I would say teacher until I saw you said farmer, so I'm thinking old school farmers had quite a bit of work to do, but also had to be proficient in so many different realms and sciences, like the weather, and chemistry, and physics and biology and economics!

relationship ended and she is now a very well respected teacher. She is a great speaker... treats each kid with lots of special attention.. but can also negotiate all the parents brilliantly. When you think of it it makes sense that the sets of skills would fit either job.

intellectually and physically. It was really, really hard. I had taken care of her while she was getting worse and worse but when she finally crossed the threshold of being crippled - I was not use. I don't have the skill or the temperment to be a health care aide. And i always assumed I would make a great one because I am normally so compassionate. Life has sent me a series of curveballs and I don't have the patience I did as a young adult.

social workers in general have to have a personality that most of us just don't have.

Every day I listen to their tales of some of the conditions some of our seniors have to endure. I'm a pretty compassionate person in general, but I could never be able to do what they do on a daily basis.

the nurses were amazing. They were great with some very difficult and sometimes sad patients (one who eventually died from her eating disorder comes to mind).

Last edited Mon Feb 13, 2012, 01:40 PM - Edit history (1)

Teachers

Nurses

Police Officers

EMTs

Soldiers

My family has a lot of nurses and cops so I see that first hand. I don't think any of the above get the respect they should.

I also agree with about farmers, my dad grew up on a farm in Alabama, very hard work. We plant a garden together every year. Now he does it for fun, he's taught me a lot.

Edited to add: Firefighters...don't know how I forgot them!

It's Grammy inspired too, so this makes it sort of a shallow reply.

I was in a band for several years (we were about to be signed by a small indie label but our singer decided he wanted to be elsewhere) and for professional musicians who tour all the time, and I'm don't mean bands everyone has heard of, I mean people who make a career of being a musician that no one hears of. Man, I respect that and I'm being serious. It's not easy being a touring musician, going to town's where no one knows you, where more likely than not, no one cares to know you.

Plus, there's almost always that one smart ass who shouts out "Freebird!" while your playing. Or playing at a historic venue to a crowd of 5 (we did that once at CBGB's) and not even getting enough money to pay for gas and only getting that much because the booker liked you and felt bad for the turn-out... and then the next venue, you're not so lucky.

I'm a writer, I'm an experienced done-it-all in NPOs. What could go wrong?

Well, for starters...after multiple trainings and classes, it seems that I'm simply not a grantwriter for the same reason I was a terrible student: I hate report-writing and other forms of expository data-dissemination writing. Bores me to tears. Feels like work. I'm convinced they're as terrible to read as they are to write.

Seriously, let me lose the data and tell you the story of the need. We'll both be happier...neither one of really wants to look at the 5Y trends in adult literacy in Hartford, CT among non-native speakers of English complete with reports and charts and data. They're depressing and dry. I'm a born storyteller.

I was fucking good at it too! I'm a computer geek by trade, but the jobs went dry for a while so I needed something productive to do. I'm good with tools. Well, that too, but no I never had a hot babe answer the door naked.

Kinda, sorta like farmer!

I had to deal with a lot of poop!

Nursing home aides and child care aides.

How come we give lip service to the idea that taking care of our elderly and kids is SOOOOOOOOOO
important....and those are two low-paid, low prestige, jobs? Probably most of them have zero benefits.

Two of the hardest jobs I ever had, albeit short stints.

Never been a cop myself, but I do transcription for a living. I'm a fly on the while for a lot of shit. I listen to and type 9-1-1 calls, cops talking to each other and/or dispatch when they're trying to find a suspect, a vehicle. I do hearings where a defense attorney is trying to get some evidence thrown out because the stop wasn't good. Then there are the suspect/witness interviews where the detectives have to listen to a song and dance from a guy who raped a passed-out girl and is trying to tell them oh, she consented, she consented, she seduced me. That one had video and I had to watch while they made him disrobe so they could take all of his clothes as evidence. That's not to mention the guy who assaults and kills a next-door neighbor where they've talked to everybody he knows and know where he was every second of the day, but still when they talk to him, they let him spew his fable when they know every word out of his mouth is a lie. Then there was the trial for a K-9 cop who had a work dog he fed and a personal pet dog that he let starve to death -- same identical breed of dog, too. (That guy went to the penitentiary I'm happy to say.)

There are times when I get scared for them because they never know when they're going someplace who's got what drug in them or where the gun is. Some if the stuff is so damaging. I only experience it third hand and sometimes I just shudder and cry at what they deal with.

... especially lower income urban kids.

Oh man. It ate me up. So many problems to solve, so few resources, so little support.

I used to fuss around mindlessly tidying up my classroom for half an hour at least, maybe more after I'd finished the endless paperwork, just so I'd feel calm enough to maybe smile when I was checking out, and to miss the rush of substitute teachers who'd just been mauled, were sometimes crying, never to return.

Most of the people who teach in those environments are saints. Unfortunately there are quite a few cynical stone-hearted rat bastards too, but even then the kids are probably safer sitting in those classrooms than they are at home or on the streets.

I can't say what kind of teacher I might have become, a saint or a stone-hearted cynical rat-bastard. Maybe I don't want to know.

My g/f does this job full time. I did it part time for a few months. I have a lot of respect for people who do that job.

My ex-boyfriend had a seafood restaurant and his nighttime waitress quit on him. He was desperate, so I helped out until he hired a new waitress. I did that job for a month and that is something I would never do again. I have the utmost respect for servers who have to take a lot of crap from customers and then not even receive a tip. And the worst ones are people with a bunch of noisy kids who make a mess of the table.

just did it for a few years in tha USAF. Same system just with F-16's. I would have my stomach in knots the day before I had to go to work. Thankfully I tried it and was successful for those years. I'm very pleased I tried something else because that a job that takes so much out of you.

the railroad. That shit is WORK.

Rarely do I not think of what the crew had to go through to bring in their catch. I fished the West Coast four seasons in the late 80's. Hard work, deadly conditions, and no guarantee of a payday.

I dated one briefly in Alaska many, many years ago. Only job she could get at the time. By the end of the summer, she could out - arm wrestle anyone in Anchorage.

I've always thought that must be absolutely soul-deadening.

Or someone who works in a slaughter house or factory farm. Damn. I can't even imagine it.