For someone my age, I have had surprisingly few jobs: over half my working life has been at the same place! I volunteered in the soundroom at my parent’s church as a teenager, though that doesn’t really count considering the hours were minimal (9 a week across three services) and I wasn’t paid. It had its perks, though, like letting me sneak-read books during service. I applied to different places as a teenager and did odd jobs like yardwork and driving, but it wasn’t until I’d done two years of community college that I got a “real” job, working at safety-glass factory. We took large panes of glass and transformed them into storm windows, bullet-resistant windows, etc. One of the contracts was for HUMVEE windows, and considering that the terror-war was in its heyday (with both Iraq and Afghanistan ongoing), we took those jobs very seriously. I worked in every area of the plant, but mostly I was on the “poly” team: we cut up sheets of plastic, or polycarbonate. They would later be layered with panes of glass that had been chemically or temp-treated and turned into composite units in a place we called “The White Room”, which was really a building inside the plant that lines fed into and out of. This job was responsible for making me grow up: for the first time, I was surrounded by adults who didn’t care one bit about me. They weren’t teachers, they were workers, and the only respect they gave was to people who earned it. They were also incredibly crude, making me realize that despite my working-class roots I definitely wanted to go to university and spend my time with people who weren’t constantly swearing and telling sex jokes. This job also gave me a growing level of independence and was responsible for my being able to start breaking away from the very restrictive sect I was raised in. I suddenly had money to go out of town and safely explore forbidden things like ….movie theaters, beer, and science books. (I became a big fan of science books: beer, not so much. ) It also forced me out of my shell: quiet formality did NOT fly on a factory floor.
I left the plant to go to university and finish a four-year degree, and there I worked in one of the offices as a secretarial assistant/IT helper. During the summers I also did temp work at another factory, or babysat. After college, I graduated into the Great Recession and had to live off hope and savings until a position opened at the library, where I’ve been since. I began as a reference assistant, essentially managing the computer lab and answering questions from people on the computers, but have grown in responsibilities over the years as my skills developed and librarians pass on. These days, in addition to being general reference, I’m our resident local historian and am part of the IT staff, helping maintain our computers, network, and website. It’s a varied job where we never know what we’ll be doing on a day to day basis. I supplement that a little with pet-sitting jobs and occasional IT odd jobs, and in 2021 tried a second job (weekends only) driving a crew van for the railroad. That proved to be interesting, but a complete waste of time: I had to call in at 4:00 in the morning to put myself in the dock to be called out for jobs, but if I got called out I’d go to the bottom of the queue, and jobs varied so much that I might work for an hour or not get home until 2 am because they’d asked me to bring a crew to Birmingham, then start daisy-chaining jobs. (I stopped calling in after that last one, finally understanding why they were always hiring new drivers.)
Reading Freely 
Interesting…..!!
As you know I’ve only worked for one company (for 32 years) but have had a variety of jobs inside it. All essentially office jobs – although some involved getting out and about quite a bit (including wearing hard hat, hi-viz jacket and steel toe-capped boots) – but quite a lot of variation. Project Management and working with customers/external contractors was my favourite part…
Very little job changes here as well … I did some babysitting and tutoring in high school, and volunteered at the local library as well. Then in college I had a student job in the library, and as a writing tutor and – senior year – student assistant in the history dept. Following graduation, with full-time work nowhere to be found and MLS online immediately underway, I started working as the administrative assistant for the history dept, and stayed there until I was hired as assistant manager of a small branch library in 2013 – I learned a lot in that role, and got to take over as manager frequently due to various health issues. (Honestly, my best work/I thrived was when we were closed stacks during the height of the pandemic. I rocked that year in a major way) … I left the library last year, to transition home/start flower farming and other ventures 🙂
My husband worked in an industrial setting and when he came home from work, I sometimes had to remind him about his language and that he wasn’t at work anymore. As a teen and young adult I babysat, worked on farms detassling corn, rode an ice-cream bike, cleaned in a nursing home, hotels and private residences, was a waitress in both restaurants and bars, worked with developmentally challenged teens, was a salesgirl at a meat market, tutored, and worked with young kids in a headstart program. I eventually became a teacher and worked in a variety of roles (teacher librarian, classroom teacher, computer teacher, administration) before retiring after 33 years. We learn something at every job we work at.