My experiences are many and varied

I've been thinking about work and dreaming about work and just generally obsessing about work. I need a job both for the money, and for my psychological well-being. I'm finally getting some headway, which is relieving.
I thought, though, it might be fun to share with you some brief summaries of the jobs I have had. Perhaps some will resonate with you.

Enjoy.

Babysitting

What else can a young teen girl do to earn some money? Homeschoolers have a great advantage in this market by already knowing families with children of all ages and parents so frazzled they somehow forget how irresponsible they were at age 13 and consent to let a young teen girl care for their infants. 

 

They did sometimes ask me amusing questions. 

I did not particularly care for babysitting as a job because I do not particularly care for children. Also you are put in the terrible position of being unable to discipline the kids, which leaves you essentially helpless if the devil takes one. One particularly memorable experience I had began with a child refusing to pick up his toys before dinner, climaxed when I found him pantsless and peeing on a mattress out of spite, and ended with his heaving a heavy metal piggy bank at his year-old sister. When called, the parents wearily said they'd take care of it when they got home. 

In retrospect, either they actually did, or God chucked a bucketful of grace on that hellion, because I met him again a few years ago and liked him enormously.

Fast food

This is pretty much the job most people rag on if they're going to rag on jobs: neither the job nor the workers are respected.

 

Probably defaced by pimply-faced adolescent boys 

with iphone5s and no jobs themselves.

In actuality, my fast food experience (I didn't work at Wendy's) was pleasant. I worked there for about two years (until second semester of college) and had good co-workers and good managers. The customers were mostly laid-back, everyday people who just wanted a burger. Sometimes they wanted chicken nuggets. 

Sometimes they asked questions like this about said chicken nuggets.

But there really is something to say about a job that doesn't take itself too seriously. Nobody walked in expecting blue plate specials or their mussels to taste not-too-fishy but still fishy enough. Our customers were mostly construction workers on breaks, retired people, and Amish workers (the latter all extremely slim and packing away the most calorie-laden of our offerings). People were polite in a friendly, though not differential, way, I got hit on a lot (thanks to the retirees), my managers trusted me, and I had money to put in the bank.

In addition, I now know the inner workings of fast-food restaurants and can try to prevent anger in customers. For instance, I often hear people complaining that their food is taking forever to make, yet none of the cashiers are going back to help--rather, they just stand up front, doe-eyed, waiting to ring up another customer. 

Do you know why they aren't back there helping? Because do you KNOW how many germs are on money? No, you do not. And if you did, you would never want to touch money ever again.You absolutely do not want that cashier taking your money, and the money of the guy in front of you who just picked his nose, and the money of the teen girl behind you with all the piercings and strange rash on her arm, and then going and handling your sandwich. 

 

These are the bacterial colonies that sprang up after 4 days 

when your run-of-the-mill dollar bill had some ager gel (a nutrient-filled goo)  

smeared on it to feed what was already on the bank note.

Rules in fast food restaurants are very strict that cashiers stay up front and don't touch the food. To go back and help would require them to go back, wash their hands for a minute, put on gloves, get in the way of people already making your food, then abandon that post immediately when someone else walks into the store, wash their hands again, and make it back up front before the new person gets pissed at not being waited on sooner.

So please be patient with them.

Anyways, with my next job I still had the money (and was making more), but not the laid-back friendliness inherent in my stint with fast-food. I worked...

Retail 

(coming soon to a blog near you).