My Work History-It’s Weird

Occasionally people ask me if I have a job.

And to that I reply, of course I do! I am a stay-at-home fiance who cleans the house, makes dinner, and goes to yoga. It’s not easy, but I feel very blessed/fulfilled never the less.

I’m kidding and I hate you.

I don’t go to yoga. Although I have before and I really do enjoy it. Perhaps I’ll loosen the pocket straps one day and buy another pass in the future.

But yes, I do have a job. A few actually. Without going into too much detail, I spend the majority of my day managing the social media accounts for four different companies. I also spend a lot of time on Talk Herbie To Me, this blog, this shop, and a few other freelance projects. Does that all sound vague as hell? Good, let’s keep it that way.

None of this matters. What I really want to talk about today are my first jobs out of college, which also happen to be some of my weirdest jobs.

Job #1- Do you like jicama salsa?

I worked as a recruiter for a culinary institute. So every single day I would go into high schools dressed in a white chefs jacket and black culinary pants and give a cooking demonstration to unruly teenagers. I wheeled my roll suitcase full of handouts in one hand, a big red cooler in the other, and a knife kit slung on my shoulder into different high schools across Kansas and Missouri for two years. My class presentations were super random, I changed them up depending on how awful the students were being that day.

One time my boss came in to review and after I got done with the presentation/cooking demo she said, “Well that was the weirdest version of that presentation I’ve ever seen. Have you ever thought about going into standup?” Up until then I hadn’t.

Job #2 -Forget high school, I’m going to elementary school.

After I quit the culinary job I decided to go into an even weirder job. Do you guys remember those really annoying people who would come into your elementary schools and try to get you all jazzed about selling cookie dough in exchange for the most pathetic prizes ever? That was me. I worked for a fundraising company when I moved to Chicago.

Picture this: A Jock Jams album is blaring over the sound system, the gymnasium lights are dimmed, and kids aged 5-11 are ready to crap their pants they are so excited to be out of their classroom for this special school assembly. Enter Taylor.

“DO YOU GUYS LIKE BMX BIKES?” cue the kids to start going nuts.

“DO YOU GUYS LIKE COOKIE DOUGH?” more excitement, some kids actually start to pant and sweat they’re getting so riled.

“THEN LET’S SELL SOME COOKIE DOUGH AND WIN SOME BMX BIKES!!!!” at this point every single child in the gym has just gone completely bat shit crazy. I’m tossing out light up pencils and yo-yos like I’m Oprah. And for a minute I float up out of myself and access the situation and think, how did my life get like this? And by “this” I mean awesome obviously.

Sadly, I only had this job for about eight months because the company was a joke and it went completely bankrupt.

Job #3- I hate everything.
I’ve had two office jobs since living in Chicago. Both were terrible. (For me.) I know that some people do well in an office environment and I admire that. But given my work history of slinging yo-yos and doing knife tricks (for real, I’ve got mad chopping skills) I always felt like a caged animal in an office.

Thus the reason I am so thankful I get to do what I do today. I know that at any minute things could change and I could have the rug taken out from under me so I’m just trying make the best of the moment while it’s here.

And that’s my Tony Robbins inspirational moment for the day. What kind of work person are you? Office environment or work from home?