June 7th - Jobs

So today while I was at work for some reason I thought of a statistic I heard several years ago about how often people will change jobs in their lifetimes, and how that number has grown a lot since even when my parents were first entering the working world. I can’t remember the exact number of the statistic but it was something like 5 job changes and 2 career changes from the time you get out of college. I didn’t imagine that I would come close to that, but I have already worked three different jobs in the one year I have been out of school… still the same career path (though even that is something totally unrelated to my schooling).


My six most recent jobs…..

1. Operations Manager – Candlewood Suites, Indianapolis NW (May ’09 ~ Current)

This is where I’m working at now; We just opened on May 1st and are finally starting to pick up steam occupancy wise after a slow start. Not a whole lot to say since I just started here about 7-8 weeks ago.



2. AGM / Interim GM – Holiday Inn Express, Martinsville Indiana (Feb ’09 ~ May ’09)

One of the main reasons I moved to Martinsville was I liked the way my bosses worked when the managed the Hampton Inn. I didn’t agree with a lot of things the new company did and I really disliked how disorganized they were. So I moved to Martinsville and lived/worked in the Holiday Inn Express there as the AGM and then the interim GM (after Cheryl moved to the Candlewood opening full time at the end of March.) I basically ran the property down there for 2 months, The hotel was interesting and had a lot of issues from the past that I had to help take care of cleaning up. I could have stayed at this hotel but I decided to go to the Candlewood that was just opening up. This was the way my employers’ wanted me to go, as well as the way I saw myself having the best opportunities in the future. However while at the Holiday Inn Express we dramatically increased the guest satisfaction scores so it was kind of sad leaving behind all of the hard work I had put in there.



3. Guest Service Rep / AGM – Hampton Inn and Suites, Greensburg Indiana (June ’08 ~ Feb ’09)

The Job I took after college when I couldn’t find anything to do relating to my History degree. Honestly I figured this would be short term and a good job because it was close to home, and would give me some experience in customer relations which I had no of thus far in my work history… little did I know the AGM would end up stepping down in September, and I’d get promoted to AGM from just working the desk. From there I built the network that my career path has been based on thus far. After the management company lost the contract at the end of the year I stayed on for another month before calling up my old boss and getting a job in Martinsville. I will have to say this was one of the best learning experiences in my life with everything I learned from knowing nothing about hotels to knowing and understanding what I do today about hotels and managing people.



4. Farm Labor (sporadic over the last 10 years or so)

Baling Straw and Hay for my Dad as well as Milking Goats for Rob Smith, I guess this makes me well rounded overall… I can milk goats and drive a tractor as well as preserve old photography, and take care of guest in the hospitality business. I never picked up my Dad’s mechanical inclination but doing these jobs I’d say was good experience in a lot of little ways, which often go unnoticed or unthought-of.



5. Decatur County Historical Society ( Summer ’07)

I didn’t get paid for this job but I really enjoyed it, I spent about 8 hours a week entering old photographs into their database, and helped build a more user friendly and searchable database for visitors and researchers using the Historical Societies photo achieves. This was probably the most enjoyable job I have ever had, if only it had been a paying position and provided more hours.

6. Gecom (Summer ’06)



I guess this was my first “real“ job I guess, I worked the first shift at Gecom making door latches for the trunks of Honda Civics. It was an interesting experience, I honestly didn’t mind doing the super boring jobs which everyone else hated, I found it more relaxing than the ones where you were really busy. My line rotated a job every two hours which was supposed to be a good thing, though I’d prefer to do the same thing all day. Anyway my team leader was great, and this Mexican guy I worked with was really funny. I was on a good team. It was sort of awkward working there as the short term temps were kind of outcast on the job and you could tell, no one went out of their way to be nice to you at all sometimes you almost felt looked down upon because people knew you were going back to school at the end of the summer. I’d come home tired and covered with this white grease but my only complaint about the job was the work benches were too low and I had to stoop over most of the day. Overall I’d say it was a good experience that has helped me in the long run as I sort of understand the “factory worker mentality” I got an interesting perspective into how a lot of people think on a day to day basis that I might have not gotten otherwise. It’s interesting how your attitude changes towards things when you are working in a factory. Since Gecom was Japanese owned, people there talked about the Japanese negatively all the time, and strangely enough by the end of my 3 months of working there I found that I had a negative view of Japanese that when I looked back upon it after quitting to go back to school I realized I had just absorbed that mind set for no reason at all from my co-workers.