How to Succeed By Trying Everything
by Rex Morgan
Most of the sixty plus jobs I have had, have had some unique benefit to working at that particular place, as well as certain downfalls:(Approx. 3 months and an apron)
35% employee discounts for instance, at Westside Community Market (precursor to present day New Leaf) back in the day when I was vegetarian and didn’t eat sugar. But then I got fired because the surfer boy who had my job before wanted his old job back—(okay, that, and I was always a little late, but hey! All the hippies working there were late too!)(Almost 6 months and a lab coat)
Looking at the stars through a rad telescope while working at Lick Observatory was great. I adapted to the night shift, but the road up there had so many hairpin turns—some of those turns were even three-point turns in my truck! I guess it was not a good idea to try to keep up with the motorcycles driving ahead of me because while I succeeded in keeping up with them, I blew my head gasket… One of those jobs where the expenses were more than my income.(Two full fire seasons and heavily equipped)
Fighting fires with CDF was a glamorous, adrenaline-junkie job, but throwing away my captain’s stash of smut magazines strewn about in the bathroom put me in bad standing for the remains of fire season that summer.(Three months and a city uniform)
Working at Harvey West park was fun because I got to drive around one of those mini-trucks, but leaving work (emptying garbage cans was the sum total of my responsibilities) three hours early because of a head concussion I sustained the night before*, lost me that job and has haunted my personal record. I got offered a job at Loch Lomond Reservoir as park ranger, and then got the offer pulled when they found out I “deserted my duties”.(One day shy of a full-month and button-down shirts)
Working at Westek Electronics as an Accounting Clerk was fun and excruciating because the Accounting Manager was a total hottie, but she quit after I had been there for only three days for refusing to fire me when the president asked her because he thought I “looked gay”.(A few days, here and there, over the years and a hair-net)
Believe it or not, my favorite temp assignment has always been working at Lipton’s Factory on the Westside. The environment was fast paced and demanding, but all the people I worked with had been there for seventeen years and owned homes and were really wonderfully nice, enthusiastic and proficient at their jobs. Plus all the women looked like cute 1940’s Rosie the Riveter types because everyone had to wear hair covers.(Every weekend for 3 months and a state uniform)
Working for State Parks on the weekends my Spring Quarter of my Frosh year at UCSC really got me on track academically. It was fun to tromp by the window of the first girl I ever kissed while I was all dirty from doing prescribed burns all day on beautiful Skyline to the Sea Trail, between Big Basin and Wadell Creek on Hwy. One. However I got my first intense case of poison oak for three weeks all over my legs and arms and neck.(One summer, 1 to 3 days a week and casual clothes)
Being a nanny was fun with three little girls, if not a bit frustrating when one would cry because she was scared of the redwood forest.(Five months and cut-offs)
Being an afterschool recreation leader was not much fun at Louden Nelson. Those kids drove me crazy until I created the Huck Finn club when we would hike over to San Lorenzo River and go wading and look for coins and fish. We never found either. Some hippies on the River path would shout warnings at me: “Get those kids out of the water, it’s polluted, man.” I would hiss back at them, “Shut up!” I didn’t want them to ruin our day.(2 years and a crew-cut)
By far and away my favorite job was being a crewleader with the California Conservation Corps. What was the downside? Flying in helicopters over Yosemite to the Badger Pass Fire in 1988. Building the Pacific Crest Trail in Sequoia National Forest, training sixty CMT’s (Corpsmembers in Training) every two weeks. Yelling at them, waking them up at 5:45 every morning for PT (Physical Training) by ripping off their blankets and kicking the metal trash cans and pulling on the light. Busting people for talking after lights out and making them clean latrines at 10:30 at night. Planting trees in Australia. Firetraining young adults from the city who have never walked on a sloped surface like a mountain. Seeing 60 different people pull together and feel proud of the accomplishments of the crew. Spit-shining them boots. Ah! Those were the days!
* BTW: Leaving the theater after the film premiere of the Tom Cruise vehicle, “Mission Impossible,” the overly excited author, clearly in an agitated mental-state brought on by Tom’s amibiguous sexuality, dashed to the nearest obstacle and in one, smooth, supple Ian Hunt-esque leap, launched himself over a half-wall then fell unexpectedly fourteen feet, landing mostly on his head…
— Editrix
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