Tell your high school-grad-early job-college tales!

[bertha katzenengel]

My sister is putting a book together for her daughter upon the girl's passing the GED. The book is to contain others' stories of this time in their lives.

Feel like contributing? It would be anonymous, and directly from this web page. You may include photos. Examples of photos Mrs. V. and I put into our stories are of her arriving home one day after work in the coal mine, and of me playing field hockey in HS. Also included of course are our senior photos.

Please reply by July 1. I'll try to keep this kicked. Thank you very much for your contribution!

(I honestly don't remember if I've already posted this, but I may have. CRS.)

[sasquatch]

1. Any reason why she's getting a GED instead of a Diploma?

:shrug:

[bertha katzenengel]

2. Yes.

It's too long a story to tell, but rest assured it has nothing to do with sex, drugs, or rock & roll.

[sasquatch]

3. Could you PM it to me please

[bertha katzenengel]

4. No.

Why?

[sasquatch]

13. Cause I'm interested in why people get their GED's instead of a Diploma

[bertha katzenengel]

14. I see.

Suffice to say, social differences.

[ghostsofgiants]

12. So it's a long boring story...

:evilgrin:

[bertha katzenengel]

15. We have a winnah.

:7

[China_cat]

5. I ran away with a carnival

My first real jobs consisted of standing for a knife thrower, handling snakes, being the electric girl, and other various and sundry strange things.

[bertha katzenengel]

7. Thanks, China cat

What was "the electric girl?" :scared:

[China_cat]

11. Sit in an electrified chair

and light torches from your fingers, tongue, toes...light fluorescent tubes and neon, etc.

[Blue_In_AK]

6. Ewww...

I worked for the devil, Brown & Root -- although to be fair they were working on the Apollo project at the time, so they weren't quite so evil. Brown & Root-Northrop, not Kellogg-Brown & Root. I worked for them for two summers and what I remember mostly was being regularly sexually harassed, but it was all part of the job back in those days. My first job out of college I worked for a couple of oil geologists in Denver, and my boss (an oily pig in his mid-40s)literally would come up behind me and try to kiss me on the back of my neck, and on more than one occasion I had to maneuver to get the desk between him and me. Back then we had no recourse -- I had to quit to get away from the masher. Oh...they used to insist that I come with them for drinks after work at the topless bar across the street, too. It makes me shudder even now 37 years later.

Geez...I could have been a millionaire if we had had harassment laws back in those days.

[bertha katzenengel]

8. Holy crap.

We women have had to put up with a lot of shit. I'm sorry that time sucked so badly for you.

[Blue_In_AK]

10. Yeah, all of that for $325 a month.

We've come a long way, baby. The youngsters are always amazed.

[supernova]

9. Worked in a video store

for minimum wage. I think I made 4.10/hr back then. It was kinda fun, because this store was really the first video store around here.

Heh. My first day on the job was in January and it was snowing. I didn't know how I was going to get to work. They sent someone for me. :-)

I stocked shelves; checked equipment (we loaned out video equip. too) and taught customers how to use it; kept up with people returning videos late; Prepared new videos we got in to be displayed. And of course, worked the cash register.

In those days like today, you took the box off the shelf, gave it to us behind the counter, and we pulled the film for you. I got to the point I could just walk up to the right shelf and pull the film. I didn't even have to look at the catalogue numbers anymore. :P

One day I got really bored and went through an old Academy Awards book we had and I labled all the Oscar films we had with "Best Actor "Best Actress" "Best Film", etc. The Oscars were coming up the next couple of months and it was a way to pass the time.


It was deadly dull most of the time. And the owner was an incredible asshole. I worked in the flagship store where his office was, so he was unaviodable. But I did enjoy getting to take movies and VCPs home at the end of the day to watch movies. It was kinda like having cable.

But it was that job that convinced me I wanted more out of my working life. I couldn't see spending the rest of my life doing that.

edit: Almost forgot, we rented adult videos too. Ugh. It was ok that people rented them, but when people had problems with a tape, we told them they could bring it back in and we would try to fix it. This meant going with the customer to the backroom where the TV setup was and checking out the tape with the customer. It was bizarre to say the least to watch porn with total strangers.

[bertha katzenengel]

18. "watch porn with total strangers" EWWWWW!

I would have been completely incapable of that.

Thanks a bunch for your tale, supernova. :hi:

[skygazer]

16. Dropped out of high school halfway through my senior year

I was no longer living at home and I was working at a greyhound track about 15 miles from school. I was living near the track so I had to get up very early, hitchhike to school, then hitchhike home, go to work at about 6 and work till 11. It was not working well. I needed the money to pay the rent so I sacrificed school.

I worked for nearly ten years training greyhounds. Got my GED when I was almost 30 (with the highest scores the tester had ever seen - oh, and in 6 hours rather than two days) and enrolled in a community college. Had a 3.95 GPA and loved it.

People take different paths in life. You never really know for sure, no matter how much you plan, what's going to happen. Flexibility is important, and self esteem. Take pride in whatever you decide to do. Don't be afraid to take chances. And enjoy life.

[bertha katzenengel]

17. skygazer, thanks very much

:bounce:

[YellowRubberDuckie]

19. Make friends in high places. (Kinda long.)

One thing that High School taught me was to make friends in high places. I made friends with our principal. He remembered my sister, who was a bit of a trouble maker in school, so when he recognized the last name, he introduced himself, and quickly found out that I was not a little clone of my sister. He from that day on took care of me.
When I was a junior in High School, my father died. They sent a plant, and I knew that he had written the note. He cared about us, not something you get from most principals. I was blessed to go to a small high school.
When I was a senior, the newly remodelled middle school became our high school, and we had a commons area. I was in journalism and it was one of the classrooms right off the area. We were editors for the first semester, and to get away from the shrill workings of the "reporters" who hated us, the table outside the door became our office space. We'd edit, we'd laugh, and we'd rewrite the awful crap we were given from the underclassmen.
One day, we saw the principal grabbing a Diet Coke from the soda machine, and greeted him. He comes over, sits down, and asks us what we're doing out here. We explain why, and he laughs. Then he asks us what's going on in our lives and if we were having any problems.
This begins our ritual of the last 30 minutes of the day a couple days a week with our principal. He made us laugh while we did our work, and had insights for the articles we were writing.
After the first semester, we graduated from Editors to independent "contractors" and we started working on our Senior slideshow, and the Diapers to Diplomas slideshow where we put baby pictures with the senior pictures of the students.
All was going well until a week later, when we walked into the journalism room and found a diagram. It had the new structure of the paper, the photography department and the Jacket Journal, our newsletter for the alumni and parents. It had the new editor at the top, and it was set up like a family tree (Yeah, I swear it said Jarrod, under which said GOD). Under him were the assistant editors, the photo editor, etc, then it had the rest of the staff under that. He outlined his style and his rules.
We had had a fight with the journalism advisor at the beginning of the year. We had been having some problems with the fact that the reporters weren't doing their jobs or handing in stories that were worth printing, so we wanted to implement rules that would guarantee that they hand in quality stories or we would rewrite them and take the bylines. Advisor said NO. Well, once the BOY who took over came into "power" he got to do what we were wanting to do at the beginning of the year. He got to make rules and even used all of our ideas. This made me and my femi-nazi(a term she dubbed herself with) partner angry.
We were throwing stuff around when the principal came out to get his soda and join us. He asked us what was wrong. We outlined what was going on, and it pissed him off. He didn't understand how we were supposed to work with the sludge he'd read, and how that was ok for us, but not ok for the boy who took over. Of course, the advisor had a history of inequal treatment of girls as compared to boys.
The principal told us not to worry about it. That he'd take care of it. That we should just finish our slideshow because it will be ours and the advisor can't do anything about that. He said that we will be remembered for that. He said he was proud of all the great work we'd been doing to make sure everything was taken care of. He smiled and walked back to his office.
So we went into the closet that had become our studio to organize our pictures. We emerged about fifteen minutes before the bell. We heard a heated discussion in the commons area. Our principal was trying to gently tell the advisor how he felt, and the advisor was trying to convince him that we were lying. As we approached, the principal winked and the Advisor glared at us. I heard the principal say as soon as the bell rang, he needed him in his office. He stomped away, red-faced and pissed off. The advisor didn't say a word to us as we walked into the classroom and commandeered a computer. When the bell rang we headed out to our lockers which was on the other side of the commons area, and sure enough, right behind us went the advisor towards the principal's office. When we left, we walked by the office door, and we heard loud voices and even a pound of a desk. It was fantastic.
The next day when we arrived for our last hour class, the advisor met us at our table and apologized for anything he may have said.
See? Always make friends with someone, either the head of your department in college, the dean, or a police Chief. If you are friends with someone, and you need to get something done, they can help you.

Hope this helps!
Duckie