Landscaping
Environmental clean up
Charity shop sorter
Pot washer
Paper round.
Call centre operator
Checkout girl
Freelance writer
Fundraising coordinator
Magazine managing editor
Makeup counter assistant
Movie theatre attendant
Music reviewer
Paper deliverer
Tutor
Paper round, left to set up car wash business as I made so much more money!
Cinema Usher, saw lots of free movies.
I also wrote software to test chips, like Teletext, NICAM (remember them) and other custom stuff for customers. One customer designed a custom chip was made to bypass Nintendo cartridge protection and the police got involved. It used to cost at least £25K to get a custom chip into production so this was a big investment by somebody - and that was over 20 years ago!
Most exciting summer job: NYC bike messenger. Yes, I was inspired by Quicksilver (1986). So many taxis tried to kill me, but the biggest full-on collision was some pedestrian who walked out from between two parked vans mid-block right in front of me without looking and I just creamed him. We both picked ourselves up, said “You good?” and went our separate ways. Simpler times.
Coolest job: record stores. Got to play and talk about music all day.
Oddest job: Honey Baked Ham. Started in deli making surprisingly great sandwiches, but then got to glaze the hams with a giant blowtorch and a sugar/spice sifter and put them on the spiral slicer machine.
Worst job: Knocking on strangers’ doors asking for money for a PIRG. Hated it. Quit after two days.
Plenty more; just the highlight reel.
I have also really enjoyed the movie Quicksilver and related to it. I rode a 10-speed bike relentlessly in a university town where I lived and worked. Many of the students rode bikes. They were everywhere.
I once got hit by a car on my way to work early one morning. It was a hit and run incident, a VW out of control. The driver left me splattered in an intersection, jumped a curb, careened across someone's lawn all the way up to the front porch and fled the scene. My bike was mangled, I was sore from head to toe but no broken bones. During another incident, I was speeding thru an area at night frequented by the students, decided to take a shortcut thru the parking lot of a restaurant, suddenly hit one of those concrete parking blocks, flew head first over my handlebars, flipped and landed on my back in the parking lot of an adjacent restaurant. Once again, sore all over but no broken bones and my bike also survived that one. 😁
Heh, my first big boy bike was a ten speed. Rode that thing like an off road bike.
Lifelong urban cyclist, with some mountain stuff when my cardio is up to snuff
Worst spill was on Broadway (major street) right in front of a movie theater with a huge line of people out front. Pacing a cab to my left, while a bus was pulling out to my right. My handlebars got caught between the two and I tumbled luckily right between them. Picked up my bike and limped over to a bench in the islands in the middle of the street to collect my thoughts.
Surprisingly one person walked over to ask if I was okay. Must have been a tourist. :D
I went through several 10-speeds over a couple of decades. At one point, I was logging well over 100 miles a week on one of them. I eventually transitioned to a mountain bike for several more years after that.
shareLandscaper
Ski Resort Worker
Street Pharmacist
Investor
Uber Driver
Aspiring Youtuber
Fast food.
Grocery store.
I always end up cleaning toilets.