Started my work career at Orange Julius in Lakeside Shopping Center when I was 15. I learned how to add really fast in my head and that hungry people are mean.
Went onto the N.O. Int’l Airport -started off as cashier, line server and ended up cocktail waitress/bartender/hollow-legged friend of older women.
After college flunk-out - bartended at a lovely hotel, then moved to front office and did the night summarizing for years, all the while checking guests in or out, answering the switchboard and expediting other employees to handle guest demands - like security for the big bug in the guest’s room. The graveyard shift only had one lonely desk clerk who handled the same jobs of three people during the day. I ate breakfast in the restaurant every morning before going home and sleeping off the night.
The hotel closed for rebuilding. It was old.
I went back to school, got a computer programming certificate from a vo-tech and then set my sights on the most boring job I could find. I was a computer operator for an insurance company for over 3 years. I watched a file clerk, who worked in a windowless room for 10 years, have a nervous breakdown and come out screaming profanities as she was exiting. It was quite a rant. She never came back. I knew that she was me in 7 years.
I had two babies.
I did many things for supplemental cash during the at-home Mom years; watched another’s baby, cleaned houses, little odd jobs here and there (not that odd).
Then, I met bi-polar boss and became an executive producer for his entertainment company. It was fun in the beginning. My computer skills got a lot better. I was expected to do anything and everything to get a theater up and running. The only thing I didn’t do was get people to support it financially. Nobody wanted to come to an old, run-down theater for anything more than the Rocky Horror Picture Show (good setting for that) and then the Asst. Director for that troupe was arrested for a couple of murders - which wasn’t good for business either. During that time, I produced an Improv Show that I am very proud of. I had some Masters in the troupe. I love good, live Improv, and they were the best. The boss pulled the plug on it after a few weeks, though it started building a following. He was determined to get prime, first-run movies in that theater, though studio distributors were telling him to go art-house. There was no reasoning with a man who thought he was smarter than anybody. I stopped trying to because he was ego-maniacal and held my purse-strings.
Got laid off for obvious reasons after 9/11.
Floundered some, helped my Dad and then Father-in-Law make their transitions, then got a call to work at Synchronicity - a new age retail store. I did it because of the hours 12-6, with Sundays and Mondays off, and because I could take my kids to work with me. Business was very slow, dismally so. I thought it was going to close any minute.
I started rearranging, having the owner invest in merchandise that I thought might work, holding weekly guided meditations, and classes in Kabala and Astrology (which I taught), and working all the angles that I could. It was a neat place - with a free tea stand, lending library, and it smelled good.
After running it for over a year, I made the owner an offer, invested in more merchandise, put the utilities and phone in my name and became the proud owner. What I forgot to get was a little thing called insurance.
A month later - the hurricane took care of that nagging question of “will it work?”
Since then, I have had 6 jobs - the first one was a day, the second 3 half-days, the third was for 3 and a half days, the fourth one was a week, the 5th was 4 months, and then this last one has been almost 8 months.
During this time, I have also pursued making a living at my two passions: I am a very good actress - focused and disciplined, able to emote at the drop of a hat, good memorization ability. I prefer comedy - it’s all over my face. I have done stints as an “extra”, but pretty much hate doing that. I’ve got it in my head that I am deserving of a decent role - maybe a nosy neighbor, or somebody’s Mom.
I am also an intuitive Astrologer. I use Tarot and Reiki when I have to. I am not above divining by I Ching or Goddess Cards. And mostly, I just use plain old intuition when responding to a client‘s issues. I am very good at getting to the root of a problem.
In other words, I am a freak. I occasionally get paid for my services, but mostly I read for friends, and as an Aquarian, everyone easily becomes my friend. It’s a 12th house Sun I have, so therefore boundaries are easily dissolved and my sympathies easily tweaked. How can I charge someone in a more penurious situation than I am if my God-given skills can help shed light on it?
There’s my resume, sort of. I have had other ones for administrative work, food and beverage, and acting. They all speak of my qualities of honesty, reliability, and versatility. I should get them all updated now instead of sitting here doing this.
On to it…
