Working Can Be A Real Job

JOBS. WE’VE ALL HAD THEM OR WILL IN THE FUTURE. Some jobs lead to careers while others serve only to put food on the table and keep the wolf away from the door.

There are full-time jobs, part-time jobs, and jobs that are one-time things – like bank jobs. Not jobs for a bank, but in a bank – with a note, concealed weapon, and a getaway car.

Some jobs are better than others. That’s true whether you are just starting out or nearing retirement.

I’ve held a lot of different jobs in my life. Some were good. Some were not, but at least they were all legal. Most of my jobs involved trying to sell one thing or another. I’ve sold steel and copper, payroll and tax services, menswear and toys. I worked for a moving company for a while, drumming up customers. In all of those what I was really selling was Me. I quickly learned that if the customer didn’t like you, your chances of making the sale were near zero.

My ability to sell things was inherited from my mother I think. Her first job came in 1921. She was 10 years old, one of 9 children, and her father died. She did what was needed – she got a job. At the age of 10 that little girl began to sell Murphy’s Oil Soap (Still on the market) door to door in her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. She was a gutsy kid.

My father’s first job came at age 9. He handled a horse drawn wagon delivering ice cream and cold beer.

Over the years I’ve known a lot of people. Some who were famous, most were not. But all of them had jobs – lots of jobs – and not all of them were legal.

I used to work with a gal who tried to rob a bank. She wasn’t very good at it, but she got some nice photographs of herself from the bank’s cameras.

There was a comedian I knew in San Francisco who, in a previous life, had been a hooker. She managed to get away from that life and became a comedian. Some people said that it wasn’t that big of a change.

Another friend had a job that, while entirely legal, was hardly mainstream. He put himself through college working as a “Dowser.” For you city dwellers – a dowser is someone who, using a Y shaped twig or small branch in hand, would try to find the best spot for farmers to drill for water. Apparently, he was quite good at it. Good enough to pay for his education.

There is a fellow I see quite often here in Terre Haute (That’s French for “Here’s a paper cup. Fill it.”) who used to work in a slaughterhouse. His job was to hit cows in the head with a sledgehammer. Not much of a future in that job – for him or the cow.

There are all sorts of jobs in this world. The one thing they have in common is that they all stink on Monday mornings. But you gotta do what you gotta do. Those bills won’t pay themselves.

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