Funny about Money

J.D. Roth’s Labor Day post at Get Rich Slowly, in which he recites all the jobs he’s ever held and asks readers to describe their best and worst gigs, got me thinking about my checkered career. For a person who’s on the verge of retirement, I haven’t held all that many jobs, especially if you don’t count the twenty years as a generously supported lawyer’s wife, mother, and society matron—less than a dozen, some of which were part-time.

Which were the best jobs and which the worst? And did my hypereducation do anything to help land the best ones? What, if anything, would I do differently, given a chance to start over?

At GRS, I left a comment opining that my most hated job was as a secretary for a demented market researcher. The guy was truly paranoid: convinced he had Enemies (no joke!) who spent every evening sifting through the trash behind the office building, looking for corporate intelligence with which to do his business in. He insisted that every, single piece of trash be snipped up into confetti—this predated inexpensive shredders—before it went in the trash. The job also predated word processors, and since I was not a great typist I threw out a lot of botched letters and memos; these also had to be snipped up, even if only a few words appeared on the page. My employer was given to insane rages and casual insults, an altogether obnoxious gentleman.

But really, what made that a bad job was the wacko boss, not the job itself. I enjoyed working as a receptionist and probably would have enjoyed secretarial or clerical work in any office environment where the boss was blessed with normal mental health.

The real worst job I’ve ever done is teaching freshman composition. After I finished the Ph.D. and several years of TAing, during which I taught many sections of both regular and advanced composition, I swore I’d go on welfare before I ever did that again. Years later, I landed a full-time lecturership, which paid as much as an associate professorship, teaching writing and editing to university juniors and seniors. For a long time, this was a fine job. Then after I’d been there about eight years, the university decided to turn that satellite campus into a four-year institution. Everyone was expected to teach freshman comp, whether they had degrees in English or not.

Ugh. I was right the first time around. If I’d wanted to teach high-school kids, I would have gotten a teaching certificate. At least if you teach high school, you can live wherever you choose, not wherever you can get work. In fact, in my desperation I looked into taking a postgraduate teaching certificate: to get it, I would have been required to take the very upper-division courses I was teaching (!), and I would have started at $24,000, a $19,000 cut in pay!

My favorite jobs—because they were the most fun—were editorial positions at Phoenix and Arizona Highways magazines. Journalists don’t earn much, but they have a good time going hungry. I enjoyed every moment, even the overnighters (which came once a month at Phoenix Magazine), loved writing features, loved editing copy, loved working with artists and photographers, and liked all my bosses and colleagues.

And no doubt the best job I’ve had is the one I hold right now, directing a university’s editorial office, where our staff of five does preproduction work for scholarly journals. The workload is almost nil, because I can delegate most of it to my associate editor and three graduate assistants. Pay is not great, but it’s more than I’ve ever made before. And I don’t waste too much of my time sitting around the office.

So…what effect did hypereducation—I have a B.A. in French and an M.A. and Ph.D. in English—have on this mottled career?

The hateful secretarial job required no higher education at all—the previous incumbent had been my cousin, who didn’t yet have an A.A. (she later became a registered nurse). Neither did the nice little receptionist’s job; however, the B.A. did get me the highest starting salary any receptionist had every earned at that firm, a munificent $300 a month.

The teaching assistantships were associated with graduate school: you TAed because you were in the program. The editorial jobs required a B.A. in journalism or English. Again, at Arizona Highways I was paid a premium for the advanced degrees, and in fact I landed the job because the editor was looking for someone with above-average competence.

I fell into the lecturership because I was assuredly the only English Ph.D. in the state with 15 years of real-world writing and editorial experience. At the same time I was hired, the department hired as my opposite number a man with a master’s degree in journalism from Stanford: presumably an M.A. from Stanford = a Ph.D. from Arizona State University, which oughta tell you something. I earned more than he did, though: approximately six dollars a year more.

The doctorate was not de rigueur for the job I’ve got now, but it certainly thrilled the hiring committee. It also got me a starting salary about $30,000 higher than the university had planned to pay the successful applicant.

So yes, the higher ed helped with the jobs I did get. If I’d started in journalism when I finished the B.A., though, by now I’d probably own Phoenix Magazine and be retired on its proceeds.

If I had it to do over, what would I do differently?

Well, if I knew when I was 22 what I know now, I would still get advanced degrees, but you can be sure they wouldn’t be in the humanities. I probably would combine an M.B.A. and an LL.D. in an attempt to develop a heavy-hitting corporate career. Or I would get a Ph.D. in business management, which opens the door to far better-paying academic jobs than you can get with the same degree in the humanities.

There’s no question that higher education, even in the liberal arts, sets you up for better-paying jobs. And there’s also no question that certain degrees, even some that won’t kill you with difficult coursework, will do better for you than others.

So…what are your best and worst jobs? And what would you do differently if you could start from scratch?