Hiking in Death Valley!

Okay, my 2nd favorite (old) sport is hiking the national parks. . last week it was death valley where it actually SNOWED in the desert! Very cool.. .or FREEZING I might add. But we hit most all of the major hikes in the 2 days before the snow, and then did a few in-doorish type things for the snow days.

We went to see Scotty's Castle (below) . .a millionaire guy befriended Scotty and made him a castle. . long story, that just makes me wonder why things like that NEVER happen to me (millionaire befriending a comedian???).

AND we went to Death Valley Junction to the Amargosa Opera House (below) to see Marta Beckett. She moved there like a million years ago and fixed up an opera house so that she'd have a place to perform in. It was my 4th time there (Ron's 5th) and Marta still gets on stage once a week to do a show... though at 80+ years old, she actually did sit down theater (the opposite of standup comedy). We also stayed in the haunted motel .. something that needs fixing up. . .and we got room 9, which was the most "active." We met some ghost-busters who came in to our room at 3 a.m. to do a reading. And YES, we heard a ghost tell us to "get out."

If I did it right, I've got pictures up on Facebook of our experience. . .what a fun trip!

More later on the ghosts. . .oh, and by the way, if you didn't know, death valley is in Nevada. . .how do I know that. . . ???

Take care!

Jan

http://www.theworklady.com/

http://www.comedywriterblog.com/

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o

Hiking in Death Valley!

And the bad jobs continue. . .
Yes, I have several jobs that I should never have said yes to, such as . . . INVENTORY TAKER.

As an inventory taker, you go into stores at night after they’ve closed, and count all, and I mean, ALL of the items in the store. This is for end of year records or tax purposes or torture …something like that. They “sell” you on taking this crappy job because they say you’ll have your days free to interview for a “real” job. What they forget to tell you is that after you’ve spent 18 straight hours counting magnets (because you stay until every piece of lint in the store is counted), you rarely ace a job interview the next day. Hence you create a really nasty cycle of counting marbles, sleeping through prime interview hours, and then counting marbles again.

And the job sites were never near my house, so I had to carpool with other lint-counters by meeting them at a spot off the freeway after 10 p.m. . . . like a drug dealer only drug dealers were looking forward to their jobs. We then would drive 50 miles away to some Mart store with a K or a Wal in front of it and get our assignments. And, as I said, we stayed until everything was counted. I learned a few things at that job. One night I was counting a huge bin of marbles or safety pins or something when one of my fellow bad-job-choice-makers (aka colleagues), said ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I’m thinking, what do you think I’m doing, there was only one job task listed on the want ad – counting. He then taught me the word “guestimate.” That’s when your eyeballs do the counting; which is much faster than your fingers and gets you back to your car parked on the freeway much faster. . . hopefully before the drug dealers steal it.

I hated that job, though one night as we were all leaving, one of my fellow commuters told me that she really hated to wish time away because we’re only on this earth so long. . .I agree, however some parts of time, like store inventory, really aren’t worth remembering. I lasted a few weeks at that job. . . because of that whole, work-sleep-miss-the-job-interview cycle I mentioned where I just couldn’t get out to interview for another one. But alas, one night I just couldn’t take it anymore, so I stood up my fellow commuters and the only thing I counted that night was sheep in my sleep. This was not one of those jobs where you give 2 weeks notice. I did go in and get my last pay check though, and the boss asked me if I would be showing up to my scheduled stores and I thought for a nanosecond and said, “naw, I think I’m done.” She didn’t bat an eye, I think she was used to it.

Yep, another bad job down, many more in my future I’m sure. Recently at one of my shows, the winner of my bad job contest is this guy in the video:

Jan McInnis is the author of Finding the Funny Fast; how to create quick humor to connect with clients, coworkers and crowds. She can be reached at www.TheWorkLady.com
o

Weird Jobs!!!

I love my job because I get to learn all about other careers that are out there. Most people stick with one or two industries their whole life while I get to sample hundreds. And one of the funniest things I do during my comedy show is to ask people what their worst job was. We’ve all had ‘em. Those jobs you take just so you can put SOMETHING on your resume (we told ourselves it shows “initiative”) and/or pay the rent (what’s more humiliating than a bad job is moving back in with mom and dad).

One of my most hideous jobs was right out of college, when you just don’t know any better. There was a new term floating around called “marketing.” And I naively thought that all marketing was the same. . . direct marketing, marketing director, TELEMARKETING. You can guess which one I wound up doing. Now, when they don’t tell you the product in the help wanted ad, that means it’s something people don’t want to sell over the phone. In my case, it turned out to be selling sides of beef. My parents were out of town, and I thought, oh, won’t they be surprised that I got a job while they were gone – I’ll be all grown up! So I went for it!

After taking my pulse, the HR woman announced that I had aced the rigid interview process (okay, she just looked at me and saw I was healthy – true!), and she led me to my “office” … a conference room with other fresh college graduates who looked like deer in headlights too. The HR woman, who then morphed into my boss (she was a multi-tasker), told me they had qualified leads . . .then she handed me the phone book. I guess back in the 70’s she estimated that most of Northern Virginia ate beef, hence the phone book held thousands of qualified leads.

That first day I only had one old man interested in my beef; I talked him out of it. I asked him if he knew just how much beef that was – an entire side of a cow! Turns out he was just lonely and wanted to talk . . . which was fine with me because it kept me from having to dial those “hot” beef-eating people leads.

But that day I learned, as my joke goes, that beef is not something people buy over the phone. People aren’t sitting around their house saying, ‘hey, honey, we’re out of beef, I wish that girl would call.’ I lasted 6 hours, which gave me seniority!

I really did only last six hours. I did one 4 hour day (short days so as not to burn you out). Half way through the second day (I can’t believe I went back) me and another beef-seller took our regulation 15 minute break to go to Roy Rogers (I still don’t know why we went to a roast beef restaurant on our beef break???). Cutting through the parking on the way back to Beef Headquarters, I saw my car. I don’t even remember acknowledging the thought – my sub conscientious took over and I made a sharp left, leaving my new co-worker behind, as I GOT IN and sped awayFAST.. .just in case he reported me and my boss morphed into company security and came to track me down. I think she still owes me like $29 dollars for the hourly wage (lucky for them they didn’t owe me any commissions). I had just had my first real work experience within 36 hours and had gotten hired and quit before my parents got home.

I realize that telemarketing still has a usefulness for some people – I know a broke comedian who took a telemarketing job when his phone was cut off so he could make long-distance calls to get booked.. but telemarking is just not for me.

But it’s still fun learning about these wacky professions through my current job. And I now have a fun “worst job” contest during my show and it’s a riot. Apparently there are worse jobs than beef telemarketer.

One of the winners this week was a. . .. . . .see the short clip below. She survived and told me later that her boyfriend at the time (who’s now her husband) cleaned the mall bathrooms. Ya never know where that weird job will land you!

Stay tuned for more of Jan’s job adventures – either present (through the eyes of her audience) or past (she’s had several).

Jan McInnis is the author of Finding the Funny Fast; how to create quick humor to connect with clients, coworkers and crowds.

o