Real Job

No matter what your current job or profession, I'm sure you remember your first real job. Along the way, I've had a few jobs*, all with glorified titles:

*Loosely defined here as acitivity lasting longer than a single day that involved me receiving money for some sort of work.

1. Professional Lawnmower - This actually was the verbatim title I listed on my 8th grade resume to describe the three summers I spent mowing ONE neighbor's lawn.

2. Fence Painter - People kept running into this fence along a farmer's field when they'd drive by at night. I was hired to paint it white. Still white, last time I checked.

3. Mink Habitat Repurposer - A neighbor had a mink farm and he was transitioning to writing online travel guides for exotic destinations. What this guy should really be writing is a guide to internet entrepeneurship for mink farmers. Enter: computer programmers. Exit: wire mink cages. Benefit: mink + internet surfers wishing they were on vacation. End result: A good friend and I spent most of that summer sitting on buckets cutting apart mink cages piece by piece. Good times Dan!

4. Gas station attendant/motel cleaner/cook's assistant/waiter/concierge/accountant/Navajo rug expert/dishwasher - All in one summer. Not just a bad string of hirings/firings, this was one of the best jobs possible, living in the middle of nowhere on the Kaibab plateau serving up four star food to Hell's Angels and Colorado City socialites in the same afternoon.

5. Ladybug Wrangler - Two and a half summers of undergrad research involving collecting ladybugs in various farmers' fields and from wooded trails near the Logan River. If the job hadn't included raising aphids (a ladybug's favorite food) in a greenhouse, this could qualify as one of the best outdoor ecology jobs ever. Oh, and the trips to collect yellow start thistle. It's as painful as it looks.


And now, 24 years after starting school, I'm signed on for a job that will last longer than a summer, won't depend on tips and has the potential to grow into whatever I make of it.



In August 2010, Molly and I will be moving with the kids to Salt Lake City, Utah where I begin work at Primary Children's Medical Center as a pediatrician in the Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine. I'll split time at PCMC between the ED the Rapid Treatment Unit, where children are admitted when only a short hospital stay is needed. We'll be close to home, close to the mountains but will miss all of our good friends in the Midwest. Salt Lake City here we come!