Occupational Therapy
I’ve been working since I was twelve years old,
But my first on-the-books job
Was as a sailor in the US Navy,
Gunners Mate.
Six years and three Westpac deployments.
Fifty months of sea duty
Changed me for good and bad.
Over the years since,
I’ve had many terms of employment,
Both full and part-time.
My part-time jobs have included
Hanging wallpaper and painting houses.
Building stockade style fences.
Landscaping and more landscaping.
Cleaning commercial kitchen exhaust hoods.
I’ve been a receptionist at yoga studios,
A registered yoga instructor,
A certified personal trainer,
A high school cross country,
Wrestling, and track & field coach.
I’ve been a substitute teacher
At every grade level, K-12.
I’ve also been a supervisor of
Student teachers earning their
Master’s degrees in education.
Most recently, I work as a museum docent.
My full-time jobs have included
Bartender in a low-life country dive.
(Yes, I drank on the job.)
Laborer in a garment factory,
(Yes, I drank on the job.)
A refrigerated trailer factory,
(Yes, I drank on the job.)
And a lamp factory.
(It was too hot to drink anything but water on the job.)
I’ve engraved gift items in a mall kiosk.
Yes, I drank on the job.
I’ve worked at a day camp for disabled adults
And was a resident advisor in a facility
For profoundly disabled adults.
I’ve been a public-school custodian,
And a teacher of high school history and sociology,
My longest tenure at any job, by far.
My final full-time job
Was as a maintenance superintendent
In a seventy-building garden apartment complex.
I’ve also been a writer of fiction
Who draws from experience
Attempting to fashion a plausible tale.
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