An integration of jobs constitutes a career. In my case, my jobs form an erratic trajectory, a random walk of lurches.
I started working when I was 12 or so (1960). Since then, I have worked at many jobs. I count a job as a period when I was paid hourly or weekly or with a salary, not individual consulting projects. Some jobs came my way by chance; some I found by hunting them, and a few were later lost. In retrospect, I don’t recall any terrible jobs; all have forced me to learn something, even how to perform menial work willingly and cheerfully, and, in some still memorable cases, what to learn from being fired/laid off.
Here is a list of my jobs, more for my entertainment than your education:
~1960/62 Saturday Grocery bicycle delivery boy; Acton (London) –
~1962/64 Saturday bicycle delivery boy/shop clerk; A.J. Smith/Harveys of Bristol Wine Merchants, Acton (London)
~1964 Summer – sorting dirty laundry/cabinet rolls/washing machine operator/laundry delivery, Commercial Laundry, Acton
~1964/65 Saturday Sales Clerk/Substitute Manager, Penguin Bookshop, WH Smith, Ealing Broadway
~1965 Summer – Bookkeeper at Head Office Fred Mayer Green Grocery stores, North Acton
~1965/1966 Saturday Sales clerk on Cheese counter, AJ Sainsbury grocery store, Ealing Broadway
~1965/1966 Occasional – silver service waiter at Bar Mitzvahs/weddings (with my mother)
1966 (a few weeks) – clerk pretending to perform statistics analysis at Cheseborough Ponds, Willesden
1966-1968 Full time – Trainee systems analyst/time motion observer at Cerebos Foods, Willesden
1967-1968 (weekends) Special effects technician assistant, Crossword on Two TV show, BBC Studio, White City
1968/1969 (few months) Full time – warehouse laborer/fork truck operator British American Tobacco, Harrow
1969 (Feb) Working passenger – pantry boy- MS Lundefjell, Fred Olson Lines, London to Halifax, Nova Scotia
1969 (March~Oct) Data man/navigator on helicopter geophysics crew, Seigel Associates (Scintrex), Ontario/Manitoba/Saskatchewan
1970 (May~June) Line cutter/claim staker Ingemar Explorations, Timmins, Ontario
1970 (June~Oct) Data man on de Havilland Otter geophysics crew for Scintrex, Northwest Territories
1971 (Jan~Sept) Data man on airborne geophysics crews for Scintrex, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Labrador
1971 (Sept~Nov) Crew leader and geophysical operator, EM/Magnetics/VLF surveys for Union Miniere Exploration, Pickle Crow area, Ontario
1971/72 (Nov~April) Geophysics operator, EM/VLF/Magnetics/Turam, Geosearch Consultants, Ontario, Manitoba, Sask.
1972 (April~Oct) Geophysics operator, EM/IP/Magnetics surveys, Scintrex, British Columbia
1972/1973 (Oct~Dec) Prospector assistant/geochemical sampler/geophysics operator, Kaiser Mineral Resources, Tofino, BC
1973 (June~Sept) Prospector, Texasgulf Minerals, BC
1973 (Dec-Jan) Warehouseman/geological assistant Texasgulf Minerals, Vancouver, BC
1974 (June-Sept) Prospector, blaster, McIntyre Porcupine, Stikine Range, northern British Columbia
1975 (June-Sept) Prospector, McIntyre Porcupine, Ogilvie and Selkirk Ranges, Yukon Territory
1976 (June-Sept) Geological Assistant, researching Fraser Delta tidal flat sedimentation, Geological Survey Canada (GSC) Vancouver
1977 (June-Sept) Geological Assistant, mapping and research Fraser Delta tidal flat morphology/hydrodynamics, GSC, Vancouver
1978-1983 Geotechnical Engineer, Dames & Moore, Vancouver, Alberta, Idaho, Maui, Sydney, Papua New Guinea, Honolulu
1983-1985 Geotechnical Engineer, PSC Associates, Honolulu
1986 (~Jan) Warehouseman head office of a British Book shop chain, Camberley, UK
1986 ~(Feb-March) Geotechnical engineer, Dames & Moore, at Taheri, Iran and Kuwait City
1986 (~Aug-Nov) Geotechnical engineer, Foundation Engineering, UK
1987 Part-time tutor, Sylvan Learning Center, Honolulu, Hawaii
1987-1989 Part-time substitute teacher of Math, English, and Science, Elementary/High Schools, Honolulu
1987-1989 Part-time geotechnical engineer, various firms, Honolulu
1988 (~June-July) Remedial Math Teacher (Algebra), Iolani High School, Honolulu
1988 (~ Fall) Teacher of GED Math and Science for Senior Citizens, Honolulu
1989-1990 Field Project Geotechnical Engineer, PSC Associates, South San Francisco, California
1990 (~March-Aug) Geological Engineer, Upp Geotechnology, San Jose
1990-1994 Teaching Assistant/Graduate Researcher, Univ. California at Berkeley
1994-1995 Teaching assignments Cambridge University and Imperial College, London, UK
1995-2005 Senior Engineer to Principal Engineer Exponent Failure Analysis Associates, Menlo Park, California
2005-2009 Senior Consultant, Geosyntec Consultants, Oakland, California