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spikesgirl58, who got it from someone who heard it on NPR.
List your first 7 jobs!
1. Assistant at a law office: I was 18, and this was the summer between my senior year of high school & freshman year of college. I had gotten my first car, so I was capable of even HAVING a job for the first time. I lived on a farm about 20 miles outside town, so without transportation, there wasn't much I could do. I was so excited to have an office job! I did a lot of filing, a lot of errand running, went and got lunch for everyone, etc. Three days a week, 8 to 5. Good times, cushy job for my first one!
2. Clerk at post office at my college: Small post office on Harding University campus. In addition to distributing the actual mail, we dealt with a lot of on-campus mail, which was free. It was kinda fun that you could just drop something in campus mail with someone's personal box number on it & it would make it there. I sent all kinds of stuff to my friends. Pledge week was SO ROUGH--it's when everyone was accepted into the "social clubs" (Harding's version of sororities & fraternities). SO MANY PACKAGES! SO MANY FLOWERS!
3. Secretary for a "crop duster": This is a colloquialism for someone who does aerial application of agricultural products. Pesticides, fertilizers, etc. They're sprayed on from small planes rigged for this purpose. This lasted only part of a single summer between my sophomore & junior years at college. It was one of those "feast or famine" kind of jobs where I either was on the phone and actually DOING things constantly, or I was literally doing nothing but waiting for the phone to ring. I plowed all the way through the Wheel of Time series at that job, which at the time consisted of 8 books.
4. Unpaid intern at a local manufacturer: This was for my communication degree at Harding. I worked in the publication/public relations department, doing stuff for the company magazine mostly. Took some photos, did some photo editing work, wrote some copy. Didn't get paid. Yuuuuuuck!
5. Service manager at a dictation equipment business: First job out of college! This was in Dallas, where we lived for about 6 months in 2001. I did scheduling for the service technicians who repaired the dictation equipment sold by our company. I just googled them and they still exist!
6. Secretary: This was at the local university after Bryan & I moved back here to Arkansas. Looking back, the director of that department was SO toxic. So, so very bad for my mental health. I did get a huge tuition discount for Bryan though, who was going back to school at the time, as he hadn't been able to find decent work with an advertising degree.
7. Software support technician: This was for a company that made utility billing software. Spent all day on the phone helping people with computer problems, and occasionally took business trips to do the initial installation and show them how to start using it in the first place.
For those of you who are new to my LJ, I had one more job after #7: I worked for an interior lighting company who designs & manufactures the lamps you might by at Target & Wal-Mart. I'm not sure what you'd call my job; I coordinated a lot of communication between the ladies who chose what designs would happen, the manufacturers in China, and shipping to stores in the US. I didn't really have a single defined job function; I did whatever was needed. That meant I was laid off first when the company hit a bad patch. I went on unemployment for a while and hunted desperately for another job, but eventually decided I wanted to go back to school--either to be a high school science teacher or a nurse. I suppose you know what I chose. :)
During nursing school, I met my good friend Tashina. She and I went through the one year accelerated BSN together, and then we chose to start our doctorates the same year as well, graduating together in May of this year. While I'm an acute care nurse practitioner, though, she chose the path of a family/psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner (a dual doctorate!). It's this that made me realize something today. I told her she's totally ruined the character of Harley Quinn for me!
The basic conceit of Harley Quinn is that she was a psychiatrist who practiced in Arkham Asylum, and the Joker won her heart with sob stories and basically being super interesting. As we all know, he also abuses her both mentally & physically and it's basically one of the least healthy relationships in the entire universe (up until recent events in the comic, I've heard, though I don't read it). Only, to me, it's totally not believable. It's based on the idea that he was able to basically con her into loving him. I've seen the stuff Tashina knows about her patients; she sees through their crap when they don't even know it's their crap! Given the jaw dropping assessments I've seen her make, I just can't swallow that Harleen Quinzel the accomplished psychiatrist would fail to see through the Joker's garbage. That's too far out there, even for comics. ;) Tashina has declared it "fantastic" that she ruined this for me.
spikesgirl58, who got it from someone who heard it on NPR. List your first 7 jobs!
1. Assistant at a law office: I was 18, and this was the summer between my senior year of high school & freshman year of college. I had gotten my first car, so I was capable of even HAVING a job for the first time. I lived on a farm about 20 miles outside town, so without transportation, there wasn't much I could do. I was so excited to have an office job! I did a lot of filing, a lot of errand running, went and got lunch for everyone, etc. Three days a week, 8 to 5. Good times, cushy job for my first one!
2. Clerk at post office at my college: Small post office on Harding University campus. In addition to distributing the actual mail, we dealt with a lot of on-campus mail, which was free. It was kinda fun that you could just drop something in campus mail with someone's personal box number on it & it would make it there. I sent all kinds of stuff to my friends. Pledge week was SO ROUGH--it's when everyone was accepted into the "social clubs" (Harding's version of sororities & fraternities). SO MANY PACKAGES! SO MANY FLOWERS!
3. Secretary for a "crop duster": This is a colloquialism for someone who does aerial application of agricultural products. Pesticides, fertilizers, etc. They're sprayed on from small planes rigged for this purpose. This lasted only part of a single summer between my sophomore & junior years at college. It was one of those "feast or famine" kind of jobs where I either was on the phone and actually DOING things constantly, or I was literally doing nothing but waiting for the phone to ring. I plowed all the way through the Wheel of Time series at that job, which at the time consisted of 8 books.
4. Unpaid intern at a local manufacturer: This was for my communication degree at Harding. I worked in the publication/public relations department, doing stuff for the company magazine mostly. Took some photos, did some photo editing work, wrote some copy. Didn't get paid. Yuuuuuuck!
5. Service manager at a dictation equipment business: First job out of college! This was in Dallas, where we lived for about 6 months in 2001. I did scheduling for the service technicians who repaired the dictation equipment sold by our company. I just googled them and they still exist!
6. Secretary: This was at the local university after Bryan & I moved back here to Arkansas. Looking back, the director of that department was SO toxic. So, so very bad for my mental health. I did get a huge tuition discount for Bryan though, who was going back to school at the time, as he hadn't been able to find decent work with an advertising degree.
7. Software support technician: This was for a company that made utility billing software. Spent all day on the phone helping people with computer problems, and occasionally took business trips to do the initial installation and show them how to start using it in the first place.
For those of you who are new to my LJ, I had one more job after #7: I worked for an interior lighting company who designs & manufactures the lamps you might by at Target & Wal-Mart. I'm not sure what you'd call my job; I coordinated a lot of communication between the ladies who chose what designs would happen, the manufacturers in China, and shipping to stores in the US. I didn't really have a single defined job function; I did whatever was needed. That meant I was laid off first when the company hit a bad patch. I went on unemployment for a while and hunted desperately for another job, but eventually decided I wanted to go back to school--either to be a high school science teacher or a nurse. I suppose you know what I chose. :)
During nursing school, I met my good friend Tashina. She and I went through the one year accelerated BSN together, and then we chose to start our doctorates the same year as well, graduating together in May of this year. While I'm an acute care nurse practitioner, though, she chose the path of a family/psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner (a dual doctorate!). It's this that made me realize something today. I told her she's totally ruined the character of Harley Quinn for me!
The basic conceit of Harley Quinn is that she was a psychiatrist who practiced in Arkham Asylum, and the Joker won her heart with sob stories and basically being super interesting. As we all know, he also abuses her both mentally & physically and it's basically one of the least healthy relationships in the entire universe (up until recent events in the comic, I've heard, though I don't read it). Only, to me, it's totally not believable. It's based on the idea that he was able to basically con her into loving him. I've seen the stuff Tashina knows about her patients; she sees through their crap when they don't even know it's their crap! Given the jaw dropping assessments I've seen her make, I just can't swallow that Harleen Quinzel the accomplished psychiatrist would fail to see through the Joker's garbage. That's too far out there, even for comics. ;) Tashina has declared it "fantastic" that she ruined this for me.
