Enlightened Capitalism

Essays about how to harness people's natural desire to create wealth and improve their quality of life to solve global problems such as war and poverty.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

All the jobs I ever had

Today my daughter asked me what jobs I have had. I think it's
been 20 years since I actually tried to list all my jobs. Normally
when I've written a resume, I've just put the positions that are
relevant to the one I'm applying for.

Anyway, this was a fascinating exercise and I'd love to hear each of
you list out all your jobs too. A few of these I didn't get paid for,
but I was at least expecting some compensation, like at the Hollywood
Bowl I got concert tickets in return for helping seat people.

K-12 Student Jobs

1974 Paper Delivery, Orange County Register, Santa Ana CA (3 months, $1/hr)
1975 Bruno the Clown, Presto Magic Shows, Santa Ana (2 years $1/hr)
1977 Babysitter, Parents & Friends, Tustin CA (2 years, $1/hr)
1979 Weed Puller, Uncle Jim's Garden, Blackfoot ID (3 months, $.50/hr)
1980 Piano Teacher, LoKnoPla Institute, Santa Ana (4 years, $5/hr)
1982 Window Washer, Sunshine Window Washing, Santa Ana (2 months, $6/hr)
1982 Gas Station Attendant,Union 76 Gas Station, Santa Ana (3 months, $4/hr)
1983 Usher/Sweeper, Edwards Cinemas, Costa Mesa & Westminster CA (1 year, $4/hr)

College/Gradschool Jobs

1984 Archivist, Loyola Marymount University Library, Los Angeles (2
years, $4/hr)
1985 Sales Clerk, Radio Shack, Tustin (2 months, $4/hr)
1986 Burger Cook, Del Taco, Santa Ana (2 weeks, $4/hr)
1986 Sales Rep, Telemarketing Co, Irvine CA (2 hours, $0)
1986 Programmer - Music Synthesizers, Digital Media Systems, Lake
Forest CA (3 months, $6/hr)
1987 Math/Physics Tutor, LMU Learning Center, Los Angeles (1 year, $5/hr)
1987 Research Assistant, UCLA Classics Dept, Los Angeles (1 year, $9/hr)
1988 Usher, Hollywood Bowl, Hollywood CA (3 months, $20/hr in Concert Tickets)
1988 Hardware Specialist, Home Depot, Santa Clara CA (3 months, $7/hr)
1988 Computer Operator, LifeScan, Mountain View CA (3 months, $11/hr)
1988 Partner, Elipsis Media Services, Santa Clara CA (3 months, $0)
1989 President, MetaVerbal Technologies, Evanston IL (1 year, $3/hr) *
1989 Apprentice Electrician, Gerhard Electric, El Toro CA (3 months, $7/hr)
1990 Teaching Assistant, Northwestern University Linguistics Dept,
Evanston IL (1 year, $10/hr)

"Think & Grow Rich" Period

1990 Computer Programmer, LifeScan, Milpitas CA (6 months,, $16/hr)
1990 Systems Analyst, LifeScan, Milpitas (6 months, $23/hr)
1991 Partner, MetaVerbal Media, Fremont CA (1 year, $4/hr) *
1992 Investment Manager, COBY Investments, Fremont (6 months, $20/hr)
1993 Customer Services Systems Manager, LifeScan, Milpitas (3 years,
in Milpitas, $32/hr) *
1995 Multimedia Edutainment Producer, LifeScan, Milpitas (1 year, $36/hr) *
1995 Investor & Property Manager, Self, Oakland CA (4 years, $90/hr) *
1997 IT Help Desk Manager, Tandem Computers, Cupertino CA (1 year, $38/hr)
1998 IT Project Manager/Webmaster, Tandem Computers, Cupertino (1 year, $38/hr)

Post-Retirement

1999 Sheet Music Specialist, Tupper & Reed, Berkeley CA (6 months, $7/hr) *
2000 English Teacher, Berlitz School of Languages, Mainz Germany (6
months, 22DM = $11/hr) *
2001 Investment Manager, Real Estate Partnerships, Long Beach CA (2
years, $95/hr) *
2003 Investment Manager, Affinity Properties, Compton CA (2 years, $100/hr) *
2004 CEO, Affinity Neighborhoods, Los Angeles (3 years, -$100/hr, yes
I made MINUS $100 for every hour I worked)
2005 VP Research & Development, New Affinity, Greenwich CT (8 months, $58/hr)
2006 VP Research & Development, Key2Own Real Estate, Phoenix (9 months, $9/hr)
2007 Partner, Springport Properties, Atlanta (1 year, $4/hr)

What's Next

???

If I had my druthers, my next job would be organic farmer, or maybe
inventor, music composer, or installing solar panels or something like
that. Many interesting opportunities have come up recently, and I have
applied for a bunch of jobs, but the process has been so impersonal
that it gets me all depressed to work really hard on one application
after another and hear nothing back. So I've been thinking, maybe the
thing to do is make a universal resume, describing what I learned from
each of these jobs, and then submit that to any position that looks
interesting to me. I'm sure most HR people would toss such a resume
into the waste basket without reading it, but at least I won't have
spent much time on it, I will just do it once and then submit it to
lots of jobs. It's an idea, anyway.