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Job names that you didn't know existed

It's deffo a cleaning job.

https://supplychainjobs.dhl.com/job...owba-cabin-cleaning-london/14964/description/

ISTM a p***-poor attempt to make an unattractive job more attractive.
I liked the ‘uniform provided’, ‘staff car parking’. It’s part time but gets straight down to ‘bonus, bonus, bonus’, ‘overtime available’, ie full time hire and fire, non pensionable pay but you get a shiny uniform and get to be called a ‘colleague’. Also spot the spelling mistakes.
 
When I turned 16, I got a summer job as a “sanitation engineer” at the nearby National Institute of Health. Yes, that is what they called their janitors back in 1973. My shift was 4pm to midnight, and the job was sweeping/mopping stairwells. There was only about two hours of actual work to do per shift, so I read a lot to kill the time.
 
My first job during high school was as 'stock boy' in a large department store. After sharing a spliff on the loading dock, my mate James and I decided that we'd rather be referred to as 'merchandise expediters' so we went down the hall to the telephone operator lady's closet and asked her to substitute 'merchandise expediter' for 'stock boy' when paging us. One of the top brass pricks upstairs took offence and told her to revert back to 'stock boy', upon which my mate James went straight up to the offices and told said manager that we wouldn't be responding to 'stock boy' pages, and, if he had any ideas about firing us all we'd be unionized members of the local OCAW (Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers) before dawn. Of course, after another spliff on the dock we had this brilliant idea of forming our own MECW (Merchandise Expediter Cart Workers) and pooling the union fees for group pot purchases. This latter brain wave never bore fruit (nor 'buds', as it were) but we remained victorious as 'merchandise expediters'.
 
Back in the 90s I worked in Farnborough and shared a house with a guy who worked in the space department of the MOD. We were down the pub one night chatting with some other people when the subject turned to jobs and what people did for a living. My mate said he was a satellite engineer, and it turned out that one of the other guys at the table was too! They spent a little while trying to work out if they knew anyone in common, before it became apparent that my mate designed and commissioned satellites, whilst the other guy worked for Sky installing dishes on peoples roofs.
 
My first job during high school was as 'stock boy' in a large department store. After sharing a spliff on the loading dock, my mate James and I decided that we'd rather be referred to as 'merchandise expediters' so we went down the hall to the telephone operator lady's closet and asked her to substitute 'merchandise expediter' for 'stock boy' when paging us. One of the top brass pricks upstairs took offence and told her to revert back to 'stock boy', upon which my mate James went straight up to the offices and told said manager that we wouldn't be responding to 'stock boy' pages, and, if he had any ideas about firing us all we'd be unionized members of the local OCAW (Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers) before dawn. Of course, after another spliff on the dock we had this brilliant idea of forming our own MECW (Merchandise Expediter Cart Workers) and pooling the union fees for group pot purchases. This latter brain wave never bore fruit (nor 'buds', as it were) but we remained victorious as 'merchandise expediters'.

At least it was a joint decision, Craig. :) B.t.w., ' revert back' is tautology. Was it normal to gain employment (presumably during hol's) whilst still at school over there? I can't recall any such provision here in England, apart from paper boy or unofficial casual work. Had a feeling there was a a statutory age here below which you couldn't be formally employed.
 
Most of my 6th Form buddies had holiday period jobs. I seem to remember even at 14 you could do limited hours jobs, not that I did. My dad was paying me to help build his double garage then. As 6th formers, we all went down to the labour exchange at the beginning of the holiday and generally you got something. I had one job re-writing out a card index file of customers for an oil delivery company, another digging up and replanting Xmas trees (they were too close together) another as night-watch man at a public school and a summer holiday job selling burgers and ice creams and yet another as an amusement arcade bent coin technician. Same place employed me as a bingo caller when I was a student for a further 2 summers..65p an hour! I was rich... doing 60 hours a week!
 
B.t.w., ' revert back' is tautology.
Point taken, Mike. Of course, I would have known that had I not been out performing manual labour when I should have been doing my homework. :)
Was it normal to gain employment (presumably during hol's) whilst still at school over there? I can't recall any such provision here in England, apart from paper boy or unofficial casual work. Had a feeling there was a a statutory age here below which you couldn't be formally employed.
The employment regs vary by province over here. In Ontario, for example, one could deliver the newspapers (which I did for a short period of time) starting from 12y.o. (IIRC, I was 13), however, the hours worked were not to coincide with those of school. At 16y.o. one could leave school and go to work full-time in any position that would have one. My town was full of oil and chemical plants that were only too happy to oblige having H.S. dropouts as unskilled labourers. All very high-tech with very little room for unskilled labourers these days; the 'kids' I teach data mining and analysis to there are all freshly minted engineers.

Just found this on a legal articles site...

– In Ontario, youth under 14 years of age cannot work in an industrial establishment. Under the age of 15, they cannot work in a factory, and under the age of 16, they cannot work in on a construction site, in the forestry industry, or an open-pit mine. They are also not allowed to work during school hours.

Seems to leave the possibility open of dropping minors down a mineshaft during none school hours. Likely just another small loophole left over from our UK roots. :D
 
ages 14-15 i worked Saturdays and hols in my Dad's chemist shop.

At 16 i got a job at Lasky's where i worked Saturdays, holidays and some evenings per week. At about aged 20 Lasky's (eventually went bust) were struggling and the work was uninteresting - so i went to work for Olympus Sports (went bust) part-time - holidays and week ends. Was stringing rackets.

Had a flurry of part-time roles - cheque processing with NatWest, payroll processing with someone i cannot remember, Saturdays and some hols in Texas Homecare (vanished from the high street in 1999) ! Then when i started by PhD in Oct '89 i started teaching part-time.
 
Seems to leave the possibility open of dropping minors down a mineshaft during non school hours

That's an improvement on going up chimneys, I s'pose! Glad to see minors weren't allowed to be miners; that would've been confusing !


ages 14-15 i worked Saturdays and hols in my Dad's chemist shop. At 16 I got a job at Lasky's where i worked Saturdays,

Snap! Worked in my father's general store/newsagent's serving people; from probably the age of 12 or 13. Wasn't paid, of course, but took recompense in sweets. Also worked in Lasky's Tott. Ct. Rd. for a while. Can't remember when but it must have been late sixties. Micro-seiki decks seemed to be flavour of the month but that's about my only memory.
 
Also worked in Lasky's Tott. Ct. Rd. for a while.

I was at 251 (i think) (or was it 253?) TCR, from about 1983 to 87. I mainly worked there, but occasionally sent to bigger branch further down TCR. Also occasionally to the branch on Kingsway. At the end i was at Brent X for a couple of seasons, but i hated it as there was no natural daylight..... Having passed my driving test, sometimes i was sent out in the Escort van to do an "install", mostly that was fun, apart from one occasion getting lost in the Barbican, another occasion being sexually pursued by a granny..... anyway it became obvious Lasky's were struggling and i hated working at Brent X, so i moved on.
 
I was a "Petroleum Transfer Technician" for a summer job when in school.
That there would be a fancy name for gas pump attendant at a hiway service-center.
 


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