Jobs

 I was resting at home alone (something I seem to do a lot these days) recalling all the jobs for which I have received monetary renumeration for so far in life. I thought it might be fun to compose a list of such. I may return at a later date to further discuss the individual items as each triggers numerous memories for me. The dates listed are approximate at best.

1. Domestic Dish Washer: Starting at a fairly young age, probably about 8 or so, (1965?) I was employed by my mom and sister Sue to dry the evening meals dishes. Sue was originally tasked with this job but as she grew older she supplemented my "allowance" by off-loading the task to me. If I remember correctly she paid me $2.50 every two weeks which doubled my income. Mom still washed the dishes but I had to dry them with a white cotton towel.

2. Bioluminescence Field Researcher: About the same timeframe as #1. My duties included catching lightening bugs or fireflies in the summer evenings and imprisoning my quarry in glass jars that were placed in the kitchen freezer. Once the bugs were in a subdued state, they would be placed into plastic bags. My mom often assisted be in this endeavor, running through our and neighborhood yards, catching the bugs in our hands and depositing them into jars. My mom came up with an ingenious invention for keeping the captured bugs from escaping the jar while new bugs were added by replacing the jar lid with a funnel. The new bugs could just be thrown down the funnel while the old bugs never seemed to find the opening to make their escape. When the summer season ended the bugs in the freezer were mailed to some scientist, I think in Antioch Il. , where he was studying bioluminescence and in return he would pay me some meager amount according to the weight of the bugs. My first paid foray into the scientific field!!

3. Newspaper Delivery and Collection Specialist: I embarked on this financial journey probably about 1967or 1968 and was employed to deliver the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Suntimes, and a few Wallstreet Journals. These were morning papers and the deliveries had to be complete before 7:30 AM. In addition to delivering the news I was required to collect payment for the papers every two weeks and then to turn in the money to the newspaper office in downtown Aurora Il. Once again my mom was a great assistant in this endeavor as was my dad. Mom would roust me at dawn to bring the bundle of papers from the curbside and them sit at the kitchen table and help me fold them for easier transport on my bicycle. Again she came up with an innovative solution to keeping them dry on rainy days by bringing me plastic bread bags from her work at the high school cafeteria and them placing the folded papers inside for a dry delivery. My dad, with his efficient mind, developed a route map for me to follow in making deliveries which would minimize street crossings and the need to ride extra miles. I do not remember how much I got paid but think it was about $20 every two weeks plus tips.

4. Landscape artist / yard boy/ snow removal expert: This career probably started around 1969 and extended to overlap with #5. It involved mowing lawns at various housed and shoveling snow for other houses' sidewalks and driveways when the climate blessed us with snow. The grass mowing was rather pleasant, a reason to be outside in the summertime, and my various employers had modern lawn mowers with gasoline engines instead of old push mowers like my dad's. Besides cutting the grass I also trimmed hedges (sometimes with electric trimmers), edged sidewalks, pulled weeds from gardens and performed other maintenance tasks. I had several regular employers and think I was paid $5 for a grass mowing.My business spread by word of mouth, quite often my my sister Sue's mouth. 

5. House Painter: As mentioned in #4 my sister Sue did much to set me up in this business during the years of about 1971-1973 or there about. By this time Sue was a young adult and had contact with various doctors and somewhat wealthy individuals residing on the more affluent West side of Aurora. They may have had money but certainly not so much that they would turn their backs on cheap labor. What usually started as a lawn work assignment often developed into more. I landed several gigs painting the exterior of several of their houses. I'd finish one job and be passed on to one of the homeowners friends to do another. They would buy the paint an supplies and I would ride my trusty bike to their house in the morning to do the work for something like $3 per hour. I loved it! Standing on a ladder in the sunshine, paint brush in hand, listening to WLS play on my radio while watching pretty girls walk and ride by. I thank my Dad for developing my painting skills during the numerous times our own house seemed to require a total or partial paint job itself.

6. Warehouseman Store Stocker: 1973-1974: This was my first foray into the official working world with labor laws, Social Security and of course taxes. I was paid with a check instead of cash. When I turned 16 I already had encumbered myself with a steady girlfriend and needed a steady income to pay for pizza, flowers and the other expenses of romance. I walked to downtown Aurora and began visiting businesses seeking employment. One of my first stops was Walgreens Drug Store on the corner of Broadway and New York. I came armed with good grades, a smile and in retrospect probably an Uncle who was president of of the bank across the street. They hired me part-time to stock shelves, put price tags on merchandise, unload trucks, run the cash register and organize their basement storehouse. My pay was something about $1.25 / hour, less than what I had been making on my own, but regular. Perhaps more importantly, it initiated me into the world of business with managers, owners, competitors and fellow employees. I did not always enjoy my time there, it had high points and low, but I will probably write more at a later time because it certainly left me with memories.

7. Warehouseman Store Stocker: 1974-1975 I worked for the National Tea grocery store after hearing about their employment opening from a high school friend that worked there. I started as a bagger, putting customer groceries in paper bags, helping them carry the bags to their cars if needed and periodically collecting shopping carts from the parking lot and surrounding area. My pay was substantially more than at Walgreens but still under $5.00 / hour. Eventually I worked my way up to the position of Stocker and learned to run an electric forklift and to operate an industrial trash compacter, one of the must fun activities. This job also introduced me to the need to punch-in and out of a time-clock and the vagaries of shifting work schedules conjured up at the whims of store managers.Again, good times and bad ones, but certainly lots of memories.

to be continued:

8. Dishwasher: 1975 at Northland College in Ashland Wisconsin. My real job is navigating through classes, drinking mass quantities of all kinds of spirits while continually stoned on magic weed but and "man" does require some income to support the above actions so I took a job in the schools cafeteria washing dishes. The pay was minimal and mom wasn't standing beside me hear my constant complaints but the industrial equipment and joy of spraying water at friends as they threw their dirty dishes through the return window eased the hardship. The job only consumed a couple hours out of each day and being primarily a student I could opt out of working even those if more pressing matters demanded attention.

9. Drug Smuggler: 1975-1979 My duties primarily consisted of picking up pounds a occasional kilos of marijuana and distribution of said product. The job was no where near as glamorous as that depicted on the TV showMiami Vice nor as dangerous or profitable. There were no speed boats or guns involved nor bikini clad girls but there was a beautiful girl, my supplier, with long blond hair that made my groin tremble every time I picked up a shipment from her house. (she was super smart as well) I learned to distinguish the product quality from smell and would be "fronted" the product only to pay for it with the proceeds on the next pickup. I didn't make much money, only enough to supply myself with smoke and beer. A pound usually cost $400 and I would divide it into 1oz bags to sell to friends at the local dive bar appropriately named The Office. It was a fun and taught me people skills and a general disrespect for police and other members of the ambiguous "establishment."

10. Mattress Salesman Extraorider/ Warehouseman: 1977-1979 I found this employment the same way I found my original official job at Walgreens, I simply walked into the establishment, smiled and spoke respectably and coherently to the owner of Owen's Furniture Store on Second Steet in Ashland Wisonsin. The pay was minimal but more than washing dishes at the college. My primary duties included unloading furniture from trucks, vacuuming floor and selling furniture to customers. My specialty was selling beds and mattresses to the wives of college professors, not always appreciated by the professors themselves. The schedule was fairly flexible, the store was within walking distance of where I lived and the work not too difficult.

11. Gas Meter Reader: Northern Illinois Gas, Joliet Illinois, 1976 This was a summer job obtained because my Dad worked within "management" of the company and they offered a program that let the children of such employees work in the summers to fill in while the regular meter readers took vacation time, The pay was around $5.00 per hour which seemed fantastic to me at the time. I rode everyday to work with a fellow employee, Jeff Cawldwel, in his VW Beatle which was an adventure in itself. Our duties were to go to houses to read the dials on the meters recording the natural gas usage for the month. It was fun. Joliet is home to a large state prison in who's shadows were many of the neighborhood in which we worked. Jeff and I grew to be called "the church key gang" because of ability to obtain readings from places in which the meters had not been able to be read for months. The "church key" was a crowbar which we would use to break into the basements of buildings in order to read the meters there within. Besides learning the art of breaking and entering I learned how to quick-draw mace to ward of vicious dogs and people, how to avoid buckets of dirty water thrown out doors by floor scrubbing housewives, and how to appropriately time my announcement, "Gas Man!" when entering fenced yards occupied by nude sunbathers. The regular meter readers implored us summer workers to not work to hard in fear that if the bosses found out that a route could be completed in half a work day the routes would be subsequently lengthened. Respecting their wishes left us much time to throw frisbees in the forest preserves of even to take rides in company cars to go on fishing excursions. One regular reader actually stored all his fishing gear in the trunk of the company car. Oh, the rigors of the working world!

Break time and to watch the sunrise

12. Gas Corrosion Specialist: Northern Illinois Gas, Bellwood Illinois, 1977 This summer employment was obtained through the same program mentioned above in #11 and the pay was the same. However, in this job we were not actually reading the gas meters but inspection them and their connecting pipes for any signs of corrosion, leakage or tampering. I suppose something as important as "billing" couldn't be delegated to a bunch of college kids home on summer vacation so instead the company dispersed us for the less vital assignment of finding threats of possible explosion! The biggest benefit this job provided to me, although unbeknownst at the time, was that I met my future wife. She was working in the same position and her cute ass provided an irresistible target for my rubber band shooting skills. What better way to spend the time during the daily pre-work meetings? Again the regular meter readers admonished us to not walk our routes too quickly so on most days we could spend our afternoons hanging out at forrest preserves, restaurants or pool parties at the house of a coworker that lived in the area. The biggest challenge was staying out of sight of the supervisors that patrolled the streets looking for loafers. They didn't seem to care so much about the loafing but were quite concerned if they spotted more than 2 company cars parked in the same area as this caused complaints from the nosy public.

13. Iron Worker: Garbe Iron Works: 1979-1980 Aurora Illinois  Uh-oh, no longer a student and out in the real world! I obtained this job after my mom and dad tired of me moping around in their basement apartment searching for work. Who knew that a college graduate from a small college with a undergraduate degree in Biology and Environmental Science wouldn't be a sought after commodity by the pillars of industry of the Chicago area? Bummer!! Once again my mom and or dad came to the rescue by talking to our neighbor who worked as an engineer for Garbe. The pay was not too bad but the work extremely dirty. I worked primarily running a computerized bending machine which the neighbor, an Englishman named Kenneth Emerson had designed. The local Garbe family was familiar with the Bachert family and its association with bank presidents and the like so they had no problem bringing me on board. I worked in a shop populated almost entirely with Mexicans of who's legality was never questioned. I enjoyed my fellow workers and they often shared their taco lunches cooked on dirty hotplates with me while we sat along the Fox river behind the plant. They taught me a few words of Spanish while we ate but I never gained the efficiency at their language as they had mine. I was elected to Treasurer of the sham union which supposably represented these workers. Perhaps I'll write more on this employment at a later time as it provided some interesting moments while it also provided some money to stockpile for my upcoming marriage and trip to Alaska. 

Up next: The Alaska Years

14. Tutor: University of Alaska Fairbanks: 1980-1981 SOS Department I answered a posting on a flyer that was pinned to a bulletin board on campus and was hired. I tutored university students that were having difficulty in various science oriented classes. Most classes were related to Biology but some were Chemistry and a few Geology were thrown in. Some of the classes I had never taken myself so it involved reading the books and the notes that the students had taken. Many of the students were on a path to become nurses. I got along well with them, especially the girls, and they all seemed to improve their performance. The schedule was flexible so I could work the classes I was taking myself, primarily in Secondary Education with a few computer programing courses thrown in. The pay was decent and helped supplement Cindy's pay from her job as a Nurses Aide at the Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.

15. Fisheries Technician 1981 Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Pelican Alaska I managed to get on the state registry to be notified of employment opportunities and was thrilled when I received a telegram stating that a seasonal position was available in Pelican. I dug out a map and discovered that Pelican was a small dot on Chichicof Island in Southeast Alaska and jumped at the opportunity. I don't remember the salary but it seemed good when compared to the salaries in the Illinois or Wisconsin. More importantly it was in my field and promised great adventure. Unfortunately it would mean leaving my young bride for the duration of the summer. After flying the 1000 or so miles to Sitka I learned that I would be stationed at a Fold Storage facility in Pelican where I would count and separate salmon by species brought in by the commercial fishermen. Some of the fish would have a clipped off adipose fin indication that they had a micro tag imbedded in their forehead. On these fish I would place a wire tie through their mouth so that the heads could be preserved for later dissection and the micro tag removed. The micro tags would then be examined with a microscope so that the hatchery and river drainage of their origin could be determined. This job and especially Pelican was great fun despite the endless hours of standing in a dreary cold warehouse while a cold rain poured down almost every day. I lived in a bunk house with processor workers that would return after a 12+ hour workday covered in fish guts. I will need to write more posts about my time in Pelican since the experience was quite an eye-opener with many adventures involving giant toothless crab fishermen, life threatening tides and currents along with almost getting run over by an amphibious Otter mail plane. 

16. Computer Node Supervisor: 1981-1982 University of Alaska, Systems Computer Technology INC. The husband of a nurse friend of Cindy referred me to this position. He (Rodger Akers) held a position of some prominence at this company. SCT managed the computers at the University and I was hired to supervise the Computer Node. The Node was basically a room of CRT computer screens intermixed with some printing computer terminals. This was before the time of personal stand alone computers and when the idea of the Internet was in its infancy at government research laboratories. All the computer terminals had individual 1/4 inch cables connecting them directly to a Honeywell mainframe computer in the adjoining computer room. My duties primarily consisted of helping students and faculty debug their own programs as well as to make use of a few statistical codes already compiled and running on the mainframe. I had a staff of about 10 students also performing these tasks on a part-time basis. Computing and the tech field was booming and I was proud to be participating in it. Email seemed magical but was confined to the users with accounts on the Honeywell. At the beginning of every semester I would need to add new accounts and remove accounts for students no longer enrolled. As mentioned previously, SCT was a private company managing the computing resources for the university and they had hired me as an "outside contractor." Im sure this helped SCT's tax accounting somehow as it I later learned complicated mine. 

17. Network Technician: University of Alaska Fairbanks,Network Control 1982-1983 The university had decided to drop the SCT contract and begin managing their own computer infrastructure. I was given the choice of relocating to another SCT site or staying with the University. I had completed my schooling and obtained a Teaching Certificate and had a son on the way. I chose to take the full-time position with the University as part of the Network Control group headed by a man named Jerry Allen. They took me on despite my total lack of knowledge, education or training about electronics or computer networking. I quickly learned about RS232 connectors, statistical multiplexors, analog modems and microwave and satellite circuits that linked the state together. I learned the color code used inside 100 pair cables which was interesting since my boss, taught me and he was color blind. (he rarely made a mistake!) I loved the people I worked with party like atmosphere prevalent in the tech field and university environment at that time. So much activity, so many new things happening, including the birth of my son Jeremiah! As a throwback to the SCT contract I was entitled to live with my family at what was called the Pool House, a dilapidated house on campus that we shared with some of the other Node Consultants. This proved tenuous and when Cindy and I moved out,  the place was soon to be condemned. Hey, the place was rent FREE! (I think the dates for #16 and #17 might not be accurate but they are close)

18. Pro Data Boise Idaho 1983? Shortly after having a heated conversation with my manager (now Tom Healy)  concerning my salary I received a phone call from my friend Roger Akers (see #16). He was then working for a company called Pro Data in Boise Idaho. He invited me to interview to work for that company and I agreed. The phone call came to the cabin we were staying at moments after I had spilled a large pot of boiling water down my front. The cabin had only a wood stove for heat and no running water. I had been heating the water in preparation to bathe my infant son in a larger tub. Knowing that the ringing phone was my job interview I went ahead and answered it.  About 2 questions into the call, I finally blurted out that I was in tremendous agony and was trying to hold the phone with one hand while pressing two pounds of frozen hamburger to my now blistering crotch. They allowed me to reschedule the interview. What a first impression I must have made! At any rate I accepted the job and was soon winging my way on a jet with my son Jeremiah perched on my lap. (Cindy was completing her nursing degree at the university campus in Anchorage so couldn't accompany us.) Looking out the window at the desolate landscape below I got a sinking feeling in my gut that I had made a grave mistake. I was right. Pro Data had a very "suit and tie" culture, a culture I abhorred. ( I only owned one suit !) Boise with its rather snooty Mormon influence didn't sit well with Cindy either. My god, the women even wear make-up to go grocery shopping! My time in Boise were some of the darkest of my life. I recall seriously considering suicide by automobile while speeding down a dark highway one night! A large concrete viaduct, lonely road, inside a tiny Toyota, it would all be so easy. I do not blame friends Carol and Roger, or Pro Data, or even Boise itself. They all had tried to do me a favor. No its Alaska...it had ruined us to live anywhere else.

19. University of Alaska Fairbanks: 1983-2000 

I made it back to my beloved Alaska and was able to get my old job back at the university's computer network. This occurred after a phone call to my previous director, the same Tom Healy which I had exchanged words of disatifaction prior to my leaving 3 months earlier, informing him that I was once again in the market for a job. His reply, "I'll see what I can do." I had by this time decided I was headed back to Alaska so had started making arrangements to move back to Alaska. I had decided that I would prefer to be poor and unemployed in Alaska than anywhere else. I flew Cindy and Jeremiah back and scheduled to moving company to pick-up all our household goods. On the morning I was waiting for the moving company to arrive my telephone rang. It was Tom Healy calling to offer my old job back at a salary considerably more than what he had offered to keep me from leaving. I instantly accepted and then he asked when I start. I told him that I was currently sitting around the house waiting for the movers to arrive and thus could be back in the week or so that it would take me to make the drive. Somewhat flabbergasted, he asked, "You were that confident huh?" I told him no, but I figured I could be a desolate bum in Alaska as well as anywhere else!

During the next 17 years I progressed through numerous job titles and positions. I planned and participated in moving the entire network infrastructure from the Bunnel building on lower campus to the Butrovich building on upper campus. I participated in the transformation of the tech industry as it progressed from analog to digital; from terminals an mainframes to personal computers and from local networks to the global internet. One aspect that I enjoyed the most was traveling to all parts of the state to bring these changes to far flung places. I was able to see places like Nome ,Kotebue,  Ketchican, Sitka,St George Island and may more. It was exciting, fun and often incredibly hard physical and mental work. I installed the first fiber optic cables at UAF, crawling through the steamy, underground utilidoor network that criss-crossed the campus. I fell through the ceiling into a classroom of surprised students at the community college in Bethel and almost had the chance to visit Magadan Rusia, but that trip was stolen by my supervisor at the time, Bill Gregory. During these years I met and often befriended a multitude of colorful people, enough to fill the pages of a large book. The people were more exciting than even the exploding technology and I only wish I could share these adventures in their depth with future generations but I'm afraid the shroud of time will inevitably bury them for eternity. At least I got to live them!

20. University of Alaska, Arctic Region Super Computing Center (ARSC): 2000-2016? (pretty bad that I can't even remember my retirement date but I don't feel like looking through my paperwork)

The Arctic Region Supper Computing Center was a high performance computational center located at UAF funded primarily by the US Department of Defense's High Performance Computing Modernization Program and was founded in 1993. It housed various "super computers," some of the most powerful in the world during its existence. It provided computing resources for scientist researching everything from space physics, to submarine design, to sea ice and currents and earthly weather modeling. I was recruited to work their by fellow colleagues that had also worked at UA's computer infrastructure. I think they brought me on board not so much because of my technical knowledge or education but because of my willingness to do the type of work they did not really desire to do; cabling, moving and installing equipment, analyzing and arranging the the electrical power and air conditioning requirements of these power hungry computers. This position provided me with the opportunity to travel to and occasionally speak at national conferences, conduct tours of the computer room and provide connectivity to the super computers for scientists, staff and students, often times located in distant parts of the world. It became the crowning achievement of my tech related career. I had great fun, some great frustrations, especially frustrations with working within the DOD's bureaucracy, but the people I met and worked with more than made up for any of the frustrations. In a tangential way it allowed me to achieve my life long ambition of working in science. I may not have become a scientist myself but I was able to assist scientists in a plethora of fields pursue their projects. I am honored to have played a small part in their endeavors and to have worked with such a great bunch of people.

ARSC lost its DOD funding as Alaska's US Representative Don Young lost some of his clout and as UA fell behind in its ability to provide the electrical power and cooling required to feed these computers. The decline was somewhat gradual over a few years and ARSC's management did all they could to lessen the impact on its employees. Many were transferred to other positions and departments within the UA system. I was prostituted out to to spend half my time working for the Alaska Satalite Facility who in turn contracted to have me work on a joint project with NASA. (Hey! I finally achieved my childhood goal of becoming a rocket scientist..haha) It became evident that my bosses were primarily keeping me around out of deference to my proximity to retirement age and I was aware that I had somewhat become a dinosaur. The tech field had been booming with new developments occurring at a break-neck pace and I was slowing down. I no longer had the energy or desire to try to keep up and it was time to move on to make room for the more driven "young bucks" coming up behind me. I retired, with sadness but also great relief.

Retired and Onward:

I have never been one to deeply base my self identity in my career. However, reviewing this length post that was initiated with the idea of being much shorter, I have come to realize just how significant my work has been within my life. It certainly is not the whole story. There is romance, being a husband, rearing children and grandchildren and of course, fishing. However, working certainly has been an important thread in the tapestry of my life. People often say, "Do what you like." I say, "Like what you do!"