Story Prompt - Jobs

Story Prompt:

What was/is your very first paying job? Of the jobs you've had, have there been favorites? Least favorites? Were you ever fired from a job? Did you ever quit a job?

My first job was scraping gum off the underside of the tables at my father's restaurant in Rigby, ID. I was probably 8 years old. He would pay my sister and I a penny for every piece of gum we had in the bowl at the end of our prescribed time. We were rich! And we'd go to the Jame's IGA and buy gum with that money.

My first "real" job was working at Christiansen Furniture in Orem. I worked there after school with another girl my age. We dusted, vacuumed, rearranged the furniture displays, and if we had down-time we worked on the designers projects for them, creating plans - from lighting to window treatments to cabinets, for their clients.

One summer I decided to do some temp jobs so I could better understand the job trauma and trials my students had. I gardened, worked in a factory, and did telemarketing. After one day doing temp telemarketing I was told to not come back. Hallelujah! This was my least favorite job too, well, that and tying bows on Teddy-bears in a factory line (another temp job that lasted a week). I returned to teaching with a much better appreciation for my students and the jobs they had, just to make ends meet.

A favorite job was working part-time in the Folklore Archives at BYU while attending BYU. I loved cataloging, reading stories, learning about culture, and the people in Special Collections were a joy to work with.

The only job I ever quit was working as an office manager for an IT company. I began full-time, then 2/3 time so I could teach, then part-time as I picked up more classes, and then I eventually quit to teach and begin my chaplaincy education.

I could write forever about this topic, and this doesn't even begin to include all the volunteer jobs or stay-at-home mother jobs, or the for-credit jobs:

Walker's Restaurant: Busing tables, waiting tables (not good at this), hostess, peeling potatoes and carrots
Macks Inn, ID: front desk clerk, ice cream scooper, gift shop, grocery store (head of lettuce story), motel maid
Florist

Toy Store Clerk

Read Leaf Bookstore

Online education - Assistant to CEO, Author, Administrator

Water Aerobics Instructor Chaplain UVU Instructor - English, History, Folklore