Work History

[MT 917]

Where have you worked? 

 

I've really only worked two places, at a local bank, and FedEx. I worked at a local bank as a temp, I just never realized how temporarily until it was over. I basically just transported important documents between local branches. It was pretty dope because I got to use my own car, so I could just have music blasting wherever I went. I enjoy driving in general, so I enjoyed that job quite a bit. Something that wasn't disclosed to me when I got hired was that it was only for one week. I came in the next week ready to work and that's when I found out the truth. Kinda shitty, if you ask me.

 

The only other place i've worked is FedEx. Been there since July of 2000. I started off as what was called a "casual" in that i'd come in for an hour, hour and a half a day and work the PM operation. Unloading trucks, or loading the packages into the containers that'd go onto the planes. Did that until I was old enough to drive for the company (you have to be 21 to drive for FedEx). I've been doing that ever since, always only part time. I originally covered routes for people on their day off, so I had a few routes I knew. Eventually I got one of those routes to do all the time, and I did that same route for close to 10 years. The businesses I would go to would fluctuate, but it was always in the same area. It was also the busiest/heaviest route i've had at the company. I would take one of the larger vehicles we had (that wasn't a full on semi truck), and come back with it fully loaded the majority of the time. I mostly picked up at Quiksilver, and they would always have tons of boxes, most weighing close to 40 pounds. 

 

I eventually got tired of that route and began looking for others. After that route, I worked one that was on the coast and the surrounding areas. I've always loved the area I live in as it's right by the beach, so to have a route down there was amazing. The only real downside to that route for me was having to pick up at the local hotels, as they could get pretty busy, especially when there were conventions in town. Other than that, I loved it. Being able to do my job and look out the window to see the ocean was awesome. Unfortunately that route got taken away from me, and I was moved to another area not too far from where my current station is. It was mostly office buildings, which was a nice change of pace, but I got tired of doing pickups and started looking elsewhere in the company.

 

Currently I do what's called expedites. Basically if there are packages in the morning that have bad addresses, the people working the front counter correct those and they go out later in the day for delivery. There's that, and sometimes packages from other stations will get picked up, and they'll send a driver to the airport to meet with drivers from other stations, who will then give them to the correct stations. Those get brought back, and i'll deliver those. It's a much easier, less stressful position than any other i've worked at in the company. It's one that people seem to get and hold on to for as long as possible. The nice thing about it is that all of the stress is in the front half of my day. I don't know how busy i'll be until I get there, but by the time I leave the building, I know exactly how much work I have to do, and there's no rushing from place to place to get to a stop before it closes. The boss wants me back by a certain time, but if I can't make it back it's no big deal as long as all of my deliveries get done.

 

Holy shit, I did not expect to write this much once I started this topic. 

[Galeigh 308]

Att call center: fuck everything about this job. 

 

Books-a-million: it was holiday work but I kinda wish it wasn't as I enjoyed it there. 

 

Kohls: All kinds of bullshit here. 

 

Kroger: fuck everything about this job. 

 

Hobby Lobby: was a lot of work, but I enjoyed my time there as I had a good boss. Unfortunately it was seasonal. 

 

Unarmed Security: underpaid and overworked. Never do this job. 

 

Custodian: underpaid and overworked. Also treated as expendable despite being vital to ANY company that employs them. Never do this job. 

[webhead 519]

UPS

Was a loader.  In other words I loaded the trailers.  I know exactly why everyone's shit is broken half the time.  I was pretty reasonable with stuff but a lot of people were total assholes with packages.   Was good at it and it kept me in shape.  I liked the job for the most part (working in a trailer in the middle of the day during summer DID suck though).  I left here because I got a job at my current company for 2 bucks an hour more.

 

Bank/Payment Company

So I've done several jobs here and I'll just go through them real quick...

 

First level help desk:  Supported payment machines.  It got to be so easy it was fucking boring very quickly.  About a year in I applied for 2nd level and didn't get it.  Told myself if I didn't get the next 2nd level spot to come open I'd find another job.  Thank fuck I got it.

 

Second Level help desk:  Supported the level 1 HD and their lazy dumbness.  At first ALL I did was take calls from them but over time I started getting projects, doing our internal website, then our group sharepoint, etc.  Was a really fun job and I loved it and was really good at it.  Near the end they pissed me off when they changed how they graded my calls and the spot I applied for offered me a 10% raise so I peaced out.  Glad I did because things got kind of shitty not soon thereafter (especially since everyone left).  Also they let @Downshift take that job so you know.

 

Knowledge: Helped write and maintain all the howtos for troubleshooting for the helpdesk.  Also managed their internal sites (a bigger version of what I did in 2nd level).  It was fun at first but eventually it became incredibly fucking boring.  Manager was very resistant to change and I usually had to just make shit and show it to him done before he'd let me do or change anything (which he was receptive to vs others so I guess there was that).  Job wasn't horrible but it was definitely boring and then a spot came open in IT...

 

IT/Desktop:  Loved this job.  I guess I have liked most of my jobs really but IT was the big time for me and it was pretty great.  I got a lot more experience troubleshooting computer shit, learning how things work in our environment, and I even got to learn all the new shit when we switched over to it (as our parent company took over) before I got the job I have now.  I definitely liked this job but management is what killed it.  My boss ended up being shuffled to just being a team lead or something in Tampa and then the new boss we got was annoying as fuck.  THEN they started doing lay offs in IT (while hiring in another country...not India surprisingly).  So I had to gtfo and my old boss alerted me to this job that I have now.

 

Technical Implementations:  It's complicated to describe but basically I help people integrate their applications with our payment systems (there are many different APIs for doing so).  I answer their questions, help them when they have issues, and then we run through checks to make sure their application works properly before we certify it to work in production.  What I love the most about this job is the incredible amount of flexibility.  I can basically set my own schedule and I am given some pretty wide latitude to work from home (even more than others...mostly because my house is really far from our new office and I have constantly expressed my desire to work from home as much as possible ).  The job has a lot of varied things going on and it is actually challenging to learn all this crazy shit we deal with.  Before IT, I'd really only seen a small portion of what our company did for payments stuff and this job opened up this huge world where I'm learning a ton of shit (and web based stuff that I know I can share with the team since you know...I do that kinda of shit on the side OBVIOUSLY).

[dr. b 492]

I did a summer job at UPS during college. I processed packages going Canada->U.S., checking that the waybills were completed correctly, etc. Night shifts, 8pm-4am IIRC, all summer long. Tedious as hell but I had some cool coworkers at least. 

 

After I graduated, I did some shitty sales jobs (call centre, door to door) for a bit to pay the bills while I focused on music. But then I settled into a job with an office services company for the next few years. Started on a night shift working on a digitization project at an financial firm. Night after night of scanning and QCing boxes upon boxes of their customers' records. Then I moved to a day shift at a corporate office as team lead of the mailroom / print room. Pay wasn't great but that was such a fun job. We did a bit of everything there. 

 

Then 8 years doing volunteer work on education development projects in Vietnam. 

 

Moved back to Canada in 2016 and got a job doing outside sales. Not exactly what I had hoped for, but overall it's a pretty good gig. 

[Tassifox 418]

I think I'm the most boring history here. Grocery retail here in the 1 store location for the last 18 years.

[Anelle 792]

Hmmmmmm lessee I have done---

 

Small time janitor work (as in single small office building)

Movie theater grunt

Bookstore grunt

Mall foodcourt grunt

Clothes retail grunt

After school program for a private school

Waitressing

Makeup retail grunt

Temp office work in billing

Wildlife rehab, although that was only a paid position for a short period of time now it's just something I do that's somewhat funded via donations to the organization but is mostly work for the sake of the animals

 

oh and I freelance art stuff some

[Downshift 54]

Wow, apparently I've had A LOT of jobs. Plus I have a mechanical keyboard and absolutely LOVE typing on this ting. I'll try to keep it somewhat organized and condense with spoilers.

You have been warned...

 

 

2001

Spoiler

Got a job at KFC as soon as I could. Officially got hired at 15 and did "training" for a few weeks until I was 16 and could actually be seen there by customers. Tons of my high school friends also worked there along with some neighbor kids since it was just a 10 min walk from my house. Whenever I wanted I could just take a ton of chicken home with me. My family was so sick of that place.

There was also a Pizza Hut a block away where half of us could also unofficially work at since they're owned by the same company and run by the same GM. There were times we'd take a big bucket of chicken over there and trade them for a few large pizzas. I could also just randomly walk inside in my street clothes, walk behind the counter, make my own pizza and walk out. No one GAF, it was hilarious.

At the time I thought I was making a ton of money. Making enough to buy an xbox every few weeks was amazing, but I soon realized it was barely over min wage.

Worked there until just after my 18th birthday. Saved nearly every penny I made, bought a car, and then quit.

 

 

-college starts-

 

2003
 

Spoiler

My neighbor's dad got me a job at the warehouse in Phoenix where he worked. Stored and shipped everything related to HVAC imaginable, from every conceivable tiny screw and spacer, to huge entire corporate condensers larger than an SUV. Was easy and chill, and I made about double what I did at KFC. The entire main goal was to unload/load the semi's and UPS trucks that came, the first wave of which arrived at 7am. Then we'd do the whole thing all over again for the next wave that came around noon. It was actually pretty amazing how efficient and well organize that place was. While the forklifts and more senior workers were unloading all the pallets and stuff, the rest of us would grab everything, organize it, label it and then go store them away in their specific places. We had to keep pace with how fast they were unloading stuff also, because once we were done we then had to go find, package and ready the afternoon's load because all that crap was going out by 4pm sharp. We worked non-stop after the first wave arrived, but once we were done we had a lunch and then usually another hour of downtime once we got everything on deck before the noon trucks arrived. Then if we got those loaded before 4pm, we had even more downtime until EOD. Most days I only worked 3 or 4 hours in any 8 hour day.

After not too long I trained to drive the forklift and was doing that for awhile which was awesome. This was also when I made it my mission to learn to back in cars because I realized that steering "in the back" gives you optimal precision control for things like parking in tight spaces, etc. Eventually I got to work up in the main office with my neighbor's dad, doing stuff like helping with the inventory and scheduling, as well as the design and optimal layout for the warehouse item locations. That was a decent raise, but also booooring AF.

 

Wanted even more money to spend on my car, and save up to move out, so I got a part time job at a clothing department store. Nights and weekends, though I really only worked like one day a week, usually just for 4 hours. After the warehouse, this was the job I had while going HAM full time in college.

The other advantage of low, flexible hours was that I not only got like 30% off everything in the store with my employee discount, I also knew the exact dates of all the sales, which sales could stack with other sales, and how to also get gift card discounts on top of that. Usually ended up getting 80% off on everything I bought there on average. You didn't have to work any min number of hours to qualify for these benefits. This was also the most chill job I've ever had. Most of the time it's dead in there, unlike most other retail stores. There is no long array of registers and cashiers, just one kiosk in each dept with one person manning each dept. I worked in Men's and Shoes, just wandering around straightening shoe boxes or refolding jeans. Had maybe two customers an hour actually buy stuff, but when they did they were huge $500 sales. Kept this job for like 3 years I think. I still have quite a bit of apparel from there.

 

 

2006

-moved out of my parents-
 

Spoiler

Got a callback on my birthday from the manager of the local Nissan dealership who offered me a job. I had a friend there in Parts, one in Service and another who was Lot Attendant like I applied for. My job was simple: have access to the keys and alarm code of every single car on the lot, and keep the lot looking nice and organized. This meant driving new arrivals off the delivery trucks to the back lot, and replacing sold cars on the show lot or showroom. Basically any time they needed a car moved for any reason, they radio'd us. This also included the Used Car lot, which meant during the whole time I was there, I got to drive everything from a Mustang Cobra, to a huge lifted Dodge Ram turbodiesel. BMWs, large vehicles like Excursions and Avalanches, and all the Nissan 350Z's I wanted. Other than the pay, this was my dream job.

The best part was when we had to "trade" cars with other dealerships. Customers are picky and would want a certain model, in a certain trim, only in a certain color. Often that exact car wasn't on our lot, but another Nissan dealer had it and were willing to trade it to use for another car of the same MSRP. Then it was our job to drive the cars and swap them. This happened usually once a day, and I got to drive some awesome, expensive new cars even as far as SoCal one day. (10 hours, round drip, OT paid in full).

Honestly, I'd be lying if I said we didn't do a bunch a dumb shit like take joyrides in new used cars before they'd been marked for sale, do donuts in the back lot with sports cars, whatever we wanted. We also had this game where we'd point a car with an automatic transmission at the big refueling gas tank in the back lot from the opposite end of the lot, put it in drive, release the brake and then get out and watch it roll towards the tank. Then we'd play chicken seeing who would wait there the longest before dashing off to catch it, open the driver door and hit he brakes just before it crashed into a 50,000 gallon tank of gas. How am I still alive?

 

Finally moved out and got a higher paying job at Move.com, specifically Realtor.com's website support. I made enough money to afford rent after splitting it with a roommate, but I worked super early and it was a good hour long drive each way. It was also super busy every second of the day, so much so that I pretty much never knew any of my coworkers, even after being there over a year. We worked with all the "my time is worth more than your life" Realtors and their pathetic attempts to establish an online presence. My dept was listing support, everything from the details on the MLS listing like HOA fee amounts to the year built, etc. Moved up to photos and virtual tours dept after a bit, and later turned down an offer to join the "retention" team, which were just the poor souls whose job it was to listen to people yell and bitch because we won't let them cancel their contracts with us. Lol, nope.

This was also when I first started my 401K and retirement stuff.

 

A friend knew I hated it here and helped get me a job at a Bank/Payment Company much closer to home.

 

 

-college ends-

 

2007
 

Spoiler

Started at Bank/Payment Company in Feb of this year. Yes this was the same place Web still works at, but I don't even think I crossed paths with him until over a year later. We were in different departments that didn't really ever interact. I had quite a few different positions there like Web did.

First level helpdesk was exactly like Web described. My version of it was quite a bit more expansive though. We had the opportunities to train for more advanced products to support, and got decent raises each time we became proficient on each one. This was actually how I met Web; he was hired a bit before me and was already 2nd level support. I was trying to self-train on one of the products and I saw one of them on his desk. He was just playing Gameboy or something at the time so I didn't think I was interrupting when I asked to play with it and pick his brain on how it worked, etc.

Eventually I had exhausted all the raises I could obtain in my dept and so I asked to transition over to the other dept so I could learn even more stuff. This was in like, 2009? Cool thing was that I kept all my raises that his dept didn't get, so I made more than everyone else there. Got to the point that my boss said they couldn't give me another annual raise because then I'd be making more than the Team Leads.

Eventually I got into the 2nd level support in that dept also, did that for over a year until I... basically had a falling out with the managers that were actually in a different country for giving me shit and grief over FMLA and stuff. Started to affect life outside of work, and since they wouldn't work with me, I bounced in 2014. Was there for over 7 years.

(Frustratingly, The Gathering was only a few months before I quit. I keep wishing I'd quit just a bit earlier so I could have had more time with the Centerians that came here)

 

 

2014
 

Spoiler

Didn't work for a few months, dealing with the personal stuff, but then I took a corporate sales job a while later. I had a salary of over $100K/yr, but was working almost 60 hours a week and doing just lots of morally questionable stuff, so Wifeshift and I just decided it wasn't worth selling my soul. I think I was only there for 6 months; shortest tenured job ever.

 

Immediately afterwards, both Wifeshift and I started working for a very small SEO and web hosting company focusing on residential and commercial real estate rental property managers. This was mostly Wifeshift's gig; her first official job since finishing her training to be a web developer, effectively switching careers from CPA accounting. She made like no money, but couldn't have asked for better experience. I was a project manager for the IT/SEO departments and made more than enough to make up for her pay cut. The problem here was that the owner of this company was a moron and drove it into the ground. Company only had like 30 employees and wasn't growing much because the owner hated sales people and wouldn't hire enough of them, but also wanted everyone at the company to make roughly the same amount, regardless of their position or rank. This resulted in the two main executives leaving after their pay was severely cut in order to give their subordinates raises and hire on more people. The execs that he hired at low salaries after that had no clue how two run anything and the company started hemorrhaging clients and profits. Owner basically got what he paid for. We jumped ship after it was apparent nothing was going to improve and the company went under a while later.

 

 

2016
 

Spoiler

At this point I was working on some more IT certifications to bolster my experience, and took a few temp jobs to expand my scope of work experience on my resume. Notable jobs here were Dish Network, doing support for the satellite networks. First position there was just general support where some old person would call the wrong number and complain to us about our service being out because their TV was on a blue screen that said "No HDMI 1 Signal" utterly convinced it meant "no satellite signal".   But after about 3 months I moved to technical support, which is the dept the onsite techs call when they can't get an install or repair working. I actually love working with other professionals who know what the fuck they're doing, and working to tackle actual issues.

Left Dish to work at Verizon, which was a 100% work-from-home gig that came a with a big pay bump also. At the same time I was considering taking a job at Apple instead, same thing where it'd be 100% work-from-home, only I knew more people at Verizon that were local and the pay was better.

I was at Verizon for nearly 2 years I think. I would literally set my alarm for 10 min before my shift started, walk like a zombie into the home office and jump on the morning team meeting while my coffee was brewing in the kitchen. Seemed like the greatest thing in the world until I got off work on a Saturday and realized I hadn't actually left the house since this time the Saturday before. An entire week. The isolation was suffocating. Sure Verizon would take us all out to events like Diamondback games or Dave & Buster's, but that was once every 6 months, and only if our team performed in the top 10th percentile or something. I realized that although I'm technically an introvert, I can't just be socially isolated for days or weeks at a time. I really missed going into an office, seeing and talking to actual co workers rather than just over chat or webcam.

 

 

2018
 

Spoiler

Went looking last summer and found a job I was not fully qualified for working in VoIP networking. I knew enough to pass all the application assessments and interview questions, but after meeting everyone else in my hiring orientation group, I quickly realized I was the least experienced there by far. Pretty intimidating. It was pretty heavy on network architecture, provisioning, configuration and custom coding. Job was also a "temp to hire" position with no set end date, but limited benefits while we were temp. Pay was amazing, most I'd ever made, save for that soulless corp sales job, lol. After about 9 months, my hiring group was down to about half the people due to people just quitting, and I was the #4 out of 11 people left. Thing was, little birdies I knew there said the company could only afford to hire 3 techs on permanently this year and the rest would have to wait until next year "and then they'd see". Last red flag was when everyone in the hiring group from 6 months after us were all got let go randomly. Put feelers out again and found an even more in-depth IT networking/security job, but this one was a permanent, direct hire.

 

I started this new job in March... but unfortunately I can't talk about it here or I'd have to kill all of you.

 

 

[h2ojunkie 96]

Sports Authority after high school for 1.5 years.

Started college.

Bike shop #1 ~3/4 year.

Bike shop #2 ~1 year.

Construction internship #1 with a General Contractor 1 year (all were paid).

Construction internship #2 with Intel 6 month, go a paid trip to Israel. 

Construction internship #3 with a bigger General Contractor in BFE New Mexico 4 months.

Bike shop #3 ~3 years starting after leaving Intel.

Graduated college.

Land development/investment company ~1 year, making super easy aerial maps for marketing. Making enough to not starve or be homeless.

Construction company doing paperwork ~8 months.

Got married.

Solar City ~5 years doing operations type stuff, not installing or sales. 

Had 2 kid while with Solar City.

Current job: Big General Contractor ($5B in revenue last year) just hit 3 years. Project engineering type stuff to help the manager run the project. 

 

 

 

[Hornet 114]

-Dropped out of University

-Applied at McDonald's

-Rejected

-Become care aid

-Present

[Deszae 88]

Kroger 2014:  Was great until it wasn't. Chose to resign because they try to accuse me of stealing some fuckin candy apple salad (10 hour work day+co worker yelling at me= forgot to pay for lunch I made and they waited until I finished to pull me in for "stealing"

 

Parent Teacher Store (Don't remember when I started): Pay and commute made it hardly worth it.

 

Fort campbell Shaw gym 2017: Custodian. Soldiers are fucking nasty to clean up after, but I got used to it. Outgrew the pay real quick and move onto...

 

Watterson CDC#1(2019-Present) Custodian lead. Pay started at 11.16 and now with the federal pay rise, I'm making about $19 an hour 40 a week. Between the pay raise and good health insurance that saved my life back in 2020, I'm hard pressed to find anything better outside MWR right now.