An Unlikely Job
I love that life is stranger than fiction and that it gives me some good stories to tell, which is why when I saw that the Sunday Scribbling prompt for this weekend was on jobs, I decided to write about my most unusual job. It wasn’t a job that paid much money or furthered a career. It wasn’t stimulating, exciting, or good for my ego. It’s a job that’s been more fun to talk about years later than it was when I was actually doing it.
As unlikely as it would seem that a 5 foot 1 inch 115 pound woman would have a job as a night watchman, for nearly a year in the mid 1980’s I did. I carried a flashlight and made periodic nightly rounds at one of Floyd’s past ethanol plants. It was a job that appealed to the introvert in me, and I liked that – except for the all-night schedule – it didn’t disrupt my life. During the long quiet hours of solitude, I moonlighted at my moonlit job, making jewelry to later be sold in shops and at craft fairs. While stringing beads and wrapping silver wire around gemstones and crystals, I listened to music and sometimes felt inspired to get up and dance. A few times I brought my young sons to work with me. They loved to explore the big hollow drums and other processing equipment. Once I had to deal with the arrival of large Mac truck whose driver ended up sleeping in the truck’s cab until morning. Another time one of the day workers showed up drunk. He proved to be harmless enough, but at the time I didn’t know if he would be. Occasionally friends dropped by. Once, a few of us sang and played music together inside one of the huge hollow drums to test out the acoustics. It was wintertime, too cold to doze off inside the plant. When I became too cold and too sleepy to be active, I’d sit in my car with the heat on, listen to tapes on the latest wild new age subject, and maybe enjoy a snack. Welch’s grape juice and pretzels, picked up at the Express Mart before work, were an important part of this job. I sipped and snacked into the wee hours of morning while I studied the night sky, trying to fathom the enormity of it. I became a friend of the moon and thought of it as a giant looking glass. I was a night watchman who watched the night. I studied the stars closely. I wanted to see them move, but inevitably my eyelids grew heavy and I would fall into a nap, only to wake up later, surprised to see that some stars had slipped every so slightly off the night’s enormous table.
Post note: My list of jobs is HERE.
October 13th, 2007 10:31 pm
How totally interesting that must’ve been. Sometimes being alone in the early morning hours, is a blessing. The thoughts in your head are loud and clear, I would imagine.
Great post, Colleen!!
October 13th, 2007 10:43 pm
A night watchman who watches the night. I like that.
I used to make jewelry too… I loved it.
Michele sent me to watch your blog.
So far it hasn’t moved an inch.
~S
October 13th, 2007 10:46 pm
As an eternal night owl, that seems like the perfect moonlighting job. No people around, just you, your thoughts and the stars… and snacks! Grape juice and pretzels. Nice choices! Was there much nocturnal mischief going on at an ethanol plant?
This was a fun post to read! Great “job”!
October 13th, 2007 10:56 pm
I keep learning who you are and I keep liking what I learn.
October 13th, 2007 11:20 pm
Dang..I just knew your dream job would be pro scrabble player 🙂
October 13th, 2007 11:27 pm
Scrabble for a living? It might just take the fun out of it. And I don’t think I could take the stress of those tournaments. (Not to mention not being good enough for them.)
I probably should have mentioned that Floyd is a small one stoplight town. The only mischief that happened on this job I included in the post, which shows how dull it actually was for the most part. (But dull is how I liked it).
October 14th, 2007 12:40 am
Magical photo and interesting job. A night watchman watching the night is a wonderful image. Nice post!
October 14th, 2007 4:42 am
I like that! Working as a nightwatch(wo)man!
October 14th, 2007 7:05 am
you certainly know how to make the best use of your given situation… bravo… very nice post…..
October 14th, 2007 9:37 am
That sounds like an ideal job so long as the weren’t many incidents of lawbreaking! Writers are watchers… watchers of society, watchers of individuals, watchers of families, watchers of nature. Watching the night is part of the process.
October 14th, 2007 10:28 am
Isn’t it so amazing the journeys we take in life, each one appropriate for that time..how you didn’t fight the night but instead used it as an opportunity and a friend?
October 14th, 2007 10:47 am
I had no idea! I would’ve been too chicken.
October 14th, 2007 11:59 am
My favorite sentence in the whole post is … “I was a night watchman who watched the night.” Shephard likes it too, I see: “A night watchman who watches the night. I like that. … Michele sent me to watch your blog. So far it hasn’t moved an inch.” Oh, but Shephard, Colleen moved this blog all over the place today, especially for me … when she sent me to read the list of jobs she’s had over the years.
Colleen, the more I learn about you, the more I realize how alike we are. You wrote: “Freelance writer. The first piece I sold was to Mothering Magazine.” When I first started freelance writing, the first piece I sold was to Baby Talk magazine! That was back in the mid-1960s, and I got a whole $5.
My most satisfying — yet tiring — job was stuffing comics and advertising inserts into Sunday papers, transferring stacks of 50 thick Sunday newspapers at a time to my work station … until management cut the number to 25, which was much more manageable. I worked from around 11:00 p.m. until the wee hours of the morning, once until 4:00 a.m. because the presses crashed. I was a mother of three, back in college, and only able to take this part-time job because my mother lived with me and was there with my children all night. When the presses broke down, as they frequently did, two or three of us would carefully pull books out of our apron pockets to read … carefully because we had ink from the freshly printed newspapers all over our hands. One night (MY night job, as you see) … anyway … one night I pulled out Love and Will by Rollo May, and a woman nearby said, “Oh, lo-o-ove!” Well, not like her romance novels. I was studying philosophy, Rollo May was a philosopher, and will (as in willpower) was NOT a name … lol. Picture me reading philosophy while sitting on stacks and stacks of newspapers. It was a satisfying job because when the night ended, there was no work to take home or worry about getting done later.
Loved this post, Colleen!
October 14th, 2007 12:13 pm
This does sound like a dream job, especially after finishing a hectic week at school. I would love to study the night sky for awhile as a change of pace.
October 14th, 2007 2:09 pm
I should have mentioned that I enjoyed my year at the factory job because it was mindless and took no emotional investment to do and I scribbled poetry on scraps of paper as I worked. And I forgot to mention the job putting together Christmas baskets in July because I only stayed a week. I also tried working at a bakery while still in high school but didn’t last a day because they wanted me to memorize the menu and prices and I was overwhelmed by that. So the job went the way of my waitressing career that lasted a week longer. The motto for me is that sometimes a “job doesn’t work.” But they are fun to reminisce on, they do shape our character, and give us some rich stories to tell. I got a kick out of your “Love and Will” story, Bonnie.
October 14th, 2007 3:15 pm
Very nice post, Colleen. Your night watchman job sounds lovely–I could easily spend all night watching the starry sky. My favorite job, for certain, has been being a mother. But other than that, I liked being a janitor. Lots and lots of time to think and dream while I made the world clean for college students. 🙂
October 15th, 2007 9:05 am
That sounds like a great job. I’ve thought of doing something like that with my night owl ways.
October 15th, 2007 10:09 am
this reminded me of the david wilcox song ‘nightshift watchman’…
i want to learn how to do wire-wrap jewelry. my sister took a class at the folk school and made me an awesome ring, which i lost. but i don’t think she remembers how to do it now….
October 15th, 2007 10:19 am
When I started foster care providing I did a clean sweep and sold every last jewelery making thing that I owned, which I have come to regret. I at least should have kept my tools wire cutters and special needle nose pliers, so that I could do repairs. But my bead collection was taking over the house. It served me well for many years but it wasn’t my true passion and I wanted it gone.