Jobs I Had Before I Was a Writer
The thing about writers is, until we figure out that we’re actually supposed to spend our lives living in make believe lands and telling pretend stories–we are a little lost. So, we work some pretty interesting jobs. What’s so great about those experiences, though is that they give us a chance to see and learn new things… and that just makes for better stories. So, really we do this for our readers.
Yeah, that’s what I’m going to go with.
I thought maybe today I’d talk a little about some of my old pre-writer professions.
Receptionist at the International Language Building of my College- This was a crazy job, because all the students there were learning English. Yeah, so that means that none of them actually spoke the same language as me. They’d show up, try to explain to me what they wanted with words like dog, cat, and here while I mostly just smiled and nodded. This went both ways. I’d ask them to give me their ID or something and they’d hand me a stick of gum.
Camp Counselor- As far as summer jobs go, this one was the best. I learned to shoot a bow, build a fire, and throw a pot. It was free room and board in the middle of the mountains, and we had a gourmet chef. Of course, I also got a concussion, dysentary and like nine different kinds of poison ivy/oak/whatever. I’m probably going to set my next book there, though–so it wasn’t all that bad.
Phone Sales- Okay, so I can’t really count this one because I only lasted one day. I went in, sat at the little desk they provided me and tried to convince some people to buy coupon books. It was horrible. The boss smelled weird, he yelled a lot that no one was selling the impossible to sell coupons, and the people there made me sad. I went outside for my break and just didn’t go back. That was probably my favorite part.
Video Store Clerk- I got this job because I babysat for the owner of the stores. Well, this just really pissed off the manager, because he didn’t get to hire me himself. He HATED me. I mean seriously, I once caught him in the back of the store telling someone how much he wanted me to just quit. Asshole. I went home sick one day and he called the store owner to tell him he caught me at McDonalds! Ugh, I want to call that guy and call him names right now.
Kmart Floor Associate- Let me be clear that this was one of my favorite jobs ever. I worked here during high school, and I loved it. My favorite part? Um, duh….
Yeah, I got to announce to an entire store that socks and panties were just ten cents each. I loved talking on that intercom. Truth is, if I have a cocktail or two, you can convince me to do this on pretty much any microphone anywhere.
I never should have admitted that.
I remember when you worked at K-Mart! Seems like everyone worked there.
My jobs:
-interned at a newspaper (Azle News!)
– at a daycare
– B. Dalton bookstore
– Applebee’s
– Harris Methodist Home Health (first as a file clerk, later doing data entry)
– keyholder, then an asst. mgr. at Museum Company
– worked for a VERY short time at a software company
– temped at the Fort Worth Municipal Courts as a data entry clerk
– Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra ticket office (my best friend is now the office mgr.)
– Barnes & Noble for a long time (my favorite job)
– Fort Worth Library as a circulation clerk
– Arlington Public Library, in charge of teen and adult services at my branch
Holy crap. I’ve had a lot of jobs.
@Amy, You worked at the Azle News? How freakin’ cool is that???
In my mind they were like newsies in there, and there was totally a jimmy olson or a clark kent. Please don’t ruin this illusion for me. 🙂
@Jamie, Okay. I won’t say anything to ruin the illusion. =)
Yeah, Bob Buckel called and asked if I would come intern over the summer. I even got paid!
Everyone there was very, very nice. I just didn’t get to do the stuff they said I would. I mostly did classifieds, then one day near the end of the summer they made me go interview an elderly man who collected marbles. I kid you not. He was a very nice man and he actually had some interesting stories about the marbles (different countries he’d been to when he purchased them, etc.), but I was really disappointed that that was the only real story they let me work on.
Ah, well. It was really cool to help out on press days. I loved that part!
Are you really going to set your next book at summer camp?! Let me know when it’s out…of course, I have a special place in my heart for summer camp!
.-= Alden´s last blog ..- =-.
Oddly I’ve had very few random jobs before writing.
Radioshack to Sprint, Sprint to ‘Graphic Designer’, and now AutoCAD Designer–and a writer on the side. I’ve weaved a pretty strong art career in there as well but really that’s it.
.-= Jeannie´s last blog ..Writing Prompt: Siblings =-.
@Jeannie, oh I bet Radio Shack was super fun. Did you get to drive the remote control cars?
note to self… next time i see you…bring cocktails and mic.
@andie, HAHA I am so in.
Teaching high school. A lot of fodder for writing there.
@Lois, highs school teachers are so lucky!~ it’s instant plot!
I have not had that many jobs. I worked the little league concession stands for a few summers, which was mostly fun except when yucky old men hit on me. The frito pies were awesome though. I worked as a fundraiser, calling people who had given money to the GOP and asking them to contribute to Rick Perry’s campaign in 1998. I lasted about two days I think, and the lady said my resignation letter was so good I should be a writer! Ha! I ran study sessions for government in college, and was a student secretary. Boring.
.-= nicole´s last blog ..Menu Plan Monday: Feb. 22 =-.
@nicole, ohmigosh… we had these frito pies that we made right in the frito bag… they were SOOO yum!
I had a phone sales job selling typewriter ribbon…for about 3 hours. They rang a buzzer and cheered every time someone was tricked into buying. It was awful. I quit. Worst. Job. Ever. I didn’t even get paid for my 3 hours 😉
@Sherrie Petersen, haha yes that’s how that telephone sales job I HAD ! It was so horrible!
The best job I ever had was managing a dry cleaners. My boss even brought in a play pen when I had my first baby.
The craziest jobs I had were working in a gas station, and my on-campus jobs at BYU.
The scariest job was houseboat inventory at a resort in a national park. Most of the guys I worked with were on drugs, and there were several who sexually harassed me every day. A couple of them even threatened to throw my supervisor in the lake for interfering because they knew he couldn’t swim.
@Myrna, holy crap that IS a scary job!!!
.-= Jamie Harrington´s last blog ..Jobs I Had Before I Was a Writer =-.
@Jamie Harrington,
Yeah. I only lasted a little over a month.
Loved the comic and the K-mart story. 🙂
My parents wanted me to have a summer job during college and my crackhead friend convinced me to apply for a job in a nursing home, so we could work together. He said it was going to all milk and cookies and chatting with the elderly. Well…it was really eight hour shifts of back busting, demoralizing, heartbreaking work. Those poor old folks. Those poor underpaid undocumented poopoo pad cleaners.
Lemme tell you, if you need a lesson in humility, work in a nursing home. Or live in one.
Gah!
I can hardly even walk into a nursing home anymore.They are sad places which smell of pee and loneliness. I can’t imagine doing that to my parents or grandparents!
If I get that old, I’ll take up sky diving.
.-= @jmartinlibrary´s last blog ..COURAGE =-.
@jmartinlibrary, oh man that is a job I could never EVER have!!!
.-= Jamie Harrington´s last blog ..Jobs I Had Before I Was a Writer =-.
I was a teacher and a copy-editor/ writer. Pretty standard, huh?
But its the people and events that provide material for stories, which count.
Any interests/ hobbies that you have as an individual also fuel your writing
.-= E.Lee´s last blog ..Zen Pen =-.
@E.Lee, I think that’s VERY true. I don’t know how many times I’ve used a real life person as the basis for one of the characters in my stories!
Jamie…I really miss that scrapbook job too. It was so much fun, and I got to meet super cool people like you!
.-= Carin´s last blog ..Projects =-.
@Carin, yeah… I miss scrapbooking. I haven’t done it for like three years.. well, since the pad closed down. That was the last time I ever opened up a scrapbook!
I worked at K-Mart too! And seriously, probably the best job ever. They paid you in cash so you could spend it on the way out the door AND they truly did have the best intercom system. I worked in the apparel department so I actually did a blue-light special on super-size bras for $2.99. I have never been more thankful for being a C cup more than that day.
.-= Jeanie´s last blog ..Miserable Muses. =-.
@Jeanie, HAHA YES! We got these things called Mart bucks, for whenever we did anything awesome and then we could spend them on gift cards. I used to do ANYTHING for mart bucks…
@Jamie, I’m guessing you worked with Michael Patrick sometimes? If you did not already know, I had the BIGGEST crush on him for about 2 years (although most of the time I just yelled at him and called him names, even when he would give me a ride home from school).
Anyway, I went into K-Mart one day with my stepmom so I could buy some new bras. I actually had one in my hand and was holding it up to my chest when Michael walked by and just stopped and looked at me. He’s so freakin’ tall I could never have hidden from him. So I just smiled really big like I was dying of embarrassment and said, “What do you think about this one?”
He just gave me a thumbs up and a wink and walked on. WHEW!
@Jamie, I meant to type: So I just smiled really big like I was NOT dying of embarrassment. . .
Oops. =)
@Amy, HAHAHAHAI actually hung out a LOT with Michael Patrick while working at the Big Red K, and let me assure you that probably totally made his day.
My most interesting job was probably delivering singing telegrams. People would get so embarrassed, even though I was the one singing the crappy song. And no, I can’t sing. I just looked cute in the outfit and my 20 year old boss had a crush on me.
I also got to be giant cartoon characters. Not fun. Very hot. And guess what? Little kids are terrified of a giant Dora with huge blank eyes.
My current job is as a professional face-painter but I rarely get any actual work so you could say I’m unemployed. I do a lot of volunteer work with the face-painting though, and every now and then it leads to an actual paid party, which makes me very happy. 🙂
@Callie Forester, I SO want to be a face painter. I bet that’s the bomb. Sometimes I paint up my daughter’s face just for the fun of it.
Wait, that’s lame… I never should have admitted that. 🙂
@Jamie, Not lame at all! I taught myself how to do it, using books and online tutorials. I’m good at it now. It’s fun, especially when you get little kids that are really happy with it.
My kids got tired of being face-painted really fast though!
I’ve had several different jobs….none that I think are that interesting.
I’ve done the fast food thing, waited tables, bartended, admin assistant, file clerk at a dr.’s office, the “everything” at the scrapbook store, and now office manager. woo-friggin’-hoo!
.-= Carin´s last blog ..Projects =-.
@Carin, but the scrapbook job was super cool. I was always so jealous of your awesomeness!
I remember being deeply crushed when I first read the statistic that less than 10% of authors get to “quit the day job” even after they’re published. Sadly, I’m nowhere near that yet.
But I’ve held plenty of interesting jobs. Most of my grown-up “professional” jobs have been in marketing, but before that I spent time as a dog-washer for a grooming boutique, a salesgirl for a fireworks stand, a bartender, and an English teacher in Venezuela.
My dream is that I’ll someday be able to make the writing thing pay the bills. Until then, maybe I should print up some business cards that say “writer” and just pretend!
Tawna
.-= Tawna Fenske´s last blog ..Deeply proufound lessons from my weekend =-.
@Tawna Fenske, my daughter wants to be a groomer when she grows up. hehe I try to convince her otherwise, but she’s pretty insistent.
Jobs! I have had many.
Doctor’s Office Receptionist: Get yelled at by old sick people on the phone and in person all day long. The best! Only perk: sometimes you actually help someone for real, and that feels amazing.
DJ Dancer: You know that girl at a sweet 16 or Bar/Bat Mitzvah who was encouraging the kids to dance? Yea, that was me. I grew up in Jersey and it’s safe to say that I basically had co-workers that were destined to be on the cast of Jersey Shore. You can fill in the blanks.
Claire’s Sales Associate: I cared so damn much about this store and about selling their products. WAY TOO MUCH. How did they repay me? By “writing me up” every time someone I knew came into the store and talked to me. I even got written up when random dudes hit on me. My friends always bought something before leaving and I loved that job more than anyone should. I quit before they could fire me.
Waitress at a dessert cafe: Best job ever. “The Chocolate Room.” Homemade Brooklyn creations. High quality everything. AMAZING staff, great customers. I still go back and fill in sometimes just for fun, not for money (I mean, they pay me, but..) I’ve become a total chocolate snob, and I love it.
I have too many more, but those are some highlights :o)
<3 M
@Smush21, okay I love the DJ dancer job. That sounds WAY too cool for words. haha I want that job NOW!
The things I learn about you on your blog! I love it.
I’m not so interesting since I only had like 3 jobs. My first was a library aide putting books away and shelf reading (making sure every book is in it’s place–BORING). That might actually make for an interesting setup in a story since I kept it a secret from my friends. lol
Then came my career in visual merchandising with Nordstrom. A total blast from the beginning. The fact that a group of extremely creative and talented people worked together was fun on its own, but when put us in a window, dressing mannequins watch out. And the store openings and manager meetings. We had more fun then should be allowed at work. I could easily write an entire book about the seven years I spent moving around the country, the cool stuff we did at work, and the awesome people I met. Good times.
Maybe I should go write some of this stuff down now. ; )
.-= Rebecca´s last blog ..Before YA was YA =-.
@Rebecca, Man think of the chicklit possibilities!
See, I think that librarian would be a really cool job if you NEVER had to shelf books but OMG I would hate hate hate that part of it!