| User | Comment |
|---|
| ihatespiders | | posted 14-Nov-2004 12:54pm |
A factory worker for Motorola. |
cerealkiller   | | posted 14-Nov-2004 12:59pm |
Construction estimator for a contractor in Chicago. |
| Biggles | | posted 14-Nov-2004 1:13pm |
I haven't applied for a job yet, but I will be soon. I have changed my mind about a masters degree so should shortly be applying for jobs like research assistant. |
they  | | posted 14-Nov-2004 1:18pm |
Full time? I guess that would be my first real job (not counting a paper route)
I worked at Kenny Roger's Roasters when I was 16.. Full time through the summer. I was a dining room attendant.. basically, I cleaned the tables, floors, windows, bathrooms, drink bar, and kept things like ice, sugar, lemons, straws, lids, cups stocked. I really liked that job at the time.. and I did it well.. I don't think my feet could take it now. |
| Enheduanna | | posted 14-Nov-2004 1:24pm |
I don't think I've ever applied for a full-time job. I've had jobs where I worked full-time hours, but they were only for the summer, so I don't think they really count. |
bill    | | posted 14-Nov-2004 1:28pm |
a co-op job after my 2nd year of college... at Heald (a division of Cincinnati Milacron), they were grinding machine makers. All my jobs before that were part-time. The coop job lasted about 6 months. I was an electrical engineer major at the time... I worked in their electrical design area. It pretty much sucked and I changed my major after that. |
| bcollins | | posted 14-Nov-2004 1:47pm |
Being a burger jockey at a local restaurant. |
| Kristal_Rose | | posted 14-Nov-2004 1:48pm |
I was given a blue-print copying business as a teen with plenty of housing tract contracts. There were a few 40 hours weeks, but then I'd hire friends.
I don't recall the first I applied for, but the first i got was at a Jack-in-the-Box fast-food restauraunt. I ended up staying there several years during college, my marriage, and kids. From there, I spent a decade doing show car restoration of Citroëns before finally getting into my software major full time. |
| darkshadowsseeker | | posted 14-Nov-2004 2:20pm |
Snack bar worker at a drive-in theater. I got promoted to the box office after a month and no longer had to help clean up at closing. I made a whole $1.65 an hour selling movie tickets and I got $1.45 hour when I worked the snack bar. Minimum was was $1.10 an hour way back when. |
LindaH  | | posted 14-Nov-2004 2:30pm |
A lot of jobs I have applied for are flexible, either full or part time hours available. I would put down that I want 40 hours a week, and then get hired and get between 30 and 35. They do that so they don't have to give you health insurance.  |
| thresholdking | | posted 14-Nov-2004 4:21pm |
Never had to apply for any job, members of my family had their own construction businesses. I went back and forth working for them, Just this spring I started my own. |
| thevelvetcure | | posted 14-Nov-2004 7:05pm |
Manufacturing plant that has since sent all the work to Mexico and Hong Kong...Jabil Circuits. |
| LuridHope | | posted 14-Nov-2004 9:39pm |
Auto Body |
| moonstone | | posted 14-Nov-2004 9:41pm |
i can't remember the first job i applied for. my first full time job was waitressing...was also my last. |
| jettles | | posted 14-Nov-2004 9:44pm |
as a substitute teacher and tennis coach..... |
| caviartaste | | posted 15-Nov-2004 8:28am |
first full time job that I applied for was as a Social Services Director in a Nursing Home and I got it too.. |
| icurok | | posted 15-Nov-2004 10:04am |
It was as an administrative assistant for a company that made incontinence pants. I was desperately short of money at the time, although I didn't get the job because I couldn't stop smirking during the interview. |
| Hans | | posted 15-Nov-2004 2:41pm |
A post as a research assistant at a a Math Dept. |
| Jody | | posted 15-Nov-2004 4:47pm |
Technical writer. |
| southernyankee | | posted 15-Nov-2004 5:43pm |
i havent yet applied for a full-time job. I have a part time job that i been having for over 4 years now, and applied for one or two other part-time jobs but it didn't go too well. I am at a point where I am about to say "fudge it" and hopfully come up with a brilliant business plan and just open up a business of some sort myself. I would be delighted it that had worked out for me. |
| leahdoll | | posted 15-Nov-2004 6:19pm |
Door-to-door sales; started out part time, then became full time after I graduated college. They took everyone though, so if "what is the first real job you interviewed for" is closeer to what you're getting at, then it would be for Enterprise Rent-A-Car. They take everyone too.  |
| Biggles | | (reply to Hans) posted 15-Nov-2004 7:32pm |
Aha - that's closest to the kind of work I'm looking for now. Just without the maths part! How did you find out about the job - was it advertised or did you have contacts? Did you get it?  |
| Hans | | (reply to Biggles) posted 16-Nov-2004 6:18pm |
This will possibly annoy you but it is true: I was very lucky as I did not have to fight - the fights came after that.... My PhD supervisor had an interest to have me there so that, yes, I applied for the post in a formal sense, but it was not a real competition. Later I found out that a high percentage of appointments are of this kind, very frustrating and unfair if you are one of those who have to or wish to apply without having contacts. And I know that feeling very well, it was only my first full-time job where I was as lucky as described. After some time I could often tell from the description of a post if they knew already whom they wanted to have (which was mostly the case!) or not. The academic world is not fair at all! I don't know if it is different in the area where you want to work. And I hope the best for you.  (crossing my thumbs) |
| Biggles | | (reply to Hans) posted 16-Nov-2004 7:45pm |
Thankyou It's well worth knowing because I *do* have connections and I can play up to the Oxford thing a lot as well. I've avoided ever doing that before, but it would be silly to ignore the possibilities that it offers. My tutor, who is a top guy in bacterial research here, is going to nose around for available positions - he seems to be really on my side, despite having only met me twice. Unusual for me to make positive first impressions - but perhaps it's further evidence that I'm an adult and not a gauche young thing anymore |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Biggles) posted 16-Nov-2004 9:34pm |
It's like that in social services and non-profit agencies too, probably everywhere except when they don't already know someone who can do the job.
I like that, 'gauche young thing'. Wow, checked out your picture, guess I've been holding on to an obsolete memory. What a knock-out. Not quite the cute frog face anymore. |
| Biggles |
Once you have 5 or so years of experience in the field, you can apply for loads of jobs. But getting the experience in the first place can be a nightmare. The work I really want to do, I'll have to get overseas experience for which is impossible. I'm hoping that doors will open at some point in the future though.
Cute frog face? That doesn't sound so good! |
| jdunlap | | posted 17-Nov-2004 1:37am |
wendy's |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Biggles) posted 17-Nov-2004 3:01am |
Regardless of terms, you've always been my favorite looker here, so don't complain.
What is it that's only available overseas? |
| Biggles |
A lot of development/aid/disaster relief work. |
| Lahdee | | posted 17-Nov-2004 9:14am |
pretzel factory |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Biggles) posted 17-Nov-2004 4:36pm |
That should be a lot of fun, hard work, rewarding, and i would think, quite easy to get. I can see hitch-hiking, group cooking and such. You're reminding me even more now of those mid-east/africa/austr. kate winslet movies I was so enamoured with a few years ago. |
| Biggles |
It's very hard work to get. Unskilled workers and volunteers are easy to find in the actual countries, and so are many of the professionals. And that should be encouraged rather than simply flying in external support in the shape of people who don't necessarily understand the area or the subtleties of the culture. The only way to really help is to gain sufficient experience that you can actually be of use - and that takes years and years and years. The hippy aid work ideal of Hollywood films is a myth. |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Biggles) posted 17-Nov-2004 7:58pm |
Last time I checked out the peace corps, you had to at least have a 2 yr degree in a field they required. I've heard of projects to do things like provide people in India with clean water which failed so miserably that the people were worse off after the large expensive aid projects. I've seen some documentaries which included abandoned missionary outposts too, where they couldn't even talk the natives into a preference for living indoors.
At a glance, I see things online like the global parks exchange, or teaching in africa. I knew one gal who spent half a year in argentina charting the migration of prarie animals. It sounding boring as hell, hanging out in a lean-to wind-shelter with binoculars and a notebook for months, but she got other assignments charting coastal critters there. Have you researched the net on this, or are you just taking the word of your instructors? Keep in mind, they don't have time to get out and network much, and their sabbaticals are usually private arrangements, at least in the arts department. I'd think there'd be tons of opportunities for those willing to work for room and board, Less than a native might require. I'm sure being bilingual would help though. 1000's of volunteers go to africa for Jimmy Carter's Habitat for Humanity projects. Tons of bird watching, costa rica rainforest biology.. There are a few sites which actually seem to be covert means of selling travel plans. One possibility is networking with someone whom you can intern under, create a mutually acceptable research project, then do the PR to land a grant.
Look for problems no one is addressing, like the lack of particulate filtering when forests are replaced with freeways.
I don't really know what your requirements or options are, but I bet they're a thousand-fold what you're imagining. These days, you could probably get a grant if you can negotiate a product design out of the deal. |
| Zang | | posted 17-Nov-2004 10:07pm |
We're talking over 25 years ago, but if I recall it was something like a grunt/casual help at a print shop. |
| quackabook | | posted 18-Nov-2004 2:14am |
Assistant cashier for a Navy Exchange. I was hired and stayed on the job for just under a year. |
| quackabook | | (reply to Biggles) posted 18-Nov-2004 2:17am |
If you can do the MA now it will be so much better. If you have thought of it, you will think about it again and the break from academia will make it harder to get it done. I know this from personal experience. |
| quackabook |
I started at $1.35 per hour. But then, gas was 22 cents per gallon and my rent was $80 per month. I bought my first car for $400. |
| quackabook |
Congratulations. How is business? |
| Biggles |
I have researched this. I don't want to do conservation work - I'm interested in people, and that isn't easy work to get. There are hundreds of gap year style opportunities to go abroad, but you have to pay them, they're badly organised and often run by stuck-up idiots who are simply patronising and exploiting the local people.
I am going on a Global Village Build with Habitat for Humanity this summer though. I, as VP of my uni's HFH group, wanted to go to Ethiopia, but the majority of our committee voted India, so probably there - somewhere in rural southern India But that will only be for a couple of weeks, and it's volunteerism, not a job. |
| Biggles |
But if the MA genuinely won't extend me any further than I've already gone, and will simply be another qualification to my name, I don't think there's any point doing one at all. Because we specialise so early in education here (I've studied solely biology at university), I will have studied 2 years in depth of the biology and control of disease. A masters isn't going to add to that when it's primarily aimed at biologists who haven't had the opportunity to study disease at all. An MA is great if you want to go into something a bit different, or change fields entirely, or if you've studied a broad subject range at college as you do in the States - I've been brought round to the opnion that it would be largely irrelevant for me. I would be interested in getting a job in a university department though, so that I can do a PhD easily later on. |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Biggles) posted 18-Nov-2004 2:31pm |
Oh, ok. I was thinking of ethiopia too. I'd like to visit there but for a longer stay I'd take india, having some affinities with the culture and beliefs.
I think a good deal of the world sill has water problems. Perhaps you could design some macrophage that stores like bread yeast which purifies water supplies. I guess that's still not working with people. What do you mean anyhow? Taking blood samples of malaria infestations? Working in an ebola clinic? |
| quackabook | | (reply to Biggles) posted 18-Nov-2004 3:11pm |
Smart thinking. Many people skip the master's program and do the doctorate. Just stay in synch with the current literature in your area and the mind set need to succeed in university/college environments. |
| Biggles |
Hopefully, if I'm working in the field, it will be fairly straightforward keeping up to date. I would love to go straight into a PhD (or "DPhil" if I did one at my current university) if I just knew exactly what area I wanted to focus on! |
| Biggles |
I don't necessarily want to work one-on-one with people - you need clinical training for that (ie. be a doctor or nurse). I just want to deal with diseases directly affecting humans. At the moment, disaster relief work interests me the most. When you have natural or man-made disasters, they're often followed by outbreaks of diseases that have previously been reasonably well controlled. I'd love to work on preventing or minimising those.
The last HfH group that went to India from the UK stayed in a monastery! It's an amazing charity and I'm so glad that I've been involved with it (over a year now). Hardly anyone has heard of it in this country. The HfH volunteers group at my uni was the first in the world, set up by a Canadian who was studying here. Most of our volunteers are from outside the UK. Our current committee has 3 people from Canada, one from Singapore, and two British - most of our other volunteers are Canadian or American too. |
| darkshadowsseeker |
My first car was a Rambler and I think it was about $350 if I remember correctly. I loved that car! I don't recall what the gas prices were back then. I think the rent was $75 or something similar for my first apartment. This was way back in 1971-72. |
| Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Biggles) posted 19-Nov-2004 1:18am |
cause and symptom? I would think diet and sanitation are the concerns there. |
| Kristal_Rose |
I just saw a show on Iran. Gas sells for 15¢/gal. there.
Back in 71-72 gas was 33-35¢/gal inLA, CA. I think it's around $1.80 now. |
| quackabook |
$2.33 per gallon downtown LA yesterday. |
| Biggles |
Yes. |
| thresholdking |
Right now I'm remodeling a 2.5 million dollar home on the lake, to much work, virtually no help, and never enough time. I'd say it's going better than could be expected, after this job I start a roof. |
| darkshadowsseeker |
It's over $2 a gallon around here, but when gas prices go up it seems Oregon tends to have some of the highest gas prices in the nation. I have no idea why. |
| Kristal_Rose |
Well for one reason your pumps aren't self-serve there last I heard. |
| darkshadowsseeker |
They never have been and if most Oregonians have their way, they never will be. Only Oregon and New Jersey (unless they have changed their laws) don't allow you to pump your own gas. |
| Kristal_Rose |
It's good for the local economy (and classy), like back in the day when there were street sweepers.
I had a car which suddenly belched a gallon of gas if you didn't pump really really slowly. The oregon attendant wouldn't believe me or let me pump my own gas unfortunately. |
| darkshadowsseeker |
I can understand your being upset with not being allowed to pump your own gas, but the attendant really didn't have any say in the matter because he is under state law. If he got reported and was the owner, he could have been heavily fined or prosecuted under law and if he was just an attendant, he could have gotten fired. The law is pretty strictly enforced and I've yet to hear an exception being made. I've lost count of the number of times that a measure has appeared on an election ballot to change the law and make it legal for you to choose to pump your own gas or let the attendant do it, but it gets voted down everytime...even with an option included for the attendant. |
| Kristal_Rose |
Seeing that the car was a Citroën, he at least had some cause to take me seriously. |
| darkshadowsseeker |
True and I understand what you're saying, but he still wouldn't have been allowed to let you pump your own gas. However, he should have allowed you to closely supervise his pumping of the gas so you could have warned him if he was pumping the gas in too fast. Did he allow you that at the very least? Some of these gas station attendants have little to no automotive experience and since so many service stations (at least in Oregon) don't check the oil or even clean your windshield unless you specifically request it, I think the trend has been to hire inexperienced workers who can be paid as little as possibly by law. When I was living with my former roomie it seemed that there was only one service station chain that cleaned your windshield without asking and that was Texaco. From my experience, none of the other chains even went that far. All they seemed to care about was filling the tank, getting the money and getting you out of there! |
| Kristal_Rose |
He simply wouldn't believe me, and had to be proved wrong the hard way. It was a bit of an ego thing. I didn't expect to be mentioning it 20 years later. |
| darkshadowsseeker |
Ah...I see. Why do you think he didn't believe you? |
| quackabook |
Are you a general contractor? |
| Kristal_Rose |
I would imagine in all his years pumping gas, he'd never had a car backwash like that. Some people won't believe things things till they see them themself. I don't know. It was 20 years ago. |
| darkshadowsseeker |
 Maybe he was from Missouri...the show me state! Who knows? |
| Kristal_Rose |
I was thinking to say that. |
| darkshadowsseeker |
Great minds think alike! |
| thresholdking |
Off and on for 13 years. |
| quackabook |
It's hard work. One time we tried to rent a house and the person looked at the application then told us she doesn't rent to construction types. Before that I didn't even know there was a category of construction types. |
| thresholdking |
Certainly a different breed, she was probably tired of giving rent deductions for improvements. Thats one possibility otherwise, IDK unless your working with tar or something of that nature. |
| autumnlight | | posted 30-Nov-2004 3:50pm |
I have only ever had part time jobs. |
| Tazwert | | (reply to Biggles) posted 22-Dec-2004 1:24pm |
Happy Birthday, Biggles!!! |
| Biggles | | (reply to Tazwert) posted 2-Jan-2005 4:54pm |
Thankyou |
| Updown |
A Burger Technician at Burger King. I worked all of 4 hours and kept the hat. |
| RGirl | | posted 15-Feb-2006 8:57pm |
Cleaned hotel rooms. |
