Operator, Office Worker, Order Taker, or Outdoorsman ( #AtoZChallenge )

 

       Operator is a job title that could mean a lot of things, but when I think of the term I think of a telephone operator.   Some of you probably remember the days when you could call "Operator" and get a real person instead of an automated system. They could connect you to numbers you needed to reach or find the numbers for you if you couldn't find them. An operator years ago was an actual human who could answer your questions and hopefully help you do whatever it was you needed to do on the telephone.  My maternal grandmother was a telephone operator back in 1919.  I never asked her about it because I never heard about this until after she died.  Operator sounds potentially interesting in its time, but now it is an anomaly for the most part.  Many jobs have become obsolete due to mechanization. 

       A few times over the years I have been an office worker to a certain extent.  I've rarely been confined to a desk all day doing clerical work, but I have worked in an office environment mostly answering phones and filling out paperwork.  But that is part of a manager job which was why I was doing office work.  And much of that office work entailed being an order taker.  Customers would call in to my office to place orders and I would enter those orders into the system to be shipped to the customers.  Order taking was one of my favorite office related jobs because I enjoyed interacting with customers.

        In my young adult years I fancied myself as a bit of an outdoorsman--to a limited extent at least.  I enjoyed hiking and camping, but I would never say I was enough of a pro to be acting in any professional capacity of outdoorsmanship.  These days I don't go outside all that much.  I'd have to drive a bit of a distance to escape the urban wilderness of Los Angeles and I don't care to be an outdoorsman in the city.  I like to watch television shows about it, but that's about as much wilderness that I can stand these days.

        What are your favorite outdoor activities?   Do you enjoy working in an office environment?  When's the last time you called an operator?

         

Navy guy, Nurse, Newspaper Writer, Novelist ( #AtoZChallenge )

 

        Navy guy might have been a career route that I could have taken in my life.  After I graduated from high school I could have looked into joining the Navy.  It was 1969 and Vietnam was going full guns and other deadly devices.  Since my father was in the Navy during World War II it might seem logical for me to follow the tradition--that is if I'd come from a military type family.  But my father was mostly recruited to play basketball on the Navy team.  He wasn't much of a sailor, but he was good enough of a basketball player to make the Navy want him on their team.  Sounds like a nice way to serve military time.

        My second wife became a nurse after our decade of being in show business together.  I heard her stories and those of other nurses who told their stories and I'm pretty sure I would not be good at nursing.  I guess a nurse gets used to the gross stuff and other weird stuff, but I don't know how I would be doing that occupation.  Sure, I could have been a nurse, but not.  No, not me.  But don't let me knock the nursing profession.  We need them and it's a great career move for young people looking for their life's work.

       Though now maybe more dream than reality, being a newspaper writer was long a dream profession in my younger days.  From the time I could read I was always fascinated with newspapers and the wonderful array of information and entertainment those pages contained.  My paternal grandfather had worked for a newspaper, but he was mostly a printer, though he did write some pieces for the paper at times or so I heard.  I never met him since he died several years before I was born.

      Novelist is more like it for me. I've long aspired to be a novelist. I've done some work on a few novels but haven't actually followed any through to completion.  Maybe someday I'll get a novel published.  Or something published.  Or maybe not.  But never say never as they sometimes say.

         Would you be good at a care job like nursing?   Did you like to read newspapers in your younger days or even now?   Have you achieved the dream of publishing your own novel?

       

-Marketing Researcher, Movie Star, Make-up Artist, Magician, Musician ( #AtoZChallenge )

 

 

          Marketing researchers don't bother me as much as telemarketers and I've done both.  I hated telemarketing vehemently, but I felt like the marketing research was more like a service to improve whatever it was we asking people about. Selling can be annoying, but often people are more than willing to give their opinions.  Everybody's got one like the saying goes. And some people just want to talk. I don't know if they still do marketing research like we used to do it back in the seventies and eighties when I was employed, but a look online tells me that the company I worked for is still in business and going strong from the looks of the website.

          Movie star was one of my childhood fantasy jobs.  In reality I probably would be cast as a make-up artist or some other behind the scenes work.  I did work as a movie extra once back in 1969 but that was my last and only film role.  However I spent many years selling make-up and other things to film production companies and to retail stores as well.  We distributed many popular brands of theatrical and Halloween make-up.

          Magician is more like it for me.  In my adolescent years I became interested in performance magic.  In my years of stage work in magic shows I sometimes performed magic tricks, but I never really considered myself as a magician.  I've known many magicians over the years and at previously mentioned company we sold magic tricks as well as make-up.

           Musician seems like the most desirable job to me.  I've always loved music and started playing violin in third grade.  For a short period in 1977 I actually worked as a fiddle player in a show at a dinner theater in Richmond VA.  It was pretty good pay while it lasted.  If I were to do anything in my retirement it would be to play music.  Never too late to do your dream job.

            How do you usually handle telemarketers?  What job in your life did you dislike the most?  Have you ever worked on a movie production?