… No, not a dame. (Or a Dane, for those of you who saw Betty’s performance with the Butch McCloud cast).
Rather, there is nothing like a resume for making you aware of what exactly you’ve been doing with your time. There are moments, reviewing and updating mine, that I want to put things in parentheses
- 2008: survived Wisconsin winter
- 2002: wrote unpublished novel
- 2001 – 2008: played Sims for sanity’s sake
- 1993 – 1997: traveled extensively through SE Asia
- 1991 – still: worked on novel that I still can’t seem to get right
… stuff like that. It is interesting to see things drop off as time goes by – my job with NYPIRG in the early 90s is gone, as is my time working as an office assistant at CCNY. A long time ago my jobs at RKO Video and at my sister’s bakery disappeared.
Though sometimes, you know, I still want to mention that I was a paperboy: nothing like delivering papers to develop strong thighs and self-motivation. (I know you’re out there, fellow former paperboys! & If there are any female fellow paperboys, say hello!) I did come to suck at it because I developed a healthy fear of dogs. Amazing that I still went on to canvas door to door years later. It’s amazing what you can do to avoid the 9-5 grind.
No job yet.
I was a paperboy! I had my entire block, mostly elderly people. I would go from door to door every Saturday: knockknock – Collect! I even won a trip to a now-defunct local amusement park. Oh, and I was 7 years old. =)
I used to deliver the Boston Globe in metrowest Massachusetts. EVERYONE in the neighborhood got the local Middlesex News, so those were coveted routes – 30 or 40 customers in a few blocks. Easy. I hadda go a mile or so to deliver my 20-30 papers, delivered to the intelligensia and liberal elite (who also seemed to be out of town most evenings when I went to collect).
If I knew then what I know now, I would have at least tried to market Globe subscriptions using snob appeal.
Travel in SEA for five years! …. Can we hear more?
OK, I’m no partner. But I can’t help but mention my exquisite paperboy credentials:
1. Many years of faithful delivery service in InterFreakingNational Falls, MN, frequently at – quite literally – 40 below. That thing where kids’ parents drive them around to deliver the papers? Bah! Not for me.
The Northern Lights in a dead-cold, dead-quiet Minnesota January at 5:30 AM – absolutely mind-blowing.
2. I performed The Paperboy role in a musical production of Studs Terkel’s _Working_, and still remember the lines to _Gee, It’s Neat to Be a Newsboy_.
Good luck with the job search…
Never been a paperboy (I did deliver junk mail for a very brief period, though; does that count?), but I can relate to a lot of what you said in your post. I’ve done my best to avoid the 9-5 grind as well; the thing that made me vow never to get sucked into that type of life if I could help it was doing a couple of days’ work in a reasonably normal job years and years ago, and just seeing how frickin’ MISERABLE everyone on peak hour public transport looked! With regards to your reflections on jobs you once did that no longer exist, I had a similarly introspective moment last year. I happened to be in the vicinity of a primary school I did the odd bit of cleaning at back in the early ’90s, and decided to check it out again just to see if it had changed all that much since I’d last worked there. From what I could see of it, it hadn’t, but I found it rather sobering to reflect that even the youngest kids who would have been there the last time I had been would have all left school by now (assuming, of course, that they weren’t complete dumbasses who failed repeatedly).
Yea, Me too………
Started at age 6 on the family route. That’s right, my whole family from Dad on down, rotated to deliver 1000 papers a day (Rocky Mountain News) in a retirement apartment community. I got 5 bucks a day (cash!) to deliver my 12 buildings! I loved it! Up at 3:30 am to the smell and taste of Dads sweet tea. Driving to the complex through the quiet deserted streets. Loading the van, sitting on the bundles with the smell of fresh ink. My left arm and t-shirt turned black by the end of the morning. Often the elderly would wait in the hall for me knowing the exact time I would pass. Some offered things…. hot chocolate, candy, fresh hot muffins…….or editorials……(“letsee what asshole is on the cover today, kid……blah, blah…) One woman who couldn’t speak or walk very well…. her body shaking weakly, would give me the most wonderful heart felt hugs as I handed her the paper. The dogs on the other side of the apartment door……. grasp the paper just right, get ready, and just slam the thing under the door just for the reaction from the dog. (and a good laugh for me…)
Endless mischief with my brothers…..
Sounds of the geese overhead in the dark….
My dad, a human machine, worked tirelessly, with a smile….
The occasional ambulance in the street, lights twirling off the buildings, the stretcher rolling down the sidewalk…..
Village Inn on Sunday mornings, the smell of coffee and hot syrup…..
Today one of my brothers calls the above child abuse… I call it child enlightenment……
Steve