<p>I worked one summer in what I affectionately called the “screw factory.” I had to fit little screws into little washers, and then pack them together in sets of 100. There were women there who did this as their full-time jobs. They didn’t like it much when (to ease the mind-numbing aspects of the job) I tried to increase my productivity by doing more every day.</p>
<p>The next summer I worked in a wet suit factory. I glued the thumbs and feet together. The full time women had the privilege of sewing the parts together.</p>
<p>After that I decided to be a waitress for Howard Johnson’s on the Garden State Parkway from 11 pm to 7 am. Always had an interesting clientele. The best part of working those hours was eating all the shrimp we wanted (along with the ice cream)!</p>
<p>Kelly Girls temp - assignments usually clerical in different offices, sometimes clerical working Convention check-in etc.</p>
<p>One night a week House Mother at a nearby girl’s boarding high school, for the real House Mother’s night off. </p>
<p>Worst job: typist for a gentleman in the investment business. My job was to type up lovely little letters to recent widows he found on the obit pages, trying to get them to give him their business. I felt creepy doing that and quit. Seemed like ambulance chasing to me. With hindsight, there may be nothing wrong with it; maybe he helped them immensely managing their money. Still not my style, though.</p>
<p>Summers:</p>
<p>Clerical in large Washington DC office building: secretary for the building manager, xerox operator (yes, in those days there was one machine for the whole building and people brought their stuff down for me to make the copies and collate by hand), lunch relief for the building’s telephone operator (TOTALLY COOL because it was that [old-fashioned</a> plug and cable switch board](<a href=“http://www.inmagine.com/dp014/dp1791755-photo]old-fashioned”>http://www.inmagine.com/dp014/dp1791755-photo)).</p>
<p>Usher at Washington National Theatre: paid peanuts but lots of fun, saw Ethel Merman in Annie Get Your Gun a dozen times.</p>
<p>Research Assistant to two profs at MIT: a real catch, but they didn’t really need an RA much, so pretty boring.</p>
<p>During the school year…
Graded HW papers for math prof. I loved that job. Developed a relationship with kids I never saw by writing notes on what they did wrong or right sometimes.</p>
<p>Sandwich line in the cafeteria all 4 years. Paid the board part of the tuition.</p>
<p>Summer jobs:
Data entry clerk at school office.
Maid at Crater Lake Lodge. Worst part was cleaning men’s room… pigs.
2 years, counting money at Crater Lake Lodge… yep, all the receipts from every cash register was counted, checked with the tape, and logged for the deposit. Great job since I had to get it done by the time the bus left for town, so start at 7, done by 1 or 2 (I forget) then the rest of the day free to hike or daydream.</p>
<p>I was on a work study program. The school assigned me to work in a cafeteria. It lasted 2 days (didn’t like touching dirty dishes). </p>
<p>I was the fastest typist from my high school (remember we used get timed?), so I got myself a typist job at a school’s newspaper. I got paid per inch that I typed. I would just go there between classes. I also typed papers for some students. I charged $1/page, but would double the rate if if it was an emergency. I also ran the student activity center - managed all clubs’ money. I probably worked 25+ hours a week. I paid for most of my school through scholarship, loans and work. Back then it was a lot easier to do, total cost a year was $5000.</p>
<p>Summers: one summer I worked on exhibits at a US Information Service Library, another I shelves books at the college and did miscellaneous work like packing someone up for a move, my last summer I got a grant to do senior thesis research in Europe.</p>
<p>Now why pray tell would you want the thumbs and the feet glued together. I know people have a hard time touching their toes, but isn’t this a little overboard. LOL</p>
<p>I was lucky. I wrote a software package to provide tools for exploratory data analysis for my first two years and then worked as a research assistant on a couple of projects. With a huge amount of additional work, the latter, a giant Monte Carlo study became my senior thesis.</p>
<p>Summers starting in HS were spent writing code at Bell Labs. The last two or three summers of college were spent at school as a research assistant.</p>
<p>I always worked full time while a student.
Medical Secretary.
Waitress at Disneyland-most everyone was in college so it was a great social life.
Pharmacist Intern-lower pay than waitress but needed second job and experience.
Summer intern at Pharmaceutical company-took the huge cut in pay for the experience.</p>
<p>DH and I had fun part-time jobs. I was a campus tour guide and he worked for the campus information line, a phone number students could call to ask any type of questions. One night he recognized the voice of one the callers as being one of my sorority sisters asking about Harvard grad school. His answer, “No, Susie. I don’t think you have the grades to get in.”</p>
<p>I worked in an Endicott Johnson shoe factory and at IBM in a metal treating department, injection mold department, circuit board assembly department, computer board swaging department and a data processing department. All the IBM jobs were 2nd or 3rd shift jobs.</p>
<p>I worked in an Endicott Johnson shoe factory and at IBM in a metal treating department, injection mold department, circuit board assembly department, computer board swaging department, the automated warehouse, and a data processing department. All the IBM jobs were 2nd or 3rd shift jobs.</p>
<p>During the school year, I worked in the library, where I was able to delete the accumulated late fees of all my friends–it was certainly a plus socially. I was a bank teller one summer, but probably the worst ever–I was never, ever able to balance my cash drawer at the end of the day and accidentally set off the silent alarm many times (police rush in with guns drawn, everybody looks at me). I was a pretty accomplished kid who had never totally failed at anything before, so it was a sobering experience!</p>
<p>As an undergrad, I worked part-time during the school year and full-time during the summer. As a grad student, I worked part-time (full-time during the summer) while taking classes, and full-time after passing my comps and while preparing my thesis. I never earned more than slightly above minimum wage (with no employer-sponsored health or life insurance, and no state disability or unemployment benefits) at any of these jobs. Living paycheck-to-paycheck on a bare-bones budget was a fact of life, but–with a huge undergraduate educational loan debt hanging over my head–these jobs enabled me to be continuously self-supporting.</p>
<p>Undergraduate years:<br>
Suburban campus library/Work Study
Hometown country club (summer job in the snootier-than-thou club’s restaurant, where the volcanically-tempered soon-to-be-former chef and his snarky soon-to-be-successor once went at each other with a butcher knife and a meat cleaver after the chef caught the sous-chef surreptitiously re-seasoning his signature Puree Mongol soup)
Urban campus library/Work Study
Historical society archives (assisting the editor of a Continental Congress delegate’s enormous collection of private papers, now available on 122–count 'em!–microfilm reels) </p>
<p>Graduate years:
Historical society archives (see above)
Art museum guide/Work Study (during the height of the Bicentennial–what a summer!)
Campus academic department assistant/Work Study
Graduate Assistant
Temping treadmill (with scores of short-term and long-term full-time assignments, and a memorable story from each one)</p>
<p>I have a strong work-ethic and a high regard for self-sufficiency, which I’ve imparted to my daughter. She’ll almost certainly have to work a string of low-wage jobs while she’s in college and grad school, too, but I know she won’t look down her nose at whichever jobs come her way. I’ve always told her that there’s no shame in honest work, but there’s plenty of shame in voluntary self-insufficiency when honest work–any kind of honest work–is available.</p>
<p>I didn’t have many jobs during the school year but one year during summer semester I wanted some spending money for some reason so I made donuts for the food service! “Time to make the donuts!” I still don’t mind getting up early in the morning during the summer.</p>