Writer's Block: Workin' for a livin'

[athelind]

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What would you consider the worst job in the world, and why?

You know, I used to help drag dead sea lions off the breakwall at Monterey Harbor. Some of them had been rotting for three months or more. One time, the deceased was wedged into the rocks pretty firmly, and as the boat tried to drag it free, well, the tensile strength of the double-braided nylon line surpassed that of the putrescent pinniped. The sea lion ... parted, and the aforementioned nylon line snapped back toward the boat like the inch-and-a-half-thick rubber band that it was, the after portions of the carcass flailing violently and showering the witnesses and the ground crew with unwholesome corruption that requires a trip to Lovecraft's thesaurus to properly convey.

It was still preferable to telemarketing, door-to-door sales, or political canvassing.

(I've done the last on the list. Never again.)

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Comments

So totally made my day

[newwaytowrite.livejournal.com]

Gross yet so well told.

[archteryx.livejournal.com]

I'm curious about your political canvassing experiences. Were they solo or with a team? Volunteer or paid? What happened?

Political canvassing does take someone with a very special personality, I've found, ESPECIALLY when doing it solo. I've done it a few times solo, mostly door-hanging or registering Democratic voters -- safer forms of canvassing for a liberal like me -- and I still ran into ALL kinds.

Unless I have a partner with me at all times, never again. Solo canvassing ia nasty work.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Canvassing for donations for the Sierra Club in Santa Cruz, for pay. Got dropped off in unfamiliar neighborhoods, went door-to-door solo.

This soured me on "volunteering" for years; as I've expressed before, I find unsolicited phone calls and knocks on the door offensive and intrusive, and this experience showed me that almost everyone else does, too, so I simply can't believe anyone else is swayed by them.

[archteryx.livejournal.com]

You'd be amazed at how effective canvassing is politically, when it comes to getting voters to the damned polls. However, it hugely depends on how well targeted it is. My canvassing runs were fairly well targeted, but I ran into some serious teabagger cranks that somehow still made the "D" voter rolls.

Going into so-called "independent" canvassing, I would NEVER do that without someone at my side. The first D canvassing wasn't all that awesome solo either -- I was sent straight into the (student) slums, and I didn't hang around there long, believe me. Got a few D voters registered, though it wasn't enough; my candidate lost that election. :P

Donations? Er...not as much as it used to be. People are just so saturated with sales pitches these days, I think they automatically reject them.

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

Of course it's better than any of those. There aren't any good stories to be gotten from telemarketing, door-to-door sales, or political canvassing. (Well, there's always the traveling salesman joke, but that's been done.)

[archteryx.livejournal.com]

Well, I can say that my stories were mixed. Political canvassing can be quite rewarding, if you do it for a campaign that knows what the hell they are doing, and ALWAYS go out with a partner into questionable territory.

Re: Dead Sea Lion Removal & other occupations

[castleclear.livejournal.com]

Oh Ick and ROFL!!!

Happily Telemarketing is one of the lowpaying jobs I never had, though I did work as a janitor for nearly a year. Perhaps it says something that increasingly in the U.S. with our highest per capita incarceration rate that prison inmates are "hired" to do this. I mean, who doesn't want to give their credit card # and address to a convicted inmate? (winking to indicate this last sentence is facetious.)

I tried selling cards and cookies and candybars a couple of times as a child but gave it up as unpleasant, even though most of the people answering the door back in the 1960's were pretty pleasant.

I have zero experience as a political canvasser, but often have been willing to stop, to listen, to read thru and perhaps sign a petition - or else tell the canvasser as politely as I can why I can't sign this, or sorry, I don't have time today (when in a hurry.) I've even had a couple of interesting conversations with political canvassers. The ones just working to collect signatures for their commissions, don't have time for me or vice versa, I've found. As with telemarketers, if we can't have a discussion, we're not having a conversation, hence Cya! Bye!