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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > July > 10 > Entry
The “inspiring” lessons of summer jobs
Over at the teacher blog Get Lost, Mr. Chips, the question is, “What were your best and worst summer jobs?”
OK, I’ll play your silly game.
My best summer job, hands down, was when I got paid $8.25 an hour to watch TV for Dayton Power and Light while I was in college.
My boss was the recently-hired VP for public relations at the power company, and he was sick and tired of going to meetings and being asked about news items other top executives had seen on the news but that he had missed. He had a clipping service for newspapers, but it was impossible for him to watch every news broadcast on every station.
So he bought three televisions and three VCRs and hired a college student. I came in every day around 8 a.m. and reviewed the 11 p.m. news from the prior evening along with the early morning news. Then I’d return about 7 p.m. and watch all the mid-day and evening news broadcasts. If there were any stories that even mentioned DP&L, I dubbed a tape of the report and left it for the VP to review and route to other top execs.
Not only was this easy money, I also made funny highlight tapes of news bloopers, weird stories and sports highlights. I kept the job into the school year and ended up with a great compilation of news reports about the University of Dayton’s NCAA tournament basketball run my senior year and the accompanying near riots in the student neighborhood known as the “Ghetto.”
My worst, or at least weirdest, summer job was in high school when I was growing up in Princeton, N.J. Somehow I got a job one summer as an “animal caretaker” at Princeton University’s psychology department research laboratory. My first day I was led into a room stacked to the ceiling with caged rats. It was my job to feed them, water them and clean their litter. By the end of my time there I was immune to bad smells that overcame others who entered the “rat room.”
There was also the monkey room. The monkeys were the most trouble. The little buggers spent the whole summer outsmarting me. Their cages were spring-latched, and I noticed how one monkey in particular, they named him Honduras after his home country, would watch intently as I opened each cage. It didn’t even occur to me that he hoped to pick the lock!
But sure enough, by watching me Honduras figured out how to open the cage. At first I would find him sitting in there with the cage door wide open in the mornings. I tried wrapping the door with a chain, jamming the lock with a stick and other improvisations to keep Honduras from getting the door open but every morning that door would be sitting open and I swear he’d have a little smirk on his face at the back of the cage.
Then Honduras got a little braver. One night he opened the cages of the other five monkeys on his cell block. These guys were housed together in a small room with a little more than a small desk and cupboard. But his cellmates were not afraid to scavenge around. By morning, I had a huge mess to clean up and the monkeys had about made themselves sick by eating a whole bottle of their apparently tasty vitamins. And I got chewed out by the lab director.
So what did I learn from these experiences? Well I suppose it was clear at an early age that I had a real talent for watching television and that when it came to brains, I was no match for a central American monkey. Inspiring, eh? Perhaps I can blame a few low grades on these experiences.
What were your best and worst summer job experiences?
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Teaching and Learning
Comments
By cathy
July 11, 2006 2:49 PM | Link to this
All my summer jobs were easy. My favorite was when I was a receptionist at a hair salon. I answered phones, scheduled appointments, dusted, and got free haircuts.By Oldprof
July 11, 2006 10:21 AM | Link to this
Old memories. Best: car wash—lots of fresh air and down time for reading. Worst—two weeks as vacation relief for a warehouse janitor, involved pushing around a gas-engine driven vacuum for most of the day, back before there was any notion of hearing protection.By Mary
July 11, 2006 8:42 AM | Link to this
While I do not believe we had a rat room or monkey room, we had lots of smells on the farm with pigs, cows and chickens - and it was not just a summer job. How many “well-rounded” school kids even have a summer job? There were some good aspects to growing up on a farm, as well - lots of natural scenery and wide open spaces, quiet, nature, riding horses, and lots of fresh air on other parts of the farm.By Hillary
July 11, 2006 2:34 AM | Link to this
Best was the summer after graduating high school when I babysat through the week for 3 kids. I would get there early in the morning before the kids were up and then make them breakfast as they got up. They were pretty cool kids and I was home by 6 each night and I still got to relax in the pool and play cards, video games, on the trampoline, etc. with the kids during the day. Piece of cake.