A lifetime of moneymaking pursuits

Another half-day, another blog... I was just sitting around thinking of ways to make a buck. I have a virtual lifetime... well, not virtual, actual... of work experience that must be worth SOMETHING today.

A few of the more memorable jobs I have undertaken since I was 14:

Busboy at the defunct Castle des Monts in Ste. Agathe-des-Monts, Quebec... the same place that Duddy Kravitz (played so brilliantly by a very young Richard Dreyfuss)worked in the film The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. I actually slept in the same place (but never used my left hand... see the film) and worked the same dining room he did. The renonwned place, a real hotspot in the 1940s and 1950s akin to the resorts in the Catskills, burned down a few years later.

Dairyman at Steinberg's, Montreal's historic grocery chain that went under in 1992 after some 80 years. I worked at the Cote St. Luc Shopping Centre even though I was underage. My dad knew the store manager, the now-deceased Moe Caplan, and got me in. I first worked as a wrapper at the cash and was SO good at it that I was promoted to dairyman. It went great for a few days, till my massive pallet of milk cartons caught on the industrial fridge door handle and about 250 quarts fell off the pallet, half of them bursting open and flooding the store floor with milk. I was fired that day.

Audio Tester at Cinram, a then Montreal producer of Long Play (LP) records. I checked the presses on the nightshift to ensure that the records were coming off them in good condition, so I had to visually inspect them for warping and a condition called "unfill," where the grooves are not cut properly. Outlandos D'Amour by The Police was the big title that summer (1974 or so) and I must have listened to it on turntable-with-headphones 500 times ensuring the quality was primo. I still shudder when Roxanne is on the radio.

Cleaner at two hospitals over three consecutive summers: Probably the best paying job I ever had as a teen, I cleaned floors just like the big boys, removing stains caused by every conceivable body fluid. I think I was earning $200 a week when the most anyone my age got was $90. And it was cool working in a medical environment, likely one of the reasons I passed the 130-hour Canadian Red Cross EMR course two years ago and volunteered as a stagiere EMS First Responder in my community till last year. Most unusual work done as a teen... grabbing a corpse by his ice-cold feet and lifting him onto a gurney, as requested by an orderly. My exploits certainly inspired Michael Crichton to write ER.

Director of Sales and Marketing at Semtronix, a small electro-mechanical design and prototype shop in Ottawa, mid-1980s, during the towns halcyon days as Silicon valley North. Exciting times helping this upstart business get their first contracts, at a location in Greely, in the middle of farmland. The business eventually went under due to infighting between the partners. Memorable moment: Going to work on a Saturday, leaving the front door open on a hot summer's day... and getting trapped inside with a really pissed off badger it took me two hours to shoosh out the door. The things we do for our career.

Film unit publicist: As I mentioned in my first blog message, the best job I ever had, creatively, interest-wise and every other way. The person who handles all publicity and media requests during the shooting of a film, I worked with the likes of David Bowie, Marlon Brando, Ashley Judd, all the freres Baldwin, John Lithgow, Ben Kingsley, Jack Palance, Katie Holmes, Roy Dupuis, Tia Carrere, Hulk Hogan (Terry Bolea), Donald Sutherland, Brigitte Nielsen... and hundreds of others. It was not always fun or easy, with so many egos to satisfy and wide-ranging attitudes, but I feel blessed to have done it. As a film buff, there is no better place to hang out than on a movie set.

And last/most recent but certainly not least... The Colon Guy. Need I say more?

A toute a l'heure!