My Jobs, My Life

My Jobs, My Life

A Note of Gratitude I would like to thank anyone who had to endure me and my life of jobs.

All illustrations are courtesy of www.clipart.com

Copyright © 2013 by Cynthia Attar All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in any form by any means —except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act —without permission in writing from the publisher. Address all inquiries to: Cynthia Attar 28500 SR 24 Sunnyside, WA 98944 www.cindyattar.com

First Edition: November 2013 Composed and Printed in the United States of America

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My Jobs, My Life

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 101 Jobs .......................................................................................................................................... 1 My Life Details ............................................................................................................................... 2 1.0 Is 12-Too Early to Start Working? ........................................................................................ 4 1.1 Strawberries Fields Forever ................................................................................................ 4 2.0 I Can’t “Go Home,” I Live Here! .......................................................................................... 5 2.1 Babysitting the Zitkovitches ............................................................................................... 5 3.0 Lesbo Intro ............................................................................................................................ 6 3.1 The Short Stop Drive-In’s Many Lessons .......................................................................... 6 4.0 Learning to Knit with the Old Ladies .................................................................................... 8 4.1 SVC Reproduction Specialist ............................................................................................. 8 5.0 Strawberry Vodka ................................................................................................................. 9 5.1 Tarr’s Resort-Coming of Age ............................................................................................. 9 6.0 Triple XXX--Not X-rated, just a Burger Joint .................................................................... 10 6.1 Marriage Proposal ............................................................................................................. 10 7.0 Wanteprenour in Training ................................................................................................... 11 7.1 Weaving and Selling Hammocks ...................................................................................... 11 8.0 Dating the Boss ................................................................................................................... 12 8.1 Chris at the Gas Station..................................................................................................... 12 9.0 Honk if You’re Horney ....................................................................................................... 13 9.1 Auto Mechanic and Ted the Married Man ........................................................................ 13 10.0 Swimming and Saving ........................................................................................................ 14 10.1 Overwhelmed Swim Instructor ......................................................................................... 14 10.2 Everybody in the Pool! ..................................................................................................... 14 11.0 I Thought I was Strange! ..................................................................................................... 15 11.1 Odd Designer Guy ............................................................................................................ 15 12.0 I want a Career, Not a Job ................................................................................................... 16 12.1 Waitressing Galore............................................................................................................ 16 13.0 I want a Job, Not a Career ................................................................................................... 17 13.1 UPS Driver vs. Horse Trainer Assistant ........................................................................... 17 13.2 Husband Needs Insurance ................................................................................................. 17 14.0 Embarrassed as a Janitor ..................................................................................................... 19 14.1 Tortilla Assembly Line ..................................................................................................... 19 15.0 We have Hot Buns ............................................................................................................... 20 15.1 Conway Deli Marketing .................................................................................................... 20
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16.0 How to get Fired .................................................................................................................. 21 16.1 Or Positive Attitudes Suck ................................................................................................ 21 17.0 Drinking on the Job ............................................................................................................. 22 17.1 Country Club Taking Care of Members ........................................................................... 22 18.0 “I'm Not Your Child” .......................................................................................................... 23 18.1 Bossy Waitress in a Train Car .......................................................................................... 23 19.0 Stupid Money Moves .......................................................................................................... 24 19.1 $600 Poorly Spent ............................................................................................................. 24 19.2 Another $500 Flushed ....................................................................................................... 25 20.0 Losing Ventures or “I Can't Lie, Dammit” ......................................................................... 26 20.1 Coupons and Pre-Paid Credit Cards ................................................................................. 26 20.2 Flipping Houses ................................................................................................................ 26 21.0 No, You Can’t “Touch My Boobs” ..................................................................................... 27 21.1 Healing Wanteprenour ...................................................................................................... 27 22.0 You Can't Make Me! ........................................................................................................... 28 22.1 Hypnotist and the Smoking Clients .................................................................................. 28 23.0 Managing a Drunk’s Office ................................................................................................. 29 23.1 Siding Office Manager ...................................................................................................... 29 24.0 I Can Do It Myself, Thank You .......................................................................................... 31 24.1 Human Blob Rolling out of a Minivan ............................................................................. 31 25.0 Independent Contractor or Employee? ................................................................................ 32 25.1 Vancouver Cab.................................................................................................................. 32 25.2 Tacoma Cab ...................................................................................................................... 32 26.0 Celebrities in my Taxicab! .................................................................................................. 34 26.1 Radio Cab in Portland ....................................................................................................... 34 26.2 Coldplay in my Cab .......................................................................................................... 34 27.0 Not Hired-Blacklisted ......................................................................................................... 35 27.1 Portland Cab...................................................................................................................... 35 28.0 Insider Spying ..................................................................................................................... 36 28.1 Broadway Cab Dispatcher ................................................................................................ 36 29.0 You've Fallen Asleep, Again? ............................................................................................. 37 29.1 Super Shuttle Airporter ..................................................................................................... 37 29.2 Other Driving Jobs ............................................................................................................ 37 30.0 Being Stupidly Funny.......................................................................................................... 38 30.1 Cocktail Waitress at Inn .................................................................................................... 38 30.2 Sell Bread at Costco .......................................................................................................... 38 31.0 How Low Can I Go? ........................................................................................................... 40 31.1 Plant Beach Grass ............................................................................................................. 40

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31.2 Count Cars ........................................................................................................................ 40 31.3 Night Janitor...................................................................................................................... 40 32.0 Me? I Don’t Have a Drinking Problem! ............................................................................. 42 32.1 Walk Out on New Year’s Eve .......................................................................................... 42 33.0 Graveyard Drunks and Other Waitressing Stories .............................................................. 43 33.1 Country Kitchen Waitress ................................................................................................. 43 33.2 I'm Not Paying for Your Mistake! .................................................................................... 43 33.3 Abused? Afraid to Quit ..................................................................................................... 43 34.0 Garbage jobs ........................................................................................................................ 45 34.1 Recycle Plant in Portland .................................................................................................. 45 35.0 Government Work-Best Lazy Job Award ........................................................................... 46 35.1 U.S. Forest Service—Lazy and Boring............................................................................. 46 35.2 Mt. St. Helen’s Campground Host—Best Job Ever ......................................................... 46 35.3 I'm Not Nosey, the Government Is--Census Taker ........................................................... 46 36.0 I'd Rather be Broke Than Yelled At .................................................................................... 47 36.1 Phone Customer Service-Hood River ............................................................................... 47 37.0 Can I Hold Out for a Whole Year? ..................................................................................... 48 37.1 Structure of the Office ...................................................................................................... 48 38.0 Mule Field Tent Living ....................................................................................................... 49 38.1 Showering at Work ........................................................................................................... 49 39.0 How to Create a Car Wreck ................................................................................................ 50 39.1 Broadway Cab Broadside ................................................................................................. 50 39.2 UPS Wrecks ...................................................................................................................... 50 40.0 Job, Job, Everywhere a Job ................................................................................................. 51 40.1 Sex at Work? ..................................................................................................................... 51 40.2 Under the Pizza Table ....................................................................................................... 51 40.3 0 Dark Thirty..................................................................................................................... 51 41.0 Mary Jane at Work .............................................................................................................. 52 41.1 LaCenter Convenience Clerk ............................................................................................ 52 42.0 Dealing Blackjack ............................................................................................................... 53 42.1 Embezzlement at a Casino ................................................................................................ 53 42.2 Questionable Management................................................................................................ 53 43.0 Online and Phone Psychic Work ......................................................................................... 55 43.1 Unplanned Phone Sex? ..................................................................................................... 55 43.2 Chat Psychic...................................................................................................................... 55 44.0 Dog and Animal Jobs .......................................................................................................... 56 44.1 Dog Trainer ....................................................................................................................... 56 44.2 Dog Walker ....................................................................................................................... 56

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44.3 Pet Sitting .......................................................................................................................... 56 44.4 Animal Communicator and Healer ................................................................................... 56 44.5 Portland Zoo Tour Guide .................................................................................................. 57 45.0 Horse and Mule Jobs ........................................................................................................... 58 45.1 Leading Trail Rides in Stehekin with Zip ......................................................................... 58 45.2 Horse Trainer .................................................................................................................... 58 45.3 Mule Comedy Act ............................................................................................................. 59 45.4 Draft Horse Hitch at the Puyallup Fair ............................................................................. 60 45.5 Soaked and Can’t Get Warm ............................................................................................ 60 46.0 Doc Pro—The Best Job Ever! ............................................................................................. 62 Epilogue and What’s Next? .......................................................................................................... 62 List of All Remembered Jobs ....................................................................................................... 63

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My Jobs, My Life INTRODUCTION
How many jobs have you had? Was it six, seven, or how about that embarrassing quantity in the 20s? I knew I had a lot of jobs, but was shocked when I recently began to list as many jobs as I could remember. Upon sitting down at the computer, previous jobs came to my mind fast and furious. About thirty jobs were logged onto that MsExcel sheet before I even lifted my fingers from the keyboard. Others weren’t far behind, popping up spontaneously from the neatly organized file cabinet in my memory banks. The final list, to date, compiled 101 legitimate paying jobs. Well, let me qualify that. Some of the listed jobs were businesses I started. I can’t say any of those actually made money. In fact, all my businesses lost money, but the intent to make money was there, nonetheless. (You gotta love the freedom of the American Dream!) Some of the listed jobs were obtained by a temporary agency, but I still took them and got paid for them regardless if they were or were not ever meant to be permanent. NONE of my jobs were ever permanent! All my jobs brought interesting life experiences and lessons learned begging to be shared. This job list is not yet complete. As I write these short stories, my memory is still being jogged and more former places of employment come to light. Plus, I’m only 58 years old and am still gainfully employed with two jobs. Hopefully I have several more years of jobs ahead of me. (Sorry, Mom, I may never be stable!) Society says I should be sick, disabled, on prescription meds, or senile like most of my generation. But inside the tiny recesses of my mind, I still believe I’m 30 years old. I’m healthier and happier than I have ever been (just disregard the obvious deep wrinkles and saggy flab). And my humor is still intact. As I write these stories I have this sense of lugging myself through a difficult living life review. I sure see things differently today than when I actually had those experiences. From this lofty viewpoint, I find some events are silly funny and some are embarrassingly funny, and some experiences I’m just flat out not so proud of. With aged perspective, some events that I thought were done ‘to me’ became obvious that I had created them—I wasn’t the victim like I thought I was! It has been therapy for me to write these experiences down and share them with you. It would have been less traumatic if I simply knitted you an afghan instead. But, am I one to take the easy route? Not a chance.

101 JOBS
Why have I had so many jobs? At 12 years old I experienced that sweet taste of being important, the selfworth of accomplishing a ‘job well done,’ and the freedom that only an income can provide (except if you were lucky enough to win the lottery or survive the death of a rich uncle). Oh boy, was I ever hooked on these feelings. It made me happy, for a while. Typically I’d hold several jobs at once. During the years there were ongoing job themes. One of those themes was, if I wanted to learn something I would take a job doing it. I quickly learned that I didn’t need to pay for schooling and take myself out of the income producing market,

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My Jobs, My Life
when I could learn new, exciting stuff right now, on-the-job, and get paid for it. At almost every job, once the initial training and the challenge of learning a new skill was under my belt, I became bored. Repetitive ‘could do it in your sleep’ jobs were not my forte and were short-lived—but then, which ones weren’t? I was happiest when I was working a job that had a very large learning curve. Jobs were the vehicle used to keep my mind active, to take me to a higher sense of self-worth and happiness, and to be the cash cow for freedom. At the same time, I carried around a jack-in-the-box stuffed full of resentment and anger. That box would occasionally let loose, blasting co-workers and bosses. Those weren’t my finest hours. As jobs came and went, I learned I couldn’t express anger at my jobs or I’d run the risk of getting fired—again. I couldn’t quite find a job I wanted to labor at past the learning curve. I became a jack of all trades and a master of none. Since permanent happiness was still a bit elusive, I sought after the truth of life. Maybe that would make me truly happy. I tapped into some powerful information that felt right to me, so I went with it (like I did with jobs—feeling my way through the unlimited twists and turns of a maze). I developed a unique brand of spirituality with a strong metaphysical slant. I harbored low self-esteem most of my adult life—who knows where that came from. My baseline of under confidence lingered and finally gave way to overconfidence and arrogance. If I couldn’t be a master at some craft, maybe I could be a master at knowing how life works. My insecurities and overconfidence pushed for me to obtain guru status, to be that know-it-all person where others clamored to obtain my vast wisdom. THAT was sure to make me happy. With lots of spiritual studies under my belt, I obtained guru status—but only in the confines of my mind. Being a knowit-all just didn’t go over so well out in the real world. As arrogance naturally goes, the more right I thought I was, the more others wanted to prove how wrong I was. It was an ongoing battle that ensued for years. I longed for the day someone would see my true value (and what was that again?) and I’d become somebody, discovered for the great person I actually was. THEN I’d finally be happy and all this would be behind me. Note: It was due to my spiritual knowledge (not really my jobs) that diminished my anger and finally gave me confidence, inner value, and true happiness.

MY LIFE DETAILS
I grew up lower to middle class, the youngest of four kids in Concrete, WA. My home life was stable, living in only two homes (same town) in the first 16 years of my life. Dad worked at the cement plant for 19 years until it shut down; and Mom stayed home with the kids—mostly. We lived on a small five acre farm. I basically was a normal kid living out a normal life. The folks stayed together until all of us kids were out of high school. As empty nesters, they then divorced after 32 years of marriage. I lived single most of my adult life and never had the pressing urge to have children, other than animals—horses, mules, and usually a dog and/or cat in the house. At one time I had the opportunity to see what the life of a city person without pets was like. I traded my animals for a
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man and married for about four years. It was to the benefit of everyone involved when I left the husband and took my horse and mule back. As an adult, I lived in a minimum of 40 homes (including Greenie the pickup) on the west coast of the U.S. These jobs and homes encompassed nearly half a century, from 1967 until current day. A list of jobs I’ve had to date is at the back of this book in place of an index. Not all of my jobs have interesting stories. Some jobs were pretty boring, mostly those office jobs. Many were not included in the body of this book. I just may continue this list as life goes on. All through my life of jobs, humorous and/or odd occurrences took place. It is with this intent that I present plenty of short delightful stories. It’s up to you to determine if there is amusing entertainment, worthy value, and/or interesting lessons to be learned in these stories.

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My Jobs, My Life 1.0 IS 12-TOO EARLY TO START WORKING?

Starting off a bit sequentially with the first few jobs I held will show you how I was molded as a youngster. Then it will be a mish-mash time line of jobs, in no particular order.

1.1 Strawberries Fields Forever
My first job ever was when I was 12 years old. Now remember that I am a white American girl and it was in the 1960’s. Being the youngest child of the family I waited patiently(?) for the time when I was old enough to be able to pick strawberries in the field like the “big kids.” I remember toiling all day long it seemed, in the hot sun or the soaking rain. I saw other kids hang out in the boxy-like, smelly chemical toilet—ick—and talk to each other. Their intent was to avoid those red, ripe strawberries which were begging to be picked. But I saw the advantage of money to be made if I worked for it. And I certainly did. I remember that I wanted to pick more than the others in some sort of self-made competition. The older, more experienced pickers—both white and Hispanic—simply picked faster than I did. That didn’t discourage me, it inspired me. The company had this punch card system. When you brought a flat of strawberries to the booth at the end of rows, they would scrutinize it, pick and throw out bad strawberries and either send you back to the row to finish your flat or, if you did it correctly, they would punch your card and take the flat. You would accumulate punched cards until payday at the end of the season. I pushed myself hard for what seemed to be months, but was probably only a few weeks. At the end of the season I turned in my punch cards to the clerk and she gave me a whole $99. I was elated! That was, until someone told me I should have gave them $1 and then I would have gotten a hundred dollars. I didn’t think of that. Nevertheless, I was proud of my $99 accomplishment. Little did I know there were at least 100 more times I could prove myself—or not!

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My Jobs, My Life 2.0 I CAN’T “GO HOME,” I LIVE HERE!

2.1 Babysitting the Zitkovitches
Periodically I would take after my two older sisters and do some local babysitting. The price generally was 50 cents an hour for a family of four kids. On this particular job, the family had 11 children, so I was awarded a whole 75 cents an hour. That was big bucks to a youngster of 14 years back in the late 60’s. The children were fairly well behaved. I remember four of their names—the most I learned from my limited bible school days— Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John. The other seven names were a blur. One night this overwhelmed 14 year old girl babysitter was sloppily trying to manage all 11 kids. The family resemblance was noted, but one of the bunch—the neighbor kid—was distinctively different looking. Unknowingly, when it came time for the kids to come inside for the night, I wouldn’t let the odd neighbor kid in. It was late and time for the neighbor kid to go home to his own family. I kept insisting that he go home. He kept insisting to come inside. It took a bit of convincing and number counting, but finally they got through this thick skull of mine that he was a family member--one of the eleven! My 75 cents an hour wasn’t quite enough for the embarrassment and confusion. Maybe that was the moment I decided not to have children!?

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My Jobs, My Life 3.0 LESBO INTRO

3.1 The Short Stop Drive-In’s Many Lessons
At the prime age of 17, I took my (almost) real first job. This job was next door to our home at the Short Stop Drive In restaurant. The Short Stop was known for juicy burgers and quality food. It had been owned by a nice couple but recently two ladies bought it and moved into the adjoining house and they became our new neighbors. The ladies were a bit odd, but seemed decent enough and kept to themselves. It came up one day that they needed someone to wash dishes for them at the restaurant. I offered, and we struck up a deal. My job was to wash dishes when it was busy and do other chores when it was slow. I was used to doing chores at home with no pay, so I was thrilled that someone was going to pay me for these odd tasks. This went along just fine for a while. They had the cleanest windows on the block, and the spiffiest floors in town. Once I completed my chores, the ladies would send me home. If anyone knows about working for the public, you never know when that public is going to show up. Seems business goes in spurts much of the time. These women were shrewd business dealers to a naïve teenager like myself. They didn’t want to pay me if they didn’t have to, and jumped on an opportunity that benefitted them, but not me. When they sent me home, they told me to watch (from my family house next door) to see if customers drove in. And when I saw cars in the parking lot I was to come back over and wash more dishes. I figured that is what employers ask of their workers and that yes, I would do it. I didn’t know any different. I wasn’t getting paid for watching, but I would get paid if I came back to work. So, I’d go home and put a kitchen chair by the front window in the dining room and watch the cars go by. I was afraid to leave my chair for more than a couple minutes in case the restaurant got busy. I didn’t want to get in trouble by not being aware, and I wanted that extra cash. I was diligent in my car watching until the restaurant closed. I remember that I turned down fun things offered to do, and chose to be diligent and sit by the window for my dishwashing job. This act of choosing work over play followed me throughout my working life. These women were a bit odd. But, I took their odd ways in stride. One day, one of the ladies called the house and asked if I could mow the lawn tomorrow morning. I said I would, and was glad to know I was going to get paid for doing something I already do for free. I woke up early, excited about making some money again. Mom made me wait until about 9am to go over to mow—as a matter of Saturday morning courtesy. The lawn mower started up just fine, and off I was with my paying gig. About half way through the mowing, I’d say around 10am, the larger of the two ladies came outside with her bathrobe on. She scolded me for mowing the lawn so early, when they were still in bed. Hell, it was 10 am! I had been up for hours. But I took the scolding— because I was 17 and that’s what 17 year olds do. But an interesting thing happened during all of this. This lady in her bathrobe wasn’t a typical sight. As she emerged from the house, she seemed to have a huge hole in the bathrobe. It was a circle hole in the same size as her right breast. Her big floppy boob was hanging out—bare to the world! During the scolding, I pretended like nothing was wrong. But something was horribly
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wrong in my head. I tried to reason that it was just a hole, and people DO have holes in their bathrobes. But honestly, none of it made any sense. Then, I don’t know if I figured it out myself or someone told me, but I somehow learned that they were lesbian ladies —and what “lesbian” means. I still was unsure of what the one was trying to tell me with that hole. Was she inviting me in for some fun? Did she do it just for shock value? Or was it her way of sharing that the two newbies in the neighborhood were lesbian lovers? I never did find out the true motive for the bathrobe hole! (Note: That disturbing picture has been blazed into my mind since 1972.)

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My Jobs, My Life 4.0 LEARNING TO KNIT WITH THE OLD LADIES

4.1 SVC Reproduction Specialist
We had just moved to the new town of Mt. Vernon, WA. With this move I had to change from the “I’m somebody” of Concrete High School to the “I’m not worthy--crying every lunchtime in the bathroom” nobody of Mt. Vernon High School. With the difference in curriculum requirements, I was able to graduate from Mt. Vernon High in January IF I had either a full-time job or was enrolled for college. Because I couldn’t find a full time job, I decided to start college right away just to get out of MV High. When I attended Skagit Valley College (SVC) there was a program called Student Help. It was a way for students to work on SVC campus and make a little bit of money to help pay for classes. Now, I paid for my college entirely on my own. There was no family money set aside for me that I recall. I had already became addicted to that sweet taste of an income, and jumped at the chance to work at the college. The job I ended up with was in the copy room. My job was to be the “Reproduction Specialist” (yes, there were jokes about that) and help people with copies and reproducing documents and such. This was a cool job, as I was able to work alone and be a bit creative. The copy-type machines at the time (1973) were dittos, mimeographs, and Xerox. I remember the Xerox was way more expensive to use, so they discouraged its use. I would take the same breaks as those old ladies in the front office—they must have been at least 30 years old! At the designated times, they would file into the break room and dig out their knitting projects. They would gossip and knit on their projects for 15 or 30 minutes (depending if it was break or lunch time), then put it all away in their knitting bags and go back to work. It wasn’t long until I followed suit. Not having a lot of patience, one of them was knitting an afghan with huge one inch knitting needles. The large needles seemed to make an afghan in a much shorter period of time. THAT was what I wanted to learn. The old ladies taught me the basics of knit, pearl, and casting on and off. I remember knitting afghans for several of my family members. I thought they were really neat gifts until I recall seeing one of my beloved afghans rolled up in the top back unused area of my brother’s linen closet. I guess what I thought was valuable, wasn’t as well received. I quit making afghans for anyone but myself. But the knitting experience carried over until…well, now. I currently have a half-done afghan (knitted with regular needles) in my home as of this writing!

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My Jobs, My Life 5.0 STRAWBERRY VODKA

5.1 Tarr’s Resort-Coming of Age
During the spring of 1973 I typically would have gone through the high school graduation ceremony. Since I had technically already graduated in January, I didn’t think it was worth going to a useless graduation ceremony at a high school I despised. Instead, I had taken a summer job up at Tarr’s Resort at Baker Lake. This was up past Concrete, my old town, and I was thrilled to be close to what I knew as warmth and acceptance. The resort offered several recreational activities. They had cabins to spend the night, paddle boats to rent, a little store to buy necessities, and a restaurant for hot meals. I was offered a place to stay in one of the cabins. My primary job was to clean cabins after the guests left. I also spent some time working as a cashier at the store and restaurant, as needed. There were fond memories of working at Tarr’s resort. The most significant part of the resort work was that I was introduced to alcohol. Some old friends showed up at the resort and I joined in on their fun. That night I learned about strawberry vodka, its taste and its effects. It was an awful experience, but then it also was great to have so much fun! I came of age that summer—learning the true meaning of partying and the full experience of alcohol and later, addiction!

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My Jobs, My Life 6.0 TRIPLE XXX--NOT X-RATED, JUST A BURGER JOINT

6.1 Marriage Proposal
After getting my feet wet with the dishwasher job at the Short Stop, I must have liked the restaurant business. Well, I’m not sure how much I liked it, but those jobs were certainly the easiest to get. And, I had dollar signs in my eyes at the thought of not only a wage, but tips as well. So, the next job I had was at a bigger, more official employment at the Triple XXX Burger joint. Now, today that would mean we all would be dressed in skimpy swimsuits and offer up ourselves as the meal. However, back in that time, the Triple XXX (for some reason it wasn’t the Triple X, it was the Triple XXX—odd) was an old A&W Drive Inn. The A&W had the drive in angled slots with each slot having a speaker/audio system next to the car window. The customer would call in their order and soon the girls would roll out on skates toting a tray full of specifically ordered food. (Sonic does this today.) When Triple XXX bought out A&W, they did away with the roller skates. I was pretty sure I could handle this job as long as my feet were kept firmly on the ground. On my hip was a change machine. I learned quickly that if I fumbled around slowly to click out the correct number of coins for change, customers would get impatient and say, “Oh, just keep it.” I guess my expectations weren’t that high if I was hoping for spare coin! The most important part of this job was one day a guy customer that I had served before, and had even dated once or twice, drove into one of my slots and ordered his burger and fries. When I delivered his dinner, he looked at me through his open car window and asked me to marry him— and he was serious! I believe that was the only official marriage proposal I actually got in my lifetime—to this date. It’s amazing how powerful those words are. I wasn’t even that interested in the guy, but still, it took me some evaluating and reevaluating to tell him “No.” I guess if I had known that I’d never be asked again, I may have arrived at a different decision!

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My Jobs, My Life 7.0 WANTEPRENOUR IN TRAINING

7.1 Weaving and Selling Hammocks
My first business adventure taught me a lot about business. It also set the stage for me to become a wanteprenour (some who wants to be an entrepreneur, but is failing miserably). I learned early on that I shouldn’t have a business, but somehow that lesson had to be re-learned about 15 times over. At the young age of early 20’s I decided I had a skill. I had previously learned to follow directions and do some craft work (knitting), but this was a bit bigger than those crafts. I learned to make hammocks. Making and selling hammocks was something I thought would make me big bucks. I wasn’t really sure of how to make those big bucks, but I had heard that being in business was the only way to get ahead (maybe in those times it was—in theory). So, I set out and made about 12 hammocks of different colors and styles. I remember being in the middle of the mall walkway surrounded by an array of crafty people, with my loom making my hammocks. I don’t know if I even sold any at that mall event or not. In fact, having a crafty skill and marketing/selling it are two different things. I only sold a few in the entire time I tried this business. My big sister, bless her, bought one and she hung it on a wall for decoration at their beach house. My sister has been supportive in many ways throughout the years. Competition wasn’t a favored feeling. Usually if I had strong competition I would just back out. Not a fan of losing, I’d rather just forfeit if things got competitive. I quit making hammocks when I learned of the outstanding Mayan hammock. They made much better hammocks than I ever could and the price was half of what I was charging. I scrapped this hammock project and kept myself supplied with a Mayan hammock for life. I still have one today.

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My Jobs, My Life 8.0 DATING THE BOSS

8.1 Chris at the Gas Station
Back in the good ole days it was permissible to date the boss. I had started college and was taking auto mechanic classes. One of my first masculine-type jobs was that I was a gas pump jockey. My job was to sit inside the small room, watch for customers, and then jump out of my seat when a car would ding the rubber bell (I was already trained for this, thanks to the Short Stop!). I’d find out how much gas they wanted, pump their gas, and wash their windows. The gas prices at the time were 33-39 cents a gallon. I acted sort of like a guy back then and remember that I had a whole bunch of keys. They were bulky in my pockets, so I got one of those retractable chains. I proudly hung that puppy off of my belt, like the big boys did. Those keys would flop around, bang and scratch up people’s car paint as I was washing their windows. It didn’t take long before some customer reamed me over about those keys scratching his paint, saying he was going to sue, etc. The boss, Chris, came out after noticing the commotion and smoothed it all over with the angry customer. I kept the keys in my pocket from there on out. Aggression makes for a lesson well learned—forever. Chris was the manager of the gas station. He must have been in his late 20’s. He was the nicest guy you’d ever meet. He was always friendly, with a genuine smile on his face and a laugh in his voice. I never really thought of him as a boyfriend type, he was too old for this 18 year old. But he would occasionally come to my home parties. I think with Chris was the first real, raw passion I had felt for a guy. I wasn’t able to act on it, as I thought he was too old—and he was my boss—and I was too naive, anyway. My priorities were upside down then. If I had known then what I know now, I’d probably have tried to keep good ‘ole Chris from the gas station. But then, that parallel life may not have given me fodder for writing a book about all my jobs!

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My Jobs, My Life 9.0 HONK IF YOU’RE HORNEY

9.1 Auto Mechanic and Ted the Married Man
After attending Skagit Valley College for a year, I took the second year and majored in auto mechanics. I learned the basics of replacing parts on vehicles, but also attended in-depth classes, such as tearing down and rebuilding transmissions. The classes were interesting, but I was more suited to get paid for learning (on-the-job training). I was pleased that Sears agreed to hire me as a replacement mechanic—no diagnosis, but a person who replaced things on cars. I settled in to my new career of replacing tires, batteries, shocks, and such. The head mechanic, Ted, was a very funny guy. Literally, he was funny looking, married, and probably 15 years my senior. I was about 18 when I worked there and was totally uneducated about sexual matters. At the time there used to be a bumper sticker seen on many rigs that said, “Honk if you’re horny.” It was a big joke between Ted and I—one I didn’t even get until years later (that’s how naïve I was). Ted would come over to me frequently, whisper in my ear, “beep beep.” We both would get a good laugh and go about business. Little did I know he was propositioning me several times a day! Nothing ever became of it, but I do remember he showed up at my home a few times for parties. One day after I quit that job, Ted arrived at my home and my boyfriend, Mike, was there. He didn’t see Mike’s vehicle in the driveway and when I answered the door with Mike in view, Ted started to fumble with his words and then he mumbled something about the possibly of having a job opening as a mechanic and wanted to know if I would be interested in coming back to work. Silly me, I believed him and told him “maybe.” There was no true job offer after that. I never saw Ted again. I don’t know if Mike caught on of the real reason Ted had stopped—to hopefully cash in on the “beep beep” he propositioned so many times.

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My Jobs, My Life 10.0 SWIMMING AND SAVING
Overwhelmed Swim Instructor From the strawberry vodka experience until age 34 I was a binge drinker. I didn’t drink daily, but I did drink most weekends. In case you were wondering, yes I admit I was an alcoholic. I never made any enemies while drinking (that I remember). I was always a happy drunk. I take that back, I did make one enemy, and that was myself. But we will leave that for another time, another story. As a kid, Mom and Dad made sure all of us learned how to swim. We took swimming lessons each summer at the Concrete pool. I really enjoyed swimming and it became my preferred sport. For a short time during my adolescence and drinking days, I had obtained my lifeguard certificate and soon after earned my “WSI” (Water Safety Instructor). There were a few different lifeguard jobs in my past, but it was one of the most boring of jobs. Someone back at my old stomping grounds of Concrete thought I would be good at teaching kids to swim (really, you think so?), so I took the WSI job that was offered. I learned how important a certificate was, even if my skills were not in align with the certification! Nevertheless, I was thrilled to have “graduated” from being the swim student to being the swim teacher. Simply knowing how to swim properly to get a WSI certification wasn’t enough education to actually be a swim instructor. At that time a WSI was more about developing one’s skills, not offering any training to teach others to swim. Lack of knowledge and experience didn’t stop me from taking the job, of course. I am a natural teacher, I rationalized. This swimming instructor job was overwhelming. I had way too many kids in each class level and could hardly teach anyone anything. I basically was a babysitter and lifeguard trying to keep everyone’s heads above water. I did the best I could with the non-existent experience I had. I never again took a job to be a swimming instructor. Everybody in the Pool! During this time I was a party hardy girl. My friends knew me as “the lifeguard.” At parties I would get drunk, take out my lifeguard whistle, blow it in everyone’s ears and yell, “Everyone in the pool.” I thought it was hilarious, but I’m sure it got old real old, real quick to anyone who wasn’t drunk and stupid at the time. A desired feature about alcohol consumption is that it shields you from caring what other people think. I just continued on the “Everyone in the Pool” track for quite some time. And then later apologized during the 8th Step of Alcoholics Anonymous—make amends to those you harmed.

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My Jobs, My Life 11.0 I THOUGHT I WAS STRANGE!
Odd Designer Guy This job I don’t remember very well. It was short lived. I was called out to work at this older guy’s home. My job was to help him with whatever he needed in his home business. The business was designing a logo or a graphic for a semi truck container start-up company. The odd thing started off with the guy himself, my “employer.” He was one of those crazy artists who would tell me to do something, and then pull me from that job to do another, and then get mad because I didn’t finish the first task. Now, I’m a good worker. Always have been, always will be. I like to finish things. I like a challenge and I like to learn. I thought this job would be a learning experience. But the guy just wasn’t emotionally stable. As he worked his design, he modeled it after an existing company’s logo with a very slight difference. I’m a flexible person (one has to be with a million jobs), but when I see something not right I MUST speak up. What he was doing wasn’t right. He was taking advantage of a well known, successful brand name and making the consumer think that this start up company was that brand name company. When inquiring about this, the guy basically told me to shut up and it wasn’t my business. I was to do what he told me and that’s all. I guess he decided I was asking too many questions. For the next couple of days he had disappeared from his home at the time I was scheduled to come to work. I wasn’t able to get inside his house to go to work and after hanging around for 10 minutes or so, I went home. This happened for the next three days. I finally didn’t come back. I told you he was strange! I never overcame that obnoxious trait of speaking my mind— much to the dismay of my mother.

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My Jobs, My Life 12.0 I WANT A CAREER, NOT A JOB
Waitressing Galore I held many waitress and restaurant jobs. I was a food waitress, cocktail waitress, bartender, dishwasher, busser, and even worked in catering. I had so much to give to the world and really wanted a career, not just a job. I had already had a flurry of jobs, and I had tagged myself as a “career girl without a career.” In actuality, I think I was less qualified than what I thought—for much of any actual, real career. Overconfidence (or masked under confidence) seemed to be a typical job theme. One day I met my match. I stumbled upon the career job I had been dreaming of. I started during the Christmas peak season as a temporary UPS driver. Upon the end of December I became laid off with all the other peak season employees. However, in January they offered me a full time driver job. I took it with glee. I finally had the career I wanted. That job was the best of the many jobs I had taken. I just knew I was going to stay at UPS forever. Burlington was such a great UPS center. We managed ourselves effectively. Due to this, the company would send supervisor trainees to our center to learn the ropes of supervising without becoming too overwhelmed with chaos. One of the supervisors that was sent was an AfricanAmerican man. He was extremely nice and helpful. He told me one day that due to me being a minority—a woman—(which I had never really considered a woman to be a minority, but in actuality it was), that I could easily move up in UPS management. He said I needed to take advantage of that and that he would help me. Being a career person in a job I liked, I wasn’t too excited about going into management just yet. I figured I’d do that when I got bored with driving and delivering. That was a bad mistake, as I never went any further than being a driver for 5.5 years. Being a minority certainly didn’t stop me from obtaining other jobs, however.

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My Jobs, My Life 13.0 I WANT A JOB, NOT A CAREER
UPS Driver vs. Horse Trainer Assistant After having consistent money in my pocket with the UPS job, I felt flush enough to buy a home. And once I obtained the home, I learned how expensive home ownership was. Nevertheless, I rarely have gone back to being a renter. After the first home purchase, I was able to buy a horse. I had a horse when I was a teen and Cheyenne was the love of my life. We would ride nearly every day after school. A girl and her horse, there is just something about that combination that wouldn’t go away. When the house I bought had 2 acres with it, I dove quickly to work to fence the land so I could get a horse again. I bought Brandy the Morgan mare and then Zip, the Appaloosa gelding. They were buddies for years. Settling in with my horses as an adult now, this sparked that girl/horse connection from years ago. There was no mistaking it. I never wanted to be without a horse again. The only problem was that my two wooded acres didn’t house my “kids” properly. The mud was a foot deep, trees became barriers to grass growing, and I didn’t have a barn for them. My animal children really needed better living quarters. This became what ended up being a 25 plus year search for “my farm.” I wanted a place where I could have my horses where they were happy, dry, with plenty of land to roam and a nice barn; where I could have a modern home and live with them. I had big dreams of having all sorts of equine businesses--of training horses, of having a horse ranch bed and breakfast, of running a working ranch, of giving seminars to teach others about horses, etc. Maybe I’d find a great location with land and lead trail rides out of my home. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do with the ranch, I just wanted one. AND I wanted to have a horsey business out of the farm. It was at that point that I no longer was thrilled with the UPS driving job, as I had a strong inkling what my “real career” was supposed to be—something to do with horses, my horses. It was time to give up my career of UPS and go back to having a simple job in order to work towards getting my farm. I met a local lady who was a Morgan horse trainer. She needed a helping hand. I quit my $14.74/hour UPS job for one that paid $4/hr. That was the beginning of being broke for many years to come. I learned the basics of training horses and all phases of the show ring from her. I was in seventh heaven. After that, I never again sought out a career. In fact, I resisted jobs that were career-type (and paying) jobs because I would have had to commit to them. My career was with horses, and I wasn’t interested in committing to any other career. I sought out many jobs with swing or graveyard shift schedules so I could work animals during the day. Well, there was one career job that I took, in protest (see next entry). Husband Needs Insurance I had married and my new husband needed dental insurance. One of my temporary jobs was a swing shift job as a file clerk at First Interstate Bank. There were about 8 of us that filed from 3pm-11pm. I really liked the people I worked with and they offered me the job permanently. I
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felt the pressure from the husband to get the dental insurance that came with permanent employment. He was a taxi driver with no medical insurance, so I took that job. I stayed about a year at the bank, until hubby got his teeth fixed up. I was thrilled to go back to pursuing my horse farm dreams and taking “off” jobs. I didn’t know exactly what town I would end up—somewhere where land was cheap—so I was reluctant to force limitations by planting myself and be locked into one location—especially in a city. I started training horses and learned of mules. I loved mules and especially I loved my 2 year old SallyMule. I became even more driven to have my farm so I could use Sally somehow, or train mules off my own land. I was obsessed with all things equine. I was moving forward towards a goal that was part of who I was—a farm girl with a bunch of animals. Being broke for 25 years wasn’t a pleasant time in my life, but my love for my animal children never faltered. I was able to experiment with all sorts of farm animals. Through the years I had the pleasure of having chickens, sheep, pigs (names: Morris, Boris, Doris, Horace, and Delores), goats (Josie and Keither), and of course, equines, horses, mules, donkey, and a hinny. I still have mules today—and I finally got my farm, too! I couldn’t be happier, even though I learned that I have to have a “real” career to afford it! Living on my farm now made all those 25 years of struggle worth it in the end.

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My Jobs, My Life 14.0 EMBARRASSED AS A JANITOR
Tortilla Assembly Line Some of the jobs I write about are temporary agency jobs. I worked for a few different temp companies through the years where they would send me on various assignments. One of the most embarrassing jobs I worked was offered by Kelley Services. I must have been desperate to take this job, lack of money does that to a person! This job was working on an assembly line at a tortilla factory in McMinnville, OR. My coworkers were all Hispanic and didn’t speak a lick of English. I did not speak Spanish, regardless that I had two years of Spanish in school. One of the ladies helped me to learn the job by just doing it. The saying, “be the person you want others to be” only works if the other person is paying attention! But luckily I was paying attention to what she was doing. And then I modeled my actions after hers. If I was doing something incorrect, she would become animated and deliberate in her actions until I figured out that what she was doing was the right way and my way was the wrong way. I got along fairly well and then one day rumor was going around that inspectors were coming. It was up to us to have our station immaculate and doing our work properly. As these white American inspectors approached our assembly line station, it was so embarrassing as I was the only white girl with these Hispanic ladies. When the inspectors arrived, I remember I picked up a broom and swept and swept and swept, even when there was nothing more to sweep. I kept my head down and never looked up from the floor. I didn’t want any of those important people to view me as I was viewing myself—as less than nothing. I’m sure they thought I was one step up from a bum, and that this was the only job I could get. Although the job was a fine job for some people, there was something about not living up to my own expectations that bothered me the most. The Hispanic women didn’t seem to have an issue with their station and their work. Some of them were very proud that they had such a clean area. But I just wanted to crawl under the belt and hide. I asked the temp agency if I could leave that job after that. I had never asked to be taken off a job before, and figured they would never put me in another job. I took that risk. But, it wasn’t a problem for them. They understood that some people are cut out for some work and not for others. Bless them!

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My Jobs, My Life 15.0 WE HAVE HOT BUNS
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Conway Deli Marketing Humor has always been my saving grace. As a child, we learned that humor was the best means for communication. I remember if I ever got lost in a store, I could just listen and pretty soon I would hear my mother laughing and that laugh would lead me right to her. Sometimes humor was a means to distance, also. But that’s another story. One of my jobs was just down the street from my home in Conway. There was a Texaco gas station that had a deli attached on it. I worked in the deli and became chummy with the local farmers and regulars in the area who would come in for their daily coffee break. At the deli we made fresh donuts, custom sandwiches, and a flurry of common deli items—including hot dogs. I was learning the power of marketing and decided we needed to get people to buy more deli foods. At one point I incorporated both my humor and marketing and put up a sign in the window that said, “We Have Hot Buns.” Well, we did. We put the buns in the steamer basket and they WERE hot. I was pretty pleased with myself for coming up with that tagline. Nearly everyone had a great time for a week gossiping about my new marketing sign. And then the owner came in, and I was told in no uncertain terms that this was not appropriate. Oh well, it was worth it for a week—and gave me a reason to remember this job.

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My Jobs, My Life 16.0 HOW TO GET FIRED
Or Positive Attitudes Suck I don’t care what anyone else says, getting fired affects a person in a below the belt blow. Especially if you get fired for having a positive attitude. During one of my many restaurant jobs, I had taught myself to pour a shot and learned what went into alcoholic drinks, so I could take the more lofty position of a bartender. During this time I previously had a bunch of really bad restaurant jobs and was willing to be more positive inside so my jobs would be easier for me. I think it was the beginning of me taking charge of my future through a more positive attitude. I was hired on at a hotel in LaConner as a bartender and coffee girl (now called a barista). We had an espresso machine right there in the bar and my job was during the lunch time—the slow time of the bar scene. I learned to make espresso LONG before espresso was cool. I didn’t have many customers in the daytime bar, which was a good thing, as I still was learning to mix drinks. I remember my coworkers in the restaurant part were the typical angry, negative type of girls, and I wanted desperately to get away from that. I purposely put on a happy face and played that positive person I wanted to be. I wouldn’t get caught up in their drama and kept to myself in the lonely bar. I remember the waitresses didn’t like me so well. I wasn’t one of them, in their negativity. I struggled immensely with this. I’m not exactly sure how I was taken, but was extremely surprised one day when the manager fired me. He never really gave me a reason that made any sense (I don’t recall what excuse he gave), but I suspected that I had gotten fired due to my positive attitude. Now, there may have been a legitimate reason for the firing, I just never was privy to his inner thoughts. What a devastating blow to my ego. After this firing, it seemed like it became a pattern for the next couple of jobs. I don’t remember which other jobs I got fired from, but I remember that firing just kept happening, no matter what I did. It certainly didn’t seem like I could control it. Looking back, I did have anger issues that probably reared its evil head. I do remember not being able to keep my mouth shut at times, and hated being told what to do (authority figure issues). Most likely that was the reason. I’d fire me too if I were the authority!

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My Jobs, My Life 17.0 DRINKING ON THE JOB
Country Club Taking Care of Members Another bartender job I had was at the local country club. I wasn’t too experienced at bartending, but enough to sell myself and get this job. It was during the day and there were bunches of golfers that milled around. They were a fun group of guys and gals, but many of them drank too much (in my opinion). The country club took care of their members and if someone was too drunk to drive, management would drive them home. That was a very special thing about clubs being like family, where people take care of each other. That was a new twist to jobs that I hadn’t experience d previously. I became friendly with a lot of important people at the country club. But I also was highly influenced by their love of having a good time. They weren’t all that funny if I was sober, but they were hilarious if I was drunk. Being the sneaky drunk, I always had a chimney of diet pop near my station. When customers and coworkers weren’t looking I’d pour a shot of vodka in the chimney glass of diet soda. Although I preferred whisky, vodka didn’t smell so much and I could better hide what I was doing. Funny thing, the customers’ antics would become hilarious again. I remember that job significantly for one reason. It was with that job, sneaking drinks to myself, that I became aware that I had a drinking problem. This awareness became the beginning of me wanting to stop drinking. That act was not accomplished for a few more years, however.

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My Jobs, My Life 18.0 “I'M NOT YOUR CHILD”
Bossy Waitress in a Train Car One restaurant I worked at had a train theme. I believe there were one line of tables in an actual train car. This train car had a building added on to it to comprise the rest of the establishment. I rarely was granted the exalted waitress position in the train car, and mostly worked in the regular part of the building. This job was a pretty easy job except for one thing—one of my coworkers. I was learning to keep my mouth shut—a difficult task for me—and one of the other waitresses was asked to train me of their ways. After the training, I guess she thought she was my boss. She wasn’t in any position of authority, but she thought she was. Due to me not wanting to get fired, I kept my mouth shut and did what she told me. This girl was unique in her bossiness. She didn’t just ask me to do things, she would bark at me just like she barked at her children. The words she used I KNEW were mother/child words, like: “Go do this…”, “Don’t you know what you’re doing?”, or spouting the degrading attitude of “You’re an idiot.” And if I replied to anything it was: “Don’t talk to me that way,” and similar bully statements typical from mother to child at that time. It was all I could do to just do what she told me and stay silent. I didn’t think I had the right to complain about her. Hell, I may get fired again. One day, another coworker worked with us and noticed how she talked to me. She told someone and I’m not sure exactly what the conversation, but she quit playing the boss role, but her resentment to me lingered. I left shortly after that.

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My Jobs, My Life 19.0 STUPID MONEY MOVES
$600 Poorly Spent When I turned 21 I was living in Aberdeen. I can’t remember what brought me to Aberdeen other than my sister who lived there. Her husband knew everyone in town and helped me get a job in his industrial industry. I became an inside sales person at Bearings, Inc, selling every different kind of bearing known to man. Knowing nothing about bearings, I quickly caught on and made bearings “my thing.” The job was pretty good, but living near my sister was even better. Jo always kept herself up and looked beautiful. I was always envious of her. I wanted to travel down her path, but her path just wasn’t my path no matter how hard I tried. I just couldn’t make sense of spending an hour getting dressed when I could do it in 10 minutes. Or spending healthy dollars on clothes and shoes when the thrift store was so much cheaper, and I was able to buy groceries with the remainder. I guess the glamorous life just wasn’t for me. The job didn’t have much interesting to report, but the most interesting feature was a small part of my personal life during those times in Aberdeen. Years prior I had a boyfriend. Dave drove a ‘67 Mustang fastback. I don’t remember why, but for some reason I loaned him $600. He vowed to pay me back and not long after (short relationships were my specialty) he was history. When I lived in Aberdeen, I learned he had enlisted into the military. That loan stuck in my craw for years and I concluded that a military man would have some extra money, and that it was time for him to share. I was no longer interested in Dave as a boyfriend, but I longed for my $600. That was a whole lot of money back then. I actually made a livable income selling bearings and didn’t particularly need the money to live. However, my skewed way of thinking led me to believe that the money I gave him years ago was still mine. I thought I had been ripped off and I wanted revenge. My overactive brain and cocky attitude tricked me into thinking I could just lie to him about how broke I was, have him feel sorry for me, send me my $600 from his military post, and then I would dump him. I started writing him love letters in the military, and began complaining about how I could barely buy food and pay for rent. He was sympathetic, but no check came in the mail. It wasn’t long before Dave had military leave and decided to come see me. I wasn’t sure how I was going to pull this off. All I wanted was my dollars back. I didn’t want to SEE him. I didn’t have feelings for him. He didn’t know that, however, and believed the love I was selling. He was ready to jump back into a relationship with me and of course expected to stay the night with me in Aberdeen when his leave came. On the day he was to arrive at my home, I drove up to my sister’s house and waited there. I just wasn’t able to face him. I could give bold faced lies over pen and paper (there was no email back then), but I wasn’t skilled at lying face to face. My sister and I hopped into her car, a vehicle he didn’t know, and drove past my house. Dave was sitting in my driveway, waiting for me to come home. I didn’t. He finally got tired of waiting and left town. I don’t think I ever heard from Dave

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again. I never got my $600 returned. And I never learned to blatantly lie face to face in a convincing manner. Looking back, I see how self-serving I was to what I consider now to be a very honorable military person. I didn’t care about him or the fact he was risking his life for our country. I just wanted him to pay for what he did (to me). Arrogance and narrow mindedness was not my best trait. Another $500 Flushed Another money loaning issue (I guess I didn’t learn from Dave) was when I was a blackjack dealer in Yakima. I didn’t date much during this time, as I was now sober, but I did find a guy I sort of liked. He was a truck driver and we started this on/off long distance relationship. He would text me and call, and I would wait for him to come to town. He said he wanted to come up to WA and live with me and asked me to find him a job. I was unsure of his sincerity, but did a bit of looking for him. It was one very lucrative night at the blackjack tables—my highest tip night ever. I had taken home $1000 in tips. I don’t think this is even possible now-a-days, as they cap the tip limit to dealers. However, this grand was in my pocket when I left my shift that morning (working graveyard shift). I was excited and texted truck driver Ray. He said he was happy for me. He added that his semi-truck had some mechanical issue and he was stuck and couldn’t move until his truck got fixed. And that when he finished the trip he was on, he was coming up to WA to live with me. He didn’t have any money to fix the truck and he didn’t know what he was going to do. I didn’t understand at the time what was really going on. I sent him $500 to get his truck fixed. Shortly after that, I got a phone call from his cell phone and it was a woman—his wife—you know, the one he forgot to tell me about? I never heard from him or my $500 again. Man, that was money poorly spent.

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My Jobs, My Life 20.0 LOSING VENTURES OR “I CAN'T LIE, DAMMIT”
Coupons and Pre-Paid Credit Cards As a wanteprenour, (or dreamer), I easily got hooked into get rich quick schemes. For being nearly broke most my adult life, having jobs didn’t seem to get me ahead financially. There must be a better way, I concluded. Making money the easy way was in my face constantly. There were so many “opportunities” out there. And that overconfidence made me believe that I was certainly smarter than most, and I could be the one who made it where others fail. Gawd, how many times has that thought got me into trouble? One of the money opportunities floating around at the time was to purchase coupons at a discount and then go out and sell them to groups. Forget the fact that marketing and selling was my weakest skill (See the Hot Buns story). I still thought that I could make a tidy sum coupon selling. Needless to say, I repeatedly lost my “investment.” But that didn’t stop me from further opportunities. I concluded that it was the fault of the coupons (not me). So I embarked on another path, selling pre-paid credit cards. I had the same luck as the coupons. I couldn’t sell them to save my life. (Later, these actually became popular, but I guess I was ahead of the times.) I longed for the skill of being a really good salesman. But, those convincing words coming out of my mouth made me feel like a liar. I was brought up too ethically. I never learned to lie well. At times I would consider learning how to lie well, but morals were too ingrained in me. Plus, Mom might be listening. Flipping Houses The biggest dreamer idea I attempted was to buy and sell houses. I guess coupons and credit cards and all those other make money flops taught me nothing. They said it was possible for people with no money to buy and sell homes. And, again thinking I am better than others, I was certain that I could do this. So, I bought the entire package offered at the seminar and embarked on buying and selling homes. I actually bought a distressed home for the purpose of immediately turning it over. There just were a few straggler issues. One, I didn’t have ANY money to put into fixing it up. Two, I wasn’t able to sell someone on loaning me money for this purpose. Three, I bought a house that had a renter, and it was hell trying to get them out. Four, I was at the financial point in my life that I had to sell that house so I could eat. I literally had nothing. Being distressed myself did not put me in a position to hold out for a decent selling price. I ended up finding a buyer, but they bought from a distressed owner, too, and that was me! It boggles my mind that I still thought it was the medium’s fault that I wasn’t successful (maybe it’s the town—I’ll buy houses in another town, THEN I’ll be successful) not my own. Lesson learned on these deals? I learned to never do business deals when flat broke because financial stress will help you to lose even more.

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My Jobs, My Life 21.0 NO, YOU CAN’T “TOUCH MY BOOBS”
Healing Wanteprenour Hm…I wondered what money making opportunity lay ahead. My wanteprenour mind wandered. By this time I was a bit exhausted of those get rich quick schemes. I had developed my own brand of spirituality and I learned some healing techniques. I wanted to ‘be somebody’ and if I couldn’t make it as a millionaire of real estate, maybe I could be ‘the healer’ and become a famous sought after miracle worker. I have no idea why I thought this was different than the money making scams. I guess because it was presented in a different way. The difference was not that the seller was promising me easy money, but they now were promising me easy miracles. With their program I could learn a way to help people in a magical way, in a way different from anyone else. People would come from all over for my services, they told me, and of course I believed. I was all over that idea. THIS was my ticket to ‘be somebody.’ I was going to be the ‘healer on the hill.’ I’d have admirers both near and afar. I’d have so many admirers that they would be lined up waiting for me to do my magic and heal them. THEN I’d be happy. I took a few healing classes, received certifications, (I remembered with the WSI swimming certification on how powerful that piece of paper was to open doors). I performed my teachings and thought I helped people. Then I’d get a complaint from someone who questioned my magical abilities. It shot me down quickly and before I could identify that the failure was based in my lack of confidence, I determined that any “non-change” was due to the specific healing method I was using. It couldn’t possibly be me. So, I’d take another class, from another salesperson, who promised higher magical abilities. One method was so convincing that I even paid heavily for a booth at the Benton County Fair and began “healing people” in amongst the slice ‘em, dice ‘em appliances and the roofing contractors. After the fair I continued that healing method at my home in Kennewick. One day I had made an appointment with a guy and put him on the massage table for healing work. With most of my healing work, I didn’t even touch the people, but just moved the energy around their body. This particular man got up from the table after the healing session and confidently asked if he could touch my boobs. After my initial shock and decline, he left as my last healing customer at my home. That didn’t stop me from wanting the allure and promise of miracles, magic and happiness. I just found other ways to heal that were not at my home. Namely, I got into a legitimate and professional healing modality, hypnosis. My dream of one day being the miracle worker on the hill was still alive and well.

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My Jobs, My Life 22.0 YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!
Hypnotist and the Smoking Clients Later in life, after the allure and failure of being the Healer Guru, I surmised that energy healing just wasn’t as powerful of a means to effect change in others. I bypassed the obvious point that the client had to be fully on board with healing. Nevertheless, I kept moving forward to bigger and more promising healing means. The ultimate means of healing was hypnosis. I had been the hypnosis client years before and it helped me temper my anger and changed me positively. I wanted to do that with/for others. I took the seven day class and came home with a certificate in hypnosis. It didn’t take much for Washington State to recognize me as professional. My education started and I was a bit insecure to say the least. Let me rephrase that. I was overconfident coming out of class as I believed what I was told—that I could change people immediately and that clients would flock to me for my services. When the first few sessions failed, my bubble burst and I fell flat on my face. It took me a long time to get good at hypnosis, I’d say at least four years. My heart was in the right place, I just had a rough time getting through the wide learning curve. I kept on pushing, but it ate me up inside that I actually was charging for my work and lying to people that I was totally competent, when inside I kept reliving my failures. But, for hypnosis to work best, the client MUST believe in the hypnotist, as this trust would mirror the success or failure of the session. If I was anything BUT totally convincingly confident to others, I certainly was not going to affect change in them. I’d like to make a public apology to anyone whom I tried to help during those four years of ‘practice.’ Luckily hypnosis cannot harm anyone! The most common request as a hypnotist is stop smoking sessions. I tried every which way I could find to possess the most effective program ever. First I adopted various other people’s ways, then I figured out my way. In all of these, I didn’t take into account the immense power of the human mind of the client. And for some unknown reason, quitting smoking is a huge emotional step for the smoker—one that is not entered into lightly. All parts of the person must be on board with wanting to quit and must be willing to expend all effort and do whatever it takes to stop smoking permanently. I do say I helped a lot of people, but there were those hold outs who blamed me because I didn’t make miracles happen to them. No matter how assertively I told them that “I can’t make anyone do anything they don’t want to do. You still have to do the work,” they would still blame me if “it didn’t work.” It took me a long time to actually shut down business. But when that happened, I was SO pleased to close the doors on hypnosis forever. I no longer felt the need to be the guru, the miracle worker on the hill. That phase was over and out.

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My Jobs, My Life 23.0 MANAGING A DRUNK’S OFFICE
Siding Office Manager It had been several years since my last drop of alcohol. I was at a rare time in my life without a job. Living rural, I didn’t have many friends, but I did take up a friendship with this local spiritual mother/wife who was on a similar path than I. After several of her failed attempts, I finally agreed to meet her husband to determine if I would help him organize his outdated office of his siding company where he worked out of their home. I liked Chad. He was that familiar humorous type that comes with plenty of booze intake. I took the job and became the miracle worker and hero by actually making invoices on the computer— (not by hand like they had been doing) organizing his files, and keeping track of all income and expenses in MsExcel. I paid the siding workers and hired new ones when needed. I was important. And because Chad would not allow himself to drink until after work, it seemed to be a good match for me. I enjoyed how the wife came to visit with me frequently, but I increasingly became uncomfortable when she would tell me her husband problems and ask if she should leave him. I was getting too involved in an alcoholic family drama. I worked for Chad for a nearly a year. After office organization was completed, I became the person who nearly ran the company. The wife, my friend, wasn’t capable, but then, of course, I was better than she, I thought. His after-work drinking became his 3:00 indulgence. Still, it didn’t bother me, as I left the office around that time. Occasionally, they would have to put up siding on homes that were several hours away. I heard the horror stories of a drunk Chad recklessly speeding across the Cascade Mountains to Moses Lake with his fellow workers who were terrified out of their minds. I was the hero at that job for a while. I not only consoled the distressed wife, but I ran the company. “Cindy can do anything,” Chad would tout, and my pride would flourish. There came a time when Chad decided he wanted to go to Alaska and go fishing in the bush. He was going to be gone for over a month (with no cell phone service) and I was to run the entire operation. I was still getting a secretary’s salary of $10/hr. After knowing exactly how much he was bringing in (remember, I did the books) and knowing that I was going to run the place for six weeks, I became very unhappy. When Chad vacated, I was left to make all the company decisions at a measly $10/hr. His wife tried to help, but truly she wasn’t capable. We survived Chad’s Alaska trip, but I wasn’t a happy camper. There were two straws that broke that camel’s back. When Chad returned from Alaska, he asked me to book a romantic get-away on the Washington coast for him and his wife, to romance her and stop her from leaving him. I was used to running the company for very little pay. I didn’t like being downgraded back to the secretary who did personal things for the alcoholic boss (by now it was getting to me). The second straw was one day when the wife was out, she called me and asked me to roll the garbage can to the road, as she had forgotten and it was garbage day. THAT was

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beneath me. To go from hero to zero in a very short time was more than I could handle. I quit the job and decided I can do it better myself. I then started up a siding company out of my home.

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My Jobs, My Life 24.0 I CAN DO IT MYSELF, THANK YOU
Human Blob Rolling out of a Minivan I had big visions of making tons of money with my own siding company. At the last place I worked, I had arranged for Chad’s company to be the certified installer of The Home Depot and other big businesses. I increased his sales two-fold, at least. I thought I could just take that away from him. I figured once they learned how disorganized he was on his own (without me— arrogance noted) they surely would bring their business to my company instead. I also contacted Chad’s other customers in an attempt to steal them, too. This wasn’t the ideal way to do business, but I knew his drinking would do him in later if not sooner. I took a couple of his siders workers and Chad was furious. I had lined up a few others and then hired them on to my operation. When they were not working for Chad, they would do jobs for me. Isn’t that what “independent contractors” are supposed to do— work for more than one company? Chad didn’t see it that way and forbade any of his guys to work for me. He told them that if they did, they would never work for him again. I started the business and of course business was slow. Not being the sales person, I had to do my best to learn to lie (again) and also to learn to side houses. I told a big housing contractor that I did the work myself with the help of others. To prove that I was the lead on the project, I had to don a contractor’s tool belt and go to work siding a real house. I basically did what my worker told me to do, and then faked it with lies when the contractor was there for inspection. Those were the worst lies I told in my entire career. I don’t know if he believed me or not. One drunk night at the Chad residence, Chad and his siding guys were drinking heavily. He learned that one of his workers had been working for me. This particular guy was Hispanic, as most of them were, and Chad drunkenly decided his buttons were being pushed too far. He and his friends gathered up the Hispanic sider, shoved him in the minivan, drove to my house, opened up the side door and kicked him out. I mean they literally rolled him out of the van until he fell onto my rocky driveway in a ball. They sped out of there in lightning speed. The Hispanic guy told me he had not been drinking. He was bruised and battered. He wouldn’t let me call the police or take him to the hospital. I’m sure he was an illegal alien—and worried more about that than some cuts and scrapes. To this day I don’t know exactly what Chad did or said to him that made him hold the fetal position and be rolled onto my driveway. This drama was just too much for this sober white woman. Later I realized that I instigated this problem by stealing Chad’s business and workers. I had a huge hand in the ensuing drama. Luckily not too long after that I decided to move out of the area. And people say that drinking never hurt anyone. I beg to differ.

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My Jobs, My Life 25.0 INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR OR EMPLOYEE?
Vancouver Cab I drove for several taxicab companies in several cities. The first company I drove for worked out of Vancouver, WA. This was my initiation into shady taxicab company practices. Being put on as a driver, I really had no idea about this independent contractor (IC) verses employee thing. I knew I was getting paid per trip, not per hour. This company would tell me I had to do what they asked, like take non-paying runs to drive their paperwork across town. I did it because I was an employee. At the end of the day they would take employee-type deductions from my income, along with a percentage of the fare. But on occasion, when it came to worker’s compensation claims or other employee related issues they didn’t want to deal with, I would be told that I was an independent contractor. I was totally confused. The significant part of this job was one day I went to work and we were short handed. One of the drivers called in sick. He has been a driver for years, but had a small drinking problem. The management was equally as toxic in how they lived their life and I assume it all matched up somehow. Terry was sick and the other two of us drivers tried to fill in the gap that Terry left us. One of the calls that came in was to a bar. I went in and Terry was the customer I was to pick up in the bar. I was shocked that he wasn’t sick in bed. Terry had me take him to a second bar with no emotional reservations that he had just called in sick as a taxi driver and then called the taxi company to take him from bar to bar. That company ended up letting me go (firing me) because I squawked about having to take free runs for their precious non-paying paperwork trips. They kept Terry as an employee (or IC?), even though he called in sick and then called for cabs to drive him from bar to bar. Toxic begets toxic, I guess. Tacoma Cab The best cab company I worked for did not have many driver/owners. They were mostly simply drivers who leased out company cabs. Yellow Cab was out of Tacoma, WA and it was here, after many years of really bad Portland issues, that I really enjoyed driving cab. The dispatchers at this company were not computerized and still had the old board where they would move the cars appropriately so they would know where each taxi had dropped off. When they had a call, they would announce it over the radio and the first one to respond was the one who got the call. There was no lollygagging at this company. The harder you worked, the more trips you made, and the higher your income! I lived the life of a city girl for a short while. I had my home in Chehalis with my animals, but I took a room in Tacoma and stayed there during my days of taxicab driving. And not only that, our company had a policy of only $5 fee for any drivers if they were traveling to or from work. I would get up at 0 dark thirty, heat my tea, and watch for my limousine and chauffer (my taxicab driver) come pick me up and take me to work. I felt pretty important! At least until the taxi was

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late and I was late getting to work, or there were no taxis that were available when I got off work and I had to walk three miles home. I’m glad I had that experience, nonetheless.

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My Jobs, My Life 26.0 CELEBRITIES IN MY TAXICAB!
Radio Cab in Portland I drove for nearly all of the cab companies in Portland. People ask me if I ever pick up celebrities. Usually the answer is no, as celebrities generally take limousines or town cars and not cabs. There were two instances of note where I took celebrities in my cab. One was at the Benton Hotel where I was holding at the cab stand. The doorman called me up and in the back seat of my cab plopped a very tall African American guy who was not a happy camper. Off to the airport we traveled. The entire way he was on his cell phone and I heard the story. Portland’s basketball team, the Portland Trail Blazers, had a game scheduled that night. For some odd reason this basketball player from the opposing team was being sent home unexpectedly. He was furious. He had just been traded and was not happy with the transaction. I kept my mouth shut as I certainly did not want to mess with this angry guy. At the PDX (airport) drop off lane, I took a business card and wrote him a receipt. Handing it to the guy he snapped at me, “What is this?” He thought I was giving him my phone number for a date. I guess that’s what us common people do with celebrities! Another celebrity story in my cab was again a Portland Trail Blazer basketball player. I picked him up from PDX and took him to his home in Beaverton. We had a decent positive conversation for the 40 minute trip. Upon arriving to his fancy home, I awed over how cool the house was. He offered to take me inside so I could see what it looked like from an inside view. Both of us knew what the intent was. I declined.

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Coldplay in my Cab

On another day, this time driving for Broadway Cab, yet from the same hotel as the traded basketball player, I picked up four fun loving guys. They had a really cool British accent. These guys were in great spirits and seemed to like this older woman taxi driver. We headed off for a particular club across the Willamette River. I learned they were musicians and they were the headliner for the night. One of them told me that I may not have heard of their group before, “but you will,” he said confidently. I admitted that this old lady didn’t listen to their type of music, but I believed him. I told them that if they were going to be famous one day, I HAD to have their autographs. I still have the tore out notebook paper adorning the signatures of Chris Martin, Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman, and Will Champion—the four members of the now rock legend, Coldplay.

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My Jobs, My Life 27.0 NOT HIRED-BLACKLISTED
Portland Cab Even though I liked driving cab and working with the customers, I didn’t like the politics of the cab companies in bed with the city, and the drivers being treated poorly by both. Through the eight years I was a taxicab driver in Portland, someone would get upset at driver treatment and form a driver organization. At the time we had drivers from Russia, various countries in Africa, Middle East, and some from India. Oh, there were a handful of us white Americans, too. Many drivers spent their times in the backfield of the Portland Airport waiting for their turn to be in line for traveling customers. The guys at the backfield were generally very welcoming to me and fun loving. They liked me mainly because I was nearly the only woman in the backfield. I liked the attention. It was one of those times where driver treatment had deteriorated mainly due to a buyout of the busiest taxi company in town. The new owners were interested in the bottom line dollar and not in the people who gave them those dollars—the drivers. This sparked another driver organization. This time we were determined to fight the city and companies as hard and as long as necessary for better driver rights. I decided to not only join the organization, but was involved enough to be one of the front runners. The driver’s organization played havoc on the companies and on the city, but in the end, the drivers would not hold together long enough for change to happen. The city and companies won out again. However, during the fight I found myself out of a driving job. I had miraculously found a buyer for my cab and decided that getting out was my best option. Besides, with all the work I was doing for the organization, surely they would help me financially while I fought the fight, wouldn’t they? That certainly was a wrong assumption! I was drowning quickly in debt and went to the last taxi company, the only one I hadn’t yet worked for, and applied to be a driver. Once Green Cab manager realized that I was that white American lady they had heard about, they declined my application. No cab companies would let me drive for them. I had been blacklisted from ever driving taxi in Portland again. That act made me feel even more powerless than getting fired! I guess you CAN’T fight city hall!

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My Jobs, My Life 28.0 INSIDER SPYING
Broadway Cab Dispatcher Just before the driver/cab company/city fighting became heated, I took a job for the main purpose of spying on the company. My intention was to learn more about the ins and outs of the taxicab office for more fodder to bring to the table as the organization’s semi-leader. I went to work in dispatch of Broadway Cab. I learned how much the company was making from the city-based transit system, as this company was the authorized transportation means after hours, especially for the handicapped and wheel-chair bound public. Matching that against what they paid the drivers and how padded those two figures became was instrumental in the taxicab driver fight. And probably had something to do with me getting myself blacklisted from all the companies. My own doing—again!

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My Jobs, My Life 29.0 YOU'VE FALLEN ASLEEP, AGAIN?
Super Shuttle Airporter After driving cab in Portland and getting blacklisted so I could never drive taxi again in that town, I still had to make a living for myself. The main way I knew to do this was through driving. I became employed as an airport shuttle driver for a couple different companies. This one particular shuttle company was very busy for one major reason. It adopted a shuttle name that was well known in major cities, Super Shuttle, but that national company was not in Portland. The owner of this company registered the name and pretended like he was a subsidiary of that large respected company. There were tons of trips to and from the airport. My job started at 4am and there were at least two vans speeding around town at that early hour. Occasionally I would have a break after the morning rush to the airport and would be able to go home for a little while. I’d wait for the phone to ring from the boss sending me on another trip. There was one familiar phone call that I later understood the meaning. I’d be hanging out at my apartment and the boss would call in a panic. He would give no explanation but tell me I had to be at such and such an address immediately, as we were already late. I couldn’t understand why we were late so often. All he needed to do was to tell me an hour earlier and we wouldn’t have been late. The people I picked up were always irritated. Hey, they had a plane to catch and their ride was late. I got used to making excuses or simply apologizing and stating that I don’t know why we were late. Later I learned that the boss had the intention of being the one who picked up these people, but he had fallen asleep between calls. He would awaken in a panic when the phone rang and the irritated customer wanted to know why a driver wasn’t at their door. He would then call me and send me instead so he wouldn’t have to face them and explain that he was simply over worked and over tired.

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29.2Other Driving Jobs
Another airport shuttle company I worked for was actually a decent company. Raja Tours was owned by an Indian guy from Sri Lanka. He was a very nice man and managed his business well. I worked for him without much incident. Other driving jobs were delivering auto parts in Orange County California. I remember driving back from Los Angeles at rush hour every night. I didn’t feel the traffic pressure as I was getting paid per hour.

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My Jobs, My Life 30.0 BEING STUPIDLY FUNNY
Cocktail Waitress at Inn During one of my many restaurant jobs, this was one where I primarily worked in the lounge of the best bar in Mt. Vernon. The entire business consisted of a hotel, restaurant, lounge, and catering company. I worked in all of the departments at one time or another, but my consistent job at this hotel was being a nightly cocktail waitress. As far as serving drunks and being one, it was a great job. The bartender that I worked with was a closet gay man. That was just fine with me, but I thought it was odd that he wouldn’t admit to something the rest of us already knew. Danny was a guy that seemed like a serious, respectable, god-fearing man—until you got to know him. I loved his dry sense of humor and he had this way of allowing people to be who they wanted to be. Danny and I got along really well. I think we just both understood that neither one of us was “normal” and that it was okay to embrace that part of us. The most fun part of this job was my secret friendship with Danny. We would do some bizarre things and it was hilarious—at least for the two of us. I’m not sure the customers were as amused, but our ways kept us in stitches. As required by the restaurant management, bartenders had to wear shirt and ties. One time we decided to wear our shirts backwards. Danny flipped his dress shirt around so it was buttoning up his back. It wasn’t all that funny until he put his tie on backwards, too! He rationalized that the tie hanging down his back didn’t get in the way of pouring drinks. One day Danny once even wore his slacks backwards! For me, I had to join in this play and began to wear my shirts backwards too. The reaction was priceless when I acted like a normal human being and asked for drink orders. I’d get this double take on my backwards shirt and the drunker people got, the funnier it became. The best night was when Danny and I traded shirts and wore them backwards, too. I had worn something frilly that night that Danny donned, and I had the tie down the back look. Just one of those stupidly funny jobs.

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Sell Bread at Costco

I did quite a few food sampling jobs, but none as stupidly funny as selling Oroweat bread at Costco in Kennewick. It was always such a treat when I found someone who embraced and mirrored my odd sense of humor. Janey and I decided that selling Oroweat bread was what we were there to do and so we set out to selling bread by being concocting some really odd marketing tricks. It must have seemed like a carnival game to passersby, “Here ye, here ye. Step right up. Come buy a loaf of bread or two. Special price just for you today. Right out of mom’s oven. We made this just for you—yes, you sir. Would you rather have double fiber or oat and grain?”

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As I remember we did some singing and dancing, too. We got a lot of laughs and smiles and actually sold a ton of bread. But all good things must come to an end sooner or later. These antics were only successful if there were two or more participants feeding off each other. When Janey, my partner in crime, wasn’t there I couldn’t carry on the antics. The job became boring simply selling loaves of bread. This was a temp job which luckily ended soon after Janey left.

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My Jobs, My Life 31.0 HOW LOW CAN I GO?
Plant Beach Grass Some jobs were fill-in jobs. Either they were temporary or menial, or both. Those jobs I didn’t intend to set the world on fire, but it was a way to bring income so I could live—one of those necessary things we must accomplish. Looking back, I’m actually embarrassed that I stooped so low to take some of these odd jobs. But I wasn’t ashamed at the time—work was work—and I was making a living. One of the lower jobs was planting beach grass in Ocean Shores when I lived in Aberdeen. This summer job reminded me of picking daffodils for the Roozen Brothers in the Mt. Vernon fields. Beach grass wasn’t much different, except we planted bunches of grass instead of harvesting fresh flowers. This job was about as physical as it was boring. After an exhausting day we all would load up in the van that drove us back to Aberdeen, complaining of severe body aches. I didn’t last long planting beach grass at Ocean Shores. Count Cars Even though the rubber tubed counters were laid in the road to count the cars that ran over them, there was no way (at the time) to determine how many of those cars went straight through the intersection, turned left or right, or made a u-turn. One of my temporary jobs was to log the quantity of cars that made those turns for the purpose of determining if signal lights should be put up in the intersection. A designated person and I would sit in a vehicle on the side of the road with our pens and paper and make stroke counts for each category. That was interesting—for about an hour. It quickly became a job I dreaded, and isn’t it funny that I seemed to always be busy when that job came around again—and so were other temp employees who had counted cars. Night Janitor Sometimes logical assumptions and reality don’t match. I really wanted a night job where I wasn’t working for the public. I did so much public work that I’d get burned out periodically and felt I would be happier if I just had an alone job. All the factors of being a night janitor seemed to be the perfect job for me. I went to work cleaning office buildings after the establishment closed for the day. I liked being away from the public, I liked working alone, I liked working nights, but I really had a tough time motivating myself to go clean—something I detested doing at home. Later in life, I came around to never, ever wanting to work with the public again. And this job would have been perfect. But before that time came, I just couldn’t motivate myself to clean. Weekends were the worst, because I’d put off the janitor job to the last minute and then Sunday night I’d have to get all the offices cleaned before Monday morning—working way into the night. Of course, that didn’t last very long. The most significant event in being the janitor was one night I went in to clean the bank. You know, that place that has money all locked up? Well, sitting on a stool in front of God and everyone
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was a wad of blank money orders. I just stared at them for the longest time. What do I do with this potential windfall? Would they be worth whatever amount I filled in? Are there cameras watching me right now? That was the strongest temptation I had to refuse—ever.

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My Jobs, My Life 32.0 ME? I DON’T HAVE A DRINKING PROBLEM!
Walk Out on New Year’s Eve I must have been 34 when I took even another job as a cocktail waitress. This was during a time I was close to being homeless. I don’t remember much of the job specifics, but one particular night was a turning point in personal growth. I had a difficult time trying to quit drinking prior to this job. I contended that it was hard to quit because I kept working in bars. That was just an excuse. I knew it. But it seemed to fly with others so I used it and overused it. For a year or so I tried to quit drinking altogether. I tried to slow down my drinking. I decided that I would only drink if others bought me drinks and I didn’t have to pay for them. And decided I would only drink for this holiday or that event. No slowing down or shifting reasons seemed to stick with me for the long term. This waitress job was in Everett somewhere. I think I was staying with my cousin Ken for a short while. My tolerance for others who drank was lowering every day. I had bought into my own excuse and really wondered if it was true. Could I actually quit drinking for good if I didn’t work in a bar? I didn’t know the answer to that. I had claimed that I could easily quit if I had a different job, and I was on the verge of testing out the excuse. It was New Year’s Eve and I dragged myself to work at the bar. I was unhappy as it was, and the added pressure of the busiest drinking day of the year—especially for the stupid, inexperienced drunks—pushed me over the edge. Shortly before midnight I had had enough of these people’s not-sofunny antics and walked out of my job. That was the first walking out I ever did. I just didn’t care. I wanted out, so I got out. Then I was smacked square in the face with my own excuses. Oh boy, I now no longer worked in a bar. I had a bit of pride on the line and concluded that if I couldn’t stop drinking for good now, then I WAS that alcoholic I had worried about being. My options became very narrow. I had to prove to myself that I didn’t have “a problem” with alcohol. The next night I went out and got blasted and it wasn’t even fun. The following hangover day I gave alcohol up for good. I haven’t touched a drop since January 2, 1989.

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My Jobs, My Life 33.0 GRAVEYARD DRUNKS AND OTHER WAITRESSING STORIES
Country Kitchen Waitress One of the most important and fun waitress jobs I had was in Mt. Vernon at the Country Kitchen. There were a few of these chain restaurants back in those days. It was a job where I gained valuable waitress experience. I worked graveyard shift, 11pm-7am with another girl, Leiann. Leiann was my best friend at the time and we had a blast during our shift. Each table had its own booth with private juke boxes. When it was slow, either Leiann or I would drop a dime in the juke box and we would sing, dance, and vacuum to the favorite top 40. Leiann and I would get our work done just in time for the 2am drunk rush. Swarming the place were all these people who thought they were so funny—at least to other drunks. Some were obnoxious, some were hilarious, and many in between. Leiann and I had some good times. I thought Leiann was the bee’s knees. I'm Not Paying for Your Mistake! There were several jobs where management was less than adequate. Many of them were in restaurants. After several years away from waitressing, I was in a desperate position and took a bartending/waitress job at the Red Barn in Prosser, WA. The place looked decent and I was fully qualified and capable, just a bit rusty. Management wasn’t the best, as they had some odd rules that created high turnover. I could handle any job, any weird rules, so I thought this job would be okay. The job theme that just wasn’t okay was if someone started messing with my pay. That, to me, messing with my money was intolerable. This particular job did just that. Mother’s Day is about a restaurant’s busiest day of the year. On this particular day the management only had two waitresses in the entire place, but they really needed about five for as busy as they were. The two of us were running our butts off all day long. I hadn’t worked there very long and was still getting used to the confusing ticketing system of the computer. At the end of the shift I sat down to balance out my money. I was short with my till. It seemed to come down to one particular ticket. I remember that ticket was a bugger. The POS system wasn’t cooperating with me trying to input a customer’s special orders, and I ended up messing the ticket up in the system. I couldn’t deal with the issues, but made good and sure I was accurate in taking the correct money from the customer and at that time I just went on with the next demanding customer. The POS system somehow made it look like I had pocketed that money. It was an obvious computer error, but I couldn’t explain it adequately to management. They forced me to pay that ticket out of my tips. It was totally wrong. I may be arrogant, angry and stupid, but I don’t steal money. Later they found the mistake and gave me my money back, but that left a really bad taste in my mouth. I didn’t last much longer after that. I became one of their many casualties in Prosser. Abused? Afraid to Quit I lived in Orange County near Los Angeles for a while. My cousin Cherie and I drove down to go to Disneyland one summer. She drove back to Washington, and I stayed in Orange County for a year. One of my jobs was a waitress (what else?). I cannot remember what the company or people were doing to me, but I felt emotional abuse—most likely of my own making. I also knew I couldn’t leave the job because I desperately needed the income. One day I was in the throws of
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some abuse (I can’t remember exactly, so it must not have been too bad) and I was telling a regular customer about it. (Certainly not professional). This customer made a phone call (via pay phone, no cellular phones back then) and then came back to the table. She said that I didn’t have to take this abuse and if I wanted to quit, she would hire me at her restaurant in a nearby town. It didn’t take me long to make that decision. I went immediately to work at the new place. This was one of those rare instances of someone taking care of me in a job. Looking back, it certainly wasn’t smart of her to do this. Look at the quality of waitress (me) they hired at their restaurant—a person tolerant for abuse, one who complains to customers about their issues, and a non-loyal employee who would easily leave a job for something better. At the new place I felt that sense of obligation that comes from someone taking care of me. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling for this free soul. Although grateful for her actions, I didn’t stay very long with this job.

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My Jobs, My Life 34.0 GARBAGE JOBS
Recycle Plant in Portland People ask me what the worst job I ever had. I’ve always told them this job, but it really was a decent experience overall. My particular job at the plant was supervisor, but I did have to work the line when needed. What line was that? This was an experimental composting plant. The garbage truck drivers around Portland would drive into this smelly place and dump their raw garbage. The garbage was funneled onto belts, elevated upstairs where the workers were on a line. Their job was to rifle through the nasty garbage and pull out certain objects and toss them down their respective chutes for recycling. Next to their station were chutes for glass, tin, aluminum, paper, plastic. Each line worker was fully protected in their attire, but not from the horrid smell. The running joke for new people—as you can imagine turnover was high for this job—was if the stench and the disgusting view got to you enough to initiate vomiting, just vomit on the belt. Everyone had their breaking point, for me it was dead animals and dirty diapers. I wouldn’t have lasted a week as a line worker, but I was in supervisory position. My job was to get and keep workers to work the line. People would start out being glad to have a job, but then never show back up after the first day. I found out I had a knack for organization and keeping important things and people straight. I think this is where I first developed my skill of making lists!

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My Jobs, My Life 35.0 GOVERNMENT WORK-BEST LAZY JOB AWARD
U.S. Forest Service—Lazy and Boring The laziest job I had was one summer I worked for the U.S. Forest Service. I don’t remember my job title, but another girl and I were hired to drive around the Forest Service roads and make note of any hazards that may cause accidents or slides onto the roadway. We would note trees that were ready to fall over, root systems sliding down an embankment above a road, and for some reason I can’t remember, we had to measure the length and width of every culvert we went across. It was such a cushy job that I realized when people said, “good enough for government work” I truly knew what they were talking about! I loved being out in the forest, but the job was BORING. The next summer they eliminated our job. I wouldn’t have went back to work there anyway.

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35.2Mt. St. Helen’s Campground Host—Best Job Ever
Another government job that proved to be probably the best job I ever had was living in the middle of the forest as a campground host. The Forest Service put me up in one of their camp trailers. This campground had water but no electricity. This was a horse camp, so each camp site had a horse corral next to it. It was the first time I had lived so remotely. I was able to take my horse, Zip, my mule, Sally, a cat, and my German Shepherd dog, Shatki. The job was getting the campsites ready for new campers, managing the campers once they were settled, cleaning up camp sites after campers left, and mending corrals as needed. I’d take either Sally or Zip out daily and ride on the trails. Zip always wanted to get home and if I ever got caught where I had to get off of him on the trail, I learned I better hang onto those reins tightly, as if he got loose from me he would trot off towards the campground and I was stuck with walking the whole way home. I absolutely loved Mondays when all the campers had disappeared. I was in heaven at that campground surrounded only by nature. That job shaped me for the next 15 years of seeking a similar situation, my remote farm where I could live close to nature. There were coyotes around quite often and one night their howls seemed awfully close to the campground. Shatki, the dog, wanted to go outside the trailer in the worst way, so I let her. I never saw Shatki again. I choose to believe that she ran with the coyotes (or tame dogs turned wild), and did not get eaten by them. I'm Not Nosey, the Government Is--Census Taker Can you imagine being a census taker for the U.S. Government in a town that is 70% illegal aliens? Now I don’t know if that’s true, but this town had a high number of Hispanic field workers. I was on unemployment at the time, and when a job is offered to you, you got to take it. So, I took the census taker job. My job was to go door to door and ask people about who lived there, their age, birthdates, children, and what they ate for dinner last night (well, maybe not that detailed). Many of them wouldn’t tell me anything and I felt like I was an unwelcomed spy. Besides, there were just as many dogs who didn’t want me at their house as there as the people. I did get through that job until the end, but given the opportunity again, I’d decline.

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My Jobs, My Life 36.0 I'D RATHER BE BROKE THAN YELLED AT
Phone Customer Service-Hood River On the few rare occasions when I didn’t have a job, I would stoop very low and take whatever I could. I had been a customer order taker at Eddie Bauer in Bellevue one Christmas season. This was an over the phone position and it was busy. It was a decent job. The best thing I got out of that job was fabulous discounts on clothes and bedding! The goose down jacket I got from Eddie Bauer was my staple coat for the cold winter of living in Greenie, my pickup. I moved to Lyle, WA and parked a small camp trailer on a piece of property I bought. I did not have any electricity or sewer, but at the bottom of the property down the hill was a small creek. I used to pack up Sally my mule, trek down the hill, fill the barrels up with water, and have her haul them up the switchback trail to the trailer. It was sort of romantic, but not practical. I was broke again—or should I say still? I had a line on a job in Hood River, Oregon, and having an income to survive was much more important than a mulepacking romance. I was able to rent an actual house in Lyle and took a job in Hood River as a customer service phone person. When I was with Eddie Bauer, there were occasional disgruntled customers. I wasn’t very good with handling other people’s anger, mine was plenty to deal with. But those calls were few and far between. At this Hood River company, the job wasn’t so much as taking orders, but serving the customers who had issues. This meant talking to a whole bunch of people who were not happy with some aspect of their order. Their frustration triggered my own, which escalated their angry position and one thing piled onto another. I was not cut out for this work. I reasoned that I would get used to it, and I desperately needed work. But in the end of the very short time I was at this company, I decided I would rather be broke than yelled at.

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My Jobs, My Life 37.0 CAN I HOLD OUT FOR A WHOLE YEAR?
Structure of the Office In training for this job, I sold myself to the temporary agency by presenting three books that I authored, formatted, and printed. That positive sales pitch got me a one year temporary assignment at a prominent construction company in Richland. My job was as a “Word Processor” which is formatting documents. I became very good at the ins and outs of the software program, MsWord. I learned a ton of valuable skills at Bechtel. There were two parts of Bechtel I didn’t like. One was that it was difficult to find enough work. Trying to stay or look busy when there wasn’t work was difficult. The other part I didn’t like was the structure of a day job. I was to come in at the same time each morning, take my breaks and lunch at designated times and go home not a minute early. As you can imagine structure and I don’t get along so well. Before my year contract with Bechtel was up, I didn’t know if I could last the entire time. I nearly quit at 11 months. I am terribly glad I finished out my year, as I was out of work for a year and a half after that job, at the peak of the U.S. depression of the 2008-2009. Unemployment held me over for that scarce time. It was interesting to note that one reason I couldn’t get a job for over a year when I had absolutely no problem getting any job ever, was that those jobs that were my fall-back jobs were unavailable at the time. I wasn’t able to get a driving job, as I had five speeding tickets on my record. I wasn’t able to get a waitress job, as Yakima County was wine country and I was not wine knowledgeable and certified. I wasn’t able to even get a clerk job at a convenience store, as I was not bilingual. I did turn down other opportunities to jobs simply because unemployment paid decent and I couldn’t figure out why I should take a less paying job than I was currently making and also have to commute off the farm, buy gas to support the commute, and deal with the breaking down of old cars!

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My Jobs, My Life 38.0 MULE FIELD TENT LIVING
Showering at Work One of my temporary jobs was to work the switchboard at Hewlett Packard (HP) in McMinnville, OR. This job was my first really official career place to work. That is, people with careers, degrees, and specialized skills had jobs there. To be a switchboard operator meant that I would also be the receptionist. HP had a running track around the campus and an extensive exercise room. With this, there were showers available. That was a darn good thing, because when I took the HP job I was living in a tent near the mule field of some family. The husband had wanted me to train his two mules and I needed a place for my mule, Sally, and myself. We traded needs where I borrowed a secluded spot under a tree that was near the field of the mules, in exchange for training his mules. I learned to put all my clothes and toiletries in a backpack and go shower at HP before work. I hated those days that I would forget to put clean underwear in my bag, or a clasp on a bra would break and I’d have to borrow a sweater and button it up so no one could see my floppy boobs. (The perky breasts of the past braless days were long gone for me.) Then I’d go “home” and train mules. I thought I had the best set up ever. It served me for a few months until the rains came. I don’t remember where I went after that, but I did get the mules trained.

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My Jobs, My Life 39.0 HOW TO CREATE A CAR WRECK
Broadway Cab Broadside I had several driving jobs, from delivering auto parts in Orange County, to UPS driver, to taxicab driver. During these jobs I was pretty lucky that I didn’t do anything horrid to the vehicles. Even though I logged a ton of miles in a taxicab for the better part of nine years, I only recall one accident. We had a computerized dispatch system and it worked pretty well. The screen was up on the dash, so the driver didn’t have to take his eyes off the road. The voice dispatch box (which wasn’t used too much) was down by the floor. Occasionally there would be times when the computerized part would go offline and we would have to switch to the voice channel and muddle our way through old fashioned dispatch that the dispatchers didn’t know how to do. There was a series of days—nearly a week—that the computerized dispatch was really screwed up and out of commission. It was exhausting to work with incompetent voice dispatchers. It was the end of the week for me and I was messing around with the dispatch voice radio down by the floor. It was too much time with my eyes away from the road and I ran a red light. Of course there was someone coming up on my right and plowed into the passenger side of my taxi. Luckily I had no customers and no one was hurt. UPS Wrecks At UPS they say the most accidents are on Friday afternoon, and that was the case one exhausting week. I had pulled over on the side of the road in Oak Harbor to arrange my UPS packages in the car (they call the UPS vans ‘package cars’). It was getting late and I needed to get this week behind me so I could start my drinking. After the packages were arranged, I got back in the driver’s seat and began to merge onto the roadway. Apparently I didn’t look very thoroughly, as coming up beside me was a pickup hauling a boat on a trailer. I sideswiped the boat trailer and the entire boat flew off the trailer onto the road. Luckily there wasn’t anyone coming the other way and nobody was hurt. It was terrifying to me, nonetheless. Another UPS accident was during a snow storm. I was heading down Bow Hill when the back end of my package car began fishtailing. I quickly said a prayer and did the best I could to stabilize the car. The entire car made a 180 turn and ended up at the guardrail on the opposite side facing uphill. Funny thing was that the car never touched the guardrail and was not even scratched. I turned the car right around and got myself out of that accident without even telling the company!

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My Jobs, My Life 40.0 JOB, JOB, EVERYWHERE A JOB
There were several notable jobs, but not enough for interesting stories. I’ll list a few of them here. Sex at Work? I was working at Gould Packaging in the shipping and receiving department in Vancouver, WA. There were large isles of manila envelopes, boxes, packaging popcorn, and the like. One time I went around the corner into an isle and there were two employees, a man and a woman worker in hot and heavy sexual tension. That was so strong, you could almost cut it with a knife. Now, that was embarrassing to walk into. Not any of us three ever discussed the elephant in the isle that day. Under the Pizza Table I worked at a convenience store for a short time while I was waiting for the closing of selling my home in Chehalis, WA. I was moving out of the area and I didn’t want to take a real job, as I knew I would be leaving within the month. Denny, the owner, was a great guy. He carried around about 150 pound of extra weight or more, but that didn’t hamper his cheerful attitude. I took this cashier job working for Denny, under the table. Other than deep frying deli snacks, we sold cigarettes, beer, lottery, and the best luscious 10 pound pizza in town. The best part of this job was the group of people who would gather each morning for coffee. They became my friends. 0 Dark Thirty Albertson’s bakery was a job I took as a youngster. I thought decorating cakes might be my career. What I learned was I didn’t like getting up at the wee hours of the morning (my friend Mari used to call it 0 dark thirty) the way a baker must. I never stayed long enough to learn to decorate cakes, but I did learn to make donuts and take orders. So much for my first real career possibility.

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My Jobs, My Life 41.0 MARY JANE AT WORK
LaCenter Convenience Clerk One job was a cashier position at a convenience store. I was going to a three month school to learn how to deal blackjack so I could be a dealer and make the big bucks in tips at a casino. This job was in LaCenter where the main activity in this small town was four Washington State cardroom casinos. I longed to be out of the city of Portland where I had been driving taxi for years. At this gas station/convenience store there were a few new hires that we had to train. One of those was a young lady who would take her break outside to use the chemical toilet, she said. (Why not use the clean restrooms inside the building when you have the option? But, everyone has their quirks.) When she would come in from a break in the toilet she would reek with the smell of marijuana. It nearly knocked me over. I have always hated the smell of a joint, but I swear she must have bathed in it in that Jonny on the Spot commode. She always came back like nothing had gone on in that toilet, but both of us knew why she was in there. I hate things left unsaid, so I mentioned that I knew what she was doing, and it was okay. But, please use some spray or gum so it didn’t offend the customers. Well, she wasn’t ready to be faced with the truth and became unglued. She denied vehemently that she was NOT smoking pot. She said the smell was strong cigarettes. It was so obvious to both of us that I couldn’t fathom that she thought she was pulling the wool over my eyes. How can anyone mistake that putrid smell? I again told her that I know what she was doing. So she let loose and blamed me for something I can’t remember, as it was so absurd. The ole switch-aroo—detract and attack. Employment at that convenience store lasted longer for me than for her. Hey to all you pot smokers out there----POT STINKS. EVERYONE KNOWS WHEN YOU SMOKE IT. STOP THE DENIAL!

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My Jobs, My Life 42.0 DEALING BLACKJACK
For six years I was a dealer of blackjack and other carnival games that you find at a casino. Washington has this special law that cardrooms cannot have slot machines and are limited to just a few card tables. The Native American Casinos were allowed to do whatever they wanted, basically, but the cardrooms were limited. I preferred to work in the cardrooms as the tips were better. Some interesting things that have happened in cardrooms I’ve worked in are listed. Embezzlement at a Casino One of my first blackjack dealer jobs was at a Chehalis cardroom. Prior to my employment, the casino had an accountant who had embezzled thousands of dollars. This casino had just reopened after this devastating blow and they were on the mend when I joined the team. Rebuilding business was a slow process and those big bucks weren’t forthcoming. I found a different dealing job at a busier casino. Questionable Management One of the worst casino jobs I had was due to poor management. There was a family who had the Cadillac Ranch Casino in Longview, WA and the Island Casino in Kennewick. The Cadillac Ranch had a bad reputation, but I just wanted a job for a short time as I was sure my home would sell soon and I suspected I was going to settle somewhere around Kennewick. Smartly, I decided that this may be my ticket to get a job right away in the new town once I did move. I went to work at the Longview casino and intended to just keep my head down and fly under the radar. That tactic worked pretty well, but things that happened around me just got me shaking my head in amazement, and was probably illegal. Because gamblers use only with chips to bet with, it is with chips (not cash) that dealers get tipped. So, after our shift we would have to take our tips to the cashier cage and exchange them for cash. I remember a few times that when it was time to cash out our tips, the company wouldn’t have enough money in the cage and we would have to hold our chips over for a day or so until more customers lost their money! With this same company was the biggest payout that I had ever witnessed at a cardroom. The details would be confusing to explain. I’d have to explain how to play and bet for a game called “Let it Ride” and that’s too much work. Suffice to say that the customer/player had put tips out for the dealer (in that if the customer won the hand, the dealer got payout odds on the bet, as well.) That is just what happened one night, and both the customer and the dealer was elated. The dealer was scheduled to receive a couple thousands of dollars, and the player was to receive at least triple that in winnings. The casino company protested and made up some excuse that the dealer didn’t do her dealer job exactly right. And due to that, they could withhold her big payout of tips. The winning player had to fight with the casino and bring in the WA State Gambling Commission to get his payout. The casino kept messing with the situation, trying to find reasons so they wouldn’t have to give the rightly deserved payout. I guess they thought it was ‘their’ money an d didn’t want to share. It was a mess. I’m not sure if both the player and the dealer got all the money
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they were entitled. I have no idea how the casino kept in business for years. Well, I guess I do, they didn’t want to pay on high dollar wins and seemed to get away with it. What a racket. As predicted, I did move to outside of Kennewick. I had to apply to the same family casino all over again. The daughter ran this one, but she was even worse than her father in everyday management. They were always screwing with people’s schedule and pay. And one day I asked to talk to her but she didn’t want to talk to me. She couldn’t actually tell me that, so she just claimed to be busy and for me to wait for her in the casino. I waited for over an hour until I did what she wanted in the first place. I finally got frustrated and left. Her boyfriend would frequently reek of marijuana and would cause more problems than she, as an obnoxious player.

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My Jobs, My Life 43.0 ONLINE AND PHONE PSYCHIC WORK
Unplanned Phone Sex? For years I not only sought after finding my dream farm, but the ultimate would be to not have to leave once I found it. I sought after jobs where I could work out of my home. There were a lot of possibilities and many scams. I only really attempted one or two of these at home jobs. In my growing spirituality, I decided I was skilled enough in reading tarot cards (self-taught, of course) to be a psychic over the phone. I knew I had the personality for it, I just wasn’t sure I would pass the psychic test. I auditioned with a few companies, but most didn’t think I was psychic enough. One company liked that I had confidence on the phone, I could present as an authority and wasn’t too worried about the quality of the psychic reading. I was thrilled to have passed their audition. When I got set up and logged on, I was terrified to take calls. My lack of confidence really shined through. But as usual in a new job, I felt the fear and did it anyway. It wasn’t long before I gained confidence and took the incoming calls with mastery. There was one phone call from a guy. I don’t remember what issue he wanted a psychic reading about, but at one point he stopped me and said, “just a minute.” Well, both the company and I were getting paid by the minute, so I held the line. I didn’t know why someone who was paying per minute would voluntarily waste time. On the other end of the phone, I heard some soft grunting and really questioned if I should just hang up. I wasn’t THAT experienced at this job and didn’t know if I would get in trouble if I hung up. The guy was still on the line, but just not speaking (the company was getting paid as long as he was on the line, too). He finally gave a sigh of relief and then said that I could go on. I about threw up when I realized the sexual act he actually was doing on the other end of that phone, at my expense. I continued like nothing was odd in this call and wrapped up the session. I complained to the company management, but there wasn’t anything they could do except block his calls. They said, “things like that will happen.” That incident frightened me. I quit that job shortly after. Chat Psychic I did like the idea of being smarter than others and have others come to me for my magnificent insight and advice. Later I took a job with an online company, Kajama, where I was a chat psychic. I no longer talked on the phone, but typed the information in a chatroom with the client. This was a much more professional company and a better means of imparting my wisdom. This time I really flourished in this skill. Soon, I wasn’t using tarot cards anymore, but just tapping in intuitively to the higher realm, similar to what I was doing when I talked to animals. There’s much fulfillment in this work. I’m still a chat and pet psychic with Kajama working at home, as of this writing.

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My Jobs, My Life 44.0 DOG AND ANIMAL JOBS
Animals are the love of my life. I had a few jobs that allowed me to work with them. Most didn’t have too many crazy things that happened, but were worth mentioning.

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Dog Trainer A new Petco building was being built in the east side of Portland and they were looking for people with special animal skills. They offered classes to be a dog trainer. At the time, the dog trainers were not Petco employees like they are now, they were independent contractors. I am a natural working with animals and these dog training classes just made me better at that skill. Once I got through the classes, I wrote the curriculum for my first Dog Obedience class. Seven people and dogs signed up for the class, and it went fairly well. I learned that teaching the dogs was the easily part, but it was their people who I had difficulty with. In some cases it was obvious that the owners were doing the wrong things and unknowingly encouraging their dog to misbehave. Dog training quickly became owner training. The classes didn’t teach me how to get the owners to listen and heed the instructions I offered to them.

Dog Walker I also took on a volunteer job of walking dogs at the humane society in Chehalis, WA. I didn’t count or list this one in the back, as it was not a paying gig. I really wanted to help the dogs find good homes. I learned that black dogs were the last to be adopted. I became attached with a special love for this one black Labrador Retriever. I made him my project to get him a good home. I had visions of dying his hair so he wouldn’t be a black dog! We were working on not pulling on the leash during the walks. One day I went to the humane society to work with my special friend and was notified that he had been euthanized that morning. I was unable to go back to help other dogs. I just couldn’t. It’s hard for me to even talk about this “job.” Pet Sitting Another animal job that I did for a short time was to pet sit and house sit for absentee owners. I only did a few of those on times when I was homeless. Of course I never let prospective customers know that. I was competent and responsible, but not very good at giving cats their medicine and I still cannot give shots to animals. These skills are required for pet sitting, so I gave that up. Animal Communicator and Healer Learning how to tap into the animal’s mind brought heightened awareness and a deeper connection with the animals. I wrote a book on many chats I have had with pets (Profound Insights from Animals and Nature). With telepathic and empathic communication skills came the opportunity to help animals in a way that was extremely powerful. I took the tools I had learned from other jobs: psychic, healing, and root cause hypnosis and was able to create a technique that I continue to use on pets with issues. This technique has reversed quite a few ailments and behavior problems in other people’s beloved pets. But it didn’t stop with the pet. Because the pet is generally tied so

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closely with the owner, I also had to engage the owners to be involved in the process and sometimes change their ways, so the behavior or ailment in the pet wouldn’t return. This is an ongoing job, one in which I have gotten so much love, reward, and gratitude from; more than words can express. I do this work in conjunction with the chat psychic job with Kajama now. They help connect me to people who need or want what I have to offer. It is extremely gratifying. I am working on another book, Profound Pet Healing Case Studies, in which describes some of these successful healings I have facilitated. Portland Zoo Tour Guide This tour bus zoo guide was a job perfectly suited for me. I had to learn how to start up a big electric tour bus and drive it to the top of the hill at the Portland Zoo entrance. People and kids would gather on the tour bus and once they were set, I’d slowly drive them around the zoo telling them about the exotic animals and their exhibits. This was a real education about wild animals. It was a fun job and I liked being the tour guide leader. Luckily, those crazy kids were required to have a parent present on the bus!

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My Jobs, My Life 45.0 HORSE AND MULE JOBS
Leading Trail Rides in Stehekin with Zip I was in the full flow of changing jobs frequently when I happened upon a really cool summer job of leading trail rides in the Cascade Mountains of Washington. Now, this was a unique town called Stehekin. It is a town where you cannot drive to. It is a place where people take a four hour boat ride up Lake Chelan, or an exciting trip in a float plane. Once up at Stehekin Landing, it’s another 20 minutes to be driven up river to Cascade Corrals where I worked that summer. The cabins were Amish style with oil lanterns and no electricity. There were no phones, no internet, no radio, or television. The main building generated electricity through a huge generator, and housed showers and flush toilets for the guests. A wood stove oven in the kitchen cooked magnificent cinnamon rolls, and the fire pits next to large picnic tables in the dirt just outside in the covered area, boiled over cowboy coffee. This job was about as close to heaven as I could find. I loved the remoteness, I cherished working with the horses. And something about the quiet, cut off from the world, rustic nature of the environment soothed my soul. Not only did I have a paying job, but the family was amenable to me riding my horse, Zip, into the farm from Rainy Pass on North Cascade Highway and taking the Pacific Crest Trail (20 some miles) to Stehekin. Zip was my summer mount in leading these trail rides for city dudes. I’d watch the visitors as they “came down” or relaxed into Stehekin’s slower way of life. It would take about three days for them to reach the relaxed, laid back mood the rest of us shared. One trail riding customer was a family of geeks. They would ride the horses and listen to their Sony Walkman at the same time. Today, that wouldn’t be so unusual! Zip and I became very close that summer. He was the best mountain horse ever. He knew more than I did and I let him teach me. It was at Stehekin that I decided the world needed a book on mules and I was just the person to write it. The family teased me for liking mules, but I told them, “you just wait, I’ll be important someday.” I wrote and published the book, The Mule Companion in 1993. That first book took me 7 years to complete and about 18 years to get the final edition published—the one I want to keep. I’ve since wrote a few more books, and maybe one day this book will be officially published, too. Horse Trainer I loved training horses and mules. That was my thing. Loving a challenge, I gladly took on horses that had “issues.” I really wanted to do what others couldn’t do. That was the most gratifying for both me and the horse. At one point I used to go to people’s houses and teach their frightened horse to load into trailers nice and easy. And then I taught the owners how to get the same results as I got. That was an extremely fulfilling job.

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Another time I took on a task that was exciting, but tough. Some rich guy wanted to buy and sell horses, but he needed a trainer to get them ready for selling. That happened to be me. I was very responsible and the owner knew he could count on me. The owner, Bob, kept buying up horses that seemed to be sound, but were in desperate situations. I took them in and found out what they knew, put them up for sale, and entertained prospective buyers. It was middle of winter and very cold out. It was increasingly difficult to ride horses when I could barely even handle the freezing outside temperature and ample rain of the Pacific Northwest. I did the absolute best I could to make sure the horses were happy and healthy. Bob kept bringing in more and more horses, and less and less were being sold. I was overrun with horses and there was no way I could ride them all, take phone calls, sell horses, and keep waters from freezing. Although the idea was sound, I wasn’t as successful with selling those horses as Bob wanted. As with most of my jobs, I think I could have been successful if I had just stuck with it for the long term. But staying with any job that posed problems just wasn’t my style. Mule Comedy Act I’m not sure this could be considered a job, it was too much fun! I tried for years to find a job with Sally, my mule. The closest I could come with the finances I had available was to teach her some tricks. There is a whole story why I did this, and all the bizarre things that surrounded this feat, but I’ll leave that for another time. Sally and I devised a comedy routine, “4 Easy Steps To Ride Your Mule.” It was a silent movietype skit with narration from a friend of mine, Jon. The skit was about me being the bumbling idiot not knowing anything about mules, and Sally outsmarting me with each step. I have no idea how it came across for others, but I couldn’t stop laughing each time we rehearsed, so that was good enough for me. We were invited down to Bishop Mule Days, the largest mule show in the world, to perform the skit. Again, more drama, disaster, and headaches surrounded this trip—(to be told another time). When we got in front of the stage and the audience was waiting, anticipating a mule comedy show, the biggest joke was that Sally got stage fright and wouldn’t perform! It was the epitome of the saying, “stubborn as a mule!” I was embarrassed beyond words and had to do a book signing for my book, The Mule Companion, immediately following the flopped skit. It was all I could do to show my face and pretend everything went as planned. I stopped doing the routine for years, as I didn’t have the facilities, the stable life, or the mindset. Once I bought my long-sought-after farm, I had renewed interest and picked it back up. There were some changes that had to be made, so Sally and I started again to fine tune the skit. The problem was, Sally was getting older and having arthritic issues. She was unable and unwilling to do some of the tricks. I had to retire Sally last year and I not yet am able to make that youtube video of the comedy act like I wanted. I don’t know if it will ever be possible, but Sally gets a kick out of having blanket permission to push on my butt and knock me into a summersault when I’m leaning over cleaning out the water trough. I can’t punish her, I taught her to do that!

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My Jobs, My Life
Last year I bought a young mule, Mojo, to be my main riding mule. No mule could ever take the place of Sally, but Mojo will at least be sound to ride for the rest of my riding life. I’ve started Mojo on a few tricks, but he’s just not as interested in it as Sally was. Time will tell if he and I will ever be able to do the comedy act. Draft Horse Hitch at the Puyallup Fair One summer I had the opportunity to work with draft horses. I don’t remember too much about the people, but of course I remember the highlight of the job, working with the Belgian horses at the Puyallup Fair. The fair had two grandstand shows, afternoon and evening. They would have some big name entertainer at the shows which drew in standing room only crowds. Prior to each show the fair had all of us draft horse hitches (6 and 8 up hitches mostly) parade in front of the crowd for the pre-show. Now that sounds benign enough, but it wasn’t quite that simple. My job started out by having to exercise the big horses in the dark of the morning. To do this I would bridle one up, mount up bareback, pony a second one and walk them both around the fairgrounds until daylight rose. The best part of the job was working with the animals directly, with no fair goers milling around. Later our job was to bathe them, shine them up as if they are going into a show ring, make sure the harness is spotless, and harness them up, (draft horses are very tall). When they got in their respective spots and were hitched to the wagon, the rest of us would follow them with rag in hand to dust off any dirt that wanted to cling to the harness or to the horse. The moment would come and the huge horses pulling immaculate wagons would emerge from the sidelines and proudly prance around in front of an awed crowd. One headliner group at that time was the Monkeys, the musical band of the 60’s. I was enamored with Davy Jones, the cutie lead singer of the group. I was thrilled that the Monkeys were there as the headliner one day when I was spiffing up the horses and harness. On the sidelines, we were waiting for the moment to let the horses go. Everyone was fairly tense. Suddenly, from a nearby dressing room trailer emerged Davy Jones! I took off after him to get his autograph and it scared him so much he started running from me. I kept after him, worried that I was leaving my draft horse post for too long and may get in trouble. But this was Davy Jones of the Monkeys! I had to meet him. Davy finally stopped running from me (it was a big joke) and I did get his autograph. It was the best part of this job. Soon after, I got kicked by one of those Belgian horses and there went my enthusiasm for the job. Soaked and Can’t Get Warm One job I didn’t get any further than training was to be a horse drawn carriage driver in Seattle. At the time I was homeless and I so wanted this job. I trained with a guy for a few days to learn the ropes. Working carriage horses was just down my alley. While I was in training we had one very special appointment to take a famous person somewhere. The guy we were to haul around Seattle waterfront was actor Michael Knight (Tadd Martin from All My Children), my favorite soap opera. He cancelled at the last minute, due to rain. Sadly, that trip never happened.
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45.4

45.5

My Jobs, My Life
The issue I had with the job was that I had a hard time keeping warm. It was November and with me living solely in my pickup, Greenie, I was constantly cold. And when it rained, which was frequently in Seattle in the fall, my bedding in the bed of the pickup would get wet. During the training of this job, one day it poured down rain. I was soaked and it was time to put the horses and carriage up for the night. After that, everyone quickly left to go home and warm up. But I didn’t have a warm home to go to. My pickup bedding was wet and I was miserable. I made a survival decision that I just couldn’t take the job at this time.

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My Jobs, My Life 46.0 DOC PRO—THE BEST JOB EVER!
Although working with animals was my most desired job, it didn’t pay enough for a decent living. I came to realize that until that rich uncle dies or I win the lottery, I would have to endure a commutable job. I lucked upon a great “real job” that I still work at as of this writing. Currently, I am a technical editor at a great company, Tetra Tech (Tt). I was referred to Tt by a former co-worker at Bechtel, Thea. Thea edited documents and I formatted them. Half way through my Bechtel one year stay, Thea became employed with Tt. When I was laid off from Bechtel and spent over a year in unemployment, I was thrilled when Thea contacted me and asked me if I was interested in working at Tt with her. She said she was overrun with too much work. I was so glad to have a potential job. Tt arranged for me to work through a temp agency to see if they liked me. That arrangement was totally fine with me, and I went to work at Tt. About a month after I started with Tt, Thea quit. What struck me most was that there were documents going out the door that desperately needed those skills I was good at, formatting and editing. I threw in organizing files and presented to my supervisor that I would create and manage the document production (doc pro) department. In essence, I found a need and created a job for myself. My love of lists came in handy for organizing files and keeping documents and procedures straight. I have a supervisor who is next to perfect as she lets me loose to do the work I want to do and what the company needs. I work part time with nearly full time pay, and my hours are flexible. This job and the pay makes me happy. I work with great people doing work I like to do, without intense scrutiny or structure. And no, I’m not just saying this because my co-workers may get their hands on this book!

EPILOGUE AND WHAT’S NEXT?
In this living life review I have renewed self-worth. I’ve been degraded for years for having so many jobs. I now see that having multiple job after multiple job was just right for me. The only degrading thing was that others couldn’t see the value of my path and give it honor. But that says more about them than it says about me. Did this odd path finally make me happy? Yes, it did. My spiritual path has taught me how to live in peace and I am healthy as a mule. I’ve made peace with my family members. My current jobs are fulfilling and I have cash in my pocket. I love having my farm and living with my animal family in a modern home. I didn’t remarry, which is probably a good part of the reason I have inner peace! Good friends come and go as people and I change and grow. But all in all, I’ve lived a really good life and I wouldn’t change a thing. Thanks to everyone who helped shape me to be the fantastic person I am today. -Cindy Attar

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My Jobs, My Life LIST OF ALL REMEMBERED JOBS
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. Job Accounts Payable/Receivable Animal Communicator /Healer Assembly line author-write and sell books Auto mechanic Babysitting Bakery Bartender Bartender Bartender Booth for Home schooling software Buy/Sell horses, manage stable Casino Dealer Casino Dealer Casino Dealer Casino Dealer Casino Dealer Casino Dealer Casino Dealer Catering bartender / Server Census Taker Chat Psychic Cocktail Waitress Cocktail Waitress Cocktail Waitress Cocktail Waitress Cocktail Waitress Cocktail Waitress Convenience Store Cashier Convenience Store Cashier Count Cars Company Through Kelley Self Dianes Tortillas self Sears self Albertsons LaConner Hotel SV Country Club Red Barn Kelley for ? Private Guy Wild Grizzly Cable Bridge Casino Lucky Eagle Casino Caribbean Casino Chehalis Casino Island Casino Cadillac Casino temp agency-Bellevue US Gov Kajama Lighthouse Max Dales Galley 5 Duffy’s Restaurant Motel (walked out NYE place) North Fork Rd Texaco Kelly for ? Job Location Vancouver, WA Sunnyside, WA McMinnville Winnemuka, Kalispell, other shows Mt. Vernon Concrete Mt. Vernon LaConner Burlington Prosser Grandview Onalaska Kelso, Wa Kennewick Rochester Yakima Chehalis Kennewick Longview Seattle Yakima County home LaConner Mt. Vernon Burlington Mt. Vernon Mt. Vernon Everett Chehalis LaCenter Vancouver Referenced Section -44.4 14.1 -9.1 2.1 40.3 16.1 17.0 33.2 -45.2 ---19.2 42.0 42.0 42.0 -35.3 43.2 ----30.1 32.1 40.2 52 31.2

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My Jobs, My Life
Job Customer Order Taker Customer Order Taker Data Input Deli Clerk Delivery Driver Desktop Publishing Company owner Dishwasher Dispatcher Assistant Dog Trainer/Walker Draft Horse Worker Drive Horse Drawn Carriage File Clerk Flip Houses Format/write manuals Gas Pump Jockey Hammocks-make Healer, healing Write/edit Bloodborne pathogens manual Horse Trainer Assistant Horse/Mule Trainer Hypnotist Inside sales Inventory taker Janitor Lead Trail Rides Lifeguard measure culverts, audit roads Morning bartender Mule Comedy Act Office Assistant Orchard-Cherry office Petsit/Housesit Phone Order taker Phone Psychic pick daffidils Company Eddie Bauer ? CocaCola Shell auto parts self Short Stop Broadway Cab At Petco Puyallup Fair carriage First Interstate Bank self Kelly for ? Gas Station/Chris self self Multnomah School District Morgan trainer self self Bearings, Inc. IDS?? ABS Courtneys Cascade Corrals Concrete Schools? US Forest Service By Boeing Self container design guy Charlie’s Orchards Self Sears internet company Roozen Bros Job Location Bellevue Hood River Bellevue Conway Los Angeles Portland Mt. Vernon Portland East Portland Puyallup Seattle Waterfront Beaverton Marysville, area Milwaukie, OR Mt. Vernon Mt. Vernon Kennewick Portland, OR Arlington Vancouver Richland Aberdeen Bellevue Mt. Vernon Stehekin Concrete Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest Everett Gresham Mt. Vernon Mattawa Vancouver, WA Mt. Vernon home Mt. Vernon Referenced Section 36.1 36.1 15.1 29.2 -3.1 28.1 44.1 45.4 45.5 13.2 20.0 -8.1 7.1 21.0 -13.1 13.1 22.1 19.1 -31.3 45.1 10.2 35.1 --11.1 -44.3 43.1 43.1 --

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

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My Jobs, My Life
Job Pick Strawberries Plant Beach Grass Receptionist Reproduction Specialist Resort worker Sell Oroweat bread Seminar Registrar Shuttle Driver Shuttle Driver Siding Company Siding Company Office Manager Supervisor at Recycle plant Swim Instructor Switchboard Operator Taxi Driver Taxi Driver Taxi Driver Taxi Driver Taxi Driver Taxi Driver Taxi Driver Technical Editor UPS Driver Waitress Waitress Waitress Waitress Waitress Waitress waitress warehouse worker Company Sakuma Bros City of? PreMix Cement SVC Baker Lake/ Tarrs Resort Costco temp agency? Super Shuttle Raja Tours Champion Sidersowner Champ Siders Kelley Services Concrete School? Hewlett Packard Rad Cab Olympia Taxi Vancouver Cab Yellow Cab Radio Cab Broadway Cab Portland Cab Tetra Tech UPS Jackies Dinner House Breakfast/Lunch place old 99 Viking Triple X Country Kitchen ? east Vancouver by river Gould Packaging Bechtel Portland Zoo
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67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97.

Job Location Burlington Ocean Shores Sunnyside Mt. Vernon Baker Lake Kennewick Various places Portland Portland Chehalis Chehalis Portland Concrete McMinnville Kennewick Olympia Vancouver Tacoma Portland Portland Portland Richland Burlington Arlington Lyle Lynnwood Stanwood Mt. Vernon Mt. Vernon Orange County Orchard Vancouver Richland Portland

Referenced Section 1.1 31.1 -4.1 5.1 30.2 -29.1 29.2 23.1 24.1 34.1 10.1 38.1 --25.1 25.2 26.1 26.2 27.0 46.0 13.1, 12.0 ----6.0 33.1 33.3 -40.1 37.1 0

98. warehouse worker 99. Word Processor 100. Zoo Tour Guide

My Jobs, My Life
Job 101. Waitress Company Train Car Job Location Skagit County Referenced Section 18.1

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