What follows is a list of the jobs I have worked from age fifteen to today. PT=Part Time. Add this to the list of places I’ve lived, and, — well — I have had a busy life. 🙂
- Lawn mowing PT
- Snow shoveling PT
- Bryan Nursing Home (taking out the trash) PT
- Summer work program for teens whose parents were on welfare
- G&B Trains (Dad’s hobby store) PT
- Bob’s Dairy Queen (cook) PT
- Red Barn (cook) PT
- Twin Fair (inventory) PT
- Bill Knapp’s (bus boy)
- Everhart’s Restaurant (kitchen) PT
- Meyer Marathon (gas attendant, mechanic)
- Ely’s Furniture (deliveries) PT
- Food Giant (stocker)
- Yellow Front (stocker)
- Bob’s Gun Store (Dad’s gun shop) PT
- Foodland (dairy manager)
- Kroger (meat department)
- Unnamed Machine Shop
- LaRosa’s Market (stocker)
- Orchard Lake Cleaners (delivery driver)
- Springer Shell (attendant, mechanic)
- Anderson Honda (mechanic)
- Felice’s Market (dairy department)
- Unnamed Machine Shop (machinist)
- Bill Knapp’s (bus boy)
- Bolt Extrusion Factory (machine operator)
- American Fireplace (machine operator)
- Kirby (vacuum sales)
- Hoover Chemical (foam manufacturing)
- Bard Manufacturing (shear department)
- Holabird Furniture (trailer furniture manufacturer)
- Deco Grande (machine shop)
- Montpelier Baptist Church (assistant pastor)
- General Tire (mill operator)
- Aro (shipping and receiving)
- Time Warner (repairing cable boxes)
- American Tools (tool manufacturer)
- Arthur Treacher’s (general manager)
- Long John Silver’s (new store team manager)
- Home Restaurant (breakfast short-order cook)
- Emmanuel Baptist Church (assistant pastor)
- United Insurance (sales)
- Village of Buckeye Lake (grant manager, building code enforcement, federal block grant manager)
- National Life Insurance (sales)
- Somerset Baptist Church (pastor)
- Newark Advocate (motor route driver)
- Zanesville Times Recorder (motor route driver)
- Nyoka’s Family Restaurant (kitchen manager)
- McGaughey’s Gas Station (attendant, mechanic)
- Community Baptist Church (pastor)
- Charley’s Steakery (general manager)
- Olive Branch Christian Union Church (pastor)
- Our Father’s House (pastor)
- Self-employed (computer builder and repair)
- Victory Baptist Church (pastor)
- Self-employed (office cleaning)
- Allegro Medical (office manager)
- Radio Shack (sales)
- Self-employed (network administration, office cleaning) PT
- Self-employed (writer for this site)
- Self-employed (website maintenance and design for my sister’s business) PT
Due to pervasive health problems, I stopped working in 2005. While I would love to have a job, I can’t drive and my accommodation requirements are such, that I am unemployable. I did try my hand at answering calls for Amazon. I failed miserably.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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And you worked those jobs while you were a pastor or preacher–or training to become one.
I’ll show this list to the next person who says “God will provide.”
You know, Bruce, most companies don’t realize that there are many of us who would work if they would make it easier. But that doesn’t fit with the profit motive.
Why am I not surprised that you were a Kirby Vacuum salesman!😂😂
Obviously, Bruce has never been a lazy SOB waiting for the Lord to provide!
Speaking of that, did you view the JOB being an indication that the Lord provides the opportunity and you have to seize it, or did you have a different theory?
Bill Knapp’s and Arthur Treacher’s, those bring back memories. Our family frequently ate at Bill Knapp’s and I loved their soups; even made their split pea n ham soup recently after finding the recipe online. And I once worked at Arthur Treacher’s as a Counter Girl. Tough job, and we all had acne from the oil in the vats where they fried the fish. Wore a checked headscarf instead of a hat, and that mustard colored uniform wasn’t too attractive. You worked hard for your money, Bruce!
Aylogogo—Those Arthur Treacher’s uniforms were so 1970s, weren’t they?
My family moved from Brooklyn to New Jersey around the same time Blaxploitation movies were becoming popular. After seeing “Shaft,” a bunch of other kids and I wore mustard-colored turtlenecks. We thought we were so cool. But I soon realized we—and most Caucasian people—look terrible in that color.