A CAREER – OF SORTS
Turning 65 is long behind me. For me, there was no gold watch, institutional eulogies, or golden handshakes. Fact is, I never lasted longer than 4 years in any job. I think the Minnesota Preference test imploded when I took it. Freedom 55? Hah!
But this is not a look-at-poor-little-old me story. A wealthy retirement may not be mine but look what is: Health (5 years clear of throat cancer), love (wife and friend of 43 years, 2 wonderful daughters, 3 challenging grandchildren), friendship (a wide circle that has lasted with humor, goodwill, and honesty for over 40 years), and the hope and joy that comes with every new day.
And what a ride that ‘career’ was. Maybe I should have skipped reading Hemingway’s ‘In Our Time’ at a young age because my working years were spent diving into every new venture and task that came my way (save anything involving heights or power drinking). For whatever reason jobs were either discarded because I was bored, had developed a strong antipathy toward them, or economic factors took the job out from under me. I was not a so-called unskilled worker - although I believe that description is one that should apply to effort and not education or training - with high school, university, and a professional accounting program under my belt– but none of it led me to the stability of an extended career at any one place or organization. In fairness, too, it all might have been a lot rockier if it weren't for my long-suffering and understanding wife who took me as I was.
So for any of you young people who might be despairing of long-term damage resulting from ‘career indecision’ and a wretched labor market, listen up. Commit to enjoying the voyage you’re setting upon, try your best, don’t be afraid of hard work, laugh at idiots and the peddlers of meanness, keep your honesty, remember your bias, and trust yourself to muddle through, no matter what. Giving up may be the biggest sin but quitting when you have had enough seems only sensible to me. Just don’t quit because you don’t think you have what it takes or the job is still unfinished. Unhappy with your resume? Try this one on for size:
- Washed windshields at the drive-in theatre
- scraped ice in between periods of hockey games
- washed pots and pans in an army hospital
- poured sidewalks with a wheelbarrow
- built sidewalks with treated fir and a hammer
- operated a steam roller
- pruned lettuce for a grocery store
- drove a delivery VW van
- cleaned up puke in a reserve army officers quarters
- cut grass with a scythe
- drove an ambulance for the infantry
- set type for a small printing company
- delivered 80 lb. cement bags to oil service rigs
- made caramel popcorn in a candy store
- wrote seven 500-word essays in three weeks on the same subject (Christian culture) for bonehead English students
- drove a moving van for 3 summers
- unloaded bananas at a rail depot
- washed cars at a car wash
- worked as a teller in a bank
- did the accounting for an insurance company
- sold insurance, door-to-door for another company (topping my list of
odious jobs)
- handled accounts payable for a oil well drilling company
- worked as a partner in a camp construction firm (success story! Sold company for huge sum, became vice-president at age 29, was fired at 30 – Peter Principle lived!)
- sold op-ed articles to newspapers
- helped a large community spend their community chest monies
- wrote and delivered political satire commentary for national radio
- helped another camp construction company get back to profitability
- acted as leasing agent and building manager for office tower (#2 on the odious list)
- helped promote rock concerts
- became part-owner of a dance hall
- collected rents from a slum apartment (#3 with the added fillip of extreme danger)
- punched meal tickets and managed student workers at a university mess hall
- mopped floors and cleaned toilets
- evaluated real estate portfolios for wealthy ‘players’
- helped set up a high-end restaurant
- acted as lawyer for a warm and wonderful Ukrainian clan who loathed and mistrusted lawyers (go figure)
- did business plans for a patented golf accessory, a summer resort horse rental business, a big-game outfitter, an outdoors writer who wrote for the Nordic market; a rancher, a day-care, a service station, a janitorial firm, a landscaper, an office supply firm, a wholesaler, a trucking company, and a roofer
- drove used cars to new markets
- wrote a book of short stories, two novels, and a memoir of life in Dubai.
- wrote sales and accounting manuals;
- managed an accounting software company (#4 on odious list, only because senior partner who hired and fired me was seriously unhinged; company had great product and might still be around if it had listened to me (had to get that in – I was good at turnarounds)
- computerized and modernized the systems of an ngo AND helped bring it out of debt. (An interesting postscript to two of my turnarounds was that upon reaching profitability the principals immediately began to ignore my advice, forged ahead blindly in new directions and promptly went back into debt. Sigh …)
- helped a marketing firm manage its funds
- sat on the boards of three service agencies
- delivered milk in -30 temperatures
- bought and sold a property in reverse order (you had to be there and, no, I am not proud of it)
- worked a turnaround for a real estate company
- speculated in the stock market
- became a teacher of cost accounting at a large technical college
- later a teacher of computers, math, and business at an Arab Men's College
- worked as an oiler on a backhoe on a pipeline (after working with a pick and shovel smoothing out the pipeline ditches)
- helped the elderly keep their money safe from money marauders (read large investment firms)
- carried 15 thousand dollars in cash (small bills) 20 miles through a city in the back seat of my '59 Beetle to pay an army regiment its bi-weekly pay
- with 2 helpers and a skid, moved upright pianos down steep hillside
- peeled potatoes in an army kitchen
- speculated in rural land deals during oil booms
- bought property in Scottsdale sight (site?) unseen
- worked (briefly) in a tire shop
- rented mobile offices to oil companies
- ran a one-night casino (quite illegal and, as it turned out, unprofitable – we couldn’t spot cheaters fast enough) for drunken construction workers
- wrote and directed a television commercial (the principal said he was happy and that it helped sales – I seriously doubt it)
- wrote puff pieces for trade magazines (hell hath no fury like a pea-brained business owner who’s purchased a full page ad and wonders why you can’t be more effusive about his godawful product)
- shoveled grain
- mopped floors at a law school
- sat in a private dining room of a downtown hotel and, over wine and dinner, accepted an envelope containing one hundred thousand dollars in share certificates (at the time, a 3-bedroom bungalow in a new district ran under $30,000
- sold beer to freshmen
- taught accounting over the phone (the first distance learning university)
- lectured seniors graduating from a college on careers in manufacturing
- helped build service rigs (#1 in job satisfaction; when I arrived, the small plant couldn’t produce one rig a month and was losing money; in a year we were building 3 a month and making fistfuls. The secret? Pay
good people well and keep them in the loop)
- tried out for Jeopardy (passed the q and a, failed the charisma test)
- became a tax consultant
- worked as campaign manager in civic/provincial elections (thankless and a discouraging encounter with venality)
- delivered truckloads of potato chips from railspur to warehouse (Nice work if you can get it)
- shot at a gopher with a sub-machine gun to keep my boss, an army lieutenant, happy. (75 rounds, 9mm, 25 yards – missed)
- worked as a short-order cook
- sold travel trailers
I never worked for a government.
Keep smiling! Who knows what tomorrow will bring.
Robert Alan Davidson