[Closed] Good short term jobs you've had

My work placement from university - working in the QC lab of a cider brewery for nine months. All samples taken for QC analysis had to be, erm, thrown out. e.g. a tray of cans from each hour of canning - only one can needed for analysis. 😀

Life modelling.

Though you do need to be strong. Last time I did it, I wasn't and it hurt!

Also the two cute ladies behind the bar who were leaving over it and staring.... Oh man I had to advert my gaze, and they loved it.

But £15 an hour for hanging around! OK!

Ive always enjoyed bar work. An excellent working knowledge of alcoholic beverages, the ability to pull a good pint, remember regular's names and tipples, and accurately tot up a 10 round drink in my head.

The smell of a pub at 10am is something Ive never got on well with though.

I always enjoyed my farm jobs except for one spell on a shitty Welsh dairy farm in Pembrokeshire.

Speed boat mechanic, Newhaven.

Maxum boats main dealer, mostly fitted with big block chevy V8 motors labelled as Mercruiser.

Only did it for 4 months one early summer and the money was pretty poor but I would have done it for free if I could afford it.

Every boat that got worked on got a 1 hour sea trial. Every boat. My favourite was a 4.7 litre V8 powered 23 feet speed boat with contra-rotating prop (Bravo 3). That made very good progress.

I.was powerboat/safety boat driver at a watersports loch for a summer, 2006, great weather, relaxed environment, a cafe above the storeroom full of lovely waitresses... 😉

I did a days work at the LG plant in Newport for an agency, basically washing up in this kitchen. The head honchos were over from Korea and were given this feast, me and the 5 Korean cooks got the same feast, it was amazing.

Taping lingerie onto swimwear models.

It's a bit yin and yang this one. In the summer between University, I worked for a small company making load cells - basically the electronic innards to weighing devices. The company in question specialised in heavy duty stuff, so not easy stuff like kitchen scales for up to 1.6kg, but things like grain silos weighing tonnes.

Every so often in the process a load cell was selected for verification. That meant instead of calibrating it against another accurate cell, you had to test it using dead weights, in a cradle suspended from the load cell. Me and another guy had to load the cradle as fast as possible at prescribed intervals, adding weights and measures calibrated weights 20kg each, 10 at a time to step up in 200kg intervals. Measure the readout, and then add another 200kg, all the way up to 5 tonnes. And then take them off again..... each test took about ten minutes, in which time you'd each load and then unload 2.5 tonnes of weights.

You had to work in time, in tandem, so the cradle loaded evenly otherwise it would start to rock or even tip over. And with 5 tonnes of weights on, if they all fell over you could jump out of the way pretty quickly. It was a hot summer, in a small room, you sweated like buggery, had blisters on your hands, and were knackered in no time. I'm sure my later back problems were in no way related.

The rest of the time, I'd be out doing random delivery jobs, taking lumps of steel to be machined, heat treated, or off to various contractors. Often in a crappy Bedford Rascal, but sometimes in the Production Manager's Cavalier SRi. Day trips to the south coast, or up to the NPL at Teddington, with the radio on - great fun.

Rough with the smooth.

I worked in a busy Snappy Snaps for a few months. The boss was a prick but the guys I worked with were a really good mixture. One guy was a full time alcoholic and drummer in a band, the other guy was a pole dancer in a gay bar. One would show up for work pissed as a fart with a bottle of "fruit juice' and the other would still be off his head from E's and whizz.

This was before the digital revolution so developing people's naughty snaps was a daily occurrence. Nothing brightens up your day like developing a roll of mundane holiday snaps which is suddenly interspersed with some amateur selfie porn 😈

Picture framer, only did for about 6 months or so when I was due to leave school and when I first left before stating my career in the NHS.

Was great, felt a massive pride being taught be a perfectionist to do everything to his hight standard.

I did love bar work (for all of Stoner's reasons) - although that became a long term management position!

Best summer job was when I was about 14. I had a paper round (for a few years) delivering the local rag 6 days a week. Over the summer holidays, several paperboys 'resigned' so my round became a 2 1/2 bike ride for £37 a day - I remember the figure well.

My parents made me save half of my wages.

The other half paid for a Kinesis frame (with the s-bend rear stays), Club Roost handlebars, Judy XC forks, Magura hydralic rim brakes (in frog green), a FLite saddle, full XT drive chain and Lemon XC717 rims. The front was laced with a snowflake pattern. Wellego SPDs.

It had blue grips and Tioga factory DH tires (1.8" IIRC)

I can still picture the bike now!

I was also damn fit after that much riding every day.

In my memory, it was a beautiful summer too... not a drop of rain!

Working in a busy bar while I was in uni was great. Basically a night out, surrounded by good looking barmaids because the landlord new what attracted business and all the shots etc bought for you by cucustomers. Wouldn't have wanted to do it forever but it was good fun at the time

Still time to edit that to to your high standard, Drac 8)

T-Shirt shop in Ocean City, Maryland
Ski technician at Mount Ruapehu, NZ
Outdoor clothing shop in Queenstown, NZ

yeah - I liked farm work, you actually got something done and truly finished (without lots of management, HR etc etc) - also used to like logging with dad - tree to fire, an early childhood memory is chopping kindling with dad at about 5??, I had his big mototorbike gauntlet on my holding hand.

worked in an offy at Xmas - not sure about enjoy, but you never stood still, so time did fly

now I enjoy gardening, probably as you are your own boss and again you can actually get something done without needing lots of meeting/dependencies ..... and it stays done

and it stays done

Nothing stays done in my garden. Weed, the fkkers grow back. Mow the lawn, just keeps on growing 🙂

I've had a few good ones over the years.
The best was probably working for Budget car rentals in Queenstown, New Zealand. I basically spend a summer washing cars in the sun, occasionally picking customers up and occasionally delivering cars to other parts of NZ. It was bloody brilliant.

I, like Stoner, have also always enjoyed bar work. I've done it at posh hotels, local pubs and my favourite, the student union bar when I too was a student. Happy people to talk to, good bunch to work with and subsidised beer as well. I'd still do it now if it weren't for the fact the wages were so low.

Holiday job at school cleaning and tidying science labs and metalwork shops. Got to hang out with technicians who were a cool bunch (to a 16 year old), dispose of dangerous out of date chemicals and use the pool at lunchtimes.

Actually sweeping up in a carbon block facory was pretty good too (though filthy work). Great breakfasts.

Multi-drop courier. Paid by the day, not by the number of parcels helped.

Agency catering work during school and uni holidays. Posh weddings through most of the summer, nice places, happy people, booze, long hours but with long breaks - not much to do while the speeches were happening. Work 100+ hour weeks, go on holiday for a bit, ring the agency when you're back and rack up the shifts again. And loads of cycling from home to golf clubs, hotels etc.

Then working in The Wood in Fernie for a winter season. Amazing food, great people to work for, no lunchtime service - 5/6pm was the earliest you'd need to be in. Wages went straight to bank acct. and covered rent and bills, $100-$300/ night in tips went on food, rye & ginger, cat skiing and toys. Pretty good snow that year, too!

And, like Stoner says, bar and restaurant work can be quite mentally demanding - keeping track of 10+ tables and who's going to need what next for 4-5 hours of busy service takes some doing. Meeting that many people gives you some good life lessons in the relative values of arrogance, humility and treating everyone decently.

David Brown Engineering - working with the time served fellas, their rigid tea routine, their incessant mickey-taking. Loved them- proper Yorkshiremen whose lives revolved around hard graft and good laughs. Using a ceilling crane to pick the raw metal to the orders, using a very very powerful jetwash on greased up racking, then deciding to give a nearby escort van a quick wash.......and take a streak of paint off the side 😯 😆

Hard, dirty work and I loved it.

Stewarding work for an agency while at university - got to visit loads of venues and see loads of stuff

Regularly worked at:

Stamford Bridge
White Hart Lane
Wembley Stadium
The Oval

and also worked occasionally at a race course (can't remember which, perhaps Epsom), Madjeski Stadium (Reading FC), Lords & Farnborough air show on the ticket booths.

Saw loads of football matches - was at a load of Arsenal Euro qualifiers when they were playing at Wembley Stadium, saw the very last match at Wembley - Germany v's England and Germany won, Oasis, Bon Jovi, Spice Girls at Wembley Stadium....

I really enjoyed being on the ticket booths at Farnborough, apart from the obvious lack of trust from the management due to the large amount of cash we were dealing with.
And I once got to work in the finance office of the Oval as they needed someone to help out counting tickets and totting up money from the turnstiles. I got paid about £2/hr more than if I'd have been stuck in a turnstile in a warm office with some nice people, a constant supply of tea, lunch money allowance(!) and afterwards the girls in the office invited me up to the bar and I ended up meeting John Major in there, which was a bit surreal!

Equally, I've had lots of fun jobs - although I always hated bar work, I can't stand drunks.

I worked in an Internet Café / Backpackers Travel Agency in Sydney, the money wasn't fantastic and the owner was a bit 'odd' his moods would swing from matey to aggressive - that could possibly be due to the fact I was a terrible, terrible employee - when I was awake I was really good at it - their were a 1000 different tours people could do, but they were all variations on a theme really - you didn't have to sell them per se, someone might come in and say "I want to go to Frasier Island please", the price didn't matter because it was the same everywhere - you just took the money and tore off a ticket for them. My downfall was that I was quite often not awake, I would arrive tired on 2 hours sleep, or drunk, or hung over, or injured or quite often a little of each. He used to say my good days outweighed my bad - but in the end his wife left him because he was shagging the French girl who worked the days I didn't, a few days later the new rota arrived which gave her a fulltime role working side by side with him and me and the other guy a single shift each a week, sacked without being sacked.

But this was good, because it made me look for the next job - I took a job washing cars - and as I was an immigrant looking to make ends meet in a foreign land made me about 10 years ahead of the curve - but I wasn't slogging it out washing taxi's in a dilapidated former petrol station oh no - I was a 'detailer' working for one of the big rental firms - we'd spend the early hours (relative to my backpacker lifestyle I.E. 8am to 10am) rushing around the city, suburbs and Air Port collecting cars, spend the middle of the day cleaning them all and taking down the details of any defects or damage (which, until recently I thought was where the phrase "detailing" came from) and then the afternoon delivering them all - this was during the Sydney Olympics (so a LONG time ago now) and ran all the way to the Xmas Summer Hols and it meant there was so much work we worked 8-4 but you could work whenever you wanted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week if you liked and it was all time and a half - a good group of lads and ladies, more fun than you might think, endless free Gatorade (well, it was 40c some days) and earning huge piles of money every week - I was genuinely gutted when Jan came around, they reduced the fleet by 70% and whilst they never sacked us, our visas only allowed us to work for a single employer for a maximum of three months so we had to go - pretty much brought an end to my backpacking - a sensible man would have saved the thousands of dollars a month I was making and spent the last 3 months of my visa carefully spending it seeing the West Coast which I never got to, but I spent the money on booze and chasing women (I even wasted some) I think during the end of it all I was very tired and starting paying a bit more in the hostel for a private room and bought a little TV and playstation - I knew deep down that I'd enough of living day to day out of a bag and wanted to settle down for a looong time but the knowledge that I'd never have that amount of freedom again made me carry on longer than I wanted - once the job went I was penniless and unhappy, I managed a week in Melbourne but hated it, and very ill thought out week in Canberra (they we literally giving away a weeks accommodation with food for the price of one night bed only in Sydney) - sadly Canberra was closed that week, I think it still is.

Ultimately I threw myself on the mercy of the airline I had my return ticket with to change the date of my flight home without paying the $50 charge (as I didn't have it) only to discover that the token flight I had booked to come home on (knowing I'd change it anyway) had been cancelled, a very apologetic Japanese Lady (Jap airline) said I would have to now fly - Syd, Brisbane, Osaka, Tokyo and finally London, 'No Sir, we won't charge you the fee, and would Sir like to fly Business Class' Dam straight he would.

Arrived Home Feb 2001, I thought it was the middle of the night it was so dark, but it was 11am, the world had gone from Blue and Green to Grey and Black and from too dam hot to too dam cold - but within a few days I was working again, partly because I hate being idle and partly because I hadn't done a great job of putting my affairs in order before I left and Barclaycard was getting ready to put a hit out on me.

Which brought me to my last fun short-term job, I worked in a Government Agency in Cardiff - Arts Council or something, I spent a week with a guy who was meant to be indispensable so he could have the following 2 weeks off whilst I covered for him - he was in charge of the copy room with extra duties which included refilling water coolers - he took this very seriously and whilst nice enough, was what we call in Wales a bit Tup - it was brilliant - his duties could be completed in about an hour and a half a day at my pace and the people were all lovely to me - honestly, they'd put you up for a medal if you managed to fill their water cooler within a fortnight of asking and I managed to copy something the "SAME DAY!" The Boss asked me to stay on full time, they'd 'find a role' for me - they offered decent money too, the only downside was I knew I'd be bored out of my mind and I'd never be allowed to progress to anything else as I didn't speak Welsh, sad really. I left and went to work for a Bank and gave up my soul for big piles of cash for nearly 10 years.

Sweeping leaves off the Cheltenham streets for the Borough Council. Up at 5. Lovely quiet autumn mornings. Brooms not blowers. My 'own table' and a bacon sarnie and coffee (gratis) from that lovely tiny little cafe in Montpellier. Clock off at 2pm, jump on my first ever mountain bike, over Leckhampton and awayyyy!

Seems like a simple, gentle dream from a thousand years ago.

hay baling in the summer time. Work satisfyingly hard for about 40 mins in a field in the sunshine, then take a 20 min break relaxing whilst the tractor went to refill. Lying on a spare pile of bales in the sunshine out in the countryside, when you're 18 - that's the definition of relaxing.

that was my late august for about 8 yrs, straw though, wish I had those forearms now ! wasn't to keen on the Northumbrian Meat pies for breakfast 😯

distillery labourer in between school & university. usually just 8 - 4 hours, but worked in the tun room for a spell and the 6am shift started with a quick dram of the out the still pure spirit - so, 2 days old and about 140deg proof :0)

security was less lax in those days and the work, while hard, was quite sporadic..

In my twenties, I spent five years working for major record labels.
This was before all the budgets were slashed.
I can't remember a thing..... 😉

working as temp bar staff at the local around christmas, so many free drinks !!!! and paid too.

Sweeping leaves off the Cheltenham streets for the Borough Council.

Straight out of Uni my bestmate was a binman. His reasoning was 'its a job and I'm not the type to claim benefits'.

Hes still my bestmate now

Back in the day (1991 ish), i was volunteered for some detached duty at RAF Brize Norton just as the UK was selling its barrage balloons/trucks/parachuting cages to foreign governments....

Back then, your first jump as a military parachutist was from a cradle suspended below a barrage balloon at 600-650 feet, but they were old and needed a lot of maintenance from the RAF and it was decided to sell them.

anyways, I had the job of going up in the cradle (room for 5 folk) with the jump instructor, a UK MOD bod and a couple of whatever foreign military was interested in buying the things - usually senior army officers. my job was to jump out and parachute to the ground eight - ten times a day.

That was great fun - 6 weeks at Brize, no other duties and all the parachute jumps you could handle. and I got paid for it.

ooh forgot i was a binman between school and Uni in the highlands - dad worked for the local council and got me on the 'special pickups' team - great money and all we did was drive around in a flat bed pickup, three up in the cab and collect the washing machines/fridges and anything too big for the bin lorries to collect, and drop them off at the 'landfill site' - i.e. local scrappies. we made more from the scrap than we got in wages.

To be honest working at Argos wasn't too bad, I was only there for a week though before getting offered a better job. Short shifts, easy work and average pay. Would probably work there again so long as I knew it wasn't forever!

Delivering fleet cars, while studying at Uni.
Got to drive some mint cars, fast ones too, all over the place.
Having to wear a tie kind of spoiled it though...

When I was at Uni I used to come home in summer and work as a beach cleaner - fantastic job. Spent all day on the beach, surfed when it was working, played Frisbee, chatted to the locals. Was hard work when it was a warm and sunny weekend but the rest of the time it was fairly relaxed. Used to nip off to the pub for a sneaky drink. Very little supervision. At the age of 35 with a professional career I still say that that was my best job.

My bestmate had a summer job at Japanese airlines. He said all the girls were gagging for white guys but they did nothing for him. He likes blondes. He wouldn't take me to see them as he said he didn't want to get in trouble/fired.

That would have been my dream short term job....

Working as a sailing instructor after school in the summer. Spent all day sailing or bazzing about in rescue boats.

Selling cinema tickets and confectionery during the easter 1981 school holidays.
Backin those days,[i]everything[/i] closed downon Good Friday and Easter Sunday and there was nowhere to get fags except from me! I was on 6% personal commission.
In four days I made enough to pay for a loooong summer holiday.

I worked behind the bar at the Hacienda when I was a student. At the height of the Madchester/Acid House silliness. Imagine the polar opposite of Stoners bar work.

I used to love walking in there while it was still light and empty (It always was an amazing space - it was a yacht warehouse. In Manchester? WTF?). Then watch it descend into a vision of Sodom and Gomorrah as the night went on. Everyone was absolutely off their tits on industrial strength MDMA. The atmosphere was *ing amazing. Used to make a fortune in tips. Being on first name terms with the biggest gangsters in Manchester (who were actually a nice enough bunch) meant nobody ever *ed with you. Used to get invites to the best post club parties. And free entry and drinks in any club or bar in town. It was ****ing ace! 😀

The best was when there were gigs on. How many people go to the bar when the bad is on? Not many. So you had the best seats in the house, and were basically getting paid to watch great bands. Saw Oasis when they started out, the Mondays, Charlatans, and saw Sasha, Derek May, Digweed etc do the best sets

The things I've seen 😯

Why was gofasterstripes in the buff as a life model in a bar?

Bandaging roses - the rose nursery planted wild roses then would graft on the a bud of the type of rose they wanted and the bush then become the desired type of rose. Just a nice outdoors job during a long glorious summer.
Cinema projectionist - back in the days when cinemas had projectors and film, now it's hard disks, automated and dull. Did lead to an interesting discussion with the manageress of an independent cinema when I told her about this job and she showed me the control room. She'd never operated a full on cinema projector.
Lifeguard - actually was supposed to be permanent. Crew on a safety boat under a bridge which was being permanently painted (rust inhibitor). Loads of fishing involved.
Motorcycle dispatch rider in That London (pre-email, not such a hot job now I understand).
House knocker downer, sort of. 2 of us would go into a house being readied for rebuilding and take out all bar the supporting walls. Knocking the walls down, excellent. Emptying out the rubble, less so.

Designated life guard on canoe trips down the Cortois* in Missouri. I was there mainly as a box ticking exercise and to transport the cool box, the guiding was handled by someone else.

* generally has a depth of about 30cm

Not glamorous but working in a William Hill call centre was pretty good as a student. Got quite quick at it and got put on a special line for VIP customers where the phone didn't ring very often. There was nowt else useful to do so they were quite happy for you to chat to others, read a book, or watch all the sports that were on TVs all over the place.

Pay was pretty decent too - especially double time on a Sunday which I think was about £14 an hour.

A tie for me.

One great summer job was picking, packing and dispatching hedge cutting platforms. I worked with two other fellas mostly wrapping steel frames in bubblewrap, working in a barn in a large country house. All the tea and juice we could drink, and a couple of spaniels to throw balls for. We could work flat out for half an hour, then have a half hour break when we'd generally play tennis-ball cricket. The boss didn't mind a bit!

I also loved lambing one spring - early starts, bitterly cold, properly mucky but really rewarding

In 1987 I was in between jobs to I got in touch with a French woman I knew who had a chalet in Megeve where she taught French to English kids. Turned out she was looking for someone to collect the kids from the airport and take them skiing in the afternoons, so I spent the whole winter season living in the chalet, driving to and from Geneva and skiing in the afternoons. Terrible, it was! It certainly improved my skiing.

The other great job I had was driving for Hertz, most of the jobs were returning hire cars to depots like Marble Arch or delivering them to airports. This was in the days of 3 litre Granada and Capri Ghias, so I had a lot of fun. We used to drive in convoy from Newcastle down to Marble Arch in five cars at a steady 95 mph then pile into one and drive back. Typically one or two of the other drivers would be Police so when we did get stopped for speeding the problem would magically go away.

Working in the edinburgh fringe... Did this 3 times, pretty different each time, all brilliant.

First time, dogsbodying in a nightclub/music venue. Decent wages, terrible hours but got to watch all the bands and meet most of them, which was ace at that age, chilling with Mogwai and Midge Ure, Uresai Yatsura, the Fannies, the Wannadies and the Divine Comedy... And a bunch of rubbish that I've forgotten. And blagged my way into a ton of gigs and parties off the back of it. 5 weeks stupidly hard work, made more than I'd expected to in the whole summer, probably aged me by a year though.

Second time, working in a theatre venue, running the box office. There was basically one essential thing to do here- establish that I was the one heterosexual male in the theatre industry. I [i]love[/i] the theatre! Got paid **** all and spent far more on drink and condoms. The work was great fun too.

Last time out, a more serious venue. Less fun, less shagging, more money, better shows, better blagging and the best last night party ever. For ages I had on my CV "flamethrower operator/machine gun loader"

Working at Vue as a customer assistant.
Fairly hard work, poor pay and antisocial hours but the staff at all level were fantastic. I actually enjoyed going into work because the social aspect was so much fun. Turns our that our cinema was one of the best performing too!

Island sitting pumpkin island on the great barrier reef (now XXXX island- the beer), 4 posh chealets on the island; you lived in which ever was empty.

Bit of cleaning, ferrying about in a dinghy/on a quad then relax in the most beautiful place on earth.

Storms were insane!

Spent a summer working for Brophy Ground Maintenance, who won the tender to look after all the flower beds, parks and grassed ares in the city. What a wonderful job, I'd spend the mornings driving a 7.5t truck, pulling a trailer, all laden with trays and trays of flower which I'd drop off at various locations (big roundabouts were my favorite - yes I [i]am[/i] going to drive onto the grass), I'd then spend the afternoon helping to clean up the beds and plant them all out. We had a tipper on the truck, but nowhere to tip, so all the muck had to be hand shoveled out of the back at the end of the day. I ended up fitter than any sport has ever made me.

I used to work as a bread van delivery boy, from 4-5am on a Saturday. Hard graft but it gave me great forearms and, with a bit of skulduggery, it paid well. That helped pay for all of my lifestyle issues and since we knocked off early, it meant I could still play school rugby or hitchhike from London to Stoney Middleton and get in some steep limestone action. I hitched that route every weekend for about 2 years, adolescent obsessions being what they are. That job made me appreciate the beauty and clean air of the early mornings, even in east London plus it meant I always had natty English shoes.

hora - Member

My bestmate had a summer job at Japanese airlines. He said all the girls were gagging for white guys but they did nothing for him. He likes blondes. He wouldn't take me to see them as he said he didn't want to get in trouble/fired.

That would have been my dream short term job....

Ya, they do, they do ... I am not white so consider sub-human to them girls. D'oh!

In the meantime, the best short term job I enjoy was I think looking after 500 pigs (12kg - 85kg) in the farm, even if the place was full of pig shite but they were good shite. Very tiring but not bad. I doubt I have the energy to work long term as it's very physical.

Apart from that ... not sure.

had quite a few jobs in the past.... mostly short term.

as one of our brethen above, i spent a year in Oz (gulp! 12yrs ago). was a delivery guy of sorts to many hostels thanks to a "dude" i met six months previously. i was lodging at a hostel with my own room with a lady friend, only having to clean the kitchen and yard each day. was fun riding around town and the suburbs and i saved up enough to finance a big chunk of the rest of my time there.
also had a stint picking grapes with an old college friend in the SW. early starts, bloody cold, but soon got warm. 5:30 till 11. those five'n half hours were spent in a sunny haze. had the odd red back run up your arm or leg which woke you up. was a good time spent hitching around between towns, forests and the coast and camping wherever we fancied.

more recently, but still many years ago, my work mate and i built a timber framed house for his in-laws. from spring through till early winter, all day spent outside, hard graft (GF found a photo from that time, she said i look like a triangle), good laughs... and nice hard cash at the end of each week. earnt enough that year that i packed lots of it into that ISA thing and meant i could support myself for a few months in germany.

and i enjoyed guiding a few seasons back. two summers spent either riding with guests one week or driving the support/lugguage vans the other. met lots of fun and interesting people, knew many of the locals in the villages we passed through and could eat for free in many huts and restaurants. it was a demanding job, having to heard and encourage 6-10 people of vastly varying ability along, up, over and down mountains for six days on end whilst always being on call and the go-to man for everything takes its toll on your nerves. (i longer guide, but i do drive for them still.)

where as with the van i have total solitude... my only real contact with people is when picking up the luggage from the one or two hotels between 9-10. then i drive for a few hours to the next hotels through fantastic scenery, drop off the luggage by 12-1 and then head off to find a spot to kip for the night. usually up high or by a lake if i want a wash. still have four to six hours to ride (on my own, at my own pace, without worrying about those in front or behind me). each week starts in Germany and ends either on Lake Garda or Como.
by kipping in the van it means i save my allowance and can invest this in lift tickets for the afternoon.
it's more of a paid holiday than a job and still do three or four weeks a year in summer when my normal work is low on the ground.

One of my first photography assisting jobs on leaving art school was Penthouse UK relaunch photography shoots. Bit of an eye opener. 😯

Tipping frozen black currents (along with snails) into a giant mashing machine. Twelve our shifts with the option of an extra twelve hour night shift at 2x rate on a Friday for a lucrative 24hour marathon. Loadsa money for a spotty youth.

Pulling somebody out of the mashing machine by his feet and seeing the look on his [surprisingly still intact] face was priceless.

summer job at a brewery in leeds.. opening and pouring the contents of the damaged cans down the drain..my neck.. never went home sober was still drunk on the train to work the next day..every day..

summer job at a scrap yard.. worked on the weighbridge.. read prom mags from 7.30 till 4.30 every day..

Not a job as such, but some family friends live in Snowdonia, we go visit for a month at a time. She is retired, he is semi retired working for forestry commission. And to earn our keep I help out on the logging harvest. They have a deal that any fallen tree can be taken for firewood. So driving about on the old field Marshall with a trailer and a saw, dragging wood out to get the barn stocked up for the winter. Take my bike never ride it, as I'm too busy wood collecting. Hard graft, but best holiday I have