Day 6 Job

ok...I'm getting lamer and lamer and farther and farther apart between postings....but I'm still here.  Today's prompt is jobs.  There are a series of questions that I'll just answer and then explore from the prompts.

First job:  Babysitting for the neighbors.  I think I started babysitting when I was just 9 years old.  I was a responsible 9 year old though lol.  And to be honest we lived right next door to the people I babysat for so my mom could run over if there were any problems.  Their names were the Phillips.  They had a son that was 3 years younger than me and a daughter who was probably around 4 or 5.  Her name was Alison and she loved following me around.  They were pretty easy to babysit.  Their mother made porcelain dolls as a hobby and I loved going over and looking at all of the beautiful dolls that she made.

worst job:  working at hatches onion packing plant.  It was long hours, but the hard thing was that I kept messing up.  At the end of the day I had to take inventory and they wanted it done quickly.  I'm good at math, but not fast and everyone was always speaking in Spanish which made my math skills even slower.  Me and Gabi messed up the count numerous times which was frustrating for all of us.  We got yelled at a lot.  It was also a little stressful being the only white female working on the floor.  Not really that bad, but the language barrier was hard to deal with.  I spoke spanish, but wasn't as fluent as I needed to be.  The people were generally nice to me except for one guy who always leered at me.  But other than that everyone tried to be understanding and welcome me into the group.  It was a good learning experience even if the job itself was a little traumatic.

here's a list of jobs I've had:

strawberry picker
babysitter
waitress at a truck stop
maid
cashier at round table pizza
bean hoer
Inventory taker at Rowley's cherry packing plant
Inventory taker at Hatches onion packing plant
Raspberry picker
Americorp - worked at homecourt a program for latchkey kids
wilson diamonds -desk clerk, salesperson
ESL teacher - tutored from my apartment in NYC
Full time mother

Dream job - teaching English to refugees.  I'd really like to teach free classes to adults to help them integrate into society.  I have a minor in TESOL, but at this point I'm pretty sure I need to go back to school to update my degree.  It's been 20 years...and I've never really used it.

Current job - mother to 7 kids.  For the last couple of months I've been trying hard to remind myself, "I'm the mother, not the maid"  what are you acting like?  This helps me get my kids to take responsibility for themselves and not just picking up after them, but it's hard because they are usually so busy it's easier to do things myself.  Thankfully, COVID has given me the time to actually make them take responsibility for themselves.  I think sometimes I have lots of expectations for fun all of the time and it's good for me to have the time to make the kids work.  It's also good that Samantha and Nathan will have the opportunity to work this summer even though it means we are unable to go to the states this summer.  I'm trying to remind myself that my job is the kids and not the house and focusing on them is important and good.  I should try and make sure I have some one on one time with each of them everyday.   Even if it's just 10 minutes.  Usually I'm focused on having them do a job for me, but I probably need to focus on finding what they like and develping more of a fun relationship with them.