Odder jobs

When I wrote about writing out my job history as a story, I mentioned that I even included the earliest things like sport jobs. I did not get paid for managing the soccer and basketball teams, but for the track team I was officially keeping score, and I earned $12 a meet for that.

I also ran the clock for summer basketball, and that was a paid position. I scheduled McDonald's shifts around it, where I might have made more money just taking more shifts at the drive-through, but I liked sports, and I liked doing sports jobs.

That almost changed with umpiring Little League Softball. It was terrible.

This was a long time ago, and I know that it isn't like this anymore. This was over a decade before Mo'Ne Davis was even born. I don't know if some of the changes that have led to the players doing better have pushed out less athletic kids or if coaches are meaner - I hope it's still good for everyone. I just know that in the late '80s, based on the two games I did in this corner of the world, it was awful.

No one could really hit or pitch well. The most common thing that would happen was that there would be four balls so the batter would take a base, until that happened often enough to hit the 5 run limit per team per inning, and at that rate the games were never completed before it got called on account of dark.

That sounds really boring - and it was - but any time the monotony was broken by someone actually swinging and hitting the ball, no matter what happened, half of the parents would be mad at you, and there was no loyalty won with the parents who liked the call.

It sucked. There's really no other word. That being said, the guy I was doing it with kept doing it, so he obviously hated it a lot less.

That wasn't the best career fit for me, so I believe that not taking any more game assignments was a good choice, but I don't regret trying it. It is at least an interesting memory for me.

A more interesting story for me is the job I didn't get.

I always needed more money when I was in college. It didn't matter that I took time off to work; college was expensive and it was still much better then than it is now. Ways I earned money while there included working in the dorm cafeteria the first few years and the Science library my senior year, working at the Customer Service booth at the Albertsons on 18th & Chambers, and occasionally participating in lab experiments. I also applied for a lot of jobs that I did not get, and one of those was stand up comedian.

It was a bar that had live music, and they wanted four fifteen minute sets a night to give the band a break. I auditioned for the manager in the bar, but in the middle of the day when it was closed.

She really liked me at the audition. I think it was my first time doing it. I have done stand up routines at various talent shows, but that came later. For this I did pretty well. I realized as I was saying it that some jokes needed fine-tuning, but still she laughed and enjoyed me and it was great.

She did want me to audition again with new material, because I was geared more toward college students, and the main clientele here was actually truckers. You may think of Eugene as a college town, but outside of the immediate vicinity of the campus, it kind of isn't. I agreed to develop some material and come back, but she called me almost right away and it wasn't going to work out.

There was cash payment, but also a bar allotment. I don't drink, and could not have legally then anyway. She was going to see if they could pay a little more cash to compensate, but it turns out that my mere presence in the bar would have been an issue because of that whole minor thing. You can be there as a performer (including strippers), but only while performing. As it is important to be in tune with the crowd by being able to observe and listen, it again just wasn't a good fit.

I don't feel horrible about it, and it certainly wasn't something I would have wanted for a career, but it would have been a fun thing to have on my resume.

It's all been pretty conventional since then.

Did you know that I once spent a day cleaning 3-D glasses for a special train exhibit and preview for the Jim Carrey Christmas Carol?