the mark of a good day

there is no rhyme or reason to this post, it's just a few thoughts that came to my head as i pondered the wonders of working. if i may brag, the list of jobs i've held is impressive, to say the least. if anyone has any great stories to add i'd love to hear about them (julie).

little league baseball umpire: i knew it was a good game if no lunatic parent followed me to the locker room after the game.

paperboy: as long as the paper office didn't call telling me the houses i missed, or i didn't have too many leftover papers i felt like the day was a success.

mowing lawns: i liked this job a lot, but my truck would vaporlock all the time. if i didn't get stranded somewhere out in the boonies i was pleased with the day's work.

janitor (sophomore men's dorm bathrooms): this was a nasty job. i had a good friend who prided himself on his wall of boogers in the hall's bathroom. he said he'd kill me if i cleaned it up, i was happy to comply. unfortuantely one day my supervisor came in to check my work and wondered how i didn't notice about 250 rolled-up boogers above urinal #2. i had to clean it up that day. that was a bad day. lucky for me most of the guys on the hall knew i had to clean the bathrooms so they were somewhat compassionate. still, a gross job.

crossing guard: another stellar college job. i had a slow crossing and so mainly i just read and studied for class. when it was cold i would sit in my car by the crosswalk and wait for the kids to come. this was much warmer, but also caused me to not notice when somebody would come by and just cross without me. i felt a little bad to see a little kid crossing the street alone as i read up on theology dressed in a glow-in-the-dark orange vest & a stop sign in the passenger seat. good day= kid's getting across & less homework that night.

camp counselor: once a kid puked all over his sleeping bag and i had to haul it to the washing maching. i soon learned the smell of puke makes me puke. i once heard a kid ask me, "so are you good at pulling fishing hooks out of people's legs?" not sure how but he managed to get a fishook stuck in his leg, and yes, i am good at pulling hooks out of legs. when we had to clean the bathrooms after the week, i came to believe in the motto: the less hair in the shower drain, the better. i liked being a counselor, though.

counselor at a boys home: i don't have enough time to write about this particular job to give it justice, but the main way to measure a good day was to not drive up to the house and there be a police car, not have to call the police, not have to fill out an incident report, not have to fill out a runaway report, or not have to walk around in the field outside for an hour trying to talk a kid back inside. a no fight night was a perk, too. that was a crazy job. i still have the county sheriff phone number programmed into my phone.

that's all i can think of for now, take care all, and have a great day of work whatever that might look like.