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Jobs – part 2 college jobs

[Today’s run: 6 miles  Then some fishing this afternoon which included much rowing.)

Yesterday, part 1 was about the jobs I had while I was in high school.  That overlapped a bit into college because I kept my summer job at the Iowa State Fairgrounds for the summer after my freshman year of college.  But then I transferred to a different school and settled in a bit more.

[Somewhere in the high school jobs I also worked for two overnight shifts as a bus boy at a Perkins.  Joe Stevens helped me get that job.  I am not good for overnight shifts!  So I gave him my one week notice after the first night and I worked one more time that week.  I’m remembering more as I attempt to recall these things.]

My first job at Iowa State U. was in the campus mail room.  I think Loren Wobig helped me get that job.  We sorted mail, and did a little bit of campus mail pickup with a van.  I think we might have also helped some with outgoing mail.  They had some postal machines and full time workers who did most of that.

I was at that for a year or so and then I got a better job.  Jeff Winger announced to our college-age church group that his physics research office was looking for another computer operator.  I applied for that and got in.  I worked on a terminal connected to a Vax 11/780 computer.  I ran programs which did curve fitting.  I sometimes messed with 9-track tape back-ups.  I also helped with filling gamma ray detectors with liquid nitrogen.  And I did some artwork for papers published in Physics Review.  I think I worked with the physics group for about 3 years  (I was in college for a long time!)

[Update: I also did some occasional work for a man in our church that had a rental house.  We mostly put up drywall.  But I remember trimming hedges for him.  I once broke a new sink by accidentally hitting it with a hammer 🙁  ]