Work

Things I have done for a living starting with my first ever job:

• Manning a hot line for a crisis intervention center (Touchstone - Kennet Square, PA)
• Driver, Food Prep, labor & Trash Detail at a camp in the Poconos (Baptist Camp)
• Retail Sales for Wilmington Dry Goods (Camera Dept. - Wilmington, DE)
• Library Acquisitions (Student - University of Delaware, Newark , DE)
• Sale of Cemetery Property (McDermott and Cox - For Grace Lawn Cemetary, Wilmington, DE)
• Security Guard (Allstate Security Service, Wilmington, DE)
• Retail Sales (K-Mart; Camera; Jewelry- Dep. Manager - Newark , DE)
• Computer Center Assistant.(Student, University of Delaware, Newark, DE)
• Library Stacks (you know.. the people that put the books BACK on the shelf after you scatter them all over the building.)(Student, University of Delaware, Newark, DE)
• Teaching Assistant (Computer Science Dept, University of Delaware, Newark, DE)
• Lecturer (University of Delaware - On campus and at the Wilcastle Center.)
• Software Engineer (Autotote Systems & Scientific Games, All over the place)

Each of these was interesting in it's own way... Stories about why include:

• That drug hotline job consisted mainly of using the PDR (Physicians Desk Reference) to look up the various pills that people bought to identify them. They always wanted to know how much they could take.. as a general rule I'd tell give them the answer that if they took more than 1/4 of the lethal dose they'd kill themselves. Course I would never tell them what the REAL lethal dose was... figuring someone would be just stupid enough to try it.

The place was called TOUCHSTONE in Kennet Square, PA. (And a quick check of the net reveals no references to this place... too bad.) I would work till 2 in the morning and then drive home.. sometimes I would hit the highway to see the drunks driving home.

• That summer job at the camp was simply one of the best ways a teenager could ever spend a summer. Worked like a dog all summer and loved every minute of it. The story behind how I ended up GETTING that job is not for public consumption.. suffice it to say ya never know where something it going to lead. I told my family I was going to visit a friend in the Poconos for 4 days.. and ended up not coming home for the rest of the summer.
• Retail Sales.. what can you say. It was a job. They guy I worked with had another job as a TV camera man in a tower at the (now defunct) Brandywine Race Track. He took me to the tower one time and showed me his favorite on the job activities which consisted of pissing on the high voltage transformer, drinking beer, and hanging 80 feet in the air from the bar at the front of the booth. Oh did I mention that his location was a tower on the back side of the race track (which is why he could get away with this stuff).
• Library Acquisitions was fun. I would get a stack of book order requests and proceed to research the hell out of em. Who published it; what editions; Library of Congress references; OCRC references; prices; ordering information. It was like detective work, and I like most things that are like detective work.
• Cemetery Property... Okay.. Commission PRE-NEED sales. I didn't deal with grieving families, and I didn't wear a black suit. I also was not very good at it since I just don't have the "presumptive selling" personality.
• Security Guard.. dull, but I got to read a TON. Almost finished Will Durant's History of Civilization. I got up to Louis the 13th and switched jobs. I also got to observe how the stars move across the sky during a year and how the sun comes up in different places at different times of year. (Obviously I worked the night shift.)
• Retail again.. at K-Mart. Oh that inspired me to go back to school. BIG TIME I managed the Camera and Jewelry departments at the Newark, DE store.
• Computer Center Assistant: Okay.. if you're having a problem with your program - no matter what the language you go to the Help Desk and the nice geeky people there will help you. But we weren't allowed to CORRECT your program - just give you a vague idea of where the problem was. The great thing about that job is that you got to learn EVERYTHING - Cobol, Pascal, C, Fortan, SPSS, F77, Algol, Burroughs, Unix.. it all came across the desk and YOU got to deal with it. It was fun.
• Library Stacks is fun.. it's the kind of job no one bothers you in.. you become like invisible. Your a denizen of the library going about mysterious business and you have that magic knowledge that lets you find ANY book in the place. ('cept Government Documents - there is no logic to the way THEY are put on the shelf - what do you expect.. the whole mess was probably designed by CONGRESS).
• Being a Teaching Assistant differs depending on your professor. Some profs just want an assistant, and some profs want you to teach the whole course. I won't say which end of the spectrum I fell in... but it was a great job. I realized that I loved to teach. I had 4 - 1 hours sessions a week where the students were all MINE!!! My reviews were good, and if you ever came to my pre-test review sessions there was no way on the planet you could flunk out in my class (though some managed... amazing).
• Lecturer - This is what you become when you graduate, but keep on teaching. The only difference this time is there is no professor. I taught CS-105 - Intro to Computer Science. I know for a fact that several people went on from my class to build careers in Computing.. and I'm glad of that.
• Software Engineer - The name I put on this is purposely vague. I work for a company called AUTOTOTE (now Scientific Games). We make gambling systems. My area is TOTE systems... If you have ever been to the horse races, dog races or Jai Alia then you have a vague idea what we do. Our systems:

• Sell the tickets
• Calculate the odds.
• Generate the videos
• Control the fieldboard (and any other public displays)
• Ship millions across the country electronically
• Calculate the prices
• Pay the winners
• Account for the tellers
• Balance the bank
• Provide data for inter-track settlement of accounts.

You name it... we do it at the races. And since I've been at it since 1981, I've done a lot of jobs

• Software Design
• Analysis
• Sales Support
• Training
• Customer Liaison
• 24 hour support
• Death Marches
• Traveled Far and wide
• and getting on my knees to rip cables up from sub-floors when the power goes out and someone forgot to hook up the UPS to the systems correctly.

I've been in more close calls, snafu's, disasters, and complete triumphs than I care to remember. And for the most part I've loved it. Would I do it over. Yes. Would I do it different. OH Yes.