Eight Feet Deep

 Would you con­sider your job the best around?

 Even though I very much like what I am doing, my job, or jobs actu­ally, are nowhere near one of those con­sid­ered the best in the coun­try, accord­ing to CNNMoney.com. The online busi­ness mag­a­zine has listed what it con­sid­ers the 100 best jobs in the coun­try based upon salary, qual­ity of life and job growth.

 I did a quick inven­tory of all the full-time and part-time jobs I have had since leav­ing high school 35 years ago. Com­pared with many who are per­haps 10 years or so older than I am, I imag­ine I look like a prize-winning job hopper.

 Peo­ple used to have jobs and stay with them until they retire. These days, not so much. One major rea­son for job hop­ping today is because the com­pany wants you to go so that they may restruc­ture or self-destruct or what­ever. Still, I have had six full-time jobs if you count the Navy, and my four news­pa­per jobs along with my cur­rent (strug­gling) career as a free­lance writer as one job. I have also had four part-time jobs includ­ing my present one work­ing for the government.

 Not one of the jobs I have or in which I have ever been employed are listed on that top 100 list. Here is a quick run-down of what I’ve done:

    Assem­bled boxes in a chicken pro­cess­ing plant. Whee!/Navy administrative/clerical worker/Professional fire­fighter (worked part-time for awhile mov­ing mobile homes. Eeeeeh. and also had a part-time EMT job)/Regional EMS planner/Apartment main­te­nance worker/Vacuumer at car wash/part-time edi­tor of monthly music magazine/Worked three part-time jobs — short-order cook, bar­tender and secret shop­per (Dairy Queen detec­tive)/Mental health worker/Journalist (edi­tor, reporter, free­lance writer)/part-time gov­ern­ment job.

 It really looks worse than it is. Actu­ally, when con­sid­er­ing per­cent­ages, 82% of 35 years work­ing have been with three jobs, pro­vid­ing you count the dif­fer­ent stops I had as a jour­nal­ist as one, and I do. But none of my jobs, as I said, were on the top 100 CNN­Money list. Well, it doesn’t mat­ter. None of the jobs I held were what you call “money mak­ers.” But I have spent 57% of my adult work­ing life as a jour­nal­ist, which is what I wanted to “be when I grew up.” Oh well, I got what I wanted to be while not nec­es­sar­ily grow­ing up. So be it. And the two worst jobs: mov­ing mobile homes and assem­bling boxes in a chicken plant. It takes a spe­cial breed for those jobs and I sup­pose I am a breed apart.

 I have said in numer­ous job inter­views, and it is only par­tially blow­ing smoke up the interviewer’s ass, that while some might look neg­a­tively on my hav­ing worked so many jobs I feel that every expe­ri­ence I ever had helped me do the next job better.

 Speak­ing of longevity, I read in Elise Hu’s blog on Texas Tri­bune that long-long-time Asso­ci­ated Press pho­tog­ra­pher Harry Cabluck was one of those unfor­tu­nate few who were laid off yes­ter­day dur­ing that wire service’s per­son­nel purge.

 Hu notes that Harry, 71, was in the motor­cade when JFK was shot in Dal­las. He has been based in Austin for many years. A ton of trib­utes are being col­lected in Hu’s blog for Harry.

 I don’t know Harry well. I only was in his space twice. Once we talked for a few min­utes on the floor of the Texas House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives while wait­ing on some­thing or the other. The other time was quite a bit longer.

 Harry and I were among press cov­er­ing some­thing at Fort Hood. He had left his car at the south­ern end of the post and we were up at the north­ern extreme. I gave him a lift and was enter­tained by Harry along the way. What I remem­ber the most was his talk­ing about some cohort or acquain­tance of his — that and it was about a 20-minute drive and I really needed to use the bath­room. Harry said either the cohort or both of them used to spend time mak­ing up sto­ries about peo­ple they would see — total strangers – while they were dri­ving along. Harry gave some really funny exam­ples while we were dri­ving and, well, you had to have been there. I’m sure Harry doesn’t remem­ber that although I under­stand he has a pretty good mem­ory. I, how­ever, do not.

 Best of luck to Harry Cabluck in his future.