Max Cheung of Stageleft tagged me in comments there and here with balbulican's meme about the history of our working lives that has already matured interestingly. Thanks, Max, and I know I'm late, but here goes.
I was hoping to start us off with this wonderful performance by Rita MacNeil and The Men of the Deeps of "It's a Workin' Man I Am," but it seems that all the good Rita embeds have been disabled. Oh, well. One way or another, y'know.
My work history, the story of my misspent youth, happens on the turn (our main page being a family-viewing site).
Work for which I have been paid in my life:
babysitter
cashier (my favourite job of all time -- I loved those old National Cash registers, and cashiers are guy magnets)
proofreader of classified ads
manager of advertising and subscriptions at newspaper branch offices
cashier again
composing-room proofreader and junior copy editor (you learned a lot in a real composing room)
editor at small publishing house
junior editor at English publishing house
freelance editor
editor at features magazine
teaching assistant (loved that too -- teaching English to engineers is an experience no one should miss)
community college English teacher (loved the students; couldn't cope with the institution)
editor of scholarly books
I should probably add "wife" and "blogger," although the latter doesn't actually pay. (Ahem.) Wife paid a great deal and it cost a great deal too, although in other terms, it was very much worth it.
I'm not sure who hasn't been tagged already, but I tag April Reign, Alison at Creekside, GDKitty at Hope and Onions, Catchfire at Blind Man with a Pistol, and all of my colleagues at the POGGE Institute, starting with pogge hisself, if he feels so inclined.
Hey with all that teaching experience maybe I should set up some tutoring eh? *whistles innocently*
Off to dutifully fulfil tag
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that so many of us bloggers were involved in communications of some sort in our lives.
This exercise makes me laugh a little to realize that I'm far less unique than I had assumed.
Hey, Bruce -- have you done your list yet? Consider yourself tagged.
Oh yeah, I did mine ages ago, you might have to scroll down past the cartoons.
- proofreading/operating a handfed press/general cleanup in letterpress department
- shipper/receiver/stockroom supervisor in commercial printer/envelope manufacturer
- power guillotine operator (see above)
- estimator (see above)
- customer service rep/manager (see above)
- weeding/feeding/aerating lawns with a side order of pruning shrubs and small trees
- microfilm operator/acting supervisor/clerk in federal civil service
- billing/estimating/network administrator for commercial printer
- self-employed providing general computer hardware & software support/custom programming/website administration
Edited to add one I forgot - pTo this day, I haven't got a clue what a "meme" is. I know that "meme" means "same" in French. In English, I don't have any memories of remembering if I have ever seen "meme" before.
Not knowing what "meme" means reminds me of when I was in England and I was told to stand in the Q. I couldn't find a Q anywhere.
Skinny Dipper, University Ejucated.
Ha! SD, I know how you feel.
You can see the history of the current usage here. I don't know whether you find Dawkins uplifting or not (I don't), but there you go.
I just learned to go along with it as a net thing that means something like (for the old-fashioned among us) an embodied and contagious metaphor. Does that help?
I still don't know what a meme is. Is it like a mime?
Anyway, I did work at a TV broadcast company.
SD, I'm trying to answer you, but something has gone funny with our comments. I'm being told that my comment has to be approved by site owner ... wtf? Usually they send that notice to moi if it's my post. Anyway, lemme investimagate. I wrote you a good answer.
I got the same comment notification. I assumed it was because I hardly ever post here but I don't remember the same problem before.
I think Richard Dawkins coined the word "meme", a play on the word "gene". He was trying to describe the way that ideas percolate more or less as units through a social structure.
Hmp. I'm an ivory tower guy, haven't done much.
--Research assistant to an English prof
--Census person
--Library temp
--Library peon
--Library not-quite-so-peonly peon
--Library mid-level-clerkish-person (but still not telling anyone what to do)
(All these library jobs were/are at a university library)
None of my jobs have had as much impact on me as either my university studenting or my playing of roleplaying games.
On the "meme" discussion--Dawkins sounds right, somehow. But he didn't make it from nothing, I wouldn't reckon. Don't think it's related to French either. Probably Greek, would be my guess: Mimesis, which is one of those words one could gas on about forever and not *really* nail it down.
The actual idea of a meme, thought about carefully, can be kind of rewarding IMO. Typically it's just used as jargon, though. As I understand it, a meme is an idea or package of ideas looked at in terms of its ability to in effect reproduce itself--to continue getting people to believe it and pass it on to other people, generally due to properties aside from actual truth. Not that truth can't be one of the things that helps an idea to spread, but thinking in terms of memes doesn't really help explain that. Religions, f'rinstance, are rewarding to look at in terms of being memes--nearly all of them have to be false, so what characteristics can cause one to grow? They have to in some way give people what they want, and to last they have to create some sort of lockin, something that makes it hard to drop the ideas. As with more biological sorts of fitness, this will vary somewhat with the environment, and so I could say that the meme/fitness perspective may help explain why most of the longer-lived religions seem to be rather complex, self-contradictory and even somewhat incoherent: That "memetic diversity", if you will, helps a religion to continue to appeal to diverse people under diverse circumstances. Of course it may really just be that if a religion lasts a while it gets complicated. But the "meme" angle can lead to interesting insights. I used to think it was a worthless concept, but now I think it has some value, although the word is overused and generally in places where it adds nothing.
I tend to agree with the criticisms of the meme concept that're in its wikipedia article; I think it's just a neat idea that works less the more you look at it.
However, the word meme's second life on the internet, as a generic term for a verbal or graphic viral joke/idiom is worthwhile, since it's awkward to describe certain memes as 'running gags' as such. Although most of them are basically that.
Graduated '70
Pipe Fitter about74
Underground Miner about 76
Deckhand Tow Boats Till about 81
Now I'm a retiered Operating Engineer getting a UNION pension after 27 or so years. It's not what you know, It's how ya got that knowledge!!
The Rounder.
Something funny is happening to our comments. My apologies to anyone who is getting odd messages or who sees comments deleted. Will talk to the boss.
Here's mine for what it's worth:
Business analyst is the job I've done for longer than the rest put together.
Whoops, forgot RPG designer.
Whoa! You were an RPG designer? What game/s did you work on?
(Oh, yeah, I did the flyer thing briefly too--forgot)
http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=2074
It's missing a couple but that's most of them.
Very cool.