Question of The Day. Saturday the 12th of September

Hello, are you having a nice Saturday?

I went out with some friends for a few beers last night and we were talking about the part-time jobs we'd done to put ourselves through college. Some of them were pretty dreadful!

What was you best and worst part-time job? 

The worst one I ever had was when I was 15 and worked in the restaurant of British Home Stores, a really down market department store. I spent 6 hours every Saturday serving greasy food to pimply youths, clearing tables or, worst of all, stacking the dish washer. I had to wear this ugly brown check uniform and a paper hat. Makes me cringe just thinking about it.

The best job was a summer job selling glow in the dark jewellery on a stall. We went to a different music festival every weekend so I saw loads of bands for free, got to camp out in the traders camp site, which had much cleaner toilets than those in the regular camp site and met loads of weird and wonderful people. That was fun.

How about you, any memorable part time jobs?

Most of my jobs were full-time, so will have to cheat a wee bit here!

Worst jobs: Subway, my first official job, and one of the worst because of the management, I technically was suppose to be part-time but I ended up always working full time because I was the person they would go to to constantly fill in other people who couldn't make it in. YAY for Favouritism   Certain other people can get by with complete understanding and acceptance because they partied last night and accidently slept in thanks to a hangover, but if *I* had to go to something like a doctor's appointment, *I* got the severe talking to) plus, the Subway I was at was with a Gas Station.  I was 16-17 then, high school student.



An actual part-time job was at retail clothing store called Labels, at the age of 19, first year of Uni. Well, it eventually turned into part-time! It started off everyday working 12 hour shifts, 9 am to 9 pm. I was so tired and sore every night, and those hours were like that for the first two weeks, with one day off.  And again I had the worst luck with bosses due to favouritism. Like pure, gushy, obvious favouritism. My two bosses praised and showed adoration for this one girl, but were cold with me. Even though I was the one with the best sales numbers, tried to be nice and professional with them, and felt like I really worked hard but it was never noticed or acknowledged. 

(I could vent on and on with that job!)

Best jobs:   My museum summer jobs, ranging from tour guiding, archaeology, historical demos (Like campaign cooking, rifle and canon demos etc) researching, assisting with tourist inquiries, cleaning and the working the giftshop. Sometimes they were long/tiring, hard and very frustrating, almost always work on weekends, but at the same time they offered some really nice memories, rewarding moments and valuable and unique experience. They were all full-time, standard 9 am to 5 pm (Or 2 pm to 9 pm) two days off, with allowed exceptions of extra days off if given the proper heads up ahead of time, and they also paid the best.  And thankfully, much better bosses. Also got to take part in many events and festivals. These jobs ranged from 20-23 years old. 

Let's see... in terms of part-time jobs, the worst one was soliciting donations for my university while I was attending.  I only did that for two semesters - honestly, it was pretty stressful.  You weren't even selling anything, just asking people for money.  Sometimes you'd be calling someone who JUST graduated, or even parents of current students who were probably already paying tuition.  It was obnoxious.  The upside is, I'm ALWAYS nice to those kids when they call me now that I'm an alumna.  

Best one was working in a research lab at a VA facility.  I loved working there, and it ended up putting me on track for a career in scientific research.  Both of these were during college.  Good times.

Believe it or not at 59 I have never had a part time job, I worked full time in the summer.  The worst job I had was the summer before I started college as a nurse's aide in a nursing home.  This was before there was any kind of certification, they basically hired anyone who signed up.  The nursing home I worked in segregated the patient's that were very disabled either physically or mentally in one area.  As a new person and one that was only there for the summer that is where I worked for the whole summer.

I'm 65 and never had a part time job. I started working full time  right out of high school. I've only had two jobs in my life and they were both in the same building. I worked for 42 years in the same building. I retired 5 years ago.

The only part time job I ever had was as a kitchen slave at our local hospital. 3 hours a night after school doing the dishes. 

i only worked one job as a teen, in a local G C Murphy's department store. i liked that job, partly because it was simple and pretty much mindless work. i just stocked shelves, and when i finished stocking one set of items i'd ask for more items to stock. i was meticulous in my stocking -- rotating the stock left on the shelves to the front, adding price stickers to every item, and making sure all labels on items faced forward.

the only part time job i had, and the worst job i've ever had, was a second job i was working. i was working night audit jobs in the hotel industry, had been for years. i was working full time at one hotel as head auditor at night, and was working what was supposed to be temporarily full time during the days at another hotel in their accounting department. now the first (night audit) job did not know about the second (accounting) job, but the second job knew about my first job and that i would only be able to work the specified hours and no overtime -- because i had to have some time to sleep. the full time at this second job was supposed to shift to part time after another employee came back from maternity leave. the problem with the second job was that my 'boundary' of only working the specified hours and no overtime, was not respected. in the end, i resigned from the second job, for that reason.

i think the job i liked the most was pretty much every job at the beginning of it. i love to learn new things, so i enjoyed the learning/becoming familiar with each new job.

I haven't had many part-time jobs.  The worst was when I went to a camp at a large privately owned park, where you worked in the morning and used the park's facilities in the afternoon.  I was 16.  It was hard work.  We worked form 7AM until noon, and most of us cleared underbrush with slings and machetes.  If you drew garbage detail, you had the plum job.  We did not get to use the better facilities at the park very much if at all.

The best part-time job I got was when I had just sold my share in an electronics repair business and I was at loose ends.  I was living near a friend's restaurant and he took me on to work lunch.  I had worked for him when I was in school.  He thought I was good at handling customers and handling money at the counter. We had to calculate sales tax in our heads back in those days, something I am good at.  I worked two hours a day.  It was more of a social event than a job.  If you were an employee you could attend his nightly after-hours parties at the restaurant.  Free beer, pinball and Donkey Kong!  And a bunch of fun people!

I've had terrible jobs and great jobs, but these are the only part-time jobs I can remember.  I'm self-employed now and I love it!  Especially my boss.

I've only had 2 part time jobs.  The worst was Dairy Queen in high school.  I only worked there about 6 weeks and one of those I was out with strep throat.  I came home smelling like greasy ice cream and I don't even like ice cream that much.  If I've got a choice of deserts to pick; I'm not going to pick ice cream.  The smell of it still makes me kind of nauseous.  I did meet some good people there though; in that short time.  I worked 5 days a week.  My only days off were Sunday and Wednesday; both days I was at church at some point.  I also worked later than I was supposed to; because I didn't know the laws.  I worked from 5-9:30/10 and still had to come home to do homework and keep up with the things I did at school; like Latin club and Prom Committee.  I was also in chorus; which was a credited class, but was held before school.  It got to be too much; fast.  I wanted the job because of a car I was interested in.  My Mom and Step-dad said they'd help me get a car but I had to help pay for it and for the insurance.  But once they looked into it; the insurance for that particular car was too much.  So they took me to and from work those 6 weeks.  They also said school was more important than me working.  I spent my summers with my Dad and family out of state; so no summer jobs either.  I always had responsibility around the house; I didn't a job for that.  I did eventually get a car.  They paid about $100 for it.  It was 1 year younger than I was (so 15 years old).  The ceiling upholstery was coming down, various things did not work (I got stuck in reverse in our driveway once  .) and it would stall if  I drove over a puddle.    But it got me to and from school and it took the burden off my Mom and Step-dad when it came to getting me to school for chorus and getting my step-brother to his job and my step-sister to her various things.  My step-brother eventually killed the car by running it out of oil.  I'd upgraded by then. 

My best job was working for Hallmark while I was in college.  I worked there for a few years; until I hurt my back at home and it just wasn't getting better when I was on my feet all day and doing things.  My boss there was fairly strict; but a good boss.  I worked with some great people there too.  The holidays were hard; but my boss never gave me grief for prioritizing my school schedule over work.  Although there was one semester she would schedule me for literally 2 hours between classes.  And she happened to be enrolled in my evening class with me.    The school was just a few minutes up the road so I'd have class all morning; work for 2 hours and go back to class.  Not the most fun.  Especially the 2 nights she couldn't leave work so I had to take notes.    I learned a lot while I worked there.  We were not allowed to stand around and while I enjoyed my co-workers; we were not allowed to goof off or act unprofessional.  In some ways that was nice because it meant the people who worked there were not lazy.  I also started my ornament addiction back then too.    I don't have a crazy collection; but it started some traditions for me.    

I have only had a few jobs... I worked at Burger King when I was 16. It wasn't the worst job ever.....except cleaning bathrooms. I hated that. But I liked being a cashier. My math wasn't too great so they let me bring a huge calculator. I even liked taking orders at the drive thru when it wasn't crazy busy. The only thing I hated was cleaning the milkshake machine it was seriously a pain in the butt. And slipping in the walk in freezer with a bucket of milkshake mix in my hand. It got all over me lol. Cleaning wasn't so bad. Plus you got a 50% discount when you had to break for lunch or dinner. Luckily I was a twig back then with a high metabolism but you also worked out with preparing orders and sweeping and mopping and wiping off tables. I didn't eat there every day, though. If I did it would just be a sandwich, tea and fries. They make their own tea here and still do. It's amazing.

The worst job EVER was being a bell ringer for the Salvation Army. I got paid for it... and don't mind doing charity work. It was for a good cause but I was made fun of and Walmart made me stay out in below freezing weather that I had to go home so I didn't get sick.

The best job I have ever had though was working at the animal shelter. It was both full time and part time. I ended up with part time in the end. And got let go due to budget cuts. I loved working with the animals every day. It was a dream job and I have a lot of memories from my time there with the animals.

My worst part-time job was doing data entry at my college admissions office.  It was incredibly tedious and boring because we were just checking boxes in the computer system.  Sometimes I would try to read the essays to make things a little more interesting, but they were usually pretty bad. 

My best part-time job was working at a snowball stand.  I liked my coworkers, and we got to eat as many snowballs as we wanted for free (just had to pay for any toppings)!