I'm enjoying the jobs threads, so here's another one.
What did your folks do when you were growing up?
My dad had an awful job. He worked, his entire life, in disaster restoration - cleaning up floods and fires primarily (or managing teams that did that), but also other horrible things such as homes with hording/pet issues, places where someone had died, etc.
Just awful work. When I was a teen I helped out a few times, and you are just digging through wet, dirty, and awful muck. I don't know how he did it for decades, except that his mindset was one of a provider. And that was how he did that for his family.
The only benefit was access to salvage - when people had big floods or fires, typically everything is replaced, and the rest goes to salavage where it is cleaned up, and the smells are removed. So over the years, we got our hands on cool stuff like a fooz-ball table, pachinko machine, dining room set, etc. I learned not to ask too many questions about where it came from - as one time my dad came home and asked me if I wanted a new ghetto blaster. Sure. He then told me he would just need a few days to get the "brains out". It has been recovered from some place where a guy had taken his own life.
My mom worked at the cash office at the Bay in Deerfoot Mall. Not much more to say about that.
How about you?
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Dad managed a grocery store for years, I went to work alot with him as a kid and would later get a part time job at 14, at the store. I learned alot there, and he would go work at a Mine when I was a bit older. Coincidentally I would also work there as an adult.
My dad was in auto body, then in his early fifties shifted slightly and moved into doing mechanical work and having that as his main business as opposed to a side gig. It helped we had a huge garage that he built as a shop to work in. One nice thing about that gig was that he just tapered off in his late 60's, as opposed to retiring on one set day.
My mom did clerking for an insurance office before I came around, but other than doing some farmer's taxes and the books for my dad's business she was a stay at home mom.
__________________
"The Oilers are like a buffet with one tray of off-brand mac-and-cheese and the rest of it is weird Jell-O."
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My dad was a concrete contractor. I and my kid brother later worked for him and my brother eventually took over his business. My dad worked damn hard to support his family. I have much love and respect for a man who had that work ethic.
My mom raised 3 kids on her own. She worked multiple jobs and put herself through college and university at the same time. It made us who we are today. We were incredibly independent kids who just had to "figure it out" on our own sometimes. Different childhood than some to be sure but we were lucky we had the mother that we did. It could easily have gone bad had she not been so strong.
She ended up getting her MSW and running some pretty important programs in the city.
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For a lot of my life at home my Dad was an Insurance Adjuster and ran his own business. Like Jiri...that resulted in a lot of salvaged stuff. We had enough used hockey equipment to pretty much outfit an entire line. Eventually that work sort of fell away as Insurance companies got away from using Adjusters. We lived in Cranbrook for 8 years and he was always on the road as he pretty much covered an area from West of Creston, to Golden, and as far East as Crowsnest pass. He had a lot of car accidents which took a toll on him.
Eventually we moved to Kamloops so he wouldn't have to drive so much, but him and my brother were in a really bad one that nearly killed them in 94. After that he was pretty much done. He became a realtor but never made more than hobby money doing that, and occasionally did some handy man type work. Being a farm kid he knew how to build, and he could fix a lot of cars. His parents had both died by the time he was 16. So as a 14 year old he would skip the first month and a half of school to drive a fuel truck to deliver fuel to farms during harvest. He'd go back in October and catch up. These days people would be outraged and insist the this kid go into the system.
My Mom was a nurse, stayed home with my Brother and I when we were younger. Than for a lot of years she did a lot of clerical work for my Dad's business which in essence was the family business. As that died, she took a refresher course and went back into Nursing and was the one who ended up supporting the family in the later years.
__________________ "Some guys like old balls"
Patriots QB Tom Brady
Car salesman, planned giving co-ordinator, cleaner at the dome. Never seemed to hold a job or position for long. I guessing his angry and sometimes violent personality got in the way.
My mom was an RN before we emigrated, she worked reception at a doctors office then co-ordinated healthcare workers that helped the elderly.
__________________
Captain James P. DeCOSTE, CD, 18 Sep 1993
My parents have been in media/communications their entire careers- my dad worked for the Toronto Star, Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald, and for the last decade before he retired, was the editor of a fitness magazine called Impact.
Mom was a reporter for CP for 26 years - she won a National Newspaper award for her coverage of the Swissair Crash in 1998 off the coast of Halifax, and famously asked Ralph Klein if he had a drinking problem (and he said yes!) She wrote a book for the Calgary Fire Department, and now works for SAIT.
__________________ ”I wish none of this had happened.”
“So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.”
We love you, Rowan - February 15, 2024
We love you, Johnny - August 13 1993 - August 29, 2024
We love you, Matthew - December 5, 1994 - August 29, 2024
Last edited by GreenLantern2814; 10-31-2020 at 12:11 PM.
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My Dad was a farm labourer for the majority of his working life. Wages included housing and utilities. Lived in an old farmhouse built in the 40’s .... remarkably well constructed. Moved to a small town from the farm when I was 12. Finished off his working life as a jack of all trades at a John Deere dealership.
My Mom was a stay at home Mom. Did a little bit of housecleaning here and there
From a Grade 8 until Grade 11 the three of us did some evening janitorial work a couple of evenings a week. Once I got my own part time job, we stopped that.
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Dad was a petroleum engineer, became President of Sproule, then worked for the Alberta Securities Commission. He was an avid hunter/trapper and raised Tennessee Walking Horses.
Mom is my hero - despite being handicapped, after my sister and I were older, she went to MRC and studied Criminology. She worked with women prisoners for the Elizabeth Fry Society. Then she studied art at U of C and ACAD, becoming an abstract artist. Her series on Tibetan monks was exhibited on behalf of the Canadian Tibet Society and she met the Dalai Lama a couple of times. Later she led an artists studio, a book club, and became a poet.
Last edited by troutman; 10-31-2020 at 11:29 AM.
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Dad was a school administrator. Principal when I was young and then moved up to the Division level as Asst Superintendent. Finally moved on to administration at the Provincial level with Alberta Ed before burning out and retiring early.
Mom was a teacher by training and started her career that way. Then was a stay at home mom while we were kids. My parents split up when I was in high school (youngest sister was six) and she went back to school, got her Masters, and went back to teaching at the local college level until she retired.
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My mom raised 3 kids on her own. She worked multiple jobs and put herself through college and university at the same time. It made us who we are today. We were incredibly independent kids who just had to "figure it out" on our own sometimes. Different childhood than some to be sure but we were lucky we had the mother that we did. It could easily have gone bad had she not been so strong.
She ended up getting her MSW and running some pretty important programs in the city.
Man, our life stories are very similar. Single Mom, 3 kids. She had a variety of jobs for a while, on welfare (as it was called then) for a while, eventually worked her way through a degree in psychology and got on a career track. Ultimately getting her Masters.
And same as you, we had to be very self reliant. With little money around, we had to make things happen for ourselves, there wasn’t a financial safety net that I knew my parents could help me out with if things went sideways. However she was a strong and amazing person who set me up really well in every way other than financially.
As for the thread topic, she ended up spending most of her professional life as a child protection worker, dealing with kids in difficult circumstances, and having to remove children when situations were too bad at home. That had to be a very challenging job, with the potential for a lot of stress and big implications if you make the wrong call one way or the other. But she had the right temperament for it.
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My dad left school at 13 as making money was more important than education at that point (his dad died young leaving a wife and four kids in an already poor situation) He ended up working general labour jobs for most of his life, but for the last ten years of his life he was a traffic warden. He'd get a lot of verbal abuse from people just for doing his job, but he was well able to give as good as he got. He loved the job as it allowed him to walk the city centre streets he grew up on rather than the far flung suburbs we lived in. Despite his lack of school education, he was a big reader, wrote poetry and volunteered teaching adult literacy classes.
My mam raised us at home though for a few years she cleaned a small hotel on the weekends. She once told us a story of a seemingly respectable guest who smeared #### all over his room and down the corridor. Thankfully she wasn't working that shift. After my dad died, she worked in a couple of local schools as a classroom assistant up until she retired last year.
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