to all the jobs i've had before

Someday, I will get a picture scanned of my job as a pioneer and post it.

Today, I had my elective class.  I think I mistakenly understood elective to mean easy which it doesn't.  I think I'll actually have more to write in my elective than I will in any other class.  However, the elective is also about supported employment which is close to my actual job experience so I feel that I have an upper hand in this.  It's also my teacher's first time teaching so I'm a little afraid of her inexperience in teaching and that she may a) screw it up or b) be overly critical in an effort to prove her mettle as an instructor.

For the first class, she had us review our work history.  She gave us 10 minutes to write down the jobs we have had, what jobs worked out better for us and why and what supports we feel that we needed in our jobs.  It was a simple exercise but it made me critically look at my prior job experience.  Around 1996-1997, I went through a period of holding down a job for less than two weeks at a time because if you don't work more than two weeks, you don't have to put in a two weeks notice.  It was mostly crappy jobs like fast food work or taking in-bound phone calls for a hunting catalog.  I have done a few restaurant jobs, a few retail jobs and a few supervisory jobs.  I always work better when given clear expectations but the freedom to get them done my way.

The class is about helping people with barriers to employment find jobs that work for them.  The purpose of the exercise was to understand that just because someone quits a job, it doesn't mean that they failed.  Very few of us can say that our first job was our only job.  However, for clients, we look at them leaving their first job as failing somehow whereas it can actually be a good learning experience to have a job, realize it sucks and quit, even if you don't know what you're gonna do next.

While it may be an unusual class, there is potential there for me to learn something.