What do you want to be when you grow up?

[Maybenartist]

Funnily enough I wanted to be an artist or a military pilot.
I did everything from being a cobbler, digging trenches for foundations of houses, decorating, massive scrap yard, working on overhead electric lines and working every job until my bones ached to finally owning companies.
Looking back, my best times were the manual work type jobs, they gave me much more satisfaction than receiving a big cheque and I much preferred the camaraderie of manual workers. I could never have worked in a factory, it would have destroyed me, so hats off to the people that do.

 

[Artyczar]

While I was an artist and musician, I was also a lot of other things, as I took other jobs to support myself, which included being a pattern maker, pizza place hostess, t-shirt printer, waitress/sandwich maker/cook (a little European café), vinyl siding sales, market researcher, envelope stuffer, bulk mailroom worker, shipping and receiving at a print gallery, data entry at a gallery, bank teller, professional picketer, house painter, light construction, messenger dispatch, flower deliverer, administrative assistant, drug counselor, administrative executive, gallery manager, pattern business accounting manager, horoscope writer, commercial artist/illustrator's assistant, webmaster/designer, art writer, author, and gallery owner. There's probably more, but that's all I can think of right now.

 

[laf.art]

A varied working life Arty. Remember when people took a job for life. I personally couldn't have stood the thought never mind the work haha. I know a guy who, at 17 or 18 had started a local government job, I asked him what he was aiming for, thinking better jobs etc, he said 'my pension'. I thought how can any young person spend their whole working life just thinking about the pension.Different times I suppose

 

[Artyczar]

I knew people like that. They're actually not appreciated anymore because it is different times. My father worked at the same place for almost 25 years. Then they let him go with two weeks pay and a wave goodbye. Government jobs are better I guess. When my dad set up his own business, I worked for him (not full time) for twelve years while I did all these other things I mentioned, but there were months at a time when I didn't work for him at all--when I "had enough!" One thing when working for your dad, you have the ability to have a job when you were ready to come back to work. Nowadays, people are damn lucky to have any kind of job at all.

I also would not have been able to have a "real" boss for too long. I think the longest I stayed anywhere was three years full time when I was a drug counselor/administrator exec., but I only had one person above me there.

 

[musket]

I knew what my goals in life were by the time I was eighteen. To build excellent guitars, to play the guitar blues very well, and to love and be loved by beautiful, interesting women (they never learn about musicians).

I was a guitar bum for most of my working life. I worked in every aspect of the trade except wholesale. Building, either "by hand" or in factories, repair and restoration, retail, teaching (playing and building). I started playing when I was sixteen, got my first job in the trade at nineteen, and continued until I was fifty-six and became too ill to play anymore. I never played for money.

In between, when I was young I had not a few crappy minimum wage jobs, usually shipping and receiving. When I was twenty, I had to work in a textile mill, second shift, running a huge bobbin winding machine, for two months to prove I was going to stick around before Martin Guitars would hire me. You didn't just waltz into such a hidebound and traditional place and get hired if you weren't born and bred twenty miles from the factory. I was the only nice Jewish boy from New Jersey working there in 1969

For awhile I worked for a company in New York making floor displays, which was actually kind of fun.

 

[snoball]

Gosh, if we're listing all our jobs, stand back. I'm going to list the ones I remember. Started out slinging hash, then gathered eggs at a laying house, then garment factory, then chicken processing plant, then boarding hosiery, then another chicken processing plant, another garment factory, another chicken processing plant (you'd think that I would learn but it was money and I had bills), then worked for a while with a leather tooler. Then actually quit work and stayed home and painted. Does anyone every "quit work"? I mean I quit working for wages.

 

[musket]

I quit retail music and guitar repair when I was forty-six to take up art.

 

[Iain]

As I am not an artist (Any rich benefactors out there?), when I grow up I would like to be paid to create. But then, who wouldn't?

Since that is an unrealistic expectation, I would settle for the occupation of an old blues man, and wear a bowler hat, like Sonny Boy, and live off my apparent flaws like they were strengths. "My fear is my only courage..."

 

[musket]

Aw c'mon. You know you really want a flashy suit like Robert's.

 

[Iain]

It is going to sound like heresy, but I have never been that fond of Robert Johnson's sound, and I bet his suit would have suited him better than it would have suited me.

 

[musket]

That's okay. I've never been that fond of Sonny Boy's sound. I'm more into hard Chicago harp.

Robert's sound takes some getting used to. I once played two albums for a chick I had the hots for when I was eighteen. Debbie Smith. The first was Pentangle's first. The second was the first volume of King of the Delta Blues Singers. Well, she loved Pentangle, but we didn't get too far with Robert. She physically recoiled when she heard it. Oh well, nice try.

But man, that ping on the first string in the turnaround to Come on in My Kitchen... I've heard a zillion guys try to get it, including some of the greatest slide players in the world, and none of them can. I couldn't either, and it wasn't for lack of trying. He was an incredibly subtle guitar player. Never been surpassed.

Come on in My Kitchen

 

[Artyczar]

Interesting to see how many people also worked in the garment industry. My fellow sweatshop workers UNITE!

I always knew I wanted to be an artist/musician. And I never really took any permanent jobs because I was always trying to stay true to working full time in art and music. For the most part, I did. I took these jobs part time, some of them full-time, depending on when it was in my life. Most of the time I was in the band, that was my life. Most of us didn't work jobs, but we worked our asses off and played most nights of the week, sometimes two different clubs a night.

In 1996-97, I stopped taking part-time jobs all together and worked on art only. I haven't really had a job other than art since then. Am I rich? Ha! But after some time, I've been able to squeak by.

 

[snoball]

LOL on sweatshop workers unite. I think we'd all like to just forget those days.

 

[Artyczar]

I think I meant, unionize!

 

[Iain]

My fellow sweatshop workers UNITE! unionise!

Song of the shirt (extract)
by Thomas Hood

O, men, with sisters dear!
O, men, with mothers and wives!
It is not linen you're wearing out,
But human creatures' lives!
Stitch—stitch—stitch,
In poverty, hunger and dirt,
Sewing at once, with a double thread,
A Shroud as well as a Shirt.

I am reminded of this cool artist, Arty. Michele Fandel Bonner, who works with thread and is bloody amazing.

 

[Dave Woody]

I am a guitarist by trade and I pursued it as my chosen career from an early age.
Looking back, I would have loved a career as a Motorcycle Sidecar Passenger.

 

[Claude J Greengrass]

Throughout High School I wanted to be an engineer. After 4 years of EE & Applied Physics with a hefty dose of Maths, I wanted to be educated. By then I was addicted to computers. Before I found out how to get paid for playing with computers I was a dyno operator testing exhaust system for small 2 stroke engines, built window frames, installed Aluminium Siding, carpenter-joiner, and a giant tire builder. I played around with computers for fair to good pay for the next 30 years so while trying to self-educate. Maybe in 2 or 3 lifetimes I might be able to broaden my education sufficiently to be truly educated.

 

[xie-kitchin]

When I was looking at college, I was torn between studying something like English lit and art or illustration. In my teens, I got really interested in psychology and anthropology, and in the back of my mind, I think I would have really enjoyed those fields, but they weren't in the front of my mind as far as something to study.

Up until about 13, I actually figured I would be a veterinarian or biologist, something animal/nature related. But as a really little kid, I wanted to write and make art. At some point I got convinced there was no way I'd make a living. I was also really interested in animation and filmmaking at one point.

I've had all sorts of jobs. Lots of retail, lots of food service. Right before I started my current web design job back in 2013, I worked a couple days seasonal retail for a Paper Source chain store. First time I had done retail in almost a decade. I enjoyed playing with all the toys...I mean supplies they gave me at the demo table.

 

[musket]

From eighteen to forty-six (1967-95), the guitar was my life. Nazareth PA, Greenwich Village, Cambridge, Maine and here in NH. I worked in every aspect of the trade but wholesale. Building, repair, factories, teaching, retail. I never played professionally; could have but I didn't want to. One aspect had to be just for fun, not money.

 

[Artyczar]

Song of the shirt (extract)
by Thomas Hood

O, men, with sisters dear!
O, men, with mothers and wives!
It is not linen you're wearing out,
But human creatures' lives!
Stitch—stitch—stitch,
In poverty, hunger and dirt,
Sewing at once, with a double thread,
A Shroud as well as a Shirt.

I am reminded of this cool artist, Arty. Michele Fandel Bonner, who works with thread and is bloody amazing.

Love This Michele Fandel Bonner! Thank you for the link.