View Full Version : What unusual jobs have you done or who was your worst boss or cowrker and why?
Forgive me if this is a duplicate topic. I felt this was the most appropriate place to post so feel free to change it, if it is not. Anyways, I was thinking over my lifetime of working, and marveling at the variety of things I have done for a living. I have a college degree but have never been an educational snob who thinks any job is below me. I enjoy doing odd jobs and learning to do new things. There is no shame in doing an honest days work. I don't need a fancy title to make me feel important or validated.
So I am interested in hearing different ways that you have supported yourself through the years and the odd skills that you have acquired along the way. I like having a diverse range of skills and experiencing different ways of working and living.
I also thought of some of the bosses/coworkers that I have had to deal with. There were some real characters, believe me. Some of them just boggled my mind with the way they treated people and their expectation of what their employees duties were. Include experiences with unbelievable customers as well. I bet there are some great stories just waiting to be shared.
Among my odder jobs have been:
* Working as a fairy princess for kids parties and for "teatime" at a fairy castle.
* Dressing as a southern belle in hoop dress for New Orleans conventions
* Working in an Alaskan cannery, packing the fish roe (egg sacks) braided neatly in a small wooden box to be shipped to Japan as a poor man's caviar.
* Hunting alligators during alligator season.
* Harvesting pecans during pecan season.
* Worked as a roofer,( I was all of 5 ft 2 inches and 110 lbs) after Hurricane Gustav, as the only female on the crew and i was well respected for my tenacity and that I had no fear of heights.
I wrote some blog posts about some of these experiences and will post them on this thread and would love others to post about odd job, jobs they loved, jobs they hated, even about the best and wort of bosses and co-workers.
So, let the story telling begin!
BayouGirl
10-3-12, 10:02pm
I'll start off with this which is a blog post that I have re-purposed and adapted for this forum.
Swamp fever seems have swept the country as many people became addicted to the TV show "Swamp People" (on A&E). I have to admit that it is entertaining and packed full of real characters. I have watched it a few times but since I don't have cable, I haven't seen it a lot. But then again, I don't have to watch a TV show to see how alligators are hunted. I get to see it in real life every year with my fiancé (BayouBoy aka BB) who hunts alligators during alligator season.
I have to say that the TV show "Swamp People" is a bit dramatic, and it seems to be a bit of exaggeration that every alligator they catch is estimated at over 10 feet long and ready to kill them. The reality of gator hunting is that the water is mostly peaceful and the scenery is beautiful. There is wildlife all around you, such as egrets, roseate spoonbills, snakes, basking turtles and alligators, and even the occasional eagle.
We start out early in the morning. BB packs his necessities such as the alligator tags (which are mandatory), bait, cold drinks, sunscreen and his gun. I pack my camera, a towel to sit on, snacks, a sunhat, and a book to read, in case I feel like reading. Sometimes I follow him in another small boat so that I can get the best angles on the pictures that I take. Sometime I am in the small boat with him and the large alligator we catch.
The boats are just small aluminum flat boats, about 18-24 feet long, nothing big or fancy. BB is completely at home on the water, knows every path there is and fears nothing. He also catches crawfish in these waters during crawfish season. These are both rather strenuous jobs that require heavy work and dealing with heat but he prefers this life over a 9-5 job at an indoor, sitting at a desk or dealing with a boss.
We drive through the woods, down a long winding dirt road till we get to the water. From there, we launch the boat and head out to the more open water where he will set out his bait. Bait is usually cow parts from the butcher or fish that have been caught for this purpose. The stinkier, the better. Sometimes bait comes to us, in the form of some large Asian carp that always jump in our boat while we are on the water. These kamikaze fish jump out of the water like crazy when a boat is by them, and they often jump into the boat and hit someone in the boat. We just laugh and add them to the bait supply. It is pretty funny to see someone hit upside the head by a large, leaping fish. Plus it is free bait, just jumping into the boat us.
BB sets the hooks with bait and hangs them from the trees above the water. He ties them securely to the tree and then loops the excess rope lightly on the so the alligator has some slack when he takes the bait. That's it, and then the next part is repeating that, over and over, in different locations, and then retreating to let the alligators take the bait. One of his friends pilots the boat that I am in, so I am free to enjoy the scenery, take whatever pics I want, and just relax and enjoy the ride.
Later in the day, or the next morning, we head out again. If the rope with the bait is no longer dangling above the water, then there is a good chance an alligator has taken it. But there are also birds or other animals that have been known to take the bait as well. Alligators have also been known to bend the hooks or snap the lines.
A taut line or bubbles in the water indicate an alligator is probably on the line. BB pulls the alligator up to the side of the boat, shoots him (or her) and loads them in the boat. There usually isn't a huge fight or a lot of danger. Then BB tags them, baits the line again and it is off to the next spot.
Hunting regulations on alligators are strictly enforced. You have to have a valid hunting license, tags for each gator you kill, and the state determines your quota of alligators. You are also supposed to hunt in the area that you listed on your application. With the current popularity of Swamp People, there are more people expressing an interest in alligator hunting and getting stupid and breaking laws to do it. They see it as a novelty but for some people around here, it is a yearly source of income and no big deal.
Alligators are sold by the pound to local markets. The longer the alligator, the more you get per pound. Nowadays, you make more money on the meat, rather than the hide. So BB no longer skins them or butchers them, he simply brings them whole to the market. The market will process them by skinning them and packaging the meat and selling it.
Many people around here like to eat alligator (and frog legs and raccoon, etc.), although I am not one of them. They say alligator tastes like chicken but I just can’t summon up any enthusiasm for it. I just say “I don’t eat alligators and I hope they won’t eat me”. Most often, we fry it up with potatoes and other fish. We fry up a lot of it and have friends and family over so it is a social even. Sometimes we just tell the kids it is chicken and they never know the difference.
I may not like to eat alligator but my cats sure do. They went crazy over it and loved it. I always sneak them a few pieces of fried alligator. I was amused that my cats are higher on the food chain than alligators. After all, how many “Cats Eat Alligator” stories do you hear of?
Frankly, I don't like any seafood but that is another story. BB surely thinks I am "throwed off" (meaning crazy) for not eating seafood, but he never complains when I pick the shrimp and crawfish out of my food and put them on his plate. But he has generously vowed to help me out by eating all of the seafood that I don't want, for the rest of my life. How noble of him!
The meat and the hide are the main products of alligator hunting but some people collect the teeth. The teeth have a hole in them that make them easy to string up on jewelry. The most unusual use for an alligator part is using one of the back-plate bones to make a part of a guitar. Apparently the bony plates below the ridges on an alligator back are great because they are hard to break and they are the perfect density to produce beautiful music. Who would have thought such a thing? These plates can also be carved to make jewelry, along with the teeth. If you want an easy way to strip the meat from the bones, or the skull, you can get most of the meat off with a knife and then put the bone or skull in a bed of ants. They will strip in clean in a matter of days.
Once the tags are all filled (usually about 30 of them) then alligator season is over for us till the next year. But don’t worry, life doesn’t get dull then. There is always crawfish season, deer season, duck season, pecan season (you harvest them, not hunt them and shoot them, lol) and many other seasons of the year. That’s Louisiana for you, and that’s why I love to live here
Love reading about your life, BayouGirl, particularly the alligator hunting. I was so taken by the pictures in your album of you sitting in the boat next to that alligator! The first thing that came to my mind was, what if the boat tipped over? Yikes!
Would it be curtains, or could you make it to shore?
My jobs were pretty normal, but during high school I worked in the office of a country club that could have had a sitcom based on it.
The chef was Greek, the kitchen help Korean, and they refused to speak English to each other. If you went into the kitchen, chances are you'd be hit by flying food when they were fighting. The evening dining room hostess came to work drunk most times, the chef and the Polish laundry lady were having a fling, the Portuguese lady who worked the hot dog stand at hole #9 called everyone "My Babyka" and was a brunette version of Eva Gabor. The ladies' locker room attendant had different colored hair every week and she was such an animal lover that when she found one dead on the road, she'd put it in her car so she could give it a proper burial when she got home. One of the kitchen helpers, who was married, was always asking me out. The caddymaster was a doofy looking guy with buck teeth who had a crush on me and would always come to the office to visit me. He wore turtleneck shirts year round and had a bit of a body odor problem. One of the club's members had a mistress who would call the office, asking to have him paged and she would make up wild stories to get him on the phone. Many of the members were Italian, possibly with mafia ties, and one of them would always go to the baby grand piano and play the theme to The Godfather. It was an interesting place for sure.
BayouGirl
10-4-12, 12:58am
Love reading about your life, BayouGirl, particularly the alligator hunting. I was so taken by the pictures in your album of you sitting in the boat next to that alligator! The first thing that came to my mind was, what if the boat tipped over? Yikes!
Would it be curtains, or could you make it to shore?
Oh, I could make it to shore or to a tree. The water is not so deep in most places but is rather mucky. I know most swamp creatures fear us more than we fear them . I am also a first responder, a good swimmer and certified scuba diver but the thought of the snakes and gators in the water is enough to give me the super power of walking on water.
But I have no fear because I have absolute faith and trust in BayouBoy. He has many years experience with the fire department as an asst. chief, doing searched by land, water rescues, dealing with dangerous situations and he doesn't know the meaning if "can't" or "fear".
I am in very capable hands. Granted, he is not the most sentimental, romantic or talkative person, but I don't need him to bring me flowers, I just need to be able to have faith in my man that he can take care of me and keep me safe. That is one of things that I love best about him,
Fun story, Pony Mom. A little drama and excitement has a way of making a job fun.
BayouGirl. For me, not knowing what's down there (underneath the surface of the water), would be enough to keep me out of any boats! LOL! Such a scaredy-cat I am. I do know that if I were ever visiting your area I'd seek out one of Emeril Lagasse's Restaurants, and treat myself to some authentic Creole cooking! You guys really know how to eat.
By chance, has anyone else watched the television series, Dirty Jobs?
My jobs weren't that unusual, I don't think. Maybe my most unusual "job" was as stage mother for two of my kids for about 10 years. That was actually fun. I also had a fun job stuffing and sewing soft-sculture birds for a woman who had designed them in her home and she then got orders from tony boutiques in NY and couldn't keep up with the orders. That was fun, but not as easy as it sounds.
My hated jobs though...
.. My first job out of college was for a wholesale florist in Bridgeport, CT. I HATED that job it was so dreary and boring. You'd think flowers would be fun to work with, but it was in a warehouse, and there was nothing fun or challenging about it at all. On the way to driving there every day to work, I'd slam on my brakes if the light turned yellow just so there would be a two minute delay in my arrival. When my best friend asked me if I'd be interested in taking a six-week typing course with her in NY, I quit right away.
-- I worked for 2 years at Union Carbide as a secretary (when they still had secretaries). It was OK, but definitely just a paycheck. I was living a chaotic life then (a whole other story) so I didn't even do a very good job while I was there. I remember getting a so-so evaluation and I just sat in the bathroom and cried. Plus I didn't believe in what Union Carbide stood for. I worked in the Agricultural Products division and was there at the time of the Bhopal disaster. I quit when we moved to NJ, one month from having my fourth child. I fought them (and won) for maternity benefits.
Hi Bayou Girl - Nice to see you here - always nice to have new people with interesting lives on board!And your life sure sounds interesting!! When I was in the coast guard I also use to live in both New Orleans (on Lake Ponchartrain at that little red and white lighthouse/smallboat station close to City Park called New Canal Station - called Station New Orleans I believe before Katrina wiped it out) and Alaska (Cordova and Anchorage). I've done lots of crazy jobs in my life but no messing with alligators :-)! But one of the survival training classes I had to attend in NOLA before they lets us go out in the small boats into the bayous and down into the Gulf was how to trap and skin a nuetria with a buck knife and make food and clothes and shelter out of them. Never had to use that skill fortunately ;-)! When I was in Alaska (Cordova) we use to call the people who worked in the cannaries "Slimers" because they would be so slimy after work. Definetely hard work with long hours.
I got chained to a desk in my later working years, but did have some interesting work in my earlier days.
My first real paying job was walking racing greyhounds around the track before dog races. After the warm up walk we would load the dogs into the starting boxes and wait for those magical words over the PA, "Here comes Sparky!" Sparky was the fake rabbit.
I did a stint with the Forest Service doing "campground clean-up", which including trash removal and cleaning outhouses. There occasionally would be some real outhouse "surprises".
Worked as a temporary employee with our division of wildlife doing stream and lake surveys. It included helicopter travel to high mountain lakes, which had some exciting times in late summer storms.
Did quality control work in a brewery. For a while I was on a flavor panel to evaluate new recipes. We "tested" two or three beer samples each day in the mid-morning. I eventually had to quit panel after falling asleep a few times after testing.
I haven't had any truly horrible bosses, but my worse was one with a coffee inspired early morning raging tempter. I went to the office late at night and replaced the office coffee with decaf a couple of times, which helped, but got too expensive to continue.
I did a stint with the Forest Service doing "campground clean-up", which including trash removal and cleaning outhouses. There occasionally would be some real outhouse "surprises".
OK I'm not sure if I even want to know what "real outhouse surprises" you found there :-)! I once was part of a "undercover survailance" operation of... manholes. Yep, the great "Sewer Sting Operation"! My dept (environmental compliance officers for a water/wastewater district) hooked up with the county sheriffs and other environmental enforcement agencies to watch for businesses illegally dumping toxic waste (via large trucks) into the sewer and storm drain system. We did this for months on end almost every night. Just watched manholes thru out the county. Busted quite a few people too. Eventually someone decided to just put lockable manhole covers on, but that still left the storm drains - which I'm assuming are still vigilantly watched by your friendly enviromental enforcement officers :-)!
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