I’ve been doing a lot of different things during our interim season and one of those is just picking up odd jobs to help pay the bills. Today and one day last week I spend a lot of back breaking time digging holes around old fence pole so that we could reinforce them with more concrete. In the process, I thought about the Shrewd Manager in one of Jesus’ parables. The guy was about to lose his job and didn’t know what to do because he felt like he was “not strong enough to dig, and was ashamed to beg.” So in the turning of earth, I thought, “man I really know how that old boy must have felt.” He came to mind not because I’ve lost a job or have been dishonest, but just because I can relate to not really being built for a life of ditch digging. But I did put my back into it and was grateful for the work. I also thought about all the other jobs that I’ve had in life not including full-time Christian service. I think the best job I’ve ever had was working in the electronics department at Sears during my last year of college. I think my worst job, next to digging ditches, was working at Godfather’s Pizza between my 9th and 10th grade years in High School. I think the big issue there was that the manager was always negative toward everyone and talking behind people’s backs. It really got heated when we were all accused of taking money from the till, especially when we knew it was the assistant manager’s boy friend. What about you? What are some of your best and worst job experiences and why?
Hey Randy,
Why in the world would you think my patrol was responsible for that?
My worst job? That’s easy – my first job… Red Lobster. I was 16 years old and too green to know that NO human should be subjected to the Red Lobster dish pit unless they were a convicted felon. That job was the definition of nasty. Food, dishwater, and unidentifiable slop was all over me every day that I came home so that I actually had to undress (as much as was legal) on my front porch because the family couldn’t stand the stench of my clothes and shoes in the house until I at least hosed them off.
We would have to drag 55-gallon trash cans filled with slop to the dumpster out back and hoist them up about 7 feet to tip them over the side of the dumpster. After dragging the heavy plastic trash cans across the parking lot repeatedly, holes would start to appear along the bottom of the cans. So when I would hoist these cans up over my head, the slop and mock would drain through the holes, down my arm, onto my head and all over my body. Bar none the nastiest job I’ve ever had. Real “Dirty Jobs” material.
The best job I’ve ever had? Easy – whatever job I had when I quit Red Lobster!
Thinking back, I don’t know if I have had a worse bad job, unless you count the 2 weeks I worked at a child care center and quit after having wooden blocks thrown at me by children. The director couldn’t understand why I was upset. She just said that was children’s behavior. I have been blessed with many fantastic jobs, but would really say my career is the best! I can’t imagine a better profession than to be in the public school system and affect children’s lives for the kingdom of God! I know people say that the church and state must stay seperate, but you can’t seperate my best friend, Jesus, from who I am. I just live Jesus for those little kids and see their lives change right before my eyes! What a great life!
The worst job was cleaning the fryer at college after fried chicken day. That was awful. I an glad I never worked at KFC or popeyes.
2nd worst was stacking firewood on camping trips after Steve’s crew (I think) had been bad and the whole group had to stack firewood.