neighborhood art gallery, but was less successful with these attempts. I successfully ran my own book business from around age 37 to 51, in partnership with my INFP sister after year 3, but at this juncture it has devolved to just part of an eclectic summer flea market booth venture with my INFP sister and my ENTp baby sister.
3) Treats. One of my favorite childhood books was entitled "Maida's Little Shop." Maida's mother was dead, and her father was a loving, but absentee Libertarian Industrialist. He bought Maida a candy store to run as a hobby, learning exercise, and social outlet. I taught myself how to bake cookies and make candy around age 10. My sisters and I still want to sell homemade pies as part of our flea market venture. From age 14 to 18, I worked part-time at ice cream shop/candy story/hamburger-stand/video arcade which was called The Yum-Yum Tree. I worked at a campus keg store during my college years, but I don't like beer myself, so maybe shouldn't be under this category. I have also been able to barter my general cooking skills for other goods such as free shelter over the years.
4) Books In elementary school, I was not the teacher's pet (too ADHD messy), I was the school librarian's pet. When I was 11, she took me with her on a book buying trip, and I selected many of the new YA titles, such as those by Judy Blume, for the library. When I was 11, I could usually be found after school walking to a babysitting assignment, the 5 and 10 candy store with one of my sisters, carrying home a huge pile of books from the library, exploring the creek or the woods in search of interesting creatures, attempting to build a vending machine out of cardboard and string in my basement lab, or in attendance at some class such as tap dancing or piano lessons. From age 31 to 37, I worked full-time with a few mini-retirement breaks in the mix at the alpha/beta-test location of a giant corporate giant book store chain. As noted above, I then started and operated my own internet based used/rare book business for the next 12-14 years, but rarely put in 40 hours/week. We specialized in books related to lost arts and crafts and science/math, because those were the areas in which our particular knowledge (we were both STEM majors under-grad) was usually greater than that of the other book dealers with whom we competed. Your typical male used/rare book dealer is most likely to hold expertise in the realm of History.
5)The Arts and The Crafts TBC
6) DIY and Frugality TBC
7) Math and Science/Tech TBC
8) Nature and Gardening TBC
9) Human Sexuality and Relationship Theory I think my first semi-conscious, semi-successful barter event in this realm took place around age 12. The kids who lived on my side of the creek running through our suburban subdivision were in a war over one summer with the kids who lived on the other side of the creek. Three brothers around my age had successfully built a quite solid fort on the bank of the creek right behind my house. one fact we knew about them was that their mother was a very large, scary yelling sort of woman. So, we decided that our next offensive move was to plaster their fort with pages from a couple copies of Playboy magazine we had found. on the assumption that their mother might then demand dismantlement of their fort. This move did not prove successful, and actually unexpectedly (clearly not in less naive restrospect) had the effect of causing the three brothers to desire more friendly relations with us. So, the oldest brother showed up on his bike one evening when I was attempting to get the two terrible little boys I was babysitting down from the roof of their tri-level house where they were running around in their Star Wars pajamas, and he helped me get them down. However, that was pretty much the extent of our interaction, because I didn't mature to the level of French kissing on the beach for another 2 years, even though my novel reading level was already quite adult due to the access to books provided by my many babysitting clients.
10) I think that's it. I don't think I have earned any money or engaged in successful barter in any realm I wasn't already interested or engaged in prior to puberty, but maybe I am forgetting something...? Maybe Economic or Ecology? But those are both clearly more abstract or systems-level extensions of Entrenpeurial/Math and Gardening/Science.
1) Babies. I have always liked human babies in much the same general way that many humans like rescue animals these days. Before age 10, I would visit and play with the babies in my neighborhood, and some of the mothers started paying me to help around age 10. My sister and I created babysitting business cards when we were age 11 and 12 and distributed them to all the mailboxes in our suburban subdivision and the new one being built adjacent. When my own children were babies, I also provided care for one of my nephews, the babies of three different unwed female university students, and a neighborhood kid whose parents were highly dysfunctional. My going rate for these services was something like $2/hr and/or barter and/or gratis. I currently occasionally teach pre-school or kindergarten groups at semi-volunteer pay rate.
2) Entrepreneurial Ventures. Around age 10, I also started my first micro-business. I purchased cinnamon oil and toothpicks and manufactured cinnamon toothpicks which I sold on the playground at my elementary school. I also attempted some trade in giant size marbles, door-to-door sale of sunflower seeds, garage-based musical theater production, and neighborhood art gallery, but was less successful with these attempts. I successfully ran my own book business from around age 37 to 51, in partnership with my INFP sister after year 3, but at this juncture it has devolved to just part of an eclectic summer flea market booth venture with my INFP sister and my ENTp baby sister.
3) Treats. One of my favorite childhood books was entitled "Maida's Little Shop." Maida's mother was dead, and her father was a loving, but absentee Libertarian Industrialist. He bought Maida a candy store to run as a hobby, learning exercise, and social outlet. I taught myself how to bake cookies and make candy around age 10. My sisters and I still want to sell homemade pies as part of our flea market venture. From age 14 to 18, I worked part-time at ice cream shop/candy story/hamburger-stand/video arcade which was called The Yum-Yum Tree. I worked at a campus keg store during my college years, but I don't like beer myself, so maybe shouldn't be under this category. I have also been able to barter my general cooking skills for other goods such as free shelter over the years.
4) Books In elementary school, I was not the teacher's pet (too ADHD messy), I was the school librarian's pet. When I was 11, she took me with her on a book buying trip, and I selected many of the new YA titles, such as those by Judy Blume, for the library. When I was 11, I could usually be found after school walking to a babysitting assignment, the 5 and 10 candy store with one of my sisters, carrying home a huge pile of books from the library, exploring the creek or the woods in search of interesting creatures, attempting to build a vending machine out of cardboard and string in my basement lab, or in attendance at some class such as tap dancing or piano lessons. From age 31 to 37, I worked full-time with a few mini-retirement breaks in the mix at the alpha/beta-test location of a giant corporate giant book store chain. As noted above, I then started and operated my own internet based used/rare book business for the next 12-14 years, but rarely put in 40 hours/week. We specialized in books related to lost arts and crafts and science/math, because those were the areas in which our particular knowledge (we were both STEM majors under-grad) was usually greater than that of the other book dealers with whom we competed. Your typical male used/rare book dealer is most likely to hold expertise in the realm of History.
5)The Arts and The Crafts TBC
6) DIY and Frugality TBC
7) Math and Science/Tech TBC
8) Nature and Gardening TBC
9) Human Sexuality and Relationship Theory I think my first semi-conscious, semi-successful barter event in this realm took place around age 12. The kids who lived on my side of the creek running through our suburban subdivision were in a war over one summer with the kids who lived on the other side of the creek. Three brothers around my age had successfully built a quite solid fort on the bank of the creek right behind my house. one fact we knew about them was that their mother was a very large, scary yelling sort of woman. So, we decided that our next offensive move was to plaster their fort with pages from a couple copies of Playboy magazine we had found. on the assumption that their mother might then demand dismantlement of their fort. This move did not prove successful, and actually unexpectedly (clearly not in less naive restrospect) had the effect of causing the three brothers to desire more friendly relations with us. So, the oldest brother showed up on his bike one evening when I was attempting to get the two terrible little boys I was babysitting down from the roof of their tri-level house where they were running around in their Star Wars pajamas, and he helped me get them down. However, that was pretty much the extent of our interaction, because I didn't mature to the level of French kissing on the beach for another 2 years, even though my novel reading level was already quite adult due to the access to books provided by my many babysitting clients.
10) I think that's it. I don't think I have earned any money or engaged in successful barter in any realm I wasn't already interested or engaged in prior to puberty, but maybe I am forgetting something...? Maybe Economic or Ecology? But those are both clearly more abstract or systems-level extensions of Entrenpeurial/Math and Gardening/Science.