Friday Five: Labor Day

Over at RevGalBlogPals, Singing Owl notes:
Here in the USA we are celebrating the last fling of the good ol' summertime. It is Labor Day weekend, and families are camping, playing in the park, swimming, grilling hotdogs in the backyard, visiting amusement parks and zoos and historical sites and outdoor concerts and whatever else they can find to help them extend summer's sun and play just a little bit longer.

It is supposed to also be a celebration of the working man and woman, the backbone of the American economy, the "salt-of-the-earth nieces and nephews of Uncle Sam. With apologies to those in other countries, this is a Friday Five about LABOR. All can play. Put down that hammer, that spoon, that rolling pin, that rake, that pen, that commentary, that lexicon, and let's have some fun.

1. Tell us about the worst job you ever had.
For three months, I assembled printed circuit boards at a CB radio factory. There were many bad things about this job (like, a very crowded cafeteria with a clannish rural population not interested in meeting anyone new; coworkers whose main topic of conversation was how wasted they got over the weekend; low pay) but the worst was that I wasn't really any good at it. It was my first and only experience at a job that I really couldn't do on a high level. Fortunately I'd put in an application at the library and after three months there was a vacancy there.

2. Tell us about the best job you ever had.
Maybe it was just the comparison with the one preceding it, but I think perhaps it was working at the public library in a small Minnesota town, at the circulation desk and also riding the bookmobile two days a week. Books, people, seeing the countryside, and all the people I worked with were nice (well, except the embezzling bookkeeper -- but that's another story and I didn't have too much to do with her.)

3. Tell us what you would do if you could do absolutely anything (employment related) with no financial or other restrictions.
Do genealogy for hire. I can actually do this right now if anyone wants to hire me. Reasonable rates!

4. Did you get a break from labor this summer? If so, what was it and if not, what are you gonna do about it?
Alas, I did not have any labor to get a break from. This weekend I get a break from dog-walking because Onkel Hankie Pants and Rusty went camping. But that doesn't really count. I applied for a job a while back and didn't get it and worse still, the week after I was "not selected" the same ad appeared in the local paper -- in other words, it wasn't that someone else was better than me. So I'm feeling fairly unemployable right now.

5. What will change regarding your work as summer morphs into fall? Are you anticipating or dreading?
See #4 -- no change anticipated.

Bonus question: For the gals who are mothers, do you have an interesting story about labor and delivery (LOL)? If you are a guy pal, not a mom, or you choose not to answer the above, is there a song, a book, a play, that says "workplace" to you?
The only interesting thing about my 3 labors is that they were all fairly short. Having been prepared for my first by a Lamaze instructor who'd had a 24-hour one, I was worrying that there were no sandwiches made for OHP to eat while waiting -- ha! He was home by lunchtime!