YOUR FAVORITEST JOB

[Penguin88]

hey guys I have taken it upon myself to re-awaken this board and I want to know! What is your favorite and least favorite job you have had!
I will start. My least-favorite job was doing retail support (unloading the trucks early in the AM) at Macy's. It sucked because I had to be in at 6 am, sometimes 5, I got shit for hours, and nobody liked me and my boss was a jerk.
My favorite job, excluding my new one which I do like but I have not been doing long enough to really know, was selling jewelry at KMart. I got good hours, worked second shift so no early mornings, and had a lot of tasks to keep me busy.
I haven't had very cool jobs. Maybe some of youse have had cooler jobs. SO SHARE!
On a side note, my COOLEST job was working at a specialty reef & saltwater aquarium service and shop. I worked with a bunch of marine biologists but they gave me all the crappy work like cleaning out tanks in the store and it got really repetitive. But I got to look at nurse sharks, octopus and seahorses all day.

[Ars Sycro]

Re: YOUR FAVORITEST JOB

Worst: Selling concessions at a movie theater. I quit after 10 days (though not because of the job itself).

Best: Current job. Software engineer/architect. Designing and writing code all day (if it's a good day) long.

[One Second Clubber]

Re: YOUR FAVORITEST JOB

Worst: Working in the returns department at the Scholastic Books factory. I was a full time college student by day and worked this full time job at night (which also randomly forced OT on the weekends). My job was to stand in front of a computer and scan books and deem them good or bad. Not, yes I can read the book, it's good. If the book wasn't aesthetically perfect, it was bad.

If it was good, press a button, it prints a piece of paper that you put in the book, put the book in a good pile and on it goes.

If it was bad, press a different button, toss the book over your shoulder onto a conveyer belt which sent the book to a big garbage compactor.

Do that 8 hrs a day with very limited human interaction. Completely mindless work, no one to talk to. Not a job for me.

Best: From 15 - 21ish years old I had a summer job at the lake I grew up on at a restaurant\nightclub. There were a lot of very long and hot days at that pissed me off at the time but easily the most fun job I ever had. The owners were easily the best bosses I've ever had and they treated their employees to a big employee party at the end of every summer. Tons of fun stories from that place. All from watching local bands on weekends (while getting paid), employee shenanigans, watching bar fights, random topless chicks. Basically a high school kid's dream job.

[evasivetear]

Re: YOUR FAVORITEST JOB

Worst:
Working at a movie theater. I either had to rip tickets or sweep floors because I could never go to any of the 'training classes' to do any of the other jobs, since I also spent that summer painting houses.

I found out that when you mix popcorn and soda into a giant plastic bag, a chemical reaction occurs to make everything just smell like dog shit.

Best job:

I would have said my previous job was my best job...but things got really horrible towards the end (not for me in particular, but for the company at large.) But right now I work for Aereo, and it's pretty great. I design and get to write CSS basically all day long. Everyone is really nice and talented, so there's a lot I can also learn from people here.

[Gnomad]

Re: YOUR FAVORITEST JOB

Worst Job:
Dollar store lackey. Wasn't a cashier. Just a guy they hired to clean up the toy aisle. And that was where I learned to despise children.

Best Job:
Current job as a QA Lead at a mobile gaming company in San Francisco. It's a lot of work and I kind of have a 24 hour a day gig being on call all the time, but I really enjoy it and the company is awesome.

[AnewKINDofFEELING]

Re: YOUR FAVORITEST JOB

Worst: Hardware store. It was my first job and it was great for about 3 years, then the owners sold it to some hicks. They made their 23 year old son/grandson manager. He had no idea what he was doing, would come into work 45 minutes late, leaving us waiting outside with customers until he showed up, and would exert his authority through arguing and yelling.

Best job: I had an engineering internship at a chemical plant when I was 20 or 21. Typically, interns spend a lot of time as gophers, but I actually got to do engineering work. We did several major system redesigns, and I even got to do a full design/build on my own with supervision from an engineer and machinist where needed. The only part that I didn't do was the welding.

[cribble]

Re: YOUR FAVORITEST JOB

Worst:
Pre-freelancing: Working in a pub, collecting glasses. Pre-smoking ban: all you could smell — on your clothes, hair, everywhere — was the smell of smoke, even after your shift. Then the smoking ban came in and I realised I was being paid £2.80 an hour to do what the regular staff were doing… On the plus side, when it came to bottling up, I would sneak a few bevvies down.

Freelancing: Web development jobs disguised as "web design" projects. "Hey, we need a designer" cool, here's a project spec and contract. "Signed, making first payment and here's the design my son has made, please make into WordPress theme". Then onto the 50 million changes that breaks project specification which they expect to be done for free. Nope. It's not an industry that respects me as a creative, so I'm out (I do do it occasionally now and again to keep my toe in it)!

Best:
What I do right now, animation. It was one of those silly dreams you have as a kid, because you would doodle something and make up a little story to go with that doodle, and you would see it move and act out the story in your head and draw more, but reality was that you couldn't make it move, it was only in your mind. Further more, it's a tough industry, especially in the UK, it's quite niche and difficult to get into here I think. And now I get to make things wiggle… I get to doodle, tell stories and people let me tell their stories and sometimes it goes on TV, or in the cinema… And it challenges me, each project is different and requires a different approach, and that's what keeps me fresh and on my toes. I fucking love animating.