What was your best job ever?

[neverfoundthetime]

Ok guys and girls, this thread is in honour of our esteemed and most helpful member AcousticAl who is off to work on a mega cruise ship slaving away over a hot camera in the Caribbean instead of freezing in Toronto. Now Al actually gets paid for this, which is really smart! I believe he has cashed in all his TG Karma points (he had a zillion before they evaporated, earned through his helpfulness to all) to get this job in a fair trade-off.

What I'd like to know is, what was your best ever job. Rules are, you must have received actual payment for it. Friend of mine was photographing the Caribbean every year from the air in a private plane. My story I will hold back till a little later......

PS: I placed it in the ART thread as I consider this the Art of Good Living

[suziko]

Trekking around Namibia, Africa doing Geologic research for MIT. I was in the process of deciding which graduate school to attend, and MIT -- as a pretty sweet incentive -- flew me all expenses paid + daily stipend + nominal pay to act as field assistant while mapping and measuring very old, but well preserved, sedimentary rocks. I was there for 3 months, plus one more hanging out in South Africa afterward just traveling. It was a fantastic experience -- I learned a ton and had a wonderful, memorable time. I didn't end choosing MIT, but it was a fantastic trip.

[prawnpig]

My best job ever is the job i have been doing for the last eight years,
I work on the ocean amoungst the whales and dolphins, work a week on and a week off and am guaranteed 80 hours for the week i work.
love the outdoors and as it is a camp job it affords me alot of time to practice on the long winter evenings.

[haoli25]

Good question Chris. I am going to have to think about this one for a little while. I only wish that the most personally rewarding, the most challenging, the most lucrative, and the most enjoyable were all the same job for me.



Bill

[AcousticAl]

First a song dedication from Dekotaj-- and now THIS? Sniff.. you guys are the best!!

[dekotaj]

On a mega cruise ship slaving away over a hot camera in the Caribbean.

Hey Al,Dont forget your guitar.And when your taping,Point it towards the pool. :woohoo: :woohoo:

[Chasplaya]

I had many jobs in my time in the Airforce, and all were great in their different ways, I also like my current job. Best job ever? Might be when I was Base Coordinator, the Base was going through a change and the position of Adjutant was changed to Base Coordinator same thing different name. This was a cool job strangely it was about discipline/ceremonial and rosters and all the silly jobs no one wanted PR stuff, so as well as the straight military stuff, I got to meet most visitors to the Base and outside organisations that wanted tours (I didn't conduct the tours I got others to do that) I was also almost (as close as you get in the military) my own boss. BUt again different jobs have all had highs the gratifying feeling when cadets you've trained graduate is a cool feeling knowing you've helped shape someones life.

[neverfoundthetime]

Prawnpig (as long as you are NOT on a Whaler!) sounds like heaven on earth! Chas, congratulations on finding that one "cushy" job in the millitary! Bill, I'm curious. fjvdb. That sounded great. AND you refused MIT. Way to go!

As for me, my everyday work with kids and people wanting to improve themselves is already very rewarding, so I enjoy that but we need to compete with Al in the Carribean here :

The best ever was (I ask for your forgiveness in advance!) being recruited to be a tennis playing model (I know, I know!) for some action shots for a big tennis magazine in the 80's . 3 weeks in a 5 star hotel in Brazil where I was only expected to be available for 2 weeks but paid for 3. Well they only needed me for 1 week so I had to fill the rest of my paid time with a trip through Brazil on an air pass to Rio, Manaus, Recife etc. Not sure what the highlight was, seeing the newly discovered pink dolphins tumbling in the confluence of the Rio Negro and Amazon or lazing in luxury at the pool of a very exclusive hotel in the Amazon or drifting away on the dance floor at Recife Yacht Club to the rhythm of a 16 man percussion Samba band! It wasn't the 4 days of solid rainfall on the Copa Cabana in Rio (dang! dry season too!) but the tropical gardens were nice. Having to spend so much pool time with beautiful models was also a drag . To be fair, the magazine's creative director and the star Vogue photographer were at war with each other and some models were almost basket cases after 3 weeks..... but, we are competing with AL in the Carribean here so it has to sound glamorous enough!

[dennisg]

I've had so many jobs, it's tough to pick just one. My brother and I were hired to sing "If I only had a brain" for Judy Garland one night. That was fun, but it wasn't the best job. I lived in Berlin for awhile, and was hired by a film studio to be a gopher on one of their films; turns out my job was to wrap towels around naked actresses when they were done filming. No, being a towel eunuch wasn't the best job.

Chris's rule about employment that we actually got paid for precludes any volunteer work we may have done, which may be the most enjoyable of all jobs. In my case, I used to volunteer for the American Lung Association. They would sponsor various bike rides every year as a way for participants to do fundraising for them. It was my job to be what's known as a "sweep rider," that is, ride at the very back of the group and take care of the weaker, needier riders. As it happens so often on long-distance, multi-day rides, the men would talk their unprepared wives into doing the ride, promising them they'll take complete care of them, and the moment the ride starts, the husbands would disappear. So I would start every ride with about 25 completely inexperienced and totally pissed off women at the tail end of about 2,000 cyclists. I considered it my job to chit-chat with each one of them, make sure they had a good time, help them like men again, and see to it that they all became better and more confident cyclists. It was really a pleasure to help them accomplish things on the bike they never imagined they could do.

If I have to list a job I actually got paid for, it would be my job as a wine and humor writer for a newspaper. That was a great job. The UPS dude would bring me cases and cases of free wine every week that wineries hoped I'd review. If I tasted them at all, it was only to take a sip, but even that I spit out. I'd then write a weekly column about wine, wineries, and restaurants. I'd still be a wine writer if I hadn't come down with a nearly fatal case of pancreatitis about 3 years ago. No more alcohol for me.

- Dennis

[hasben]

Just a note to the members: Dennis's first book was based around his many interesting jobs. Very funny. He only touched on a couple of his adventures here, but I bet not many of us were ever on the TV show "The Dating Game". Care to flesh that one out Denny?

My favorite job was also the one that paid the least-- 1.25 per hour. While in college (69-73) I worked at an Italian restaurant: busboy, dishwasher, cashier, prep guy, and eventually cook and night manager. The Pizza Place was a hang out for the "long-hairs", and I guess I was one of them... This was in a town where the BMOC's were the rodeo team. They won several national championships. Let's just say that boots were "still in style for manly footwear..." I wore sandals.

FM, then, was commercial free (remember?) and the owner, Mr. B, put a killer stereo in the kitchen for the staff. A keg of Lone Star Beer was always in the walk in cooler. Other recreational activities were held in the "dough room" where we made pizza dough and pastas, whoopie doobies etc.

Mr. B would come in around seven in the morning and cook breakfast for any of the staff that happened by, "what'll ya have" he would ask. that man could flat cook a breakfast--all the time drinking his own breakfast of Old Crow, neat. He would eventually shuffle back home before we opened at eleven and leave the place to us kids. Any other time you were hungry it was "roll yer own", meaning make it yourself. Free of course.

I enjoyed the patrons and the commaradarie (leave me alone unke walt!) and ate my way through undergrad. I was a poor boy but left college without owing a dime to anybody. Also got a hundred stories I could tell.
Fred