Freedom 85

I’ve been working for some four decades. Hard to believe at times and given my choices, my working days are far from over.

I was tagged by my dear cyber pixie buddy fern hill of DAMMIT JANET! to take part in a blog community-building exercise that consists of listing the jobs that define you. This event is the brain child of blogger balbulican of Stageleft: Life on the Left Side.

So here is my list:

* baby sitter
* server (catering company)
* kitchen staff (Burger King)
* typist (35 wpm — yeah, that bad!)
* sales clerk (we actually won a car for best service at the maternity fashion store I worked at and us part-time employees fought to share equally in the prize – my first Norma Rae moment )
* waitress/manager (Wildflower Café – a losing proposition from the get go)
* marketing/promotions coordinator (orchestra/music school)
* research assistant (rating anger management performances for psych project)
* immigrant/refugee employment/training coordinator
* public relations clerk (University of Ottawa - got to meet Stanley Knowles and Maureen MacTeer during convocation events)
* hostess/waitress (Marble Works – known for feasting with your bare hands like in the good old medieval age)
* bilingual proof reader/graphic layout (diesel engines/military manuals – rumour was our manager lost the plot after making a mistake in de Havilland engineering manual that led to a horrific crash – he was a very angry task master )
* office administration clerk/manager (software development firm)
* radio producer/ host (CKCU – it was a volunteer position but still one of the most important gigs I ever had)
* poet (never got paid but did get published for over a decade)
* Tokyo nightclub hostess (I was actually fired by the mama-san after a short 3-4 weeks of moonlighting – her assistant got drunk and fell in love with a sumo wrestler so I was asked to wash the whiskey glasses and refused)
* promotions “model” (including dressing up like a cow girl to pass out coupons for the Pollo Loco outlet in a Tokyo shopping mall – I could barely say hello in Japanese)
* radio DJ (Tokyo – best job ever even though I was constantly berated for not playing enough top 40 hits)
* chorus girl (Children’s musical theatre – another volunteer experience but very eye opening given that I was blind and off-key most of the time)
* ESL instructor (Tokyo and Ottawa – reprimanded in one school for dressing to provocatively so I protested by wearing the same black school marm dress for three weeks straight)
* copywriter (marketing firm – biggest client was the opposition Liberals under Jean Chretien)
* film maker (shorts – first film the most successful and all has been downhill ever since, sigh)
* production/training coordinator (film group)
* film CCA/tax credit officer (Cdn Heritage – there for the transition from one subsidy support to another)
* cultural/arts policy analyst/adviser (Cdn Heritage – highlight was working on the WTO Split Run Magazine challenge)
* VP marketing (failed international development start-up – but got to go to conferences in Portugal, Austria and Italy)
* consultant (arts/culture/marketing/communications – current contract is taking me into more environmental and FN resource development areas)

As for selecting five bloggers to tag, my list is:

Mentarch at Another Point of View

Catchfire at Blind Man with Pistol

skdadl at Peace, order and good government, eh?

900 ft jesus at In the House and Senate

Simon at Montreal Simon