All my Odd Jobs

I recently had a conversation on Mastodon about one of the jobs I applied for that I luckily didn’t take. It was just a strange, bad job. And it got me thinking about all the jobs I did do. The weird ones, the ones that made no sense at all, the ones where I met cool people. Or not so cool people.

So I started writing.

This is my probably incomplete but as-complete as I was able to get it list of the jobs I did until now.

My first job ever was with a newspaper. Not a great one. Not even a good one. It was at a free Sunday newspaper that lived off the ads they sold. It had the news, yes, but our small team was responsible for all the local stuff. Which was mainly reporting on how the kid’s flea market went, or the local Kerwe or report on a small flower shop that had just turned 10.

I worked there with my then-partner, and we were a team, he was trying to get into journalism back then and I started by taking pictures. Real pictures, with film and everything. I remember the films were developed in-house and I found that very cool! (That was before I learned how to do that at University of Applied Science.)

Later, I also wrote some articles. The cool thing about that was, we had an actual person proofreading and giving us feedback. I don’t remember his name, but I do remember he was very stern and fun at the same time and just sat there at his desk the whole day, proofreading all the articles us noobs wrote, trying to teach us something.

My second job was at a call center of a bank. We were a team of four: One lady, the matron, had done this job for ages and knew everything and everyone. She was also the only one working there full time. Us other three were doing temporary employment. I learned how to do phone calls back then. I still have a soft spot for the call center people at the other end of the line, even though our own workplace was luxurious compared with modern call centers. We had two desks, two phones, two PCs and a lot of paper books to research bankcodes and stuff. I was sad when I left that job, I liked it.

My third job was an internship at a designer. He mainly did adhesive film ads with a big cutter, and it was fun working with that material. I didn’t have a clue about graphic programs back then, and I slowly started to learn some stuff. He didn’t pay me for the two months I worked with him, but that was common back then.

I remember us driving in his minivan to clients, applying adhesive film designs onto display windows and cars. Once, we visited a local enterprise who was specializing in air conditioning systems. There was a seperate area in the middle of the huge warehouse, and when I asked, my boss said: “That’s where the real money is made! They are working for the military. Do you know how hot it gets in a tank?”

My fourth job was in the graphics department of one of the leading IT enterprises. I saw my first „flat screen“ there (that’s what we used to call them back in the late 90s). I redesigned some doorplates, printed lots and lots of anime images I found on the internet, re-skinned Winamp and got some nice “private copies” of PC games.

No, they didn’t care much about what I did. They paid well, though.

My fifth job was at a design bureau in the city where I studied design. I forgot the asparagus cream soup I wanted to have for lunch on the stove, and when I heard “Who the fuck forgot the asparagus cream soup on the stove?!!” I stayed quiet. I was obviously busy searching stock image libraries that were on CD-Roms. I didn’t do any meaningful design work at that job. I met nobody inspiring or interesting or important for my life.

But I once met my boss at my home city by accident. He kept staring openly at my chest for the whole conversation I tried to have with him, it was pretty absurd. Did I have nice boobs? Probably. He was still my boss, and I still had eyes he could have looked into. Or some other feature of my face.

I didn’t go back.

My sixth job was at a game developer that just now had a major success with one of their titles. (Finally.) I really liked my work there, it was awesome. I loved to do the crappy odd jobs that were left for me. I met lots of people I liked, and I learned lots of different things. I loved being part of something bigger.

What I didn’t love was that one person who relentlessly made overly sexist jokes, specifically to make me feel uncomfortable. It never stopped, and he was never told off by anyone. Not the others who worked there, not his boss who was in the same room. It was ONE guy, and he poisoned the whole climate for me. It didn’t help I was the only “woman” back then. (The other woman that had worked with me there for a while left while I stayed.)

I still would have liked to work there longer. I learned interesting things, and I was really passionate about gaming back then. But I was fired because I didn’t work the core hours – something I had cleared with my direct boss but not management. I was still doing Uni and had to somehow make time for both. I still worked enough hours, just not the right ones in the eyes of management.

Funny thing though: The person who fired me applied for a job some years ago at my current boss. I told my current boss everything, and he just said “Well, fuck that dude.” 🙂

My seventh job – this is really funny, I have never done a complete list of all the strange odd jobs I did – anyway, my seventh job was at a finance service provider. I got the job through my flat mate who also worked there. We worked the front desk, together with a lady who had done that for a long time and was the matron. (I’m starting to see a pattern here.) I sorted mail into files, tried not to look too closely at how much rich people own or make through owning, answered the doors and calls, was kind to clients.

One day, one of the salesmen didn’t appear. He didn’t come in the day after. Or after that. He had died when he tried to light the barbecue with methylated spirits.

My eigth job should have basically been a continuation of the seventh, just in a different town. I had just quit my first Uni to pursue a very different degree, and I needed an income. So it was great that they had a vacancy, and at headquarter’s, too!

Little did I know that the tasks were super compartmentalized. I didn’t do any fun stuff, like talking to clients on the phone or at the door. Nothing. All I did was getting heavy files from huge shelves, roll them around, and then filing them back. The end. And the boss was a choleric guy who liked to smoke the cigar at his office.

I quit after a few days.

My ninth job I got through my best friend. “They are opening a new store and I saw this ad and I got a job! Maybe they need more people and you can apply?” Yes, they did! We were a team of 8 or 9, all women (I still identified as woman back then). We were working in a shop for fashion jewellery with a very high bling factor. Frau Müller was the local matron who knew her way around, and we worked shifts in groups of two to three. The shifts usually lasted for five hours, because five hours was the limit you were allowed to work without being entitled to a longer paid break. Only rarely there were 8 hour shifts with one of those longer breaks.

We worked hard to make the fashion jewellery look good, we all had our special areas. Mine were earrings, and I knew which ones we had, I knew how to fix them and I pierced many ears in my time.

The crew had a rare communal spirit. We all needed this job, and we all came from different stages in our lives. Some were moms, trying to get back to work. Some were younger and were either between jobs or studied. And for some, it was one of many jobs.

I especially loved Christmas Eve. All the people, the rush, so many gifts to wrap, so many desperate people to help. Team spirit soared, we had an awesome time and went home happy.

When my tenth job started, the company fired me, because they didn’t want to pay taxes for me. My boss and I cried for a whole hour because neither of us could do anything about it. I sometimes still think about my time in that shop when I pass a store of the same chain.

My tenth job was at Uni. I was teaching a class how to cut movies, both theory and practice. I knew more about both of that than the teacher at uni, but he knew the topic they were trying to cover, so we complemented each other quite well. It was just for one semester, and to be frank, it was a bit boring at times, so I started writing my first blog back then. That was really fun!

Overall, it was a nice one.

My eleventh job was at a designer, again. Yes, I had quit trying to become a designer, but I still had the skills and I still liked the work. I got the job by calling all the designers I found in the yellow pages and asking them if they need someone. It was a cool job, I designed brand magazines for land machines, menus for restaurants, websites for hotels and even a UNESCO world heritage application. I did logos for events, and once I had a phone call with my old religious education teacher from my home town. He was organizing some sports event and needed design work done for that. He didn’t remember me though.

I still like to work with my ex-boss on occasion. He’s one of the good ones.

My twelveth job was also the first one I did self-employed: I sold Art Yarn, together with my best friend. Do you know what Art Yarn is? Let me refresh your memory: It’s handspun yarn, one of a kind. Each skein is carefully designed and assembled, with materials that could be almost anything: merino wool, cotton, synthetic fiber, alpaca, silk, ramie, linen. We added all kinds of trinkets, like czech glass beads, ribbons, fabric flowers, little pom poms, real gem stones or charms. We took pictures, listed them at Etsy, did the copywriting, ads, shipped the parcels. It was very exciting, and I enjoyed the creativity. And the thrill of the sale! It’s just something very special when something you poured your heart in is found worthy.

My thirteenth job was an internship at a non-denominational educational organisation. I was helping the psychologist with organizing an assessment center, I helped with coaching and counselling. It was mostly an okay job, I didn’t have much to do other than aiding the psychologist in her daily tasks and watching. In the later phase, I did have some one on one counselling sessions, too, which in hindsight I think was not really legal, but the organisation was really low on staff and money, and we all did what we could to help the kids.

The worst thing that happened was an early incident of cyber bullying and harassment, where the male apprentices filmed a female apprentice’s pole dance and released it to the world.

Okay, the day one of the apprentices came to school with a gun probably wasn’t great either. Even though it wasn’t loaded.

My fourteenth job was at a board of education. I helped with testing kids again, assisted again in personal coaching and counselling sessions and sometimes visited schools with one of the psychologists. I learned that the whole school psychology sector in Germany is very understaffed. It was dull work and not a great time, although I liked the people I worked with.

My fifteenth job was at Uni again. The professor who supervised my master’s thesis offered it to me. It was mainly entering data into SPSS. Literally thousands of data sets. Luckily, my fingers remembered I used to play the piano and I was pretty good at clearing huge stacks of paper. I also sometimes picked up books for her from weird niche libraries that are scattered in this old city, and once I rated candidates for a professorial post. No, I didn’t have my diploma yet.

After I finished Uni, I applied everywhere. It was 2008, the time of the financial crisis, and jobs were scarce. Market research boomed, though. I got invited by one market research enterprise who showed me around. They mainly worked for an energy service provider, one of the evil ones. They showed me where all the quantitative work was done (it was a basement, crammed with dead-eyed people), then they showed me the beautiful offices they worked at and where I would work, too. Once I did my two months in the quantitative market research basement.

Then they drove me around in their expensive cars and bought me lunch. They acted like I was already one of them.

When the contract came, I didn’t sign.

The sixteenth job, my first “real” job after I was out of Uni, I got in market research. It was at a smaller, but still well-known market research institute, and I was at the department for trend and future research. It was all qualitative research, and I had a great time working there. I didn’t have the greatest team – my male collegue always tried to shortchange me for his own personal gain, and my boss was unstable, often mean and rarely fair – but the work was cool. I loved learning about what people like and why they like it. I loved the so called lifestyle studies where we researchers got to go and visit people at home, interview them and ask them about their lives, what they do and what they hold dear.

Then I worked at a big project for a famous automobile group. They basically wanted to invent the iPhone for electric cars. I could have told them right away that what they were lacking was courage. They did all sorts of super expensive events, get-togethers with international forward thinkers in the area of mobility, sustainability and technology who were invited to the fanciest places, basically just to cover their asses. The most absurd request was that the automobile group made me organize only cabs from their brand. It’s not the usual brand that cab companies use in this country, and I had multiple phone calls with the concierge of the wickedly expensive hotel the guests stayed in. We somehow did the trick, but my nerves… I never saw anything of the fancy events, btw. My boss went there alone. Oh, no, that’s not right: She took the male collegue, of course.

I quit to try self-employment again.

My seventeenth job then was being self-employed, trying to teach small enterprises how to do social media.

It was the lonliest time of my life.

I hadn’t thought it through – I thought my lack of contacts wouldn’t matter, that I could make good with my enthusiasm. After half a year, that enthusiasm wore quite thin. It also didn’t help that I somehow got caught in a toxic business relationship with a person I met during self-employment counseling. She was really bad for me, and parting ways hurt a lot. But I got it done.

I even wrote a song about her.

My eighteenth job was at Uni, but this time at a higher level. And better payment, thank the gourds! Because my first job at Uni was not even minimum wage, because we didn’t have minimum wage back then and the whole educational system is built on the hopes and dreams of the people who work there and not on sustainability.

I helped developing a tool to assess the language promotion capability of educational professionals – plainly speaking, how well pre-school teachers were able to aid kids with their language acquisition. It was interesting work in an interesting team, but as I wrote: the whole educational system is built on the hopes and dreams of the people who work there. One after the other left, and one day, it was me. Because I got a child.

My ninteenth job was at a small IT firm. I was the replacement for my partner, who by some weird coincidence was on parental leave. No, I’m being serious: My job came into being because my partner and I had a kid and we shared parental leave exactly 50/50.

I’m still working this job as a product manager, even though there’s an expiration date on it. I’m again switching careers, and soon I’ll apply for job number twenty.

Well. That is, if I have counted correctly.

It’s entirely possible I’ve missed the odd job.