To All The Gigs I've Loved Before...

It seems to me that Labor Day almost always comes to mean “Manual Labor Day” for me.  Mostly self-inflicted, to be sure, because as someone who has found her way to a comfortable indoor desk gig that follows a Monday through Friday schedule, weekends and holidays have become the most obvious time to mow the lawn and do the work that doesn’t get done the rest of the week.

This is not a complaint (mostly) because I’m happy to be in the position to have a regular schedule.  That doesn’t happen for everyone and it hasn’t always been that way for me.  So this Labor Day, as I was mowing the weeds that pose as my lawn, I ran through the list of jobs I’ve done this far in my life.  I’m quite sure I missed some of the little things – temp jobs or day labor, but the list is basically this:

• Hotel maid – I was 13 years old and I got the gig through my dad, who was the maintenance man.  Beachfront motel, catering to Spring Breakers and partiers.  To this day, this remains the hardest I have physically worked in my life.
• House cleaner – helping my sister in law for a bit of cash
• Wallpaper helper – ditto above.  My brother the painter and his wife the paper hanger stayed busy and enabled me to have a bit of pocket dough.
• Amusement park – ride operator, costume character - truly, is there a better job for a teen!?  On the beach, surrounded by shiny happy people, working with friends, making sure everyone is having fun.  Beat that, McDonalds!  You can't.
• Waffle House waitress – at the time, this was not an easy gig to land!  There were only two in the county and a winter job was hard to come by.  There was a test!
• Counter person at Wiener World – Come on.  That’s just funny.  I loved that gig.
• Walmart cashier – Again, just looking for something to carry me through the winter.  Walmart was new to my town, so this gig was a score!  Time and a half if I worked Sundays or Holidays!
• Pharmacy clerk – As a fish out of water, suddenly in Philadelphia and away from my beach, I hadn’t worked in months.  This gig is the first and last before getting out of there!
• Waitress – Back at the beach.  What else was I going to do?
• Insurance Telemarketer – Torture.  I learned within about a week that I was not meant for sales and telemarketing was soul-sucking.
• Waitress - Naturally
• Cocktail waitress/shooter girl – Many of the places now featured on MTV spring break and debauchery shows are places I called “employer”.  When wearing a holster filled with lemon drops didn’t pay off, I may or may not have partnered with the bouncers to profit from confiscated fake IDs.  Allegedly.
• Waitress – Now in Colorado, serving up slabs of steak to cowboys fresh off the range.
• Receptionist/data entry/Factory packer – or whatever assignment the temp agency sent me on that day.
• Hostess – Fancy schmancy French restaurant.  Out of my element.
• Cocktail Waitress – Bow tie wearing, neon and blacklight, bass-thumping nightclub.
• Hotel Desk Clerk – At last, something I planned and intended to do! 
• Hotel Reservationist/Desk Manager/Sales Rep/Night Auditor/Room service attendant/ Controller/etc. – That’s the thing about a family owned business.  You do it all.  And this place shaped me in so many ways.
• Hotel software installer/trainer/support rep/etc. – The Tumbleweed Days.  My family rarely knew where I was, but the airline miles were sweet.
• Waitress – Road weary, serving up ribs was a pretty good alternative.
• Hotel reservationist/sales weasel – Back to what I knew.
• FM Radio Disc Jockey – What!?!  Yeah.  The end of pre-clear channelized radio when radio was grand.  What an awesome adventure! 
• Hair Model/Voice Over Artist – Hey – I had good hair and a nice voice.
• Voice Over Artist – They paid me for this stuff!
• Exec. Assistant in corporate America/Voice Over Artist – OK, they didn’t pay much, and I had bills to pay.
• Advertising Everything – administrative, Copywriter, Producer, Makeup artist, Planner, ,etc. – Tiny agency with growing client.  Some days I was writing, some days I was picking up trash from a set.  This evolved into bigger bosses and less fun, but was a pretty good ride that built a nice career.
• Stay at Home Mom – Not a thing I ever intended to do, but that’s the way  it played out and the timing was right.
• Copywriter – Because those cellphone plans aren’t going to sell themselves!  They need words!
• Nonprofit Monkey – It’s got a fancier moniker, but that’s maybe a bit more accurate.  Handshaking, Butt-Kissing, Organizational Wizard for a Cause doesn’t fit as nicely on the business card.

Life would be so much easier if I could just use that as my resume without all the fancy timelines, terms and formatting because that really paints a much more accurate picture of me.  The truth is, I’ve been a really lucky girl.  While there have been moments without glamour, and days I couldn’t wait to end, I’ve never had to dig ditches or wallow in sludge.

My brothers have done jobs that are just unfathomable to me.  While I know what they did, my brain just won’t wrap easily around it.  Roofing and truck driving and even garbage pickup, sure.  I can imagine that.  Hauling dead animals in summer heat, working deadly jobs on oil rigs, and so much more that they’ve done just makes my head spin.  So I’ll go back to my cushy chair in my cushy office when this holiday is over, and just be grateful for those who paved the road that got me there.

Happy Labor Day, and thank you to all who do those things that I take for granted every day.