2G18 - 22: Previous jobs

Mitsurugi CP · Post by **Mitsurugi CP** » Tue May 29, 2018 8:28 pm

We're all at some point of development along the continuum of our chosen field, or maybe you're still figuring that part out. But before your current job, there were others along the way. Some pretty great, some OK, and some absolute garbage.

What are some particularly memorable previous jobs, good or bad, that you want to share stories about? Any jobs or fields you'd go back to doing if circumstance permitted it? Any you're very glad to put behind you?

If you're still trying to figure out your work situation, do you have any fields you aspire to join?

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Tue May 29, 2018 8:51 pm

I have one story I want to tell and one person who may see this may understand the story from this one word. "Voice".

Real response later.

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Wed May 30, 2018 12:40 am

My previous jobs basically fall under the category of temporary positions. My current job is my first "real" job in a manner of speaking. Before that during college I did retail type jobs. Then in grad school I was a research assistant while getting my PhD. I did tutor for awhile before getting the job at the patent office but that was never a full time thing.

I'd really like to do something more creative than any job I've had befpre. Not sure I'm cut out for it though. At least not in any marketable sense.

Mitsurugi CP · Post by **Mitsurugi CP** » Wed May 30, 2018 1:43 am

What kind of research did you do while you were getting your PhD?

Fei Ayanami · Post by **Fei Ayanami** » Wed May 30, 2018 2:31 am

Damien wrote:I have one story I want to tell and one person who may see this may understand the story from this one word. "Voice".

Real response later.

Chelsea and I still recall that story from time to time.

EDIT: btw it occurs to me you might be referring to someone else and forgot that you told us that story

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Wed May 30, 2018 6:50 am

smeared ink wrote:
Damien wrote:I have one story I want to tell and one person who may see this may understand the story from this one word. "Voice".

Real response later.
Chelsea and I still recall that story from time to time.

EDIT: btw it occurs to me you might be referring to someone else and forgot that you told us that story

No. For some reason, that story reminds me of you

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Wed May 30, 2018 12:41 pm

Mitsurugi CP wrote:What kind of research did you do while you were getting your PhD?

Particle physics. It was boring as hell. It was generally just writing and running code on huge datasets and nothing ever worked right. Especially since in the beginning they had me looking at a low cross section reaction that was pretty hard to find because it was difficult to disentangle some of the decay products. Made me sure I didn't want to continue with that after finishing.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Wed May 30, 2018 2:26 pm

I'll start with listing my places of work between 98 and 2G8.

98 – Toys R Us
99 – Argos (shop based around a catalogue and large store room)
2G – The British Library
2G2 – Virgin Megastore
2G3 – William Hill (betting shop)
2G5 – Libraries (was temporary, so moved between different assistant jobs at various London boroughs)
2G7 – Barnardo’s (a children’s charity worked in the library)
2G8 – The Wellcome Trust (worked in the library)

Mitsurugi CP · Post by **Mitsurugi CP** » Wed May 30, 2018 3:28 pm

I used to think you were completing a degree in information sciences with as much time as you spent working in libraries.

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Wed May 30, 2018 3:50 pm

Was the Wellcome Trust from 2G8 until you left London?

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Wed May 30, 2018 4:00 pm

Nope. Saved the second decade for another post

Not going to put the exact name of the workplace on this one, as I'm paranoid a google of my actual name and workplace will bring this thread up

2G10 - Government-owned children's court support service (worked in their library and information department).
2G12 - Vocational qualification awarding body (data management and analysis)
2G17 - Some shitty temp stuff I'll leave out
2G18 - Gas company (data analysis).

Only reason I don't work at libraries any more is because they mostly got shut down. People don't care much for expertise or evidence any more. "It's all online"

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Wed May 30, 2018 5:50 pm

Damien wrote:Nope. Saved the second decade for another post
Not going to put the exact name of the workplace on this one, as I'm paranoid a google of my actual name and workplace will bring this thread up

Only if they remember to put -Ford.

Mitsurugi CP · Post by **Mitsurugi CP** » Wed May 30, 2018 9:36 pm

Damien wrote:Only reason I don't work at libraries any more is because they mostly got shut down. People don't care much for expertise or evidence any more. "It's all online"

I have three librarian friends, one who's the director of a university science library, and he could go on for days about the base ignorance of people who think libraries have lost their utility today.

Fei Ayanami · Post by **Fei Ayanami** » Wed May 30, 2018 10:12 pm

Let’s say... 1996-ish - Paper route (Delta Optimist)
2000 - Safeway
2003 - Choices (another grocery store)
2004 - Chapters (bookstore)
2008 - Vancouver Public Library (moving between many branches like Damien)
2011 - Various academic stuff like research and marking during grad school
2016 - Major insurance company (programming applications and pipelines for handling data)

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Thu May 31, 2018 6:45 am

The difference between London and Vancouver libraries is whereas Vancouver has one library service, the borough councils in London run the library services. That means there are 32 different library services ran in different ways by 32 different councils (probably fewer now, I'm sure some have succeeded in shutting them all down by now).

One thing I found funny when working at Tower Hamlets Libraries (2006) was that they were renaming the libraries "Idea Store" and told us to refer to them as such as much as possible, as "the word library makes people think of books and puts them off". Whenever we reduced a section of books, we'd get the most complaints though.

Fei Ayanami · Post by **Fei Ayanami** » Thu May 31, 2018 11:32 am

Ugh. They’re always trying to do shit like that. When VPL got a new head, we were suddenly supposed to refer to branches as “units” and patrons as “customers” as if the library is a fucking business.

And at one point while I was a student there, UBC was planning to change the name UBC Bookstore to UBC Central (“we sell more than just books it’s confusing for students~”) and dialed that back after much ridicule.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Thu May 31, 2018 12:19 pm

The main "Idea Store" decided to try to be cool and get the kids in by getting a Nintendo Wii. The thing was stolen instantly.

Post by **Grey Fox** » Thu May 31, 2018 7:51 pm

Memorable jobs? Hmmm

Square Gamer - Original founded as "Final Fantasy VIII - The Legacy Continues" on Fortune City. Merged with ff8.org to become FF8 Omega, and later Square Gamer. Would be an understatement to say that this "job" changed my life in amazing ways. Met some of my best friends and had more success than anything else I've done to date. For like a year I made a lot of money and was setup to be a millionaire, then the dot com crash happened and I had to get a real job. Life.

Bartending in Japan - I worked Friday nights at a double decker bus imported from London that was converted to a bar and parked in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere in rural Japan. The owner, a late 60s Japanese dude who loves The Beatles, was thinking of retiring, but I started getting the local foreigner crowd coming there to party. We fixed up the bus together, painted it, built a big patio. It was great times for about a year but the owner and I had a falling out. I basically rejuvenated his failing business but he was stingy as fuck with my pay (and the beer). We threw a big party at a club and I brought tons of people, and even performed musically at it, and he insisted that I pay the 2000 yen cover fee at the door when I got there. I stopped working there after that, but it was still good memories.

Most of my other jobs have been in the tech industry, and there's probably some good stories in there but mostly they have been unremarkable.

Most recently I worked for a software company for about 3 years, but I didn't really need the job anymore so I quit in December. Now I'm a full time adventurer.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Fri Jun 01, 2018 6:32 am

In another thread in the last month, we were discussing the early timeline of SG with approximate dates etc. Can’t remember where, but reckon you’d be able to help out?

The bus boss sounds like a twat.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Fri Jun 01, 2018 8:01 am

I should add that I do (probably) have stories for each of the listed jobs. Let me know a job you wanna hear a story about (1 each) and I'll try my best.

Fei Ayanami · Post by **Fei Ayanami** » Fri Jun 01, 2018 11:47 am

Voice.

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Fri Jun 01, 2018 12:05 pm

Yeah, man. You said you were going to tell that story and then never did.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Fri Jun 01, 2018 12:05 pm

Haha. Think it'd work, written down?

Fei Ayanami · Post by **Fei Ayanami** » Fri Jun 01, 2018 12:46 pm

Definitely considered that already and came to the conclusion that it would be a lot harder to get the humour across. But it’s worth a try?

Read some David Sedaris or something first for humour-writing inspiration.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Fri Jun 01, 2018 1:08 pm

I probably already wrote it down in a LiveJournal post, back in the day... Will be quicker to write it again than find it though.

So it’s 2007 and I’m working in Chelsea & Kensington central reference Library. Kensington is a very affluent Tory area and being a reference library there, we got our fair share of regulars, crazies and regular crazies. Often, it’d be difficult clearing people out by closing time, especially the older people, who’d probably sit there and read themselves to sleep each night, as long as they weren’t paying a penny for the daily paper. One guy would come in almost every day, a minute or two before we started the kicking out process and ask at the counter for “The Voice”. The Voice is a weekly newspaper for the black community. This guy wasn’t black. Not that he’s not allowed to read the paper, but it seems strange that he’d come to the library every day for fewer than five minutes, exclusively to read this. We kept The Voice behind the desk because it was an item that kept going missing (not pointing any fingers, but…). The way the guy would ask for the paper would be to totter up to one of us and just say, in a gruff and slightly desperate tone “Voice!”. A minute or so later, we’d usually be asking him to leave.

One evening, we’d just shut the glass door to the reference library when this guy comes rushing up the stairs, straight into the door, sending him falling to the floor. I ran to the door and opened it to ask him if he was alright, he looked up to me, held his arm out and grunted one word. “Voice!”.

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Fri Jun 01, 2018 1:20 pm

I think you got the idea across pretty well.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Fri Jun 01, 2018 1:22 pm

Take's a lot longer to type than the 30 seconds it takes to tell

There was also an old woman who told me that she could see blood dripping from the ceiling and a man who came in to tell me he was on the run because the police were trying to kill him and no newspaper would listen. Was like working at a psychiatric ward a lot of the time.

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Fri Jun 01, 2018 1:24 pm

Maybe The Voice would listen.

Mitsurugi CP · Post by **Mitsurugi CP** » Fri Jun 01, 2018 6:20 pm

Damien wrote:Take's a lot longer to type than the 30 seconds it takes to tell
There was also an old woman who told me that she could see blood dripping from the ceiling and a man who came in to tell me he was on the run because the police were trying to kill him and no newspaper would listen. Was like working at a psychiatric ward a lot of the time.

Probably fewer people openly masturbating and trying to bite you, though.

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Fri Jun 01, 2018 6:38 pm

Voice! Nom nom nom.

Fei Ayanami · Post by **Fei Ayanami** » Fri Jun 01, 2018 10:09 pm

Haha still a good story

Mitsurugi CP · Post by **Mitsurugi CP** » Fri Jun 01, 2018 11:04 pm

My current job probably has the most interesting stories, but before that, I worked in a pathology lab that studied mosquito-borne diseases, including dengue.

We had to feed the mosquitoes we used in experiments by getting animal blood from a nearby butcher, mixing it with some other nutrients in a very small beaker, and stretching a piece of paraffin over that beaker. This was then inverted over a fine mesh screen that separated the (uninfected) mosquitoes from everyone else in the lab.

Unfortunately, the mosquitoes were choosy, but we needed them to lay eggs so we could study the larvae. And if they didn't go for the prepared blood, we had to draw straws for what we called "the snack-rifice". The one who drew the short straw held their arm over the mesh for 10 minutes, usually enough time for the mosquitoes to get enough of a blood meal to lay eggs, and then had some Benadryl cream on hand to help with the itching.

Other jobs I've had:

- Summer construction job building houses
- Pallet jack operator in a grocery store's distribution warehouse
- Backpacking instructor and wilderness Search and Rescue in the American Southwest
- Undergrad residence hall staff (i.e. an RA, I don't know what they're called outside of the US)

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Sat Jun 02, 2018 12:01 am

That sounds kind of like human experimentation to me.

Mitsurugi CP · Post by **Mitsurugi CP** » Sat Jun 02, 2018 12:26 am

It wasn't strictly CLIA or OSHA-compliant practice.

And the PhD student who's research it was did most of the snack-rificing.

The drawing of straws was more of a voluntary show of good faith.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Sat Jun 02, 2018 8:59 am

They're gonna end up accidentally creating a super villain one day.

Lord Golbez · Post by **Lord Golbez** » Sat Jun 02, 2018 2:55 pm

Maybe I should join up. Thst's my dream job.

WaWard · Post by **WaWard** » Sat Jun 02, 2018 3:15 pm

I work in software but I’m now starting a vape shop

Mitsurugi CP · Post by **Mitsurugi CP** » Sun Jun 03, 2018 4:59 am

Why not a bakery?

Post by **Grey Fox** » Tue Jun 05, 2018 6:35 pm

Damien wrote:In another thread in the last month, we were discussing the early timeline of SG with approximate dates etc. Can’t remember where, but reckon you’d be able to help out?

The bus boss sounds like a twat.

I can try if I come across the thread, but my recollection of dates is poor.

I still have all my hate email saved somewhere. I should post those sometime, they're great.

Damien · Post by **Damien** » Thu Jun 07, 2018 7:40 am

Anything you remember will be helpful. Doesn't need exact dates. The order of the different sites opening/relaunching is something we don't quite have down (especially around 2004/5 when SG relaunched and then S7 came back and then overlapped this version of SG).

Calbrena · Post by **Calbrena** » Wed Jun 13, 2018 1:10 pm

Worst job ever was the one I had in London working for an abusive boss.
At least it was great as it taught me all the things which shouldn't be done when it comes to managing people.