Strange Brew
January 8th, 2009
For some reason, I’ve been thinking recently about some of the odd things I’ve done to make money. In college, especially, I had several different work study jobs, most of which were really random and hardly related to each other.
For instance, occasionally I was employed as the driver of a shuttle van that ran between WCC and Rider. It was one of those big white passenger vans, and I remember I had to go down to Rider and drive an empty van around the campus with this maintenance guy in order to prove that I was not reckless. I only did that a handful of times, but I think it helped make me more sympathetic to bus drivers and others who have to shuttle strangers around all day.
Another thing I did there was to make outgoing solicitation calls for the annual fund-raising campaign. I hated this job and was never any good at it, but for some reason I think I did it for two years at least. My memory may be faulty on that, though. The Hecktown Kappelmeister also did this job, and given his outgoing personality was probably much better at it than I. He was also involved in one infamous incident which you should ask him about next time you talk to him. It’s sort of funny, but mostly appalling, though you will laugh, I think.
I was also an usher in the concerts department, meaning I would, um, usher at concerts. Okay, I guess that one is self-explanatory. The only nerve-racking part of that job was when I’d have to walk out on stage in-between songs and fiddle with the piano lid while everyone in Bristol Chapel watched in complete silence. Had I tripped, or dropped the lid, or whatever, it would have been funny to remember now, but probably embarrassing at the time.
I did a lot of things with mail in my collegiate career. I ended up working in the two mailrooms on campus, the main mailroom and the student mailroom. In the main mailroom, I had to answer the main college switchboard and also help sort all of the incoming mail for students, faculty and staff. The only good thing about that place being so small was that you could sort every piece of mail coming into campus by hand, and you knew the name of each recipient, and you knew whether they were a student or teacher or staff member just from memory. Working in the student mailroom (where the HK also worked – hey, was he following me around or something?) was all about seeing how fast you could get the “entire” student body’s mail put out. The “entire” 300 or so of us. If you picked it up at the beginning of your shift, you could have it all done in 30 to 45 minutes flat, maybe even less now that I think about it. And every day someone would be expecting a package that had not yet arrived, and every day we would have to tell people “no, there’s really no package back here for you” because I guess they thought we were lying or hiding it from them.
I remember I took the job of answering the main college switchboard on the night shift, when the offices were all closed and when no one ever called, so I got a lot of personal phone calls made during those shifts. Don’t worry, I used a calling card, so the school didn’t pay for it. Sheesh, you people are way too quick to suspect the worst.
The main thing I was known for at WCC, though, was my three or four years in the Dean of Students office, again with the HK. That was a lot of fun, as the people who worked in that office were a lot of fun. Plus that office had, I think, the only computer connected to the internet on the entire campus. This was the early 90s, remember.
And then there was the time I did some light industrial work for a professor so that she would pass me in German, but we don’t need to go into that.
After college, there was the stint at B Dalton, the stints at the various Borders, and on and on. Fast forward to the fall of 2000 here in Oregon, and I remember the seasonal job I took at a Suncoast video store at one of the local malls. And then I remember that one day a lady came in and asked if we had “you know, that movie with Rick Moranis, and they’re Canadian, and it’s about beer.” Of course, I knew right away that she was talking about the inimitable Strange Brew.
All of this is to say that I’ll pretty much do anything for money. And not very good money, either.
On a completely unrelated note, as I have some money this month, the hosting for this site is now paid up through 2011. So, please look forward to at least two more years of CADdy goodness.
Filed under: My Life
January 10th, 2009 at 6:24 am
Interesting reflections.Strange that you would be doing this now.I was cleaning out files this past week and found some of your old tax returns from 90’s ( which I have shredded) – you did work at various things AND you always had a church job that paid well for a student.In fact you made pretty good money a couple of years.Since I save return for 10yrs I have kept your ‘ 98 and ‘99 returns still. I was still helping you do them back then and we did returns for various states since you lived and worked across state lines.
I am trying to catch up on things I normally might have completed earlier in 2008 but got little done other than medical care .
It is SNOWING today so Dad and I will get a lot done inside….we are not going out.It is beautiful white fluffy Ohio winter snow and we are to get quite a bit.I worked at Grdmas Thurs and put away her Christmas so I will do ours this weekend.We haven’t had much snow yet this winter so we don’t mind this .Lots of things being cancelled etc.
Hope your weekend is a good one …..