first seven jobs #firstsevenjobs

I'm blogging my #firstsevenjobs. I've seen several people share their first seven jobs and smiled the other week - now, I'm sitting down and sharing.  

#1: White Hair Puller:  As a school child (9-10 years old?) during one of my summer vacations, my aunt would pay me $.10 for each white hair I pulled out.  After a month of hair pulling, she ran out of white hairs to pull,  I was out of a job.

#2: Piano Teacher: This was an awesome job that I created for myself during my years in middle school to high school.  I first started by going around the neighborhood asking parents of children aged 4-6.  I figured I could take on 1-2 kids a day on top of all my extracurricular activities and interests, so I lined up students through word of mouth marketing.  By the time I graduated high school, I had enough saved to make a nice big dent in my new college expenses (I was a full-ride student, so every little expense was a challenge to over come during my years in college.)

#3: Assistant at a Carvel Ice Cream Store: I had this job for 1 day - helping mop floors, greet customers, and random things they tried to think of for me to do.  The second day I went back, they told me they didn't need me.  I was shocked.  I learned that if you're working a job that isn't really needed or bringing value, best go find another job fast.

#4: Candy Store Cashier: I needed a second job on top of the piano teaching because I wanted some additional work experience working outside the safety of my home and in a mall like other high school students who were always hanging out at the mall....  so I found out a great friend "Mikey" had this job at the Candy Store and they were hiring.  The first day, I got paired up with this much college girl from the city (I was from the 'burbs of the 'burbs, a tiny hamlet).  Oh man, she went to town bossing my nervous butt around.  Told me to mop - saw how I mopped and she would exclaim, "there's no jobs here for a baby princess!"  She taught me how to really mop a floor.  She taught me how to get dirty to get a job done right.  She eased up on me once I showed her that I was teachable - started teaching me about the politics and the going-ons of people at the mall.  Who was dating who. How to spot a shop lifter.  How to manage up to a boss.  I got paid $5.13/hour and I learned so much in this job.

#5:Baby-sitting: I, like many teenagers, also babysat as needed.  The pay was meager.  $3 an hour, per child.  It was also a great way to get exposure to American culture.  (Side note: While I was born in the United States, and very Americanized in many ways, I actually grew up quite culturally sheltered from American culture.  I spent most of my free time reading, practicing an instrument, at church, taking care of my brother or working.)  While babysitting, I learned about Apple Crisps.  WOW, THAT STUFF SO DELICIOUS YUM!!!  

#6: Teaching Resident Advisor: Being a geek meant I excelled at a lot of things in nerdy genres.  I got to be a Teaching Resident Advisor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's (RPI) summer program for genius high school kids.  It paid awesome - and I applied the money earned there to my college budget needs.  We taught math, computer science, HTML, stuff like that.  In the off hours, I got to be a big sister to the program attendees and/or hang out with other smart geeks from other parts of the country.  I think I made my very first Chinese girl friend that summer named Kristine. 

#7: Albany Ambassador: Being a super shy kid about to go off into the big world with very little social skills, particularly speaking in front of large audiences, I decided to become an Albany Ambassador giving tours of the Capitol.  I spent hours memorizing facts, dates, random trivia.  Well, by the time I was ready, the State decided to cancel the need for a tour guide, so that was that.

Funny, all of my first seven jobs happened before I got to college.  I had at least seven jobs in college, too - from concert event organizing, to being a Resident Advisor, and from waitressing to being an Actuarial Intern.