What’s the most darkly memorable job you’ve ever had?
It took a long time for me to get my footing as a writer. Before I figured out a way for writing to pay the bills, I had my share of strange, random jobs with strange, random people. The strangest and most random was with an “entertainment” company.
No, not that kind of entertainment.
This one-man shop (plus me) put on special events. From parade floats to corporate parties, if it was an event, the boss would do it. He was a musician at heart and had a passing acquaintance with a good number of musical names from the seventies which have long since passed into oblivion.
He looked like Santa Claus and was always just on the verge of making it big—in his mind, at least. The more convoluted the get-rich-quick scheme the better. Once he got a line on a Russian MiG fighter that he tried to broker for a cut of a cool million or two.
He failed.
None of his plots came to fruition. If he’d spent half his time just doing the work instead of chasing fast money, he probably would have been successful.
Most of my time was spent in a grungy office, shifting months of past-due bills from one late pile to another. The boss had figured out to the day at which point the utilities would get cut off for non-payment. He’d only pay the oldest bill when it was absolutely necessary to avoid the lights going out.
He always paid me on time though.
So what about you? What’s the best-worst job you’ve ever had?