Twenty-Six Lists - My Resume

Welcome to Twenty-Six Lists! I hope you'll join me in this simple link-up, where I share a writing prompt for some kind of list, and invite you to share what's on your list. Your list can be very simple or include lots of explanation; short or long; a bullet point list or essay style. Interpret the list prompts however you like, depending on how much time you have to spend, and how much background you'd like to share. 

Since this week started off with the Labour Day holiday, I thought it might be interesting to do a list related to work. For many years I was homeschooling my kids and not in the workforce, and when I reached the point in that journey where I could consider going back to work I wondered how my job experience would stack up, and if I had marketable skills any more. I remember joking about ways that homemaking, homeschooling, and volunteer skills could be described in a resume so that they sounded impressively professional! Well, as it turned out, I sort of stumbled into a couple of paying jobs that helped me make the transition back into the workforce.

When I was a young girl, I wanted to be a teacher. (If neither Princess nor Superstar Singer worked out, of course!) So did one of my best friends, and we played "school" together all the time. Eventually I went off to college aiming for a degree in Music Education. Life didn't turn out quite the way I'd pictured though. I wasn't able to transfer to the university I wanted for my second year, and I was planning to get married, so finishing that degree went on hold as I did other jobs that weren't what I'd dreamed of, but they were excellent jobs and paid the bills. I never did finish my degree, but I did get to spend over twenty years doing my dream job of teaching, since I home educated my own and taught a lot of other kids in co-ops and hybrid schools.

A list of jobs I'd held was one of the original Twenty-Six Lists I did a few years ago on Homeschool Coffee Break, so I brushed off that old resume and updated it for this list . . . with some extra background information and a bit of reflection on the skills or lessons I gained from those jobs.

Here's a fairly exhaustive list of the jobs I've held over the years:

Jobs on my Resume

1. My very first job was part time at a fast food restaurant. I didn't think about it at the time, but as an adult I've concluded that everyone should have to wait tables or do some low paying service or retail work in their lives. It's a valuable experience to learn to serve others without expectation of thanks or getting much in return, and being a 'servant' teaches you to be courteous and respectful of others. Having been on the serving side should make you a better customer.
2. My senior year of high school I had a sales and customer service job at a cable company. It paid better and I got more hours, but it wasn't what I'd signed up for. I expected to be doing more customer service which I liked fairly well, but I wound up doing mostly sales calls which I didn't like at all. Sometimes it was fine, but when I was expected to be pushy, I hated it. Again, it taught me something valuable - the people that make those sales calls (from legitimate businesses, not phishing operations) are just regular people doing a job; and the people that answer the phone when you call customer service are doing their best but they don't have a ton of control over the company's policies or issues.
3. I took a gap year after high school, and spent it working in accounts and as a fill-in receptionist at a factory. A bakery, actually. A friend from church was the office manager and got me the job, which was good experience.
4. After that first year of college, I went to live in my boyfriend's hometown for the summer (the boyfriend that became my husband the following summer!) and found a job doing accounts at a farm supply company. I enjoyed the people I worked with, and it started out as a great summer job. But I decided it was time to leave when my supervisor started having me make collections calls. I hated that, and went home in tears a few times before realizing that the supervisor was actually bullying me and I resigned.
5. Back home, a business owner from our church was looking for a new office manager, and the boyfriend and I had decided to move to my hometown at year's end, so I moved back home to take that job. It was a carpet cleaning company, but most of his business was cleaning apartments when they turned over and doing water damage clean-ups. Another really good job that gave me valuable experience in managing accounts and business communications.
6. Next full time job was doing accounts and data entry at an aviation company. This was a really cool job most of the time, and it was the first full time job I had that I landed without knowing anybody in the company at all. It's true that who you know matters as much as what you know - sometimes it matters more! - but it's also a great feeling to land a job solely on the strength of your resume and interview! I enjoyed the people I worked with and mostly enjoyed the job itself, but eventually there were some staff turnovers in the office that led to a new office manager that I did not like at all. He skeeved me so much that I turned in my resignation. I was flattered that the CFO tried to get me to change my mind, and offended when that office manager insulted me on my last day by saying that I'd never get another job that good and he expected me to come crying for my job back. That's why it was so terribly satisfying when our paths crossed again after I landed my next job . . . 
7. As comptroller at a heavy construction company. Comptroller was not my official job title, but is essentially what I did. I did all the accounts and ran the office end of the heavy construction part of the company. Sometimes I kind of felt like a high-powered office executive! Like the day I was taking my secretary out for a business lunch and met up with the office people from that previous job. Like I said, super satisfying to let that creepy office manager see that not only had I found another job, I was definitely a few rungs up the ladder. Haha!! The company offered to pay for me to finish classes to be a certified accountant, but I turned their generous career offer down because . . . by that time I was pregnant!
8. So Stay-at-Home Mom was my next job! When my boys were still very little I did a couple of stints as a paid church musician. Very part time. But of course homeschooling was very hands-on and definitely full time hours! I loved teaching and lesson planning and enjoyed teaching in our spring co-ops when the kids were young. 
9.  About ten or so years ago, I took a chance on a weekend job that was mostly for fun. I worked in the tasting room at a winery just down the road from where we lived. I considered it mostly because it was so close to home and just weekend. It turned out to be fun and educational because I learned a lot about wine.
10. My next job was another one I sort of stumbled into because a friend recommended me. I managed a small batch coffee roastery a couple of days a week. What made the company really special was that the owner's daughter who has Down Syndrome was our chief roaster, and she was great at it. So part of the company's mission included providing meaningful employment for developmentally delayed or disabled people. The other young man that worked there has Aspergers. Now I love coffee so the job was a great fit because of that, and I got to learn a lot about coffee, but I was surprised at how comfortable I became working with the special needs employees and managing their unique skill sets. I was working there in 2020 when covid happened, and thanks to all the restrictions and what-not I wound up working pretty much full time through most of that year and well into 2021. I resigned when some things got ridiculous and my knees were getting so bad I just couldn't be on my feet all day any more.
11. When my daughter was in high school, I joined forces with a small group of homeschool moms to found a tutorial that offered one day a week of high school level instruction. I was on the Board of Directors and tutored high school writing, literature, and history. And yes, as a tutor I got paid! I was finally getting paid to do that dream job of teaching! I absolutely loved teaching there and continued doing that even while working at the coffee roastery, and even after my daughter graduated. Right after I resigned at the roastery, another hybrid school in the city needed a middle school English teacher, so I took that on and taught three days a week that school year.
12. In 2022, my husband started working at a nursery (tree farm, not child care!), and they needed someone to do their books. I met with them and it seemed like a pretty good fit, as the hours would be flexible enough to allow me to continue teaching so I added that to my employment mix. My husband's job ended in the fall though, and my job did too. And then we moved to Ohio and I became truly unemployed!
13. I did continue tutoring the high school classes through video instruction, and did so until this past spring. But last summer I started doing accounts part time at a company here in Columbus. We had decided that I needed to look for a part-time job so I had something to do and could get out of the house and interact with people during the week. (I also figured I should find a way to finance my new barbershop singing hobby!) That job has worked out well and so at the beginning of this year I went full time there and that's what I'm doing now.

What jobs have you held? List all of them, or just your favorites or most recent. Or list the skill sets you bring to the workplace. Or maybe you'd like to list your top dream jobs!

The link-up is open for two weeks, with a new prompt every other Tuesday. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

If you'd like to think further ahead, you can find the list of all prompts for the 2024 Edition of Twenty-Six Lists on A Fresh Cup of Coffee here: Twenty-Six Lists - Accomplishments and Goals

Bonus List: The next few list prompts so you can think ahead!

September 17 - Daily Routine

October 1 - A To-Do List for Fall

October 15 - I'm Thankful For . . . 

October 29 - Autumn Menu

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