Happy Labor Day, everybody! To help celebrate this day that honors our laborers, I'm... sigh, yeah working. Huzzah! And you should be shopping! Yeah, there's still plenty of huge sales running through midnight tonight, so get cracking.
Now, I could go on about some crazy "labor" story tying into either one of my wife's 2 pregnancies, except, well there's not much to tell (she had C-sections both times) and well, that may be getting a bit too personal, right? And unfortunately I never had any labor pains of my own. So instead... hmmm... okay, I'll center on "labor" and give you all a walk through my work career so far. I've bounced around jobs in a crazy sort of pattern so maybe there's a story in here...
I guess my very first job ever was working as a paige in our local library. My sister already worked there, so I pretty much knew everybody and they knew me (from hanging out with my mom waiting to pick her up when her shift ended). I actually ended up working there probably like 6 or 7 years I'd say, continuing to work on any breaks from college. And yeah, after time I moved on up and got to actually work the circulation desk and helped them with a massive project involving converting the entire system to a barcode system (which basically meant slapping barcode stickers on EVERY book in the library, scanning it in, entering information, etc. Fun for about 5 minutes, yeah...)
Then somewhere in the middle of college, my girlfriend suggested I try to get an internship over the summer for something related to comic books. I was a journalism major and a major comic book geek. And as luck would have it, there was a monthly magazine called Wizard: The Guide to Comics. It had a big price guide in the back (this was back in the 90s, when there was actually a hot market for collectibles) and full of crazy fun articles, previews, interviews, etc. And as even more luck would have it... the magazine's company was located only like 20 minutes from my house! Which I never knew until I did a little research. So I set up a call, which led to an interview, and they saw I was actually a decent and semi-intelligent person (i.e. not a serial killer). I don't think they even had an internship program at the time and they were a rapidly growing company (still fairly small at the time) so he basically hired me on the spot. I spent 2 summers interning and doing anything and everything I could for them. The best part was the owner of the company really liked me so he offered me a job for when I graduate school. Talk about taking off some pressure! So after I graduated, I went and worked for roughly 6 years as a copy editor up to Managing Editor. Great times, I got to write and edit a ton of stuff. And best of all I got to read and write about comic books and get paid for it.
That was followed up by the rapid-fire job jumping I did. Wanting to get into the internet, I somehow ended up at a semi-startup search portal iWon.com. It's like Yahoo but with a chance to win a ton of money while searching, shopping, etc. I spent a year and a half there as a Product Manager, just making sure every project got done. Which basically meant running around and telling the advertisers one thing, then going to the developers, then the graphics team, and somehow juggling them all. It was multi-tasking hell at its hellishness. The hours were beyond insane, stress was crazy high and the commute was unbearable (18 minutes drive with zero traffic. But thanks to traffic it literally took me between an hour and an hour and a half each day. That's one way.). I learned a ton though and made some good friends. So no regrets. I left there and got into the medical publishing field working for an online magazine about health insurance for small businesses. Great commute, even better pay, super nice people, very professional and perfect 9 to 5 hours. The only thing I hated was, well the work. It was just sooooo boring. I have no med background and with an online mag rather than print, the deadlines were way loose. So I actually spent a lot of time teaching myself HTML and other computer fun-ness. I eventually left there when a high-up position opened up way back at my original comic-loving company. I really didn't want to go back, but they made me a crazy offer I couldn't refuse, so I took it. And that was my last job working for The Man...
I quit that gig after a year and a half to work full-time at home. First I was just doing lots of freelance writing and editing, while also working on our main coupon site UltimateCoupons.com. Nowadays I'm just full-time on the coupon gig, as well as writing this blog and gearing up for an additional shopping-based site that's slowly coming together. So there you have it. I'm exhausted just talking about it. And now that I think about it, this is probably THE most boring blog post I've ever written. Heck, possibly the most boring overall for that matter. I can make it slightly more exciting by adding that my wife (who recently retired as an 8th grade Earth Science teacher to raise our kids) did work in retail at two of my favorite fast food joints: Nathan's and Taco Bell. I still have the bright blue and purple Taco Bell hat I made her, er, borrow for me.
Anyways, besides the big Labor Day Sales post from the other day (most of which run through tonight), here are a few more big sales/offers running through tonight:
Up to 75% off Clearance at ToysRUs.com
50% off Clearance Items at Hot Topic
Free Shipping on all orders at The Paragon
Use discount code P7W32E1B.
No adjustments made on prior purchases. Not applicable to prior purchases. Cannot be combined with other offers. In-stock merchandise only.
Free Shipping on all orders at Classic Closeouts
Use coupon code LBRSHIP
25% off Photo Books at PhotoWorks
Use coupon code MONDAYSALE
Or free shipping on 4x6 prints with code PRINTSALE
20% off Work Boots at BootBarn.com
Use coupon code LABOR20
Labor Day Sale at CircuitCity.com
Okay and if you made it this far, you deserve a Nathan's Coupon good for a Free Hot Dog when you buy 1.
