Do What You Love
I LOVE MY LIFE!
I want to start this post with that statement of fact.
But I haven’t always felt that way.
On more than one occasion, over the course of my life, I’ve experienced… judgment…or disapproval over the fact that I have done so many things with my career rather than sticking with one nine-to-five JOB.
You know…all those “benefits” and retirement plans and all.
And to be truthful, sometimes it’s made me feel a little bad about myself, wondering if I would have been better off sticking it out at one of the many companies where I was employed.
There Have Been More Than A Few
Now, mostly for my own amusement…because I’ve wanted and intended to make this list for a long time now, here are all of the jobs I’ve ever had (at least, that I can remember, lol!) This list may not be comprehensive, but it’s pretty darn close –
My very first job, when I was seven years old, was picking cherries at a local orchard in Orem, Utah.
If I remember correctly, I earned 2 cents a pound and only got paid when the season ended. I might have made $20 or something like that.
Every morning, I got up at the break of dawn (I don’t recall having an alarm clock) and got dressed, and out the door, all by myself. I then walked 8-10 blocks to the orchard, where I was responsible for moving the giant ladders from tree to tree, climbing up high into the branches, and loading up the tin bucket with sweet, dark cherries. I loved being up in the trees, the sun shining through the leaves. And a HUGE benefit of that job was that I got to eat my fill of the delicious fruit as I was picking.
My Next Job Was Babysitting
My next job, at eight years old, was babysitting for some of the local neighbors. I know, right? But it’s true. People hired me at that young age to watch their children. And that was my primary source of spending money until I turned 14. That’s when I got my first “real” job working as a counter person at the Sizzler restaurant, again, in Orem. I worked there until our family moved away to Long Island, NY, when my dad got hired by Sikorsky Aircraft in Connecticut. He was an aeronautical engineer who worked on government contracts for most of my childhood. I’ll talk more about that in another post. But for now, I’ll say that we didn’t end up staying in New York very long because the contract ended far sooner than we expected.
Sooo…Back To Utah, We Went
My next job was at a small restaurant in the University Mall food court called The Yankee Doodle. I think they went out of business. But it was a scoop ice cream and hot dogs kind of joint.
Then, back to Sizzler, where I stayed until I got married and my husband joined the Army. That event radically altered the course of my life and allowed me to move away from home and family for the first time. I was 18 years old.
His first duty station was at Fort Lewis, WA. There I got a part-time job as a counter person at a little sub-sandwich shop. I don’t even remember the name of that place, but I didn’t work there long. Then a brief stint at another, more full-service restaurant, where I was a waitress for about a minute, lol. I also got to do some modeling in the evening for fashion shows they hosted, which was a fantastic experience for me since my teenage dream was to become a fashion model.
