It was a cold and rainy night but several hearty individuals turned out for one of the best meetings we’ve had. What made the evening so interesting—in between the Tech Talk—was hearing the individual answers to the question, “What was your first job?” followed by, “What was your most unusual job?” Here are some of the answers:
First Job (most were at around age 14 or so):
- Camp Manager in the boonies of Juneau, AK; essentially living off the land.
- Bundle Dropper for my local newspaper; driven by my mother; midnight-6:00 a.m. every day.
- Chef, after moving up from dishwasher, in a restaurant serving primarily American food with occasional French dishes. Learned how to use a knife.
- Stripper (of furniture; not at Chippendales.)
- Host/Server at local restaurant, and ice cream parlor.
- Grocery Bagger—for tips only—at a military base commissary.
- Restaurant Staff
- Kennel Attendant for dogs whose owners were on vacation; during Biscuit Fire, the kennel had ~500 dogs!
- Office Manager (anything the owner [my father] didn’t want to do)
Most Unusual Job:
- Commercial Fisherman aboard 36′ wooden Halibut longliner run by two other high schoolers with no adult supervision; first real near-death experience.
- Replacement Wedding Planner at a local ranch; big responsibilities—including giving advice on the wedding event details, and helping with every element from guest seating to helping with dress problems in the changing room.
- English Teacher for Japanese students—in Japan—after about four months of training. Learned there are multiple dialects of Japanese.
- Orchard Smudger. Also: working the slime line at a fish cannery.
- Gymnastics Coach at local private gym. Coached elementary school-aged children and endured getting smacked in the face a couple of times by flailing arms.
- Website Developer for DEA; they were hoping to reverse-sting drug lords that shipped drugs inside the cylinders of overhauled automobile engines—or shampoo bottles.
- Grave Digger for a dead llama…had to decide how wide/deep to dig the hole(s), since llamas are fairly large and the dead animal was quite stiff. Go vertical (dig two really deep holes) or horizontal (dig one really wide hole)?
Join us next month to hear the answers to: “What was the trigger—or impetus—for you getting involved with the Computer Industry?
Tech Topics we discussed this evening included:
- Volocopter Flying Taxi; launched at CES.
- Yamaha YMR-01 Drone; showcased at CES.
- Casio’s Mofrel System that adds 3D textures to your printouts; costs $50,000! [Think: wrapping the dash or interior of your automobile with custom 3D “wallpaper”; possible new business?]
- CyberSecurity challenges: Meltdown & Spectre vulnerabilities in Intel Chips.
- Harry & David Server Farm and SAP’s massive memory requirements.
- Upcoming Tech Workshops at SOU: Fearless Freelancing (April) and TBD in May.
CocoaHeads meet every Second Thursday at The Brickroom on The Plaza in Downtown Ashland, starting at 6:00 p.m.
Author: Karen
Written: 1/15/18
Published: 1/15/18
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Please Note: Some of the photographs for this post were taken at a previous meeting.