I had several jobs before being drafted in 1966. What they were, and why I changed jobs is interesting to few besides me. (LOL)

First job

I babysat a neighbor’s two children when I was twelve years old. One child was in diapers and the other about three. My employment was brief, maybe three or four times. I quit this job because I had a problem with changing dirty diapers. Yuckie, Yuck!

I took a job in 1963 with the W. T. Grant, Co. store in Peoria, Illinois. I worked in the stockroom for several months. I liked the job, but it meant I had to take a bus home after work. So the Greyhound bus delivered me home after dark. My mother became concerned that the long days were affecting my school grades.

It was an excuse I appreciated as the walks from school to the store and from store to bus station turned cold in November that year. So I quit in early December. I know it was after Oswald killed President John F. Kennedy, for I learned of his death while walking on my way to work that day.

My graduation from Spaulding Institute was on a Saturday in May 1965. That afternoon, I left with a family friend for Waukegan, Illinois. Our friend found me a job in Skokie, Illinois, and I started the following Monday. I was seventeen.

I turned eighteen in October, and I applied for a position at Abbott Laboratories. I sought a better-paying job with more of a future. Abbott offered tuition aid for its employees, and the working conditions were cleaner. I kept production lines supplied with Tygon tubing, needles, bottle adapters, and clamps. The women working the assembly lines created devices used by hospitals and such to give fluids intravenously.

I worked at Abbott’s for a year. This time I had no choice but to change jobs. The Selective Service pulled my number, and I received a draft notice. I enlisted for four years in the US Navy rather than go into the Army for three.

The Navy wanted to make me a linguist, but in January 1967, I extended my enlistment to six years to be an Electronics Technician. (I didn’t desire to learn Vietnamese or Chinese.) That summer, I accepted an offer to become a technician in the Naval Security Group (NSG.) It intrigued me since my interviewer refused to describe what my job would entail.

I remained with the NSG until I retired in March 1992 after over twenty-five years of service. I considered staying on active duty for thirty years, but my detailer wouldn’t work with me. I wanted a position where I could be home after work. Instead, he wanted me to accept an assignment that would keep me away from my family for most of the next three years. I considered this unacceptable and retired and took a job with a contractor.

I worked with the Newlink for twenty years. I would have stayed with them until I retired, but the prime contractor for the task I worked on changed. So I left for employment with IMT. I remained there until retiring in 2018.

Retirement

Each transition was for different reasons. Some reasons were selfish, like quitting Grant’s, intuitive like going to NSG without knowing what I would do, and some reasoned like changing contractors to keep employed on the same task.

Have you changed jobs? Tell me about your experience.