PrernaLal.com

Odds Jobs List

// January 29th, 2010 // Human Rights

Inspired by Gabe

You won’t find these on my resume. They are lost to history.

First paid job ever: Taco Bell at the age of 16.

Best moment: A $20 tip from a guy who ‘liked’ me.
Worst moment: Too many to recall right now. Maybe some rude customer asking me if I knew how to count (while I am doing Calculus II), or the management keeping me beyond my paid hours to wash down the place. It helped gain the necessary experience for janitorial services later on though.

Second semi-paid job: High School Assistant Policy Debate Coach

I occasionally got some pocket money for teaching marginalized urban youth forensics. Then the program shut down.

From there, I was promoted to a part-time janitor and then full-time janitor by my mother, who brought me to this country for “greater opportunities.”

(I can safely bet that I would have never been a janitor in Fiji).

You can see all about how your janitor is probably smarter than you: Part 1 and Part 2.

Payment was in the form of free food and shelter, with occasional clothing. Worker’s compensation was out of question. This continued throughout my undergraduate years, graduate school and even after graduation with my Master’s Degree, till I broke my wrist in April 2008. Now I help on occasion but tasks like lifting garbage or vacuuming are much more difficult with my weak hand. Yes, now you know my weak spot.

Fanbases: This is not an ‘odd job’ but it was something I did as a hobby that felt like a job after a while. Most people have no idea, but I have actually created thriving online communities before DreamActivist. They were completely apolitical though and fan-bases for some Indian television celebrities. Do you know how I can record and rip videos at lightening speed? Or use video-editing software and photoshop? A lot of practice from this era.

I let it go as a hobby and have not updated in several years. See VluvAnita for one of my remaining forays into celebrity obsession. I had 5 others like this that got more hits per day than DreamActivist does today.

Yes, she knows who I am and I have her cell-phone number and we have spoken, text-messaged and I just grew up and out of it. Her posters still adorn my walls though.

Brave New Films, Jan 2008-June 2008 – Yes, how can I forget these exploitative fools? I heard they are now hiring a blogger for Afghanistan? Make sure to get them to give you a contract and not exploit you like they exploited DREAM Act students a couple years back. They were supposed to pay us but never did and let the ‘program’ go without any sort of communication.

I am lucky. This is it. I applied to Taco Bell again just two weeks ago but have yet to get a call back. But then everything happens for a reason. A friend says to hell with it, and I’ll get a much better gig than the crap I have been vying for the past month.

Odd is out. It’s time to get even.

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