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I'll take that one... Being in business for yourself....
It's bad when you have the worry of keeping the pipeline full, and praying that someone pays you before payday.
It's great, because if all goes well, you get to keep most of the money.
My favorite, most rewarding job was working with juvenile offenders. I usually met them while they were still incarcerated, and would provide rides to their homes when they had a weekend pass. When they were released, I worked closely with them for up to a year to try to insure their success in the community.
Unfortunately, the state budget tightened in the recession and in 2010 my job was eliminated. Haven't really found anything since that provided the sense of satisfaction of my previous job. I very much felt that I was able to make a difference in their lives, and sometimes, the lives of their families as well.
As there is a thread about worst jobs , it is only right we start the reserve thread about what has been our best job so what has been the best job you have ever had in your career?
15 years ago: Creating a multi-disciplinary group working on the bleeding edge of technology. This included recruiting and grooming new grads and others who'd been out of school less then 5 years. The grooming part involved setting up mentoring by more experienced people in the group, some of whom are now deceased. At the time, the most experienced people were in their early 70s.
I am lucky to have had several jobs that were enjoyable.
Restaurant work when I was young, although hectic, we had a lot of fun.
I spent 7 years at IBM where all I had to do was carry a pager (yes, that dates me lol) from 6pm to 6am 7 days on/7 days off. If a piece of network hardware went down, I went to the location and fixed the issue. Only requirement was dropping the pager off and picking it up so the dayshift had it, and being within 30 minutes of an IBM building (They had over 60 buildings in my area at the time). That was almost free money and allowed a LOT of time to work on hobbies. DotCom bust put an end to that one.
I have been a small business owner/partner since 2002 though, and could never go back. I wouldn't even know how to conform to the corporate BS nowadays, and would get fired for insubordination within a week lol.
Summer Stock. Not sure if it counts because I didn't get paid. Had wonderful tasks that I had to preform-painting, picking up cigarette butts, cleaning bathrooms, getting the stage manager coffee. Yeah, I know that sounds like the pits but that was the worst part of the job. The fun part was being back stage during performances-making sure props were where they were supposed to be, etc. I even had a "walk-on" in one play but you didn't see me because it was in between scenes. lol. I also preformed in the children's theatre. Had a blast that summer. Wish I could do that again.
Hands down, my favorite job, that set the bar so high that none other since comes even close, was at a research consortium as an administrative assistant for a group of brilliant scientists, physicists, programmers, etc. Even though the job itself was pretty easy, what I enjoyed was being in a group of highly educated, alternate-thinker brainiacs! It was stimulating to hear just the banter at the water cooler. I am drawn to the sciences, so it was the perfect environment for me.
Also, because it was a high-tech think tank, we were very well paid, treated like royalty, and generally enjoyed the high life with all the perks you can imagine. It was my first "real" job and at the time I didn't know how good I had it. After that job, I went on to have many jobs in different fields. Although some had some of the perks of that first job, none had them all. And none of them ever measured up.
Now I'm on what will probably be my last job and it's probably been the least enjoyable, sad to say. But it's a government job that comes with a pension, so I'm trying to do the responsible thing for my future and push on through to the end. I'm thinking when I retire, I will try to find some little fun, part time jobs that don't have the stress and aggravation of my current job.
Yep, it's true that most govt. jobs do tend to suck. I actually enjoy the job duties that I have, it's just that the culture is so oppressive, managers tend to be clueless, co-workers fairly unmotivated, and environment generally depressing all the way around. Far cry from a free-thinking, creative environment of a think tank.
But some days I sit and daydream about that first, fabulous Camelot job and am grateful that I got to experience such a thing before the think tanks mostly disappeared. Just not the private or govt funding for them nowadays.
Other than that, I think all the goofy summer jobs and internships I had in college were a blast. No pressure, cool peeps, and I didn't have a care cuz I didn't give a crap if they fired me or not! Ah, the bliss of carefree youth!
Last edited by BijouBaby; 07-27-2017 at 04:35 PM..
US Army, hands down the best job I have ever had...and the best people.
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