I was going through some old work paperwork this afternoon, some going back to the mid 70s. It certainly was not the records of a stable person. That got me to reflecting on my distant past.
For the first time in my life, I realized I had lived in 8 different homes and attended 6 different schools by the time I was 10. I had lived in three places in Detroit, MI; then Brownsville, San Marcos and San Antonio; then Deans and Metuchen, NJ. I am the eldest of seven (plus an older adopted brother) it is pretty safe to say that my childhood was very different than average. At ten, we lived in a 2-bedroom Duplex and my Dad was working three minimum wage jobs. My Mom was way busy dealing with my six younger siblings, who require more attention than I did. From the time I was about five or six, the World was my oyster. I was the first one out of the house and the last one back. I only mention that as a possible reason I was never satisfied with working for anyone.
Today I came across my 1979 Houston Taxi Driver’s License, my early 80s Class 1 & 2 Truck Driver’s License, and a business card from when I was the Vice President of United Recovery Systems. It got me reflecting back on all of the jobs I had since I’d returned from Active Duty in May ’75.
While I’m sure I’ll miss a few, here is a list of the jobs I remember having between 1975 when I returned home and 1990 when I started NDR.
- Drove a dump truck for a Greenauer black top company
- Dove Taxi for Yellow Cab of Buffalo
- Worked for the VA as a file clerk.
- Managed an Electrolux vacuum cleaner store in Batavia, NY
- Steam Cleaned carpets for Blackmon Mooring
- Drove for Yellow Cab of Houston
- Bill Collector at about 5 agencies
- Repo’d Furniture and Appliances (Schultz Diversified Systems)
- Repo’d Cars for Texas Recovery
- Truck Driver for 7-Up
- Draftsman (oil field pump shafts in Isometric Views while going to Raymond J Horn School of Drafting) for CCI
- Carpet Cleaning Salesman Bartees Mobile Cleaning
- Postage Machine Salesman Friden Mailing Equipment
- Electronic Scales Technician Friden Mailing Equipment
- Computer Terminal & Printer Technician Data Access Systems
- Computer Salesman Layman’s
- Vice President of Collection Agency United Recovery systems
- Salesman of Debt Collection Software Maxicom
- Regional Manager of a Collection Agency Allied in Arlington, TX
- Executive Vice President of a Collection Agency Allied in Houston
- Salesman at a Collection Agency Receivable Managment
The was 20+ jobs in 15 years between ’75-’90. Some jobs were for months and some for a couple of years. I was also taking 12 credit hours of night school on my GI Bill until 1984. There was more stability in mid to late 80s than in the beginning. After 1990, I have owned a variety of businesses. I semi-retired in 1998. My early years was not that of stability.
