I’ve always loved that quote. Here is my favorite Mark Twain quote and fits this site perfectly.
“Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.” - Mark Twain
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That’s a good one too!
I no longer work but since I was ten years old I worked as a professional musician. I played bass guitar and rhythm guitar. I also was the lead singer or a backup singer when it was needed.
I’ve worked with a lot of the Country music stars. The first star I can remember meeting was Roy Acuff. I also met stars like Tex Williams, Freddy heart, Rose Maddox, Lefty Frizzle and many others.
I once did a TV show with Buck Owens when I was about 12 or 13. I was on a show called Cousin’s Herbs Trading Post on channel ten out of Bakersfield. He borrowed my guitar because he just changed the strings on his guitar and hadn’t cut the wires on it. My brother and I were a duo. He played lead guitar and I played rhythm. Later I took up the bass guitar. That was the best thing I did. Singing bass players were hard to find so being a bass player opened lots of doors for me.
I traveled on the road and have been in All of the states except Hawaii and Alaska. I’ve been to Canada and Mexico as well.
I’m retired now as I’m 69 years old and my left side is slightly paralyzed from a stroke I had.
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Sounds totally plausible. Thanks for sharing. LMAO
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I’m a money manager at National ATM Systems. It sounds more glorious than it is though … I just drive routes and put money into ATM machines and making sure none of them ever run out of money.
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Your path sounds similar to mine. Was in the IT biz for 20 years and made the switch to Human Services and worked extensively with homeless (cuz I was one) folks with substance use disorder (cuz I am one) and/or mental health challenges ( cuz I have them). I retired, but am now working part-time for a different Human Services agency. As Peer Supporter, I’ve been able to use my lived experience as part of an integrated support team.
I like to joke that that things that would disqualify me for most jobs are the things that qualify me for this job. 
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It makes me happy to hear that you’ve used your experiences to help others. More people with that capability are badly needed. I hope you inspire others to do the same. Good on ya!
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I’m a former aircraft maintenance technician. I specialized in sheetmetal repairs. My first job, ever was an aircraft tech in the Navy working on E2-C Hawkeyes. My last position was at Tinker AFB as a civilian employee, working on KC-135 Supertankers.
I technically medically retired at age 35, after a total of 17 years, due to the stress and physical damage caused by the work and politics in the work environment.
As a female in the profession, it’s stressful because of the constant abuse and assumptions due to your gender. It’s physically demanding and in some instances, just plain impossible. It wears a girl down.
I’m now 39 and enjoying my SAHM status.
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Great skill and career. Sorry you experienced some folks’ stupidity, invalid assumptions and prejudice. It sucks when this happens, especially when it causes damage that can be long lasting and the loss of a career.
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And singing and playing bass is hard to do! Bravo!
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Great thread!
I am a “job gypsy”, have had many jobs from admin, retail, security, factual investigator, hospital orderly, reception/admin, maintenance, cleaning and kitchen hand.
Most recently was reception/admin but had to leave in Jan due to health/medication issues and have since moved to another state.
Currently waiting for health issues to settle & looking at doing some work from home in the meantime (possibly online transcription).
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You still here in SA mate or have you moved?
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Hi Ianc, we have moved to Murrayville VIC, just over the border from Pinnaroo.
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Ahhh, yes @Sevencasper, I know where that is. We have good friends in Walpeup. I am originally from just outside of Mildura so know the Mallee area quite well.
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It’s a new area for us, everyone is very friendly & it is much warmer than where we were. So we are happy!
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I’ve not put mine here - this will be a long description. For a TLDR, I’m a freelance wizard.
Right long one:
A law graduate (specialising in contract, religious and medical law), theology (ex Methodist preacher and research in Satanology and Personification) and English (was an English teacher and curriculum designer, IELTS trainer and lecturer from 2009 - 2020). Now I am a freelance tutor, editor, designer and sometimes voiceover artist [a bit of a posh voice]. I also proofread journal papers for non-native speakers (mostly on medical and neurolinguistics) and accept the odd mad project request: So mad wizard.
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Working in the oilfield doing valves I came into contact with many engineers and machinists and generally other creative types. In my years of being a young valve tech with their skills, my imagination and others creativity we would develop tools for day to day use in our work, some were brilliant, some needed tweaking, some were ridiculous. It wasn’t until our company was to be apart of an oilfield conference, where I, at the age of 25 worked my way into a Management position and my co-workers took to the conference with a booth of our hand crafted tools to show off to the others as a way to show off our creativity. It was then we were acknowledged by a rather large company, a global dominating force in the oil and gas industry and they wanted us to immediately hide our creations and advised myself and my colleagues to work on getting our tool patented… The gentleman suggested it would be in my best interest to keep these things to ourselves and he would later contact us when we were able to go through the ropes of the patenting process and lawyers and whatnot. Years later, after everything was set in place this gentleman reached out to my company, me, being the patent holder was drug into the office one day while I was working, fearful of losing my job I started having a panic attack, shouting, “what did I do, I don’t deserve this” it was then when the gentleman spoke up on the phone, after what it sounds like a bit of laughter prior. He was there to inform me that he was offering to buy my patents for the tools my co-workers and I had created. I can’t get into details but the price was several of millions of dollars not for one, but each… We exchanged e-mail addresses and his legal team contacted me and we set up the whole deal, I was 29 at this point… I flew to Denver Colorado, met up with him in some High Rise downtown and we signed over the paper and cut me a check for 60 million dollars, which I split two ways with my coworkers that created these tools. I retired at 30 but often find myself creating things with lego.
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Shit…
Half your luck.
I’ll probably be working until I drop dead.
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Must be hard for you these days
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