Shawn (00:00):

Hey everybody and welcome back to English All Over the Place, a podcast for English learners, wherever you are. And for people that like to listen to funny stuff, uh, I am Shawn De Haven and your co-- and as always,

Barney (00:16):

You can go ahead and call me Barney.

Shawn (00:18):

All right. Um, it's been a long time since we've made the last, uh, an episode, although you can't tell guys, but it's fun to be back. Um, and I thought, um, we would pick up, um, an interesting topic, I think, uh, part time jobs. (Right.) Because I know all you, uh, students, uh, a lot of you have part-time jobs to make ends meet, you know, with the expensive tuition and stuff like that, you know? And, uh, we went through the same thing when we were younger and, uh, sometimes when we were older too, but, uh, right.

Barney (00:56):

Yeah. Sometimes exactly to supplement the income.

Shawn (01:00):

Yep. Yeah. That drug habit of mine doesn't pay for itself. Yeah, no, just kidding.

Barney (01:05):

Those bills add

Shawn (01:08):

What's that?

Barney (01:08):

Those bills add up.

Shawn (01:10):

The dealer just won't take my credit card.

Barney (01:13):

I know. But at least, you know, he lets you run a tab. Just the interest rate is a little high.

Shawn (01:19):

I say, "I'm good for it. I'm good for it." (He knows.) He knows where I live. No. So, Barney, uh, what kind of part-time jobs have you had in the past?

Barney (01:33):

Yeah, I have had, uh, a range of part-time jobs, um, when we were kicking around ideas for episodes to do. I, I'm glad that we came back to this one. Cause I thought this will be a lot of fun. Oh yes. Um, yeah, I mean, um, I mean of course like, well, like I mowed lawns.

Shawn (01:51):

You mowed lawns?

Barney (01:51):

Um, yeah, yeah. But I, that was when I was really young.

Shawn (01:54):

But they were farm lawns, so it was really big.

Barney (01:57):

I know. It was a push mower. Right? Um, but my first real part-time job, um, was working at the public library.

Shawn (02:07):

Oh, were you going around, going "shhh!" to people?

Barney (02:10):

I was in the children's section, so not so much shushing. Um, uh, one neat thing that I did have to do was once a month, uh, clean out the hamsters, uh, um, cage.

Shawn (02:24):

Once a month?

Barney (02:26):

Was it more than that?

Shawn (02:27):

I hope it's more than once a month. That little hamster poop would probably collect.

Barney (02:33):

Maybe it was more, I, I...

Shawn (02:35):

Maybe somebody else was doing it too.

Barney (02:36):

That's true. Yeah. There were a number of us. Yeah.

Shawn (02:38):

How old were you at that time?

Barney (02:39):

16.

Shawn (02:40):

16. Okay. Yep. So getting into the dirty stuff early. (Right, right.) Um, what else did you have to do?

Barney (02:47):

Yeah. Right. I mean, it's just, it's shelving books and then when you really have a lot of free time, um, um, checking the book, checking the shelves. Yeah. Make sure that the dewey, decimals are all lined up properly (What is this that your talking about?) and in alphabetical order. Um, but yeah, that was a part-time job for lots and lots of high school kids. Um, so the shifts were always short and I think just like,

Shawn (03:13):

Yeah, well, yeah, I probably didn't want to give you a break or something.

Barney (03:17):

Yeah, no, actually it was, um, that was one of those jobs, you know? So it's through the city. Um, so it's public employee. I was actually earning retirement. Yeah.

Shawn (03:28):

When you earned retirement. Yeah.

Barney (03:30):

Yep. P.E.R.S. right. Public employee employees, retirement system. So mandated at least one 15 minute break for every four hours.

Shawn (03:39):

Yeah. With a stressful job. Like a lot

Barney (03:43):

Kids books. Well, it gets stressful because they're always out of order.

Shawn (03:47):

Damn kids can't read.

Barney (03:49):

Honestly.

Shawn (03:51):

Yeah. Okay. Um, so that was your first part-time. Yeah.

Barney (03:55):

Yeah. That's how I dipped my pool -- my toe into the part-time job pool.

Shawn (03:58):

Okay. Dipped your pool? How do you dip a pool into, into a what, an ocean? Um, my first part-time job was a paper boy.

Barney (04:10):

That's cool.

Shawn (04:12):

Now this was kind of strange because I couldn't ride a bike. (Oh.) So I was one of those weird paper boys that walked around the neighborhood with my paper boy bag on and threw the newspaper onto the driveway.

Barney (04:25):

You still made sure to throw it? (Oh sure.) Okay.

Shawn (04:29):

Um, yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think so. Um, uh, it was not a daily paper, thankfully it was just once or twice a week. So I didn't have to get up early in the morning and stuff like that. Although I did hate having to collect subscription fees, sometimes people would hide from me, act like they're not home. Oh boy. Yes. But, uh, that was my first job. And my first job besides that, more responsibility, was a cook at Wendy's when I was 16, it could be 15 and a half 16 at the time. So...

Barney (05:12):

How was that?

Shawn (05:14):

Um, it was, it was okay. Um, it was, it was hot in front of the grill. Um, my managers seemed to be hard on the guys and easy on the girls. (Typical.) But um, well, not always, but you know, but I do remember watching the goofy instruction video at the beginning, you know, where they're try and make it cool. And hip. "It's called the four corners method!" You know, they had a four corners because you're supposed to press on the four corners of the patty. Um, Wendy's has a square patty. (Right.) And by the way, if you're ever eating chili, the chili at Wendy's, that's the older hamburger patties that didn't get sold, that were cooked.

Barney (05:46):

That makes sense.

Shawn (05:47):

At that time. Yeah. But, uh, it was, it was a, it was a good start. (Yeah.) But, um, after that I worked at, um, in high school, I worked at two music stores in the local shopping mall...

Barney (05:59):

At the same time?

Shawn (06:01):

Um, no, um, uh, but they were, they were owned by the same company. It's really weird Musicland and Sam Goody. (Okay.) They are very, they were popular at the time in shopping malls. And then later I worked at Suncoast Video, (Oh yeah.) where people used to sell things called video tapes of movies. (VHS.) Yes. Yes. And my mom still calls DVDs, tapes. (Tapes!) And I said, they're DVDs. They are discs.

Barney (06:25):

Once VHS overtook beta, betamax.

Shawn (06:27):

I was working for a long time after that. Um, and that was a fun job. And, but it was, it was really weird. Um, like all of my managers at Suncoast were gay.

Barney (06:44):

Really?

Shawn (06:44):

Yeah. I don't know. They must have been a very empowered company at the time and that's fine. And I didn't have any problem with any of my managers except for the one manager that hired me who didn't seem to like me and I'm like thinking, well then why did you hire me?

Barney (06:59):

Is it part of the 12-step program?

Shawn (07:01):

I don't know. I don't know. But, uh, uh, for the most part they were great managers. Um, and it was a fun job and, uh, the mall was only about a 15 minute walk from my house.

Barney (07:12):

That's nice.

Shawn (07:12):

So I'm sure, you...

Barney (07:15):

Yeah. A little different, yeah. (A little different.) Yeah. Some of my friends who lived in town, they did have paper routes, you know, the daily thing and they walked,

Shawn (07:25):

I imagine a paper route in your area would kill.

Barney (07:26):

You would have to be able to drive. (Yes.) Yeah. And, um, we had a blockbuster and um, I remember applying and kind of making it to the second round of interviews. I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't cut it. They probably...

Shawn (07:44):

Because you didn't rewind fast enough or

Barney (07:47):

This short guy, he doesn't kind of fit the image of the cool Blockbuster people. You know, we're a hip store. I don't know what it was.

Shawn (07:53):

Well, you laughed last cause blockbuster is gone and you're still here. Barney wins. Um,

Barney (08:02):

Yeah. But, um, so I started library and then I worked at, uh, so my dad worked, uh, with the FDA, but his, uh, campus,

Shawn (08:14):

And what is the FDA again?

Barney (08:14):

The food and drug administration. So he was in the federal branch...

Shawn (08:17):

They put the drugs in the food? Is that what it is?

Barney (08:22):

Right. And, um, uh, he put it in the soybeans right. Started with soybean wheat and they shared a campus with Ohio state. And so I, it was kind of easy for me to get a summer job there. And, um, I worked at a genetic engineering lab. Um,

Shawn (08:38):

How many superheroes did you accidentally create?

Barney (08:40):

Oh man. Those soybeans that just bounced around the room. Real life jumping beans...

Shawn (08:43):

Soy man!

Barney (08:46):

Yeah. Yeah. Soybeans and wheat. And uh, the first year I did, it was really tough because, um, one of the lab techs that I was kind of assisting, he was very demanding. Um, he was not American. Um, and Oh, I just got so frustrated because the, what he wanted me to do, I just didn't have the skill, the capability to do the technique. And, and then he went on a conference and he's like, I need you to keep these cotyledons going and you've got to extract the embryos and you-- practice, practice, practice. Do it again! Do it again!

Shawn (09:20):

Did he know when you just came from working at the library?

Barney (09:25):

I know, but uh, then I kind of-- that stressed me out. Then the next summer I worked at, um, Wooster Brush the night shift, making paint brushes. (Okay.) That was a real factory job. That was fun. That was super fun. Uh, and then I realized actually that guy...

Shawn (09:44):

...that your dream wasn't to make... .

Barney (09:47):

Big brushes. Yes. But to actually extract those cotyledons or those embryos, um, he, this poor guy was just, I mean a genius, but he was the oldest son in his family. And his parents said you have to come home and take care of the cotton plantation in the sub-continent. And so he and his American wife had no choice, but to move back home to like the hottest place in India. And, um, that was it. I mean, he was a PhD doing this genetic engineering and hello cotton.

Shawn (10:22):

Well, maybe you can make the best cotton in the world. I don't know.

Barney (10:25):

So I went, I went back there and, uh, thankfully I got a paper publication out of that. And, uh, yeah, that was what I needed to go to work here.

Shawn (10:35):

Yeah. I saw that on your weird credit. I'm like what the heck is this?

Barney (10:39):

Yeah, "What's this? Plant cell research?"

Shawn (10:40):

Let me see here. But you also worked at, you also worked at the "prestigious" Appleby's. Am I right?

Barney (10:46):

Oh, much later. Yeah. Right. Um, yeah, I did. Uh, and, and the equally prestigious, so Applebee's, I was a waiter and, um, during training, I was absolutely horrible, but the last day of my training, I don't know if the person overseeing me was like secretly talking to the tables afterward, or if I just hit my stride because I made huge amount of tips on my last day. But when you're in training, you're not allowed to earn tips. So they all went to my overseer, but she was so kind, she gave me half.

Shawn (11:18):

All right. Half of what you saw. (Yeah. Right. Yeah.) Maybe she had more. (Yeah.) Um, I've never worked in restaurants in that way. Just done the Wendy's at one time I worked in another music store called Moby Disc, kind of a cute pun. Yeah. Um, "Call me Ishmael." I dunno. Um, I also worked at Target, which is a major big box store in the United States, twice in college. And when I was in college, I also worked at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. That was a fun job. I worked in the gift shops, but of course you have access to the aquarium. (Oh, nice) You can see back behind, you know, you can see where all the animals are actually puppets and stuff. Wait, wait. Oh, shoot. I shouldn't have said that. No, they were real otters and sunfish and things like that. It was a lot of fun. Um,

Barney (12:10):

Your time at Target you also had experience with the night shift, is that right?

Shawn (12:13):

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. My second time at Target, um, after I came back from Japan, I went and I got a teaching credential, but I needed a summer job to tide me over until my teaching job started in the United States. So I acted like I couldn't find a job and I'm like, "Oh, there was no teaching jobs out there." They're like, "Oh no, don't worry. You'll never get a job here, but you can work at Target." So I worked at Target for three months, um, to cover rent and stuff. But the shift was from, I believe from 9:00 PM to 8:00 AM or something like that, 10 to 10, something like that. (12 hours? Wow.) Well, well, it wasn't 12 hours. It was like, it was just working overnight, um, stocking, pulling things and stocking the shelves and, and working in the warehouse in the back. And I think I was the only, one of the only people there that was there legally probably.

Barney (13:06):

Yes, if it's the night shift there's just so much...

Shawn (13:07):

I had a lot of, well, I mean, uh, I don't know about all people, but I know there's a couple of people there that were very nice, but not there legally, apparently, but everybody I worked with, I got along with. Great kids, uh, great guys, um, ladies too. Um, uh, I learned lot of some good Mexican artists and they were playing the music. I'm like, "Ooh, she's good. Who's that?" "It's Julieta Venegas." "Okay." So I looked it up, you know, I have a few, those are the few songs, Spanish songs on my iTunes still. Um, yeah. I don't know exactly what they mean, but they're good songs. (Yeah.) Um, and while I was in Japan, I did one year as an exchange student in Japan. And I had like a couple of eikaiwa part-time jobs. That's not a big deal, but a cool job I had was I worked for the hockey league.

Barney (13:58):

Yeah, that's cool.

Shawn (13:59):

And um, I love ice hockey. Um, and there's a minor, there was a minor league in, in Japan called the Japan ice hockey league. And I went to see a game and I, I loved it so much and it was close by and she knew Oklahoma. I was in Machida and I bugged the guy and was like, can I have a job? That's so cool. And eventually they gave me this job where I would be down near the penalty box, near center ice, um, taking down stats from the game. So I had either two different jobs. Um, and I had to, I had to keep track of the plus minus Oh boy. Um, so that means when you're watching the game and one team scores a goal, um, if it's even strength, boy, this is going to be too much. Um, for this podcast, I was actually

Barney (14:47):

I was actually going to jump in, "As long as it's not on the power play..."

Shawn (14:49):

Yeah, as long as not on, if the team, uh, one team scores and it's, it's five players against five players, um, uh, one team, the team that scores is a plus one, all the players are a plus one. (That are on the ice, yeah.) on the ice and the other players on the other team scored upon are a minus one. And, and so it's a way of keeping track of defensive, uh, prowess. (Right.) And, um, I liked that job, but as long as I had the home team, because I knew the players numbers pretty well. Sometimes after they would score, you got to quickly write down the players' numbers, who's on the ice. And sometimes they would go to the bench really quickly. And you're like, "Slow down! Slow down! Slow down! Who's that? Who's that? Was that was that 16? I can't tell." Um, or I would keep track of shots on goal and things like that. It was a fun job. It was a year of the 98 Olympics in Nagano. So I got to meet a lot of the players that were on the national team because they were on the team that I was working for. And I'm still friends with some of them on Facebook, uh, some of the Canadian, Japanese players and stuff like that. (Wow.) Probably the funnest job. I didn't receive much money, but I got to see games for free.

Oh yeah, at ice level.

Yeah. I got hit by a puck twice, two games in a row and I didn't even get to keep it. Um, one time I saved the person next to me. She had her head down, she was writing something and a puck was coming in, it hit the boards and it came at her face and I put my hand up and I blocked it from hitting her face. (Oh, wow.) And it hurt and she looks up like she knew nothing, nothing was going on. And just like, "Thank you. I just saved your, saved your face." (I know. Oh wow.) Cause we were like almost behind the penalty boxes. So it's pretty easy to come up. Right. That was a fun job. (Yeah. Wow.) Um, so what was your funnest job?

Barney (16:43):

Yeah. Um,

Shawn (16:48):

Was it the dancing job that you had that one time?

Barney (16:50):

Yeah, I think, yeah. That's right.

Shawn (16:52):

Get your dollar bills ready. Martin is coming down the lane so popular.

Barney (16:58):

Yeah. Um, I think probably the job that was the most fun. I actually worked at a library three different times. Right. I did.

Shawn (17:08):

You had to type, I worked at music stores, you worked at libraries.

Barney (17:11):

There we go, yeah. So my first, my first university was Marquette and I worked at the science library. It was actually a lot of fun. Um, cause they, they, they had a nice balance between um, shelving and front desk.

Barney (17:24):

Did you ever encounter ghosts liking the Ghostbusters movies? No. I was a little too young maybe. Yeah. So that was nice. And um, and it was just so interesting seeing the different types of books that people would check out. Um, and since it's the science library, it's like really specific stuff. (Super long titles.) Yeah. And, uh, um, and then at my next job or my next school, I worked at the library, um, most of the time there. Um, so I guess maybe that, but the jobs that was the most fun. Um, and then later I'll tell you about the jobs that was maybe the most unique, but the job that was the most fun was, um, it was a paid internship. So as a history major, we had to get an internship. And, um, there was this, uh, an NGO, a non-government organization called the Fourth Freedom Forum and the guy, it was all, uh, like a sanctions think-tank and, um, it was so weird cause I went, you know, wrote an email, you know, and you know, "I'm interested in this internship" and then, you know, "Hey, come on in." And I don't know why I happened to have a nice shirt and a tie. And I wore that and then the person-- I opened the door and go into the office and the person is like, "Barney!" Uh, cause of course I signed the email Barnabas. I was like, um, "Yeah, some people call me Barney." "Oh, I'm Linda. I know your family, you know, and you know, your sister and I were friends growing up and you know, my, your parents or my parents went to the same, you know, small, small group, you know, like church group."

Shawn (18:56):

"I used to tease you when you were a kid."

Barney (18:59):

I know. yes, right. It was like, Whoa. Okay. And, um, I loved that job. That job was so much fun cause I was really good at it. Um, I really learned that was, you know, Google was in its infancy and I was using things like Infoseek and, um, LexisNexis. Yes. And, um, I got really good at finding the right search, uh, items.

Shawn (19:20):

It used to be so hard to find information on the internet.

Barney (19:24):

Yeah. Cause I, I, you have to think what phrases, right. And you had to use booleans, right. You know, all caps ands or all caps, not right. (Plus.) Yeah. And, uh, I was great and um, I, they acknowledged my efforts and their books and then years later, you know, uh, the guy I worked for, he ran into him you know. Cause I just liked it so much. I went back to check in with everyone and they're like, you know, between you and me, just the quality isn't quite the same, you know? Cause it's meant for college students. That's right.

Shawn (19:59):

It's better now. Oh, snap burn. He didn't think he was going to burn you there. Um, let's see some other jobs that I've had here. Um, I worked for Hitachi Central Laboratory, um, Hitachi Kenkyujo, uh, Hitachi Seisakusho, I think is what it's called or Seisaku. Um, and it's, it's a, uh, research place in Kokubunji, which happened to be close to where I lived when I was going to ICU for my masters. And it was, uh, and they didn't, um, provide for transportation, but it was like five minutes from my apartment. I could arrange my own hours. (That's cool.) Um, the, the work was a little bit monotonous because I was working with, um, checking how they categorize different vocal sounds that'd eventually be used in, um, robots talking. (Cool.) You know, they have a robot called Emiew. And so, you know, whenever or text to speech in computers that would have to form words. And if the, uh, syllables or the word the sounds are categorized incorrectly, uh, the words would sound weird. (Right.) Um, but, uh, but it was interesting to see inside a big company like Hitachi because I am not a salary man. I'll never be a salary man. But by being there as an, uh, hakken shain, um, contract worker, I was able to just see what it's like in there without having to commit to it. Uh, it's a beautiful campus. I don't know if you call it campus, facility, it has like a pond and they invite people into the pub-- from the public twice a year, (Really?) You know, to look around like cherry blossoms and maybe in the fall. Wow. And it was great and I could even go home for lunch if I wanted to, but they had a great cheap, uh, cafeteria.

Barney (22:10):

Yeah. That's really nice.

Shawn (22:13):

So it was a fun job. It was perfect. Um, I did have to leave it. Um, but as I got teaching jobs, but that's okay.

Barney (22:20):

Yeah, right. And that would have been, it sounded like it would have been tough to kind of stick at it for too long.

Shawn (22:27):

I was there for four years I think. (Whoa. No problem.) Because I could arrange the hours and things like that. It was super flexible. So that helped with my research and other things. So I could, if I, in classes or another job or I had to do some research, I could just arrange it around it.

Barney (22:45):

Right. And then kind of that feeling of freedom and then the nice campus and the nice cafeteria. You don't feel like it's such a, so much drudgery.

Shawn (22:54):

I almost felt like sneaking on to the camp-- the, uh, the facility grounds to go to the cafeteria on days that I wasn't working because it was so cheap. Uh, and of course I've had lots of teaching jobs as you have as well, I assume. Um, the occasional eikaiwa um, but it's been fun. It's I guess the funnest job was the hockey job. Um, HItachi was interesting. Um, yeah, we've all done retail. Have you done retail? You didn't do retail. Did you?

Barney (23:27):

I did Walmart, yeah.

Shawn (23:29):

Ooh. The rival of Target. Target is much better.

Barney (23:31):

Yeah. I, I think that's true. Yeah. Um, I did, um, it was, uh, you know, the Christmas, Christmas season. They always need more people and I knew that I was going to be, um, leaving the area, um, for a while and I just wanted to earn some cash. Um, and, um, they-- two things I remember, they, um, they recognized that I had a college degree and so they wanted me to be a manager. So they kept pulling me away from electronics and making me do all of these other jobs.

Shawn (24:01):

Like what?

Barney (24:01):

But, um, Oh, I mean just working all the other different departments, but especially, um, in the warehouse area and using the, um, Oh boy, what are they? Um, like kind of like the pump forklift thing.

Shawn (24:17):

Yeah, I know what you mean. It's like, it's like a pushable forklift, you know, just a one person. You, you, it's a cart that you can put on. Yeah.

Barney (24:24):

Oh boy. And I just couldn't wrap my brain around, backing them up and turning them. I mean, initially I eventually got the hang of it.

Shawn (24:33):

College-educated.

Barney (24:34):

Yeah right. Well, you know, managers don't have to do that.

Shawn (24:37):

Yeah. I don't know why they're making you do that. Do you want to be a manager? Did they want you to be a manager?

Barney (24:42):

So, um, and then I also remember in the break room, I was reading tale of Genji. And um, someone's like, Hey, what are you? I was like, "Tale of Genji. It's like, it's the first ever novel, you know?" And she's, and she's like, "Wasn't that the Bible?" Like, "Well, no, it's, it's actually, that's,--

Shawn (25:00):

That's some good sitcom writing.

Barney (25:03):

Yeah, I know. That's um, what could we say? It's nonfiction, so, no, that's not a novel, but it has stories in it. Yeah. Great.

Shawn (25:11):

I wouldn't read anything so dirty.

Barney (25:13):

I know. Tale of Genji, whoa!

Shawn (25:16):

No, no. I'm talking about the Bible.

Barney (25:19):

Both!

Shawn (25:19):

Yes, they get pretty wild sometimes.

Barney (25:20):

Yeah, right. Yeh. But, um, yeah, saying if I can, just, the last thing about my most unique job was before I worked at the library at Marquette, I, um, uh, drove a minivan on campus, around campus, on the weekends, picking up drunk people.

Shawn (25:40):

Um, what did they call that service? The Drunk Trunk?

Barney (25:44):

Probably, yeah. So I was with campus security. I had my CB radio and everything or not so and whatever walkie-talkie and then had to check in every once in a while, you know, use the 10 codes and, uh, yeah, they just be like, "We've got, you need to go to this place and pick up these people." And they were so drunk. And, um, one guy...

Shawn (26:04):

Did you have anybody throw up in your van?

Barney (26:05):

No, thankfully, no one guy. Um, like I actually, when I visited campus, before I went there, um, he, he was, uh, one of the people that did like a, um, like where you stay, stay with the dorm, stay at the dorm with him. And, um, I was like, "Whoa, Hey, it's good to see you. Yeah." Then, um, he's telling a story to his friends and I'm driving, I'm listening to his story and I go the wrong way. There's lots of one way streets. I go the wrong way down a one way street, but it's like two in the morning, so it doesn't matter. And then he stops his story. He's like, "Aren't you in the wrong way?" I was like, "Oh yeah." And he's like, "Oh, it's okay. This is more interesting than my story. Anyway."

Shawn (26:43):

And then the truck came the other way and you all screamed at the camera.

Shawn and Barney (26:46):

Ahhhhh!

Shawn (26:50):

Yeah. That was, I mean, that must have been crazy. I'm glad it happened in the middle of the night. (Right.) So nobody was coming toward you.

Barney (26:57):

Right. Um, and especially working for security, they might not have been too happy.

Shawn (27:02):

I forgot. I did have one. It wasn't a part-time job, but I worked, um, uh, I wanted to get into web design. I did have, I did have a job as a web designer for a couple-- a year and a half, two years in the United States. Um, that was so it was nice but stressful. Um, but before that in Japan, I couldn't quite find a web design job, but I found a job doing, um, touch panel design. (Oh, wow.) And, um, so, um, there was this company, a small company and they would, um, put these systems into like rich people's houses or like, uh, corporate boardrooms where you could like control everything with one touch of a touch panel.

Barney (27:42):

Oh, they were ahead of their time.

Shawn (27:44):

Well, it was a current service. So you'd press one button and all the curtains would close and lights go down, the movie would start or something like that. And so I was doing the interface and some of the basic programming for that.

Barney (27:57):

That's cool.

Shawn (27:57):

Uh, and then there was kind of fun-- We went to this, um, we had this job once where we had to go to Karuizawa in Nagano, which is a resort town. And, um, uh, we had to work overnight at this house. It was a huge house. It was like, uh, his, his besso, his vacation home, but he was like, like some CEO. So you had like rooms made up for meetings and stuff like that. He had a pool, indoor pool.

Barney (28:25):

Oh yeah. Don't want it to freeze over.

Shawn (28:25):

Downstairs he had a two lane bowling alley. (Wow.) Uh, with AMC. (Yeah.) And that's the major bowling company in the United States. And like, I believe they said that they had made one for the white house and this guy, when it comes to private and my job was kind of interesting. We had this, they had this wall, one wall was all LED lights. And my job was to program these lights to do different things when different, uh, balls were like, like a strike, or a spare.

Barney (29:01):

Oh, wow.

Shawn (29:02):

Or a gutter.

Barney (29:03):

Yeah. Yeah. That's so cool.

Shawn (29:05):

We ended up working all night though. We had a hotel room, hotel rooms for us, but we never ended up using them. (Yeah.) And, um, it was exhausting, but it was interesting, you know, the hard part was like testing it out sometimes cause like, "Okay, somebody throw a strike!" And nobody could throw a strike. Or like, we're like two feet from the, uh, two meters from like the pins, like trying to roll the balls into the thing. So all the balls, all the pins would go down and we could see if it worked, you know? Yeah. But that was fun. Um,

Barney (29:34):

"The gutter ball works just fine and rather insulting, but we've seen that enough."

Shawn (29:38):

Yeah. "Uh, we know it works. Just go on to the next one." Yeah. So, um, well, I don't know how many interesting jobs you guys will have because other than part-time jobs, I think I hope most of you will be working in the medical industry. Um, but, um, I hope you've had some interesting experiences of non-medically related jobs. So you can tell funny stories to your kids or whoever.

Barney (30:04):

Yeah. It's these kinds of quirky things that you take on a whim or you just take out of necessity and um, they end up enriching your life. So yeah. Don't shy away from it.

Shawn (30:14):

No, no, no. Just avoid working at like meat packing plants and stuff like that, or places where you can lose a finger.

Barney (30:22):

Yeah. Um, yeah. And if you have a midlife crisis, my mom knows a surgeon, he had a midlife crisis and became a truck driver. So do, do what makes you happy.

Shawn (30:33):

Wow. He went from surgery to truck driving? Wow. (Yeah.) That's a really bad TV show in the making right there.

Barney (30:43):

Probably wouldn't be very funny. Ah, it could be.

Shawn (30:45):

Yes. 1970s TV show, probably Dr. Trucker or something. I don't know that's a, okay. "Take two pills and call me in the morning. That's a big 10-4!" Something like that. Well, we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode. Um, we'll try and make some learning materials if possible. Um, but our time, uh, this semester is running out, so we'll do the best we can, but I hope you enjoyed it and we'll try and get the transcript out so you can understand it better. And, uh, please join us for our next episode. It will be an interesting one.

Barney (31:19):

Yes, it will. And thank you for listening every time.

Shawn (31:24):

All right. Until then, I guess bye-bye

Barney (31:30):

Still working on that sign off.

Shawn (31:31):

I'll get it in the last episode! (I know.) I know! I just know. Okay. See you later guys.

Barney (31:37):

Yep.