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I already posted, but another neat job was working at a summer resort. One afternoon we were all sitting in a room putting sets of silverware together for the nightly buffet dinner.
The resort owner came in and asked if anyone here knew how to drive a standard. Naively, I raised my hand. Well, I was ushered away and put into the driver's seat of a car. They then informed me that it was an amphibious vehicle and that I was going to give rides to people! Take them along the road and then pull the handle before driving right into the lake! ...and don't worry, we've put the plug in securely.
If I'd had more time to think about it, I would have refused. But I picked up a few passengers, including two nuns. Drove them right into the lake. Didn't know what on earth I was doing...no safety instruction, no life jackets, nothing. I succeeded in getting all of us back on terra firma but later on I did receive an angry lecture from the guy who was towing the water skiers. Made me mad because I was only doing what they told me to do and I was young and mostly clueless. For having a stupid and potentially dangerous task like that thrown at me, I think I did pretty well! And the nuns had a great time, laughed all the way through it.
(maybe this should be under Strangest Job You Ever Had--but it was fun except in retrospect.)
#1 - 3 years working for a job that let me travel a lot & meet very interesting folks in all sorts of places recording all sorts of entertaining & interesting things that I would probably never meet or travel to otherwise. I was always conscious of the fact that it would be the best job of my life & I appreciated it.
#2 - In my 20's at a major university I worked for a year or two as a film projectionist for the school's movie theater, essentially an art house cinema. It was by some accounts the biggest film program like this in the US at that time & I got to see several hundred films of all types with very little work involved... until some old film broke or started unspooling in the booth. As a young cinephile it was a dream job.
(I had several horrible years later on in life so really things kinda balanced out...)
My part time job with the Alaska Air National Guard. I was a C-130 loadmaster and got to travel all over the world. Some of my more memorable missions include going to Iwo Jima, where we got to go to the top of Mount Suribachi and see the memorial dedicated to the flag raisers seen in the iconic Joe Rosenthal photo; went to Vietnam and witnessed a transfer of remains to JPAC personnel, which were then loaded on our aircraft for the first leg of the journey back home; took relief supplies to refugees of the Rwanda massacre in Goma, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) and we took relief supplies to the victims of Hurricane Iniki in Hawaii. I've also gotten to do things like scuba dive in the Great Barrier Reef, as well as off the west coast near Freemantle. On the way back from Perth we took a slight detour and flew the tourist charter plane routing around Ayers Rock. While in Africa we also took a little side trip and spun orbits around Mt Kilimanjaro. I got to see most of Afghanistan from the air, including poppy fields that sustain our addicts and remains of a fort Alexander the Great built. And a whole lot more. A great job that paid me to travel all over the world and now pays me a nice retirement pension.
I worked for 31 years with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. My dad was a fish biologist, but felt he couldn't support his family working at a fish hatchery so he worked for Boeing Aircraft in Auburn. For some of their testing they used live rainbow trout. My dad said he would bring the fish home if we built fish ponds. I and a friend built two ponds about 10 ft in diameter and 2 ft deep. We had a small spring that put out about 5 gallons per minute. When the ponds were ready dad brought home about 10 fish a week. We fed them and eventually we had several hundred trout between 10" and 2' long. We loved feeding them and also catching them. One fall day the spring got plugged up and all the fish died. That was pretty sad.
Several years after finishing High School and marrying we moved to Sand Point, Idaho. While there I met a guy who talked about a School in Southern Idaho. We moved down to Twin Falls Idaho and I took a 2 year Fish Technology program. This was 1n 1977. After finishing school, we eventually moved to Oakridge, Oregon and I worked at a Fish Hatchery there. From there we moved to Klamath Falls, Oregon and I worked at a hatchery there. We moved about every 3 years to hatcheries all across the state. I eventually ended up at Leaburg Hatchery on the McKenzie River. This was my dream job and eventually I was promoted to Manager.
I loved working at Leaburg Hatchery and got to do some really fun things. We built show ponds stocked with rainbow trout and Sturgeon up to 10 ft. long. We held many educational events, primarily for kids. We allowed them to fish in the show ponds on "Free fishing" day and also had many interpretive exhibits where we talked about healthy riparian habitat, native fish versus fin clipped hatchery fish that could be harvested. We did tons of school tours, and helped with river clean-ups with the Guides Association.
I know this is kind of a long post, but I truly loved my time working at Leaburg Hatchery. Best job I ever had!
There's a well-known hatchery in our area that has been there for more than 100 years; first opened as a State fish hatchery in 1883, in 1992 it briefly closed and then reopened as a nonprofit educational hatchery:
I remember being taken to see it on a field trip in the late 1950s when it was still owned by NY State. In an odd twist of fate I ended up working right across the street from it during the late 1990s and early 2000s! I could see the hatchery from one of our second floor windows.
I worked very little over the years so I will use Hubby's answer here. His three top favorites were HSG dealing with High End audio video gear. He was an engineering manager there. One reason we have Mark Levinson gear, along with Revel speakers. LOL.
The next one was Benthos, which was a Oceanographic place. He worked with people from WHOI, Woods hole oceanographic Institute. and the cameras and small subs etc. were very interesting to work on. Third favorite was AVID who make the film editing gear. The equipment itself was interesting as well as working with creative people and Hollywood people.
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