Journal Jar: Jobs

Just after Brad and I were married I went to a Homemaking meeting, as it was called back then, where we put together these Journal Jars. It is basically a bunch of questions that you are supposed to answer in your journal and by doing so you write a kind of personal history. I was pretty excited about this and I went out and bought a special journal for the task and even had it engraved with my name on it so that no one would mistakenly think it was their history. I valiantly answered three questions and then stopped. My journal has since become my "I'm depressed and need to get these feelings out of me and onto paper" journal and the Journal Jar has either sat on my dresser or been stuffed into one drawer or another, with the hopes of someday being opened again. That lucky day is today!!! I thought it would be fun to do this on my blog, since my blog is my "happy journal"! I have to say, though, that the question I am answering was the fourth one I picked. I have a feeling that not all the questions will be answered....

"Tell about all the places you've worked."

I thought this was a fun question because I think I have worked at some pretty interesting places. I'm warning you all now: this is a long one!!

Babysitting. I started babysitting when I was ten years old. That seems young to me now but at the time I thought it was pretty cool. And, I didn't go far away. In fact, it was right next door. I babysat A LOT, which was pretty nice for my pocketbook, and there was one family in particular, the Forsters, that had me over two or three times a week. When I was older and wanted a higher paying job, they told me they would pay more than minimum wage just to have me stay. It was sweet. It also didn't hurt that I really enjoyed their kids, Mike and Shannon. I figure they are in their twenties now and that makes me feel old.

Swim Instructor, YMCA. I taught swimming lessons one summer. It was pretty easy doing the childrens' classes but I didn't much like the adult classes. My short stature did not help me in this area. This was a fun job though because I worked with three other girlfriends from school. My skin became so tan that summer it scared me. (There are NO remnants of that anymore, though! Now I have the mormon mom tan line. It is beautiful.)

Bloomsters. This was a florist shop that my sister worked at before me. I worked there for about a year. I honestly never really liked it but it was a job and I needed the money to help pay for college the next year.

House cleaning. I have had several house cleaning jobs and I never liked the actual work, although I did enjoy talking with the homeowners. I think I was a pretty pathetic cleaner at first. I've never told my mom this and she will probably die with embarrassment but in the three years that I cleaned one house I NEVER mopped the floor; I only spotted it. I just didn't want to. Isn't that disgusting?! After doing the laundry, making beds, and cleaning out gross make-up sponges I was just done. And don't even mention filling out all the sweepstakes applications! The lady was a little off her rocker but the man of the house was really a neat man and I thoroughly enjoyed talking with him. They must have found out about the floor because I was eventually "replaced."
My favorite cleaning job was for Bro. Dibble. I did this every other Saturday all through college. He turned 100 while I was working for him and there couldn't be a sweeter man. I just loved him. Bro. Dibble lived with his son, Dr. Dibble, who was a physics professor at BYU. Dr. Dibble never got married and I only saw him a handful of times while I worked there. That man loved books, though, and eventually I wasn't able to clean the living room/library because there were so many.

Fujitsu / Charles Schwab. I worked as a temp the summer after my freshman year of college. I did data entry at Fujitsu and was the receptionist at Charles Schwab. I learned that I hate sitting all day. At least at Schwab I could talk with people; I hated my cubicle at Fujitsu.

Utah Department of Conservation. I lived in Ephraim, UT for the summer while I worked for the UDC. My job was basically to count native plants in specified plots that had experienced fire, chaining (where they take a giant chain between two tractors and mow down all the big vegetation in an area), reseeding, etc. When we weren't doing that we got to do a lot of weeding on the seed farm (where they would reproduce native plants). The cool thing about that job was that I got to go on a lot of camp-outs. We were never in Ephraim the entire week, which was just fine with me.

US Forest Service; Evanstan, WY. I really enjoyed this job. We did goshawk (pronounced "gos-hawk") and three-toed woodpecker studies all summer. We were stationed out of Evanstan but we actually lived up the mountains 30 miles in some cabins. I worked with another guy who was chronically congested and loved to listen to NPR. He also couldn't figure out how to avoid ruts in the Forest Service roads and ended up ripping apart the underside of our truck. (Note to everybody: NEVER buy a used Forest Service vehicle!!) Anyway, our job was to locate goshawks and track their nesting success. We did this by using a topography map and compass and walking a straight line through a section of forest. Then we would use the bird calls to attract them to us. I really enjoyed this because we saw a lot of country that you usually don't see.

University of Arizona. I worked through their extension office in Phoenix after I got off my mission. We did cotton plant studies -- which variety grew best, which insecticide worked best, and how different insects damaged the plants. It was a hot job but I worked with a good friend of mine and we had a lot of fun together. I got Brad a job there on another crew and we occasionally saw each other, which was really exciting at the time!

Quality Tree Source. I sold trees. I actually really enjoyed this job but the politics were terrible and it ruined the job for me. I learned a lot about taking care of trees, though, and that was fun. The best part was I learned how to drive a front-end loader tractor. I was really good at picking up and placing large, balled and burlapped trees in the back of expensive trucks. I loved that!

Secretary for Jack D. Brotherson, BYU. I did this for almost two years. He promised me that we could submit some papers together to get published but that never happened. I was really bummed because I worked hard at writing some scientific papers with him. I think he had so many things going on that he had a hard time focusing on anything. But, I learned a lot and became good friends with him and that was a good thing. I have to say that my writing definitely improved because of all the practice. I also did all the normal professor's secretary work: grading papers, preparing lectures and tests, etc.

US Forest Service; Spanish Fork, UT. More goshawk and three-toed woodpecker studies. But I also got to do old-growth forest surveys and a really cool study on the lynx. I actually didn't get the job I wanted, which was in environmental education. I found out that it was because I didn't have any experience hauling a trailer, which was a bunch of political BS. I talked with the guy that got the position I wanted and he said he didn't even want to do the education stuff. So, we got to trade jobs every now and then. I did presentations at schools, at Girl Scout camps, and various other places on things like "leave no trace camping" or "plant and animal identification." I really enjoyed it, and it was a nice break from the back country work.

eToys. Getting a full-time job in the natural conservation field is pretty difficult and at this point in my life I needed health insurance because Brad and I wanted to start a family. So, I got a job with eToys, an online toy company that has since gone under. Three weeks after I was hired they said they were closing down the warehouse where I worked. So, my entire job there was doing inventory to ship out product. I worked there six months to the day, thus qualifying me for COBRA insurance, which we used for the birth of our daughter, Jillian. I also scored with that job because we put aside all the "damaged" items, which most of the time just meant a damaged box, and which the company was going to destroy, and walked away with about $3000 worth of toys. We sold most of it but kept a bunch for our family. I still have eToys stuff I haven't pulled out yet.

Vice President, Copestone Construction. When we set up our business in Arizona Brad asked me if I wanted to be listed as the secretary. Whatever. I'm not just a secretary. Been there, done that. I made him put down Vice President. It sounds pretty cool, but I was really just a secretary. It's all in the name, though!

Wife and Mother. Although the world doesn't see this as "professional" work this is the hardest and best job I've had. I guess that sounds cliche-ish but I can deal with that.