It is really early in the morning in the US. But I am already up and half my workday is over since I am on EU time (in my head). It is slighly chilly and nice. And I am working from home today. I am still down with fever.
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10. There is Fungible in My Yoghurt: I once worked a really pointless job for a very prestigious company, reporting to a complete idiot. The idiot had no clue what I was supposed to do and he forgot why I (and a lot of others) was hired so I kept on making busy work for myself like putting together pretty slides and convincing him to send me on interesting trips all over the place. He, despite being a native English speaker, had a very poor command over the language. It delighted my colleagues and I to no end when we used words in the wrong context in the hopes that he would pick up the usage. He once wrote in a friend's annual review that he needs to be “more dogmatic." Highlight of the job: An all-expense paid trip to India with a highly convoluted purpose including throwing parties in all major cities to "host key people" and getting away with a $40,000 bill for the trip.
9. What was I Thinking? I nearly got fired (the polite term is, encouraged to leave) from a job I hated and was completely, insanely boring. It brought out the worst in me and needless to say no work ever was done. Fortunately I was spending more time doing job searches than the job, so when the end came I think everyone including me was so relieved. Highlight: Sneaking out during work hours to hang out in restaurants with a brainiac guy from the nearby University discussing philosophy.
8. Fudging Numbers When people Died: Once working on a trial, the company wanted to massage certain things when more people taking the drug died than the ones on placebo. I quit. Fortunately, the fudging didn't work. The drug never went to market. The company doesn't exist in the same name. So, relax. Highlight: The people died were terminal anyway. Small comfort.
7. Muddy and Hot, Stinking and Drinking: One muggy summer, I worked as an assistant and all-purpose gopher to a crew of people running some stability experiments over a coal mine in Southern Illinois. It was about 2000 degrees and we were mainly paid in beer. All day, in the scorching heat, we would haul cables through farmland and set off minor dynamite charges and then collect the data in (primitive, bulky) laptop computers. Highlight: In the evening, red and stinky, we would walk into a Pizza Hut and gorge on the buffet. It was mostly fun.
6. Teach the Teacher: Teaching Education majors who have no interest in Science. They had to take science classes to meet the Gen. Ed. Requirements; we had to help them pass the tests. I have lectured to dead squirrels with more brain activity than these specimens. No wonder American education system is in crisis, because these former students of mine are now full-fledged teachers in high schools. May Darth Vader have mercy upon my soul. Highlight: Eye-Candy.
5. Too soon To Tell: This was not a terrible job per se. It is just that I never did it long enough to find out. I once semi-interned (semi because I was not a US citizen then) for a Senator at his/her (giving the gender gives away the person) field office working on environmental policies. I thought it was a historic time. Then, in one week, I crashed my car and totaled it. I was too poor to buy another and there was no other way to get to work. So that was that. Highlight: None.
4. Who Needs To Buy a millionaire? In the eighties, to make some extra chump change, I worked for a glamorous Ad Agency in Bombay interviewing very wealthy people to see if they would like/use very expensive (yet completely useless) luxury products if they were introduced in India. Armed with a single specimen of the item in question and a script, I would visit them in their great apartments at the appointment time and pepper them with inane questions. Most often, they would say things like, "I am not Dhirubhai Ambani. I don't think I can afford it."
After some time, I improvised to make the interview more fun. Once in a while, a beautiful daughter or daughter-in-law would come into view. None of those products ever came to market and I am proud to say, I had nothing to do with that.
3. Beware of Dog (and Owner): Walking around very republican neighborhoods canvassing for support for the Clean Air Act is a little like looking for donations for Pakistan Nuclear Program at a Bajrang Dal rally. Let's just say, there were mean dogs and meaner owners. One of the girls who was going to UC Law School was so spooked when a group of people chased her that she quit on the spot. I think she was the most idealistic of all of us.
2. No Balloon, No Party: Same Ad Agency as #4. This time, collecting information from middle-class married couple (well, men really. How many middle-class Indian women would volunteer this info to a stranger in the pre-web days?) in focus groups on condom use. This proved to be too difficult for once, being young doesn't do anything to your credibility. Finally, we faked the results by getting my best friends to respond as if they were middle-class married couple. Fantasy condom use of 18 year old boys is not even in the same planet as the real situation.
1. Have Hairnet, Will Eat: Worst-ever job, food service worker. After the Internship was lost in the car-wreck, needed a way to pay the bills. It was too late to get a RA-ships or anything with a modicum of usefulness. So, donned a hair net, got on the food line, served people their breakfast. I liked the dishwashing the best though, we could hang out in the kitchen and goof off all day. In the morning, had to wear a thick jacket to go into the meat locker which is -20000 degrees to yank out slabs of frozen meat. Couldn't wait for summer to be over to resume #6.
