Your most fun job

Worked at a country club for a bunch of years in high school and college. Caddie, bag room, pro shop, busing tables. Best years of my working life. I was there seven days a week. If I wasn't getting paid, I probably had a golf club in my hand and was taking advantage of (abusing?) our playing privileges. Some nights we'd swim in the pool until 2a. I still thinking fondly of many of the members and I learned a ton about working and life in general on the endless loops around the course. I can still see every inch of that course and from every angle in my mind. I can tell you where I was standing on what hole when interesting things happened or I learned something.

It was our own private version of Caddyshack in almost every regard.

I batted one-for-two on trying to date other employees!
 
Paperboy for 9 years age 9-18, in the morning at first, then to a larger route after school. I was amazed I got payed to bicycle around the neighborhood and throw things at houses for about an hour each day. Got used to riding in all weather conditions, fixing flats, etc (handy for later bike commuting and touring).
 
Bartender at a small(ish) college town bar called Tiger Town Tavern (TTT) to help with college expenses for 4 years. Made lifelong friends there, although I almost "made" it my permanent career. Working until 2AM makes engineering undergrad a tad more difficult. And it WAS the 80's, so....

This was the crew. stay in touch with over half of them, a few, sadly are no longer here.

For "Where's Waldo, I have on an old "Aviators Cap" complete with goggles.

Flieger

TTT.jpeg
 
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Are you a Clemson grad Flieger ?

I find myself in agreement with your posts....I like the cut or your jib !!
 
Are you a Clemson grad Flieger ?

I find myself in agreement with your posts....I like the cut or your jib !!
I am, twice! And my DD and SIL. We've spent a bit of money there! :D

Here's another of me with the helmet (jk), but it's what my wife sent me a while back poking fun at me!

Flieger

Pilot.jpeg
 
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Probably working as an exercise instructor during college - first as Holiday Spa - then at Jack-La-Lane.
 
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When I 'semi-retired' from Tech World, I took a summer job in Stadium Ops at our local minor league ballpark. What a great way to de-compress.

We had a good crew, teachers with the summer off, retirees, and even some young college kids. I used to like to get to the ballpark early and watch Batting Practice. I'd retrieve a BP Home Run and put it in my pocket. Later, as fans were streaming thru the gates, I'd look for a kid with a glove and ask, "Are you going to catch a ball today ?"

"I sure hope so !!" came the reply.

I'd flip the kid the ball -- a genuine South Atlantic League hard-ball. The kid's eyes would light up.....newly minted baseball fan for life.

Don't tell the General Manager -- I would have done that job for free !!
 
Managed a golf shop in a break from college. Free equipment from golf reps, working with my best friend and hitting golf balls all day when customers weren't in. Perfect job.
 
Teaching undergrad/graduate level lab courses to kids with "minds full of mush" and graduating many very fine professionals who always thanked me at our professional meetings over the years.
 
Working at my uncle’s gas stations every summer in my teens. I learned a lot about car repairs and have been passing that on to my son. Sadly, my uncle has “moved on” but I still remembered those days!
 
Paperboy for 9 years age 9-18, in the morning at first, then to a larger route after school. I was amazed I got payed to bicycle around the neighborhood and throw things at houses for about an hour each day. Got used to riding in all weather conditions, fixing flats, etc (handy for later bike commuting and touring).
My first taste of making money. I delivered both weekly and sunday papers. Weekly I could do on the bike, but Sunday's were so heavy I had procured a shopping cart for the task. I'd get the sections of the sunday paper in 2 batches, one on saturday and one sunday and had to put the whole paper together. Eventually the regional district manager took a handful of us that were doing well to work with him to deliver all the Sunday papers they didn't have paperboys or papergals for. So every Sunday morning he'd pick us up at like 5am, we'd go and put together all the Sunday papers at his office (100s of them) and he would drive us around to deliver them. He was probably the first adult in my life (he was probably in his 20s or 30s but seemed a lot older!) that treated us kids like equals, telling crazy inappropriate jokes and just having a good time hanging with a bunch of kids.

I still remember the weekly paper cost 25 cents, of which I paid 19.5 cents to the publisher, and earned the remaining 5.5 cents.
 
I was the night metro editor at a large daily newspaper. Also the high point of my professional career.
 
I've only had one career job, lifer at megacorp, but before then I had so many jobs growing up. Gas station, convenience store, school dept , internship.. I just spent the last few minutes swapping in a bunch of old memories and finding it hard to say which was most fun as they were all just a blast, but I think the most fun was during college summer after junior year. I decided to stay at school for the summer for the first time. I got a job at the school painting the dorm rooms. I was a perfectionist even back then so all my work was spotless. My buddy on the other hand was not, and he spent more time sleeping than painting. But we painted all day, shot the **** all day, then partied all night. It was a great summer, making money and hanging with friends and not having to do school work!
I distinctly remember being on break and watching TV and seeing the OJ Simpson Bronco chase live. Great times!
 
My 2 best jobs were at polar opposites. !st was pumping gas at a country crossroads. A ginmill across the street was the only other business for miles. I was too young at the time to partake of the ginmill. I had my German Shepard puppy at my feet as I waited for the next customer to show up. We gave out silverware and spices with each fill up. My 2nd best job was running a small product development team where the company was fully behind the program. Damn the usual red tape along the way, and everyone in the company was directed to support us in any way they were asked. It was both exhausting and exciting. We completed the project in about 1/3rd the usual timeframe. That success was never repeated by other development teams.

But I'm now retired, and I can't imagine getting up for a job in the early morning, or any time at all for that matter. Ain't life grand?
 
There were quite a few that I enjoyed but I had fun as a bar tender at a portable bar during the 1970 Kemper Open Golf Tournament at Quail Hollow, Charlotte. Once the tournament was over it led to a job as a waiter at another country club. A week later they fired their bartender when they found out that he was an alcoholic. Since I was the only one with experience (with my previous one week job) I got the job. That was an interesting summer.
 
Drilling engineer in the Gulf of Mexico - one part engineering and one part art since you never really knew what you were going to drill into and through. Some of the best times were sitting on the rig trying to balance drilling fluid weight compared to formation pressures to balance a faster drilling rate against the potential to lose control of the well.
 
This really going to come across as the corporate and ops guy I became....

Taking responsibility for a critical function that had become a boil on the collective corporate butt. Turned it around over time, worked with great people and preserved a lot of jobs at that location. At times stressful, a lot of fun working with them along the way. Best memories of my 20+ years with that org.
 
It was probably my first paid job, a summer internship at age 16 at Hewlett-Packard Associates, checking noise figures in hot-carrier diodes. You mean someone will PAY me to do cool techie things all day? Wahoo! And in those days they had free donuts at coffee time.

Or babysitting the AM transmitter at WROW -- again techie, and requiring little actual work, just had to be present and read meters hourly. Oh, and I got to ride the snowmobile out to the towers to read antenna currents every morning. This would have been perfect had the shift not started at 5am.
 
I never had a fun job. The best one was mildly annoying. It was a summer job working at the snack bar at the town pool.
 
I had a love hate relationship with my "real j*b" over the years. At times, I wished those golden handcuffs were not cinched up so tightly. Other times, I got a thrill when I topped the hill that allowed me to see Megacorp spread out below - knowing that I w*rked there and was a contributor.

It's amazing what your actual assignment can do for you (or to you) when you w*rk for a big organization. It can go from heaven to hell and back again at the whim of management. My last transition to hell was my last week at Megacorp. "Not THIS time, guys. I'm outta here!"
 
Gigging as an amateur musician is fun but doesn't pay that well, $100 - $300 a gig.

I once made $3000 in 3 days building someone a deck.
 
For me this is easy - radio and party DJ. Even though I was not paid to be on our radio college station, getting a slot was competitive, and the name recognition in the area led to paying DJ gigs both on campus and in the community. It even helped me get my Megacorp internship, which led to Megacorp hiring me.

I joined the station planning to learn about and work on the engineering side, but the station training director and several of the on-air DJs all said "you have a radio voice, you should be a DJ" (they kindly did not say I had a face for radio, at least directly to me 😂). One of the screening steps was that on-air DJs had to have at least a first class FCC license, and I aced the test.

It was fun planning a show set, playing records, and being on the mic. But it grew my confidence a lot in terms of getting over shyness, public speaking, interacting with an audience (even though I could not see them, I visualized them), writing and editing (on some shifts we also had to a 5 minute newscast), and producing commercials (which actually I was paid a little for that). And doing parties was fun - planning the playlist, figuring when to play the fast songs, when to slow it down, etc. to make the crowd enjoy it. Fortunately I also kept away from the drinking and drugs, which actually helped me get hired more than a few times. In fact one promoter once trusted me enough to have me hold onto a gym bag full of maybe $20K-$30K in cash over a weekend, but that's a long story :).

And of course, the personal side - I was naive and very surprised at the direct "come hither" opportunities that were offered. I could fill a volume with the stories. I never knew there were women who would stop by the station just to meet you because "we had to meet the face behind that voice" 😲, or wanted you to come over after a show just because you played a song or 2 for them😲 😲, or wanted to reward you for their enjoyment at a party by offering to go home with you 😲😲😲. Fortunately I had a long term perspective at that time so that I did not indulge. But I did not mind the attention. DW "hated" it - but liked dating a "celebrity" on campus and at parties
😂 .

I still did radio and parties for several years after starting with Megacorp. My office did not mind - in fact several of them hired me for their private parties, and I DJed at some of the office events. But I never looked a it as a serious career (even though one fully commercial station was interested in interviewing me), and I figured the money and stability was in this thing called "Data Processing", so I retired before DW and I were married. And the rest is history :cool:.

Interestingly, several times well into my Megacorp career (even into my 50s), after doing presentations at client locations, education workshops, or conferences, someone would come up to me and say "Were you ever a DJ? I used to listen to/went to parties with a DJ with your name who sounded just like you". Fun memories :).
 
^^^^^

Apparently your face wasn't too bad either!! Great story. Thanks for sharing.
 
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