Eileen Loveman Daily Posting

  Labor Day has come and gone once again, a beautiful sunny day spent with family and friends.  Although I am currently employed, I realized this weekend that I’ve probably had more jobs than I’d care to admit.  If I wasn’t downsized, focused out, reassigned, discharged, or terminated, it was because I beat them to it first. It's not that I am extremely incompetent or intolerant of other people. I love people! Its not that I haven’t spent a substantial amount of time on a job either, I lasted 7 years in one place. Its just the way things worked out, between balancing a career on one hip and babies on the other.

I can tell how long I’m going to last on a job after I’ve been there 2 days. I learned to never unpack my things until I’ve been there two weeks.    The first place I ever worked was a deli when I was 14 years old. I lasted two days because I couldn’t make correct change. Could make a great sandwich, but couldn’t make correct change. Next was a movie theatre. I was supposed to guide people to their seats with a flashlight. I was guiding an older lady one night and halfway down the aisle I forgot about her because I was too engrossed in watching the movie “Saturday Night Fever.” She tripped over some kid, down she goes and out I went.
 

As the years went by, I worked at various jobs, sometimes two at a time. I’ve been a pizza maker, a clerk in several department stores, a cashier at a supermarket, a home day care provider. That last job I fired myself. I was taking care of 13 kids all together (four were my own) and even though it was fun, I knew I had to get out of the Land of the Little People or I was never going to survive.
 

I worked for quite a while on a psychiatric ward. The floor that I was assigned to was for Geriatric Diabetic Women. Talk about mood swings. Its not just the mood that was swinging, let me tell you. That was a rough place if you reminded someone of their daughter who happened to have committed them! The nurses were paranoid someone was going to choke all the time, and if somebody stole a donut from the cafeteria, watch out, it was lock down time!!
 

I even sold cemetery plots. For one day. Too weird, even for me. I think the only position I haven't held is a waitress and school bus driver.
I’ve sold life insurance policies, I’ve filed car insurance claims. I’ve graced the halls of the Director’s Office of a hospital, in the legal department of the Yellow Box, and a Private Banking Assistant in a major bank. I have a closet just for my briefcases. Got to wear some great shoes, matching bags and suits for those gigs, too!
 

You would think that after all these differences of opinions (can I speak to you a minute, Miss?)  I would consider my self a gigantic loser. But I don’t. Nope. I have never felt bad about leaving a job because I realized that I took away from it another skill that I could incorporate into my next position. I always made friends and still keep in touch with most of them to this day. I was networking before it became fashionable.  It also gave me terrific empathy when it came time for me to have to fire someone.
 

I learned that all people really want is to be treated kindly, fairly and with respect. It’s appreciated when offered, grateful when its genuine. Sometimes it really is just a matter of finances. Budgets fail. Management comes and goes, positions change. I never took it personally. So every time I was asked to “ kindly walk with this security guard” or “give your keys to the officer”, or even “please get into the cab we’ve just called for you”, I walked away with a spring in my step, a song in my heart and a smile on my face. I hold no malice or ill will towards any of my former employers. I knew this was just another life lesson and that someday I would use it to my advantage.

Besides, the really mean ones always get their comeuppance – I would make them a villain in one of my stories and eventually kill them off.  Ah, sweet revenge.  I hope you had a great Labor Day, and don’t worry too much about things in the workplace you can’t control.  After all, we’re all in this together.