Category: Real Job Stories

At the beginning of this summer, I answered an ad for a garden help position in a list-serve for desperate students trying to earn extra cash. I sent a text message to the number listed on the ad in the hopes that I could earn a little cash by going over to this woman’s house to help out. Oh well.… Continue reading "Down in the Weeds by Ava Gardner"

Editor’s Note – Sarah is my neighbor, keen observer and FB reporter on the absurd human behavior witnessed on her daily commute on the Minneapolis Light Rail Green Line. Here is a selection of her posts. That personal indignation is a first cousin to a sense of justice is an outlook we can all relate to. Rock on Sarah, your… Continue reading "Train Nonsense by Sarah B."

My favorite job that I quit prematurely was as a carry-out “boy” at a well-known supermarket in Uptown, Minneapolis. I put it in quotation marks because we were almost all white, as I recall, not the people who usually had to endure being called boys, and because almost everyone was a teenager or a retired person. I was 21 and… Continue reading "No Tip Rule or My Favorite Job that I Quit Prematurely by Johnny Hazard"

      Most of us have worked a lot in out lives. It’s a part of life. And often, we’ve had bosses who cause us to wonder how they ended up in charge of anything in the first place. The worst part is if someone complains up the ladder about a bad boss they can end up in a worse situation… Continue reading "One for the Boss by Pat Shaughnessy"

My friend told me about this temporary job at a garden center around Xmas.  I could be a tree slinger, the person who loaded trees into or on top of people’s cars.  That was kind of heavy work and I was a wimpy 15-year-old kid, too skinny. The other opportunity was to be a Santa’s Helper elf. Much better. We… Continue reading "Elf for a Day by Joanne Banger"

      I started hustling about the age of twelve or thirteen. There was money in the neighborhood of my middle class midwestern city. A young person with an entrepreneurial spirit could fill their pockets with tax free cash. Me, I had my mind on my money.          What to do on summer vacation between 7th and 8th grade? I… Continue reading "Memoirs of a Neighborhood Hustler"

Village School Teacher in Alaska Feeling Grateful By Mike Stoesz Live your life, get out there, go north! In the spring of 2016, I was burned out and in a rut. I’d spent over twenty years in the same elementary school building In Minneapolis Public Schools, the last few as a district math specialist. School districts everywhere face budget cuts,… Continue reading "Village School Teacher in Alaska feeling Grateful by Mr. Mike"

A madcap adventure should include fleeing into the dark night of a foreign land in a Prince Charming costume, gold wooden sword knocking your knees and all that. In my slacker days one of my best triumphs was in 88 when I traveled to Japan to teach English and to mooch off my kid brother. Japan was a whole different… Continue reading "I was an Illegal Prince Charming by Magnus"

Confessions of a Bering Sea Cook – Chapter 2 By Tim Dempsey      Cooking is miserable on a boat in the Bering Sea. On my boat cooking was only half the job. You still worked on deck, you still did cargo, you still did wheel watches but in addition to that, you had to cook. It was an extraordinarily raw… Continue reading "Confessions of a Bering Sea Cook – Chapter 2 by Tim Dempsey"

My Life as a Research Scientist. Leonard Newton, Saint Paul, MN My wife doesn’t understand me.  My kids are the same.  I work all the time, but it isn’t work at all.  It is fun, like a video game or Sudoku, like solitaire on steroids.  It is COOL. How did I get so lucky?  By not caring so much about… Continue reading "My Life as a Research Scientist by Leonard Newton"