What have you done for a living?

[Bacpacker]

When I washed dishes in college, we had an assembly line, similar to what you described. The dishes were heavy duty restaurant type ceramic dishes.
People would put their trays at a window, an open space, when they were finished eating.
Scrapers and stackers--there would be two people there, scraping the dirty dishes and stacking like kinds together.
Next were people who loaded the racks with dishes to be washed.
Racks were pushed over to the sprayer. This person who was spraying, sprayed the bulk of the food off the dishes. This person was also considered the dishwashing room supervisor. I had this job as a sophmore in college. The nun who was the head of the lunchroom asked me to be the supervisor for the year. She must have trusted me. I also had to report any problems we had to her. We didn't really have any because we tried to have fun and make it an enjoyable experience, as much as possible. I liked that nun and had forgotten about her until now. She was good to me, and maybe knew my background, being orphaned. I spent my share of time during meals being close to her, while making toast for breakfast, etc. A friend of mine and I were sponsored, scholarship students, by a Catholic priest and we met many of the nuns before starting school there. It was a hot, sweaty job. This job caused me to often take more than one shower a day. I remember a day when I spent hours in the cafeteria, first making toast for breakfast, then scraping and stacking, later, at other meals, as sprayer. It was a hot and miserable day and I took 5 showers that day.
Dish racks were pushed through an enclosed washing machine set up where they were additionally cleaning and also sanitized. Each rack that went through pushed the previous ones out. The last racks that went through were empty, to clear out.
Dish racks came out of the machine and were left for a minute or so to drip and dry from the heat. Then they were stacked onto rolling carts and rolled back to the serving area for future use. The people emptying the dishes had to keep taking those racks back to the loaders, back and forth. They had to walk by the sprayer, who might accidentally spray them. I know I did more than once as the sprayer.

I'll bet I'm not the only person who has worked on a dish washing crew like this!

Sounds like what we had at the hospital dietary department. Serving line was loaded from both sides. Lots of teens. We worked for a nun as well

 

[Bacpacker]

Grew up working on cattle farms, dads, papaws, uncles, neighbors. While in high school I also delivered perscriptions for a Rx, worked in dietary department at a hospital, then at a facility installing truck beds on 1 ton and up trucks. After high school worked as a auto mechanic for a few years, then went to a boat manufacture, also worked construction, roofing, and land prep. After my divorce I went back to school and learned electronics. Worked 3 part time jobs thru that, one building power supplies for electronics equipment. Worked in a TV shop, then a radiation detection company. Learned to maintain and rebuild industrial equipment, morphed into supervision and onto process engineering. Current job started as a tech, then to planner, and eventually supervisor. Now days I'm supervisor, engineer, and project manager all rolled into one.
I hope to retire in a little over 3 years

I should add a few items I forgot about. Started mowing yards at 10, did that off and on til mid 20s. Also started plowing and discing gardens about the same age. At one point I did 12 gardens each spring, plus our spots. Dad told me I could keep half the money, and he'd buy fuel. Did custom Bush hogging as a mid/late teen. Would get up hay for anyone that needed help. Did odd jobs, mostly clearing brush for various teachers.

 

[Neb]

I have a job for candy-pants. an oven, 30'feet in the air next to a tin roof 10' from the mouth of the oven itself, the temperature is a balmy 135 degrees every day of the year and the air is so dry you must drink continually or get a sore throat, all the time standing in a cloud of toxic chemicals and nylon dust, and you stand there immobile, watching your console and machines until something goes wrong, then its jump and run and hustle until you have salt bulls eyes, sometimes you put on a hood and run through a 400 degree oven, hoping you don't drop before you hit the back hatch, then you get hosed down because your uniform is about to melt and your breather just took off a layer of skin. then after that, the "HELP" won't follow orders even IF they speak English and you might or might not get a break when the chuckwagon comes. do this a few years, then see how you feel when the lady you love cleans your account out and runs off with your boss.

Be truthful with me...

Are you an anarchy bot?

Ben

 

[Magus]

Nope. I'm a pissed off handicapped middle aged white letter Anarchist with a short fuse and a bad attitude.

 

[Wingnut]

And you have emojis, which I can't seem to access...

 

[Magus]

Go to the picture icon and click the 3 dots.
or just do like me and use the keyboard.
Yeah, I'm l33t haxxorz. ;

 

[Wyatt]

I thought this was relative to this conversation, but maybe not.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last night I sent my son’s mom an email saying that our 15-yr-old son needed a summer job and my friend was hiring for a dishwasher at his restaurant located near her house.
Her reply, “A lot of restaurants want a dishwasher but that’s a brutal job with a lot of tasks and usually the last person to leave the job site.”
My heart dropped. In my opinion, being a dishwasher or any “brutal” job is the only first job a young person should have. My son would be robbed of the opportunity to learn and grow fast in his young life.
I sent this message to my son today. ….
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Max, I want to give you a little advice.
Don’t get in the mindset of thinking you’re too good for any job.
Don’t believe anyone who says that you’re too good to be a dishwasher or a ditch digger.
Some of the best and most powerful men in the world started with a terrible job.
A hard and dirty job will teach you a lot more than an easy job.
If nothing else it will teach you to appreciate good things in life.
If nothing else it will teach you that you don’t want to do that job forever.
If nothing else it will teach you that it is important to work hard in school and strive to do something “better.”
My first job at 11ish-ish-yrs-old was pushing lawnmowers all around the neighborhood in the hot sun. I knocked on doors, took on jobs and worked 5,6,7 lawns a week when I could.
One of my next jobs was being a dishwasher and busboy in a seafood restaurant for a summer. I still remember the nasty smell of trash cans lined with grease and raw seafood. I hope I never forget that smell. It motivates me.
At the city park before I was allowed to be a lifeguard, the manager (a retired Korean War Marine Corps Vet,) looked at me and said “boys don’t get an easy job like that until they prove themselves and work.” He made me dig ditches, empty trash cans and clean public bathrooms on the grounds crew for one whole summer. (I got the Lifegaurd job the next summer and quickly rose to a supervisor.)
And of course I volunteered for the hard “job“ of working in the United States Marine Corps for four years. (I could have had any “job” in the Corps. Literally any job. When Gunny Kight asked me what I want to do, I said “I wanna be a grunt.” He laughed because he thought I was stupid. But I knew what I was doing.)
I would not be the man I am today if I did not have “hard” and “dirty” jobs in the beginning.
People see me. A business owner doing “well.” They see me as a doctor. They see me being “white.” They say I’m “lucky.” They say I’m “privileged”.
Some say I’m “rich”.
I am definitely not rich. I work hard every day because I like it and I NEED to work.
I worked hard enough in my previous life to ensure I would have the skills and opportunity to work hard “at something I enjoy” in my recent life.
None of us is too good to do any particular job. In my opinion, if you believe that then you will never truly graduate from the “hard” job.
Take a hard job. Your first job should be a hard job. If you do well at it then maybe your “forever” job won’t be so “brutal.”

 

[VThillman]

When I washed dishes in college, we had an assembly line, similar to what you described. The dishes were heavy duty restaurant type ceramic dishes.
People would put their trays at a window, an open space, when they were finished eating.
Scrapers and stackers--there would be two people there, scraping the dirty dishes and stacking like kinds together.
Next were people who loaded the racks with dishes to be washed.
Racks were pushed over to the sprayer. This person who was spraying, sprayed the bulk of the food off the dishes. This person was also considered the dishwashing room supervisor. I had this job as a sophmore in college. The nun who was the head of the lunchroom asked me to be the supervisor for the year. She must have trusted me. I also had to report any problems we had to her. We didn't really have any because we tried to have fun and make it an enjoyable experience, as much as possible. I liked that nun and had forgotten about her until now. She was good to me, and maybe knew my background, being orphaned. I spent my share of time during meals being close to her, while making toast for breakfast, etc. A friend of mine and I were sponsored, scholarship students, by a Catholic priest and we met many of the nuns before starting school there. It was a hot, sweaty job. This job caused me to often take more than one shower a day. I remember a day when I spent hours in the cafeteria, first making toast for breakfast, then scraping and stacking, later, at other meals, as sprayer. It was a hot and miserable day and I took 5 showers that day.
Dish racks were pushed through an enclosed washing machine set up where they were additionally cleaning and also sanitized. Each rack that went through pushed the previous ones out. The last racks that went through were empty, to clear out.
Dish racks came out of the machine and were left for a minute or so to drip and dry from the heat. Then they were stacked onto rolling carts and rolled back to the serving area for future use. The people emptying the dishes had to keep taking those racks back to the loaders, back and forth. They had to walk by the sprayer, who might accidentally spray them. I know I did more than once as the sprayer.

I'll bet I'm not the only person who has worked on a dish washing crew like this!

The place & process you describe seems very similar to what we had in the main mess hall at Sampson AFB, where I, um, underwent basic training. The room was called the clipper room, the clipper being that dish washing machine. Thanks for the memories
__ Hah.

 

[Weedygarden]

Go to the picture icon and click the 3 dots.
or just do like me and use the keyboard.
Yeah, I'm l33t haxxorz. ;

Something must have changed at some point in time and I missed it because I don't use many emoji's. I finally found them.

 

[montanabill]

I have done many different jobs in the last 60 or so years of working. Grew up on a diversified farm/orchard where after getting gored in the butt by a 500 pound boar and falling out of a tree with a running chainsaw and picking pears by running up and down a 12 foot laddeer in 100 degree heat I thought the army was a pretty easy gig.
Ended up handling depleted uranium pieces training to assemble tactical nukes in a basement in Dachau germany, kept my spare motorcycle parts in the cold chamber they used for frostbite research.
Worked a lot of jobs and usually full time plus another job or I would take off and ride my motorcycles north of the arctic circle and back in a week off work.
Currently trying to get a 18 year old to launch in the world and I just bought two more motorcycles today to fix up. My sculpture business keeps going and right now I am behind on commissions www.ryderhorses.com
I am segueing into the tech part of my wife's business www.montanamegaliths.com and just got a quote on the book we are putting together this year. Life is good.

 

[TeeJ]

I thought this was relative to this conversation, but maybe not.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last night I sent my son’s mom an email saying that our 15-yr-old son needed a summer job and my friend was hiring for a dishwasher at his restaurant located near her house.
Her reply, “A lot of restaurants want a dishwasher but that’s a brutal job with a lot of tasks and usually the last person to leave the job site.”
My heart dropped. In my opinion, being a dishwasher or any “brutal” job is the only first job a young person should have. My son would be robbed of the opportunity to learn and grow fast in his young life.
I sent this message to my son today. ….
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Max, I want to give you a little advice.
Don’t get in the mindset of thinking you’re too good for any job.
Don’t believe anyone who says that you’re too good to be a dishwasher or a ditch digger.
Some of the best and most powerful men in the world started with a terrible job.
A hard and dirty job will teach you a lot more than an easy job.
If nothing else it will teach you to appreciate good things in life.
If nothing else it will teach you that you don’t want to do that job forever.
If nothing else it will teach you that it is important to work hard in school and strive to do something “better.”
My first job at 11ish-ish-yrs-old was pushing lawnmowers all around the neighborhood in the hot sun. I knocked on doors, took on jobs and worked 5,6,7 lawns a week when I could.
One of my next jobs was being a dishwasher and busboy in a seafood restaurant for a summer. I still remember the nasty smell of trash cans lined with grease and raw seafood. I hope I never forget that smell. It motivates me.
At the city park before I was allowed to be a lifeguard, the manager (a retired Korean War Marine Corps Vet,) looked at me and said “boys don’t get an easy job like that until they prove themselves and work.” He made me dig ditches, empty trash cans and clean public bathrooms on the grounds crew for one whole summer. (I got the Lifegaurd job the next summer and quickly rose to a supervisor.)
And of course I volunteered for the hard “job“ of working in the United States Marine Corps for four years. (I could have had any “job” in the Corps. Literally any job. When Gunny Kight asked me what I want to do, I said “I wanna be a grunt.” He laughed because he thought I was stupid. But I knew what I was doing.)
I would not be the man I am today if I did not have “hard” and “dirty” jobs in the beginning.
People see me. A business owner doing “well.” They see me as a doctor. They see me being “white.” They say I’m “lucky.” They say I’m “privileged”.
Some say I’m “rich”.
I am definitely not rich. I work hard every day because I like it and I NEED to work.
I worked hard enough in my previous life to ensure I would have the skills and opportunity to work hard “at something I enjoy” in my recent life.
None of us is too good to do any particular job. In my opinion, if you believe that then you will never truly graduate from the “hard” job.
Take a hard job. Your first job should be a hard job. If you do well at it then maybe your “forever” job won’t be so “brutal.”

This is such great advice, made me remember jobs I left off the list - probably because I had blocked them out of my memory in HS and college I always had temp jobs over winter break to make extra $ during the time off. One was packaging duck tape, standing on your feet 7.5 hours a day while the supervisor (only non temp employee) was riding everyone to go faster. The other was running envelope stuffing machines for ADP, puting out W2s. These machines were awful, constantly jamming and the room they were in was always boiling hot. Hard jobs that made studying in HS and college seem worth it because it's not what I wanted to be doing the rest of my life!

 

[Neb]

This is such great advice, made me remember jobs I left off the list - probably because I had blocked them out of my memory in HS and college I always had temp jobs over winter break to make extra $ during the time off. One was packaging duck tape, standing on your feet 7.5 hours a day while the supervisor (only non temp employee) was riding everyone to go faster. The other was running envelope stuffing machines for ADP, puting out W2s. These machines were awful, constantly jamming and the room they were in was always boiling hot. Hard jobs that made studying in HS and college seem worth it because it's not what I wanted to be doing the rest of my life!

I think that bummer jobs within our work history should be devoted to another thread. I have had plenty of those but they were stepping stones along the path

Ben.

 

[Weedygarden]

This is such great advice, made me remember jobs I left off the list - probably because I had blocked them out of my memory in HS and college I always had temp jobs over winter break to make extra $ during the time off. One was packaging duck tape, standing on your feet 7.5 hours a day while the supervisor (only non temp employee) was riding everyone to go faster. The other was running envelope stuffing machines for ADP, puting out W2s. These machines were awful, constantly jamming and the room they were in was always boiling hot. Hard jobs that made studying in HS and college seem worth it because it's not what I wanted to be doing the rest of my life!

Winter break was one of my only true breaks in college and when I was younger. I still remember going to stay with my favorite grandmother during those breaks, college and younger years. I spent many a Christmas with her, which was always very low key. They were poor people and never extravagant about anything. I believe they had a manger, and maybe a tree that was decorated mostly with homemade ornaments. Christmas included midnight mass. It was simple. They (any of my grandparents) were not demonstrative, but this grandmother was the kindest of them all.

 

[joel]

I got room & food when I worked on my Father farm, with cattle,horses, pig, chicken & rabbits & gardening. Chopped wood for heating, learned to scrape hog & butcher, then grill them over coals. Butcher rabbits, chickens, other small game. Make rabbit boxes, dry & make cane fishing poles, plow a mule, drive a tarator, clear stumps & bury dead cows deep so the plow would not dig them up. First paying job was yard work in the city at age eight until eighteen, & learn to propagate plants, repot them, putting in Irrigation systems. At fifteen I worked at a garage for the summer.I worked at a Dairy Queen for a few months when I was a teenager & was a buck presser, the one with steam, in a clothing factory for a few months after school. I started my first business, at nineteen sprigging yards with grass, then planting shrubs. We put in a few retaining walls with used cross tie. Then we met people who needed house sprayed for bug & added that to the list. Some of the house made me gag, but we got the job done. Insulated a few house with the pink stuff with the panther on it. I was a helper on a shingle roof job, it was only the one job. Took machine shop in high school & worked in a shop for three years as a grinder, heat treater, sand blaster & Black oxide(rifle bluing,only better). Then I went to work at a food plant in Saintasion, coffee & spice packaging production, warehouse forklift driver. I learn welding at Tech for stick & tig & went into maintenance, retired from the food plant after 37.5 years. We did pneumatics, Hydraulics, rebuild coffee grinder & screw conveyors, welding & fabrication, Grinding, milling, drilling & lathe work also. A little computer work, but I did no programing of any kind, that was for smart guys. While I was working there,I had many side jobs: I work at another machine shop in drilling & milling, broaching departments, to raise money to pay off bills & buy a house 33 years ago. I was in SCNG for six years as a wheel vehicle mechanic, it change my life in a few ways.
I sold vacuum cleaner on the side in 1986, then worked with a furniture maker for three years 2000-2002, I cleaned up rough cut lumber on a band saw, then a jointer, then a planer, table saw & miter saw & Shaper. I hate glue up & sanding. The shop made tables, chairs & cabinets, most anything to pay the bills. I now do a little go-for work with my son when he does electrical side work, even helped him & another guy pour a few feet of concrete.
I am not listing volunteer work here.