I’m 97% sure this will be the post that comes back to haunt me, but whatever. That sounds like a problem for future me. Honestly, I’m a job slut. I’m at a point in life where I’ve had so many jobs. Some just one day stands. I can’t even remember some of them, or the correct timeline of when I had them. Sometimes I even had more than one at a time. I’m a sad job whore. But let me do my best to present you with my completely incomplete job history as I recall it.
1. Carny
Every year my home town had a big street fair and every year I spent all of my money on that game where you put a quarter in and it pushes the other quarters forward. When I was 13 I was compulsively shoving quarters into this game and got to know the guy who ran it. He asked me if I wanted to work for him through the weekend. I don’t remember how much he paid me but I remember then it felt like A LOT of money. Which I probably spent on candy.
2. Babysitter
My little brother was born a week before my 14th birthday. My mother was very happy to have a live-in babysitter for him. I baby sat him steadily for at least 6 years.
3. Mailboxes Etc
I was 14 and Mailboxes ETC hired me for a special project they were doing. It was week-long assignment boxing jars of peanut butter and chocolate bars together for some Nick at Nite promotion.
4. McDonalds
I often say this was my first job. I was 15. I started working there because I had a crush on a guy from school who worked there, and I’ve never admitted that until now. I acted like “Oh you work here too? Wow that’s so weird…I didn’t know that…” I lasted 6 weeks there. My parents went on vacation and left me with all this money. While I was working, someone went through my purse and took it. I was pissed and quit with no notice.
6. Coffee Beanery
Babysitting became lucrative and clearly I was traumatized by being stolen from at McDonalds so I didn’t get another job until I was 18. I quit college, came home, and got a job at this coffee place at a mall. This was before Starbucks was a thing, and before working in a coffee place was cool. I smelled really good after each shift. I quit this job with no notice because they asked me to work on Halloween, which I found simply sacrilegious.
7. The Movie Theater
I started this job a month after previous entry. This theater was in my hometown and I had wanted to work there forever. It was finally happening. Free movies, free popcorn and it was the cool place to work. Just before Christmas, their busiest weekend, they asked me to clean out the bathroom. I worked concession and didn’t feel like this was in my job description. Before I started the task I asked if I could take a quick break. I went outside to smoke and a friend of mine drove by. I flagged her down and jumped in her car. I screamed “GO! GO! GO!” and we drove off. I never went back.
8. Contempo Casuals
I’m not 100% positive where this falls in the timeline, but I think it’s here. I was still 18. I was shopping at this store with some friends at a mall not very close to my house. The manager was very impressed with how I acted like a personal shopper to my friends. I was getting them to buy a lot of things. She offered me a job on the spot. I went one day. I had no car, and the journey to get there by bus was painful. I never went back, but I kept my Contempo Casuals lanyard as my key chain for the next 11 years.
8. Mall Kiosk Con Artist
Still 18. This was when I moved to Alachua, FL (which I talk about *HERE*.) I struggled to find a job. I’m trying to think of the short version of this story… Ok so I got this one job. This guy at a kiosk was only in town for two weeks. He hired me temporarily to sell these “photo packages” for $21 and for each package sold I got $7. The photographer would be there for two days only, so I was to pre-sell the packages and book appointments for the weekend he was in town. So I only sold like 2 or 3 packages. The day before the photographer was coming, the guy I worked for made this whole big deal about how something happened and it turned out the photographer wasn’t going to make it and oh no what are we going to do and then he just wasn’t there the next day. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
9. Flea Market
So I wanted to come back to NY but couldn’t afford it because I couldn’t find a job, so my best friend’s grandparents offered to fly me back if I agreed to work at their booth in the local flea market until I paid them back. Their booth sold personalized baby clothes and gifts as well as special occasion wear for children. I worked here for a lot of months, but don’t really remember how long. I paid off my bestie’s grandparents and made good money working there. I worked with another woman who I got along with well. But one night she left me for a long time while she went to flirt with some guy. I called her out on it when she came back, She got really nasty about it and yelled at me until I creid. I was too scared to go back and face her, so I quit with no notice.
10. Answering Service
I got this job at age 19 upon finally accepting college was not for me. Here the time line gets fuzzy again for several reasons, but partly because this job overlapped with the job below and maybe the job above too and it’s possible there was another job in there that I just completely forgot. This job was an answering service for doctors offices and home health care agencies. When it was busy it went fast, when it was slow we had a lot of fun. I had a boyfriend, but started a relationship with a coworker who had a girlfriend….who recently stopped working there a few weeks after I started. DRAMA! This blew up in my face when his girlfriend found out about us and came back one night to confront me. She also still had a lot of friends there, so that sucked. We got called into HR, but had no work-related consequences. He got dumped though. I decided to tell my boyfriend about it. He was pissed until I told him I’d quit the job if it made him feel better. Which I did. However… the relationship actually didn’t end for a while after that…. But that’s another story.
11. Children’s Special Occasion Boutique
I’m still 19. The flea market I worked out closed down, and my best friend’s grandparents decided to move their business into a legitimate store all its own. Being in a store, they could greatly expand the special occasion aspect and it was very lucrative. To this day it is still an incredibly popular store on Long Island. The woman who had scared me into quitting was fired for stealing so my bestie’s grandparents approached the both of us with a proposition: Would we like to be co-managers? We sure did. I worked there a few years, until I was 23. Some of the best years of my life happened during this time. My bosses taught me everything I know about business and customer service. I am so grateful to have had this opportunity to work with my best friend and learn the ins and outs of running a business. I quit for a few personal reasons, but one of those reasons was that I had an open audition to be a radio DJ for a new radio station and had no doubt in my mind I was going to get it. I didn’t.
12. File Clerk
So I got a job in a file room for a small commercial insurance company. I worked there about a year. I got fired. Yeah…I don’t want to tell that story. It was bad. Don’t date anyone you work with.
13. Collection Agency Posing as a Law Firm
So I’m 24 and I have rent to pay. After I got fired a friend of mine got me into the place where she worked. It seemed to really think it was a law firm, but it was really a collection agency. My friend had a good job there. I worked in clerical. I was so poor because it was around this time I also lost my car due to non-payment of my car insurance. One of the lawyers took a liking to me and gave me some extra work to do for overtime. Totally unnecessary work just so I could make extra money. And he also bought me stuff like clothes…. and he would call me into his office just to talk about his family…and it was weird. And a girl who sat near me would chew her gum loudly and pop bubbles all day long. HELL NO. I called my mom to warn her I was quitting and would probably need some financial help. Then I quit with no notice. Then I hopped on a train and rode to the city and back just contemplating why my life sucked so bad.
14. Receptionist
I worked this job while working the above job. I’m 25 and working two jobs, but I think there was a third mingled in there somehow. I met these three guys in the bar below my apartment. They worked for this real estate company and thought I was cute so they hired me as the weekend receptionist. I literally just sat at a desk and played Collapse and Brick Breaker for 8 hours, then went home. I think I quit this job just because it was so boring.
15. Actress
Around this same time, I auditioned for a play and got the part. At the end of the run we were paid $50. I’m counting this.
16. Pacsun
I finally used my experience from the boutique to land a job as a retail manager for Pacific Sunwear. There were things I loved and things I hated. I moved up quickly from assistant manager to store manager. I worked here until I was 28. One day I was helping train a new manager for another location and found out he made $10k more than me because he had a college degree. I put in my two weeks. My district manager talked me into sticking around another month. A few days before my last day I left early and the store got robbed. My district manager felt if I my heart was no longer in it, than it would be better for me to just not finish out my notice.
17. Bookstore
A little while later I got a manager job at a major bookstore and it was THE DREAM! I had always wanted to work for this company and with books! Well…. it took me about 4 weeks to admit to myself that I hated it. My biggest problem was being on my feet all day, which I was very used to, but I wasn’t allowed to wear sneakers. Only dress shoes. I quit with no noticed citing an imaginary life event that I can’t remember.
18. Freelance Blogger
So I went back to college at age 28. Actually my first time in school was so brief and unsuccessful I think I should just say “I went to college.” During this time I did some freelance blogging related to a popular TV show that I spent almost ever second of every summer watching. I made a small stipend for each article I wrote for a website related to this show.
19. Writing Tutor
During this time I also worked as a tutor at my college’s writing center. I liked this, but when I had to work and didn’t have appointments booked it really sucked. And some of the students were very unpleasant to work with. I worked here until I graduated.
20. Bookstore
The holiday season before my last semester I decided to go back to the same bookstore from before, different location, as a seasonal employee. That was a dumb thing. I remembered after the second day how much I hated it. I gave it three weeks. I think I gave them the same imaginary life event that I can’t remember from above when I quit. Over the phone. During the Christmas season. Man, I sometimes feel bad for all the imaginary family members I’ve killed over the years.
21. NY PIP Adjuster/Coach
I graduated after 3 1/2 years and almost immediately got a job at an extremely popular car insurance company. I worked the personal injury side claims. At one point I worked specifically with cases that were red-flagged for fraud. That was really cool. But this place really sucked to work for. The people were awesome though. I made a lot of waves there, most memorably disrupting a meeting accusing upper management of “dropping bombs on us one right after the other and expecting us to take it.” What did they do? Promoted me. This was smart because this put me in a place where I was forced to agree with everything management said, none of which I agreed with. In my head I was going to lead my people in the revolution against the man, but now I was the man. And also there was no revolution. Offices are weird places. The tension at my job built up to near explosion, which only contributed to my decision to move to another state.
22. Customer Service Representative
And I actually transferred with the same company when I moved to Florida. Unfortunately, my role did not exist in the Florida office and the only thing they had available was Customer Service Representative. This job literally made me want to die. Also the commute was over an hour, more in traffic. I started interviewing at another insurance company and felt it was a lock, so I put in my two weeks notice. Typically at this company when you put in your two weeks notice to go to another insurance company they just let you leave and pay you for the last two weeks. But they didn’t let me go. So I started acting out, being rude to customers, cursing out my boss, until they had no choice but to let me go. In total I worked for this company for over 2 years. To this day I still hate lizards.
23. Auto Liability Claims Adjuster
So I started working at a much more prestigious car insurance company. I was very proud to work for this company. Everyday I would walk past this guy desk where he had a stuffed eagle with a lizard in its mouth. They treated their employees like bronze stars. My sister got me the job and I was grateful for it. But ya know what? Turned out I just hated working in the insurance industry. I quit just after 1 year. I gave notice, but they decided to just let me go the same day.
24. Science Museum Character
So I decided to “find myself.” I got a job at a local science museum. They had this great thing where the people who worked there did science shows and dressed like steam punk characters. But that instant I started working there everything kind of went downhill for this place. The woman in charge was a mess. The people I worked with were passionate and friendly. Really bright and enthusiastic folk. I think this place may have murdered all of our spirits though. I was paid very little here so I as took on other jobs, I worked here less. Until one day I officially quit.
25. Scareactor
Halloween is huge here, and during the summer of 2016 a girl from my about job encouraged me to audition for a “scareactor” role at a major theme park. This was probably the most fun I have ever had at a job. The money was great, the hours were pretty good. I loved everything about it. I was an evil teddy bear dressed as a clown and I scared the shit out of A LOT of people. If I could I would do this every year. Hell I would do it in my free time if I didn’t think I’d get shot.
26. Stylist (Sales Rep at a Bridal Store)
And at the same time as both of the above jobs, I also started working as a “stylist” at what is this country’s most well-known bridal store. This just meant I was a sales rep. Why do places have to give their worker’s stupid fancy titles? So dumb. The commission at this job was god awful. It was one of those “tiered” commission type dealies. Don’t ask me to explain it. I still don’t get it. Anyway, I worked here until my sister got a discount on her wedding dress then I just stopped going. Before I managed to get the discount on my bridesmaid dress. Dumb.
27. Marketing/Development
So now I have a job I really love in marketing and development which…is funny because it really encompasses all of my above-stated experiences put together in a really weird way. I’m not giving any details because I currently work there, and would like to remain doing so, but I’ve been there over a year and I feel challenged and satisfied. It is very comparable to The Office.
So that’s my informal resume. I left some minor scams and schemes out, but I think 27 examples gives you the general gist. Writing this has kind of made me feel like something is very wrong with me. I’m feeling a bit insecure. I really am a dirty job whore.
To feel better about this I will decide to remind myself that the past is the past. I’m a better, different person now. The last few times I have had to write my résumé my head just about exploded. Obviously I know not to put all this on there, but its a very hard resume to write.
27 just feels so dirty. I would love to hear everyone else’s numbers.