[NF] NF Best & Worst Jobs

[Lily flower]

NF's Tell us about your best and worst jobs you have ever had.

 

[SecondBest]

Worst job: I had a brief stint last year working at a brand new university that had just opened up - teaching ESL or English as a second language. Everyone I worked with, with the exception of three other ESL teachers, were insane. Literally. Because as I later found out, this wasn't a university, it was a religious cult using the university as a guise to recruit new followers into their religion.

Creepiness aside though, working in that environment was a lot like what I would imagine fighting in a warzone would be like. The psychological attacks and abuse from the cult members were tremendous and relentless when they saw I wasn't interested in them or their religion. They were highly suspicious. What made it doubly worse was that they also provided housing for me and the other teachers, and given their behavior upfront, we all felt paranoid about both our safety and whether or not there were hidden cameras in our rooms, watching our every move. Though I'm normally the kind of person who can stay calm under a lot of pressure and stress, I lost my cool for the first time in a work environment over a dispute about cafeteria access that had escalated over the course of two weeks. I was yelling and screaming so hard that I seriously, if not permanently, damaged a specific range in my voice (which sucks, because I used to sing a lot while I was in college).

I left after three months. I had a bad feeling right from the beginning, and if I weren't so desperate for money, I would never have taken the job. I only just recently stopped having nightmares and traumatic flashbacks about it.

Best Job: When I was in high school I worked for a local landscaping company for one summer. Loved it. Got to be outside, fresh air, exercise, and the physical labor has a way of allowing me to leave my brain for once - which is always a good thing. But most of all, the people I worked with were wonderful. I also worked at my uncle's vegetable farm this summer, too, and I enjoyed that as well for the same reasons.

 

[Rachel]

Worst jobs: Working in an office, sitting at a desk, doing something manual and routine

Best job: Doing research (library) for a professor as an independent study in grad school.

 

[mochajava]

@Rachel - what type of library research? I'm kind of in your position now (lots of research, data analysis, writing) and want to hear more about what worked for you and didn't. I need to figure out whether or not to sign onto this long term.

 

[Rachel]

@Rachel - what type of library research? I'm kind of in your position now (lots of research, data analysis, writing) and want to hear more about what worked for you and didn't. I need to figure out whether or not to sign onto this long term.

It was quite a while ago. But my job was to research a particular topic using the state university library system online. I also checked out a few books, worked on a bibliography for the professor's research project. He was impressed with the results. I've always liked/enjoyed research. But i wasn't required to do a detailed analysis of the texts or write any papers. I know it's long hours reading and pouring over books for days on end, and it can get a little tedious, makes a little difficult to have a social life, but if you like working on our own - suited to introverts, having flexible hours, and you really love the area of immersing yourself for long periods of time in studying/researching, writing papers, and enjoy and feel personally fulfilled by a career in academia full time, then it sounds like it could work for you for the long term. I'd love to hear your impressions of research study as well.

All the best in your endeavors.

 

[kyuuei]

Worst job: Same as Rachel. The benefits, fantastic, the people, decent, the pay, phenomenal, and the christmas bonus and general perks of the company were unmatched so far. Still, I hated it, because the manual, cold, calculated monotone labors were the same everyday. I thought if I had to put one more thing in alphabetical order I'd scream. I just hated doing such simple, mind numbing work. I wanted more, and I was capable of more.

Best jobs: Working with my aunt has the same lousy paperwork, but I like it because we can conversate and interact a lot. I enjoy my mliltary lifestyle currently because you get to be very extroverted with it, so I get my people fix. I enjoy the loose schedules of being a full time student, and I'm looking forward to working in the medical field in the near future. My short works at the Renaissance festival were pretty badass, I enjoyed playing around at work and getting paid to dress up in silly clothes.

I'd love to one day open up a cosplay cafe here in Texas. <3 <3 <3