My Odd Job

This question came up on the Hero Discussion Boards the other day:

OK, getting away from politics for a bit: What's the oddest, strangest, most off-the-wall, or just the most interesting job you've ever held?

Here was my response:

On two different occasions [one of which was right before my mission] I worked in a corn syrup factory. It had originally been built to process sugar beets, which were a big cash crop when we first moved to that area of Colorado (near Greeley, Loveland, and Longmont). The corn syrup process worked a little differently than the one for sugar beets, so a refit was necessary. Part of the refit involved the use of an organic filter--basically ground coral, but everyone called it 'mud' because after running the unrefined corn syrup through it, that's what it looked like.

In refitting the plant, the engineers got it to the point where the place where the mud left the refinement process and where it was taken by conveyor belt out of the factory for disposal were on the same floor, but on opposite ends of the factory. So my job was to transport the mud from one end of the factory to the other using wheelbarrows. The mud came out of the chute at one end and fell into one of two wheelbarrows. When the wheelbarrow was full, I swapped it with the empty one, and took the full one to the other end of the plant to dump it.

That was my entire job, for twelve hours a shift, four days a week. The really annoying part, however, was the shifts themselves. I worked from 6:30 in the morning until 6:30 at night for four days, then had four days off. Then I worked from 6:30 at night until 6:30 in the morning for four nights, then had four days off. Twelve hour shifts, four days on, four days off, four NIGHTS on, four days off. Repeat ad infinitum.

And on my days off, I worked at McDonalds as a cashier.

After three and a half months of that nonsense, getting up at six in the morning every day for the next two years was a breeze.