Construction/Dry Wall: Years ago, a friend took me to the site he was working at. He was sort of a "buffed-out" guy and had no problem lifting the dry wall up and nailing. Back then there was no power nail gun, just a hammer and nail. He would put some dry wall nails in his mouth, lift up the dry wall, w/hammer in-hand as well, and nail it up. For, then fairly skinny me, I couldn't even get the dry wall up! We were on his job a couple of hours, but after trying to get that one piece of dry wall up and failing, I just watched him and talked. After that I knew I wasn't cut out for any kind of construction work. Drill Press: All I can say is, very dirty/oily area. Again, not for me. Steel Cutting: Same as drill press.........never again. Fence Building: Didn't last one day. Me and a posthole digger just didn't get along. Building/Fixing Pallets: Tried, didn't work. Pick-Up/Delivery Driver: Ok, but too boring. Warehouse: Ok, at first, but was sure glad to finally get involved with Purchasing and Inventory Control. Found out very quickly how much I would love office/computer work. What about you? Jobs you tried, didn't like/couldn't do and left?
Haven't had to many jobs, seem to stick with them. 21 years military, 15 years distillation operator and HVAC in-between to fill out my work time. My last hitch in the Air Force was working for Disaster Response and part of my duties was to teach NBC to the troops. ( Nuclear/Biological/Chemical ) Never really got use to instructing in the classroom. Went to instructor school in Texas, but had a hard time with all the 'correct ways' of teaching a military class. - Set lesson plan - 55 minute class w/ one 10 minute break - Move your eyes from side to side of the class and don't lock in on one student. - The cost of always having new uniforms and going above and beyond adhering to the Grooming Standards. I was better at field work, repairing and observations. ( felt better in Battle Dress instead of blue shirt and tie.) If that's my only complaint, guess I enjoy my working life...
Didn't like the Navy enough to stay in and retire. Not everyone wants to, or can, stay with a job for years. I got really lucky, the couple of jobs that I got terminated from, my manager wrote "Laid-Off" on the Separation papers. But, did get "Laid-Off" from others. Quit a few as well. One job I quit was when working as EMT. Some people (me) can only take seeing so much "blood & gore". In the beginning, the job was interesting and exciting, but working almost every weekend was cutting into my "party time" to much. When I got with manufacturing/production companies working in warehouse/shipping/receiving, stockroom/purchasing and inventory control, worked Monday thru Friday with all weekends off. That was nice!
Being the "newbie" here... Have worked four different stock exchanges..but not as a broker. A waitress,in offices of different types..mostly in accounting- cleaned houses, clean up at construction sites, child care places, caring for the elderly, but the one i enjoyed the most for many, many years, was as a cosmetic consultant for a well known retailer.
Hello and welcome @TxOutlaw Mitchell , I'm happy to meet ya!! I too live in Texas, the NE part of Harris county. I hope we see more of you in the future. I started working full time when I was 15. I did everything from housekeeping, scraping windows of newly constructed buildings, selling vegetables from an outdoor stand, delivering parts for different auto parts dealerships, security officer, bonded courier for lawyers, and on and ... until I ended up in business and accounting. The only job that I truly didn't like was at a Toyota dealership. I hired on as a grunt when I was 26 way back in 1978. They put me in a small room with the first computer I'd ever seen up close. I was given no instruction, not even written ones, and told to 'input' all the receipts for the parts department. After scaring myself for most of the day, (I had visions of smoke rising from the thing.), I snuck out of there around 2m, and never returned. It's funny that the last 20 years I worked involved a computer.
@Cody Fousnaugh All but the last three were a vigorous part of my efforts, but rarely as "jobs". I did those activities out of the absolute need presented. (I hate post-hole diggers). Frank
I waited on tables in my early years. It paid the bills while I got through school but I hated every minute of it. Pasting a frozen smile on my face while dealing with rude customers was not my idea of the ideal job.
I never liked really physical work, because my body was just never built for it. OTH, I had no problem working on my own vehicle, as in changing oil, changing a water pump or generator or alternator or plugs. Left brakes and a few other things to Pep Boys back then. Don't do any of that stuff today, except for changing air cleaner, adding fluids, changing wiper blades and changing a burned out tail light/brake light/turn signal light. Everything else we let a professional mechanic do. Have to pay a nice penny for that, but.
I can't think of any job that I had that I didn't like. I can say that with the resources that were available during high school that I figured out which ones I didn't want to do. I worked for a couple of temp agencies which exposed me to a lot of fields that I was interested in such as banking, collections, bookkeeping, secretarial, billing and coding, profit and non-profit agencies just to name a few. There were jobs within those areas that I found out that I didn't like certain things about them. I stuck with them because they were assignments and I didn't want a negative evaluation.
I worked for Trane Home Comfort Center for about a month, doing telephone soliciting, and I hated that. The only other one was a job that I quit after a few days. I worked as an assistant manager of an apartment complex for a while, and enjoyed that. When someone moved out, I would repaint the apartment, nearly every time, and if there were more than a couple of vacancies at the same time, we'd hire a professional painting company to come in. The painting company offered me a job with them because they liked the work that I had done on the apartments, and I eventually took them up on it. What they didn't know was how long it took me to do such a good job. Working for the painting company, I would start on one side of the room, and I would literally have only painted half of one wall when my partner met me, having done the other three and a half in the time that it took me to paint a half a wall. They would paint the floor molding, even with a carpeted floor, without using a cheater and without getting any paint on the carpet. It was amazing and, although no one with the painting company even hinted that they were unhappy with my work, it was clear to me that I would never be able to be that good or that fast, so I gave my notice even though I didn't have another job lined up. In this case, I hated the job because I couldn't do it well, not because there was anything wrong with the job.
From what I've read, seems the posters have figured out what they are good at and what to avoid. Guess we have all met people who hate what they do, but continue for various reason to stay with it. If physical work isn't your strong suit, move on to something else. If an office job is more to your liking, go for it. I like to mix the two till I can't do physical anymore. Then I move on to 'Plan B '...
The few times I did work, it was always in accounting or billing. Guess I was good in math, my first job was at the largest bank in Chicago and was on the loop...that bank took up a square block....think it was the third largest bank in the US back then... I worked in securities and collections there. I was good at it but it bored me, don't know how I always ended up on accounting though since I really didn't care for it....thankfully, it wasn't too many years as my main job was wife and mother and that I enjoyed.
My wife has mostly been in AP, AR and Finance, except for the short time she was a movie and tv ad extra. Her mom's career was in Accounting also. She was working part-time, in Accounting, she found out the higher salary would be there if she had a Bachelors Degree. So, since she already had an AA, she decided to go for the Bachelors. At age 49, she got it. And, since then, the salaries have been nice for her. In fact, one company she worked for as a Senior Accountant, the Accounting Manager would only hire people holding a Bachelors Degree. She has worked for a Tax company, a manufacturing company, a major bank and now an insurance company in QC. She gets a nice salary and 3 weeks a year of vacation. Plus, no weekend work, something we both love. She handles all of our bills and banking stuff.
My goodness...job diversity ! I think the very worst was at Dairy Queen, many moons ago... to this day I still can not make ice cream cone with that squiggly thingy on top. I understand about the no instructions... once in an accounting job...back when computer was basically in DOS mode... walked in saw a computer on my desk...they had let someone go,and decided I would take over... I knew nothing. But that is how my computer skills-as such have evolved over the years. Thank you for the reply and we live in and around Denton.
Oh ... @Cody Fousnaugh , I see you are lucky like my Michael was. He was 10 years older than I, so he got too retire and have alone space before I retired as well. He would grin real big and tell others that he was in heaven as a kept man, and by a much younger woman. It is so hard to go back to school at an age when most think we're at the age of teaching instead of learning. Tell her I said, "Way to go girl".