Is This You? Somebody else’s job

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to work at different places doing somebody else’s job. If you’re like most people, you have had a few jobs in your life. But what about jobs people do that there’s no way you would ever have? What would it be like to, say, run a train? Be an entertainer on a cruise ship? Work in a rum distillery? Be an orderly — what exactly is an orderly?

I don’t think I would do well on an assembly line. I like variety. But maybe the workers on assembly lines rotate to get the full spectrum of what’s being built on that line. That might be kind of cool. Just think of all the things that are done to a D8 CAT before it rolls or tracks and rumbles off the assembly line. But after some thought, I think everything on that line would be heavy, and each step would have finger pinching written all over it. Knowing my own limitations, I best stay away from mechanical machinery.

I worked as a short-order cook and a counter waitress in a small casino, but I’ve always wondered what it would be like to work in a fancy schamcy restaurant where the tips, I hear, can be pretty hefty. I think I have the personality to be a server to fine diners. Of course I also know I have a strong enough personality to know I wouldn’t take being treated as I’ve seen some servers treated by customers who are — what would be the right word here — snotty. Yes, with me, a snotty customer wouldn’t stand a chance. That, however, isn’t the correct attitude to have going into a job.

Another job I wish I would’ve had the opportunity to give a whirl was a stewardess. OK, so nowadays the politically correct term is flight attendant. So being a flight attendant seems to be a romantic job. All that travel and adventure. Oh, and of course there’s that handing out empty, then picking up full, air sick bags! Might want to rethink this one ...

More times than I can count I’ve uttered, “If I knew then what I know now ...” I would like to replay my senior year in high school and try for more scholarships and go onto a big city school and see what I could’ve accomplished. I would like to have started my writing a lot earlier to see what I could’ve done. I have to be careful not to “shoulda, woulda or coulda” my life away. It’s really easy to fall into that vat of nonsense. But at the same time you have to keep reaching for something, anything and everything you want.

That’s appropriate at this time of the year, the New Year, the resolution promise of a new year. Yes, yes, we all want to lose weight, be nicer, and have more patience, and please if you do smoke — stop smoking. (Know I’m behind you all the way on that one!) But this year, how about standing outside of the regular loop and going with what you already have and adding to that? Become the better whatever you are. Reach down deep and grab hold of what you have and grow with that. My other half tells me some of the best advice he got when he was a kid was he could have or be anything he wanted just as long as he worked hard and went out and earned it. That’s pretty grandiose advice. It should be — it was from his grandfather!

I don’t have a perfectly easy way to do all that. It takes hard work to sometimes even get up in the morning, let alone facing a day full of trying to be more than I was yesterday. However — yes, another famous however — nearly every day I look down the road of life and say, “Bring it on, life, and give it your best shot!” I come from good genes and have a hard enough head to know taking it on the chin just means to me I can still feel and react to life. With that and a sack of ice I can take on the world. That’s my job every day of every year — what else could I ask for?

Hap, hap, happy New Year!

Trina lives in Eureka, Nevada. Share with her at itybytrina@yahoo.com. Really!