Printer, Publisher, Packer, Painter, Psychologist ( #AtoZChallenge )

 

         Printer might have been a good career choice for me.  My grandfather, my father's father, was a printer and quite a respected and accomplished printer at that.  Sadly I never got to meet him since he died well before I was born.  My father was only 12 years old when his father died in 1936.  From what I've read about my grandfather, he was not only highly proficient at his job, but he was considered to be one of the most well-read men in Clarksburg WV.  Sounds like a man that I would have liked to have met and sat down to talk about history and what he had read.  Maybe some printer gene was passed down to me since I am so fascinated by printed works and newspapers.  I never went into any kind of print profession, but I guess I could have.

        Maybe I could get into publishing one day. I know there are some bloggers who are also publishers of books and such. Publishing would certainly give me some advantage to having my own books published, but I guess I'll leave that job to someone else.  That is, if I ever have a book that needs to be published. And that could happen you know. 

         A number of my previous jobs have involved packing whether it was packing boxes to ship to customers or packing truckloads to ship to wherever. Packing is something that I enjoy.  It's much like putting a puzzle together at times.  When I was working on roadshows, the first packing of the truck was usually a bit of a challenge to get everything onboard just right the first time.  After that we would always pack the truck the same way to make the process fast and expedient. Of course, since I was manager, I was usually involved in the business of the show itself while everyone else did most of the packing. But over the years I did plenty of my share of that work.  I didn't mind it at all for the most part.

        Prior to going on the road with a show, I was involved in much of the show prep and a big part of that was painting sets, props, and show cases so I did a lot of wielding of paintbrushes during those times.  I've also painted walls in houses--my own and others.  In my senior year of high school my parents let me paint our family room with a wild psychedelic design and that became a gathering place for many of my friends for a number of years.  After I moved out of the house they eventually painted and then paneled over my artwork.  I wonder if anyone will ever discover it years from now and wonder about it all?

         My plan going into college was to major in psychology and become a psychologist or something in that field.   I pursued that aim for a couple of years until I switched over to a major in English.  Psychology still interests me a great deal, but I'm probably better off for not having gone into the profession.  I've got enough problems of my own let alone take on someone else's crazy problems.  I'm good at listening, but I'm not sure I give the best advice.

        Did you follow through on your initial career aims of high school?   How are your organizational skills when it comes to packing?   Have you found a good publisher that has helped you achieve your writing goals?

        

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?