my life as a nomad

my work history

you know that part on a job application or a resume where you're supposed to list your most recent job history? i always struggle with that, not because i have a problem with it or anything but because i can never remember exact dates of when i worked where and stuff. most of the trouble stems from the fact that i have had a very large number of jobs in my somewhat short life. and it's not because i've been fired a zillion times either... it's just life happens, you move on, and different jobs are for different times. like, i wouldn't want to be picking green beans for 20 cents a pound right now because (a) it's cold outside, (b) there are no green beans anywhere to be found, and (c) you'd have to pick a ton of green beans (literallly... two thousand pounds) every week in order to gross twenty thousand dollars a year, which isn't a heck of a lot of money. unless you eat nothing but green beans.

so to get to the point, i'm trying to piece together my "work history." which goes back a ways...


(note: this ended up being long and windy. so i recommend just reading the bold headers for a list of places i've worked, instead of reading the accompanying flowery prose. it's way too wordy, but i'm way too lazy to go back and cut and edit. this ends the public service announcement)


-french's market. worked summers there from when i was maybe 10? until about 13? not too sure about when i started or stopped... but i was there two or three summers, picking vegetables and stuff like that. not a bad summer job; i'd ride my bike there (most times my mom and sister would work there too), and on the way back buy a candy bar or a soda or something, which would often be my entire day's profits if the picking wasn't terribly good. mr. french was my piano teacher in later years... he ended up getting married for the first time at the ripe old age of 70-something. quite the chap.

-riverside farm market. once we moved from south china to the waterville area, i needed a new summer job. and lo and behold, i found one. more of the same... picking peas and green beans, as well as doing some hoeing, planting, rototilling, and whatever odd jobs mr. tyler had for me to help him with around the farm. i think i worked there for 3 or mabe even 4 summer... again i'm pretty hazy about my past. i'm horrible with dates. if you asked me when i graduated, i'd have to stop and think for like a minute or two while i worked out the dates... and then finally remember that oh, that's right, i haven't graduated yet (from college, anyways).

-the chore store. worked for them during the year i took off from school between high school and college. part time work, low pay, but it was pretty entertaining. helped do stuff like build a house (well, i didn't do much of the actual building... just lots of runs to the dump, and doing painting and pounding some nails), as well as lots of other stuff i can't remember. they specialized in doing pretty much anything that needed fixing around the house, so my experiences were many and varied. good times.

-garbacik surveyors. this might still be my favorite job ever... another part time job i worked between high school and college. i was seriously thinking about going to school for a degree in serveying (umaine has a super program), so i was pretty excited to take this job. it was a small business, so it was just me and mr. garbacik. he taught me all the tricks of the trade i needed to know to do my job well; how to cut sight lines through the woods, how to set a point, how to measure distances correctly, how to set a pin, blaze and paint, not do constant faceplants while wearing snowshoes... all sorts of awesome stuff. my favorite times were when it was just me, traipsing through the woods, hacking at branches with my machete. i'd hike in, cut a few thousand feet of line through the woods, then hike back out... usually by using my compass to plot my path back to the car. of course, there were hot days, and buggy days, and swamp days, and hot and buggy days when you were in a swamp, but overall it was a pretty amazing job. i still miss it sometimes... and occasionally wonder why i didn't go to school for that. then sometimes i remember why i didn't, and other times i don't. but anyways... i digress.

-u.s. census bureau. also took place in the same time frame as the last two... this was my best-paying job to this point (i think i was making 11 and change an hour, which made me feel like bill gates at the time), but having to deal with government bureaucracy made me want to gag. it took us an entire day of training... AN ENTIRE DAY... to be properly instructed as to how to fill out our daily payroll forms. rediculous. the job itself was fun, mostly... i got to drive around, sometimes to remote places, and depending on which phase of the census we were at i would either (a) drop off a form, (b) stop back to fill out a form with the residents, or (c) keep trying to get the cantankerous, privacy-obsessed individuals to please fill out their census form. i had the misfortune of being at the top of the heap as far as performance rates go after the first couple phases were complete in our area, so i ended up getting shipped out of town to "help" with some amazingly crazy/hard cases. some people are just belligerent... and some people are just hard to track down. anyhow, it was a pretty cool job, except for the fact that the governement has a way of making even the most mundane tasks paperwork-intensive

-blueberry raking. i did this for two summers, sandwiched around my freshman year of college. it usually lasts for about 6 weeks, starting the first part of august through middle september, so it's a good end-of-summer job. when the raking is good the pay can be pretty sweet... it was 3 dollars a box back when i did it, and in a really good day i could get 50 or (on one occasion) as much as 70 or so boxes in a day. some people would get over a hundred on a regular basis, but they were mostly migrant workers who were way more hard-core about it then i was... i'd try and get there at sunrise to beat the heat, but usually only stay till 12 or 1, because by then the heat just gets too insane. one day i'd drank every drop of water i had (2-3 gallons worth) by 11 a.m., and i just decided enough was enough so i drove to a lake and went swimming. wicked hard work... kills your back and your hands. but it's pretty fun, and you get to eat tons of blueberries. a pretty sweet fringe benefit

-alternative warehouse services. i've been there the longest (or, i should say, i was there)... from right after my freshman year (which ended early, in march; long story there) up until about three months ago. that'd four and a half years... an amazingly long tenure in the warehouse world. base pay was decent, but with the performance incentives and bonuses you could get for working fast, accurately, and safely, it turned out to be a really profitable job. that's mostly the reason why i was there so long... helped me get through college, and land on my feet again once i got out. but it was never a job that i did because of the place, or the work, or anything like that... i was there for the paycheck. i mean, not just for that, there were other reasons why i stayed on, but that was the driving motivator. and it payed off pretty well... it was a good job for the time, but i'm glad to have moved on. no offense.

-resident assistant, cedarville. this was a really rewarding and stressful job at the same time... i lucked out because i had pretty much the best group of guys that i could have possibly wished for, but being responsible for fourteen crazy freshmen (and one sophmore) was a little intense. not because i had tons of issues to deal with or anything, but even so you just feel this constant weight of responsibility. you're being held to a higher standard, because you're the one trying to hold everyone to a standard at all in the first place. it was weird at times, amazing at times, and crazy at times, but over all it was wicked awesome... mostly because of the guys. i still keep in touch to some extent with several of them, which to me is pretty much what makes it all worthwhile in the end

-camp squanto. ah yes... finally i realized my lifelong dream of becoming a camp counselor. was it everything i thought it would be? yes... and tons more. in both a good and not-so-good way. it was an amazing summer, in every sense of the word... but i was also stretched, worn, tried and tested in ways i never imagined i would be. but it was awesome. camp squanto is a special place, and you could just feel the presence of God over the course of the summer as he was actively working not only in the lives of the campers, but in the staff too. what a summer... and what an amazing staff. you guys rocked.

-UPS. this is where i work now. i deliver packages to people by bike. it's wicked awesome.



my butt is sore.


from biking.


-noonan-

posted by Patrick @ 11:12 PM