15 summertime jobs
Although a few contractors provide safety training to their workers, most workers do not receive any training. Most workers do not know their rights. They are unaware of the laws entitling them to a safe work place and to medical care if they are injured. Many workers tell of delaying treatment for injuries on the job, and of tremendous difficulties in navigating the workers' compensation system. With current shifts in U.S. immigration policy, agencies in the Northwest are anticipating an increase in the number of forest workers here on guestworker visas, who typically have the least understanding of workplace health and safety rights and responsibilities.
But the internet is gaining on these roadsters faster than they can pedal their fixed-gear, brakeless bikes. In a world where documents travel by e-mail and the web, and electronic signatures are legally binding, the business of moving physical wood pulp from point A to point B is struggling.
Anecdotes from the Big Apple to San Francisco and parts in between suggest the click of a Send button is undermining the bike-messaging trade.
In the last two years, three messaging companies in San Francisco have folded. Courier service Bucky's of Seattle trashed its bike fleet last year. And there are nearly 1,000 fewer bike messengers in New York than a decade ago.
"There is really not much left. It's dying," says Matt Flores, co-owner of Wheels of Justice, a San Francisco courier service. Flores recently halved his full-time bikers -- "document clerks," as he calls them -- from eight to four. His top runner earns $50,000 a year, he says.
By far the biggest broomstick through the spokes of the bike messenger comes from the nation's court systems and their embrace of electronic filing. The millions of pages of paperwork generated by trial lawyers were once the bread and butter of bike messaging. Now about half of the U.S. state courts have some form of electronic filing. And under guidelines adopted by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, an electronic filing system is now available in about 99 percent of the nation's federal courts.
Federal bankruptcy courts went electronic beginning in 2001, followed a year later by the district courts. Federal appellate courts started following suit in 2005. The last holdout was the nation's largest federal appeals court, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which began testing an electronic filing system in January.
While many district court judges still demand paper "courtesy copies" of some filings, which are usually hauled by bike messenger, many state court systems are moving online completely, according to the National Center for State Courts. In California, home to one of the world's largest judicial systems, electronic filing is expected to be mandatory statewide by the end of the decade.
"We've seen about a 30 percent decline in our use of bike messenger services, due largely to electronic filing," says Kevin Livingston, a spokesman for Thelen Reid, a nationwide law firm.
Years ago, phone books in the nation's largest cities were shot through with page after page of courier-service listings. Now the phone book itself is obsolete.
"The total pie of courier services has been shrinking," says Christine Chan, a co-owner of Urban Express in New York, which contracts with hundreds of bike messengers. "Obviously, the need for couriers to carry items is declining."
But bike messenger Lon Cook of San Francisco, like many others in the business, is philosophical. He says there will always be a need for bike messengers in big cities, even if their backpacks aren't as full as they once were.
"First we had the fax machine and now e-mails," says Cook. "There's always something new. A bike messenger is part of the scenery in the road."
Fergus Tanaka, a five-year veteran now riding in San Francisco, shares Cook's optimism.
"What is really necessary for the industry is adaptation. Clearly, if we branch out to other realms and other parts of the economy that need transportation, bike messengers can stick around for another 50 years," the 28-year-old says.
It's a lifestyle, he adds, like no other.
There's a reason, he says, that messengers' bodies are often pierced and inked -- that their hairstyles are often improved with helmet hair.
"There's a freedom associated with bike messaging," the tattooed Tanaka says. "Nobody requires me to wear a suit and tie to work. They just want to make sure you can ride a bike and know where you are going."
The dangers of the job are obvious. And then there are the lesser-known perils.
"We used to have this one run. I called it the piss run. You went around to different homes where elderly people lived, to collect their samples," he recalls. "I went to this one lady's house, threw it in my bag and, when I got back, I reached in my bag and my hands were all wet. There was piss all over my bag."
This past Saturday, when I was walking up and down on Bay St thinking about tamales, I noticed Esperanza was quietly sitting at the driver seat because no one was going to her truck. THAT totally broke my heart. I have never worked in a restaurant or in a food truck but I can imagine, with all the prep work beforehand, it’s a lot of work. And if I had done all that work and no one shows up…it’s super disappointing. I decided to spend my last $8 at her truck. I got a chicken and cheese tamale and an empanada (top photo). I have never eaten a Guatemalan styled tamale before and it was incredibly good. Hearty, much wetter than the usual tamale and there was a big piece of tender dark meat in the center. I ate the empanada (big and crunchy) while I ate the tamale. Great contrast of textures and flavors. Ah so good! I want her to stay in business, I want other people to enjoy her food as well. If I have to…I will do my best to keep her in business. Will you at least buy one item from her?
Counselors supervise children in outdoor activities (e.g. canoeing and mountain exploration), plan and initiate camp programs, and provide creative and educational opportunities in an experiential learning environment. Counselors lead and participate in all daily activities including farm work, animal care, cooking, arts and crafts, swimming, hiking and community service projects. Counselors must be able to recognize and respond to opportunities for “teachable moments”, and lead discussions and problem solving with individual children and within the group. Counselors attend regular staff meetings and report to directors any information or developments pertaining to the health and safety of the campers or to the efficacy of the camp programs. Counselors should be willing to accept other responsibilities as deemed necessary by the camp director. Counselors are expected to assist in the setting up and breaking down of camp before and after the summer session. Tasks between weekly sessions include mowing, maintenance, building projects, garden work, research and administrative work.
Qualifications: Candidate should be a minimum of 18 years of age, preferably with experience working with special needs populations, especially at-risk and minority youth. Previous wilderness experience – camping, swimming, canoeing, hiking – is highly desirable. Personal qualities include maturity, patience, flexibility, sense of humor, good problem solving and communication skills, initiative, physical stamina and a powerful work ethic. Love for children and a love of the outdoors is a necessity. Because of the challenges posed by wilderness adventure, candidates should be healthy and physically fit.
Chicago nanny babysitter agencies/services/jobs require prospective families to create profiles and give information which will better help with connecting the nannies and the families. However, there are cases of independent nanny searches in which families may find and contact available nannies of their own accord.
So for people who are flexible and hardworking this field might just be the real boost in the career and similarly for someone who finds it difficult to maintain the requirements, well they are better off not joining it.
If you know anything at all about golf then you know that a professional golfer is only as good as his caddie. Unlike scratch golfers like myself, most pros know the ends and outs of swinging the club at the ball to make it do just about anything they want it to do. But for those pros a caddie can determine if he/she wins or looses. A caddie does more than just carry the clubs.
A caddie first and foremost knows the clubs and knows the golf course. The caddie knows how far his golfer can usually hit the ball with any given club and will provide the tools and knowledge and any given shot. For sellers, Realtors provide marketing tools and advice to ensure the seller has a good shot at the target audience. For buyers, Realtors provide on-line tools and price tools to ensure the buyer is getting a good house at a fair market value. n golf, caddies know the golf course from the fairways to greens and utilize this knowledge to help the golfer make the best shot. In real estate, Realtors should have a good knowledge of the local real estate market. They can advise buyers and sellers on the ups and downs of the market, formulate inventive ways to approach the market based on the pin position, or market condition.
Hitting the green is a lot like getting or making an offer on a house. You are almost there, now you just need to make all the right moves to finish off the whole. A little "tappy tap" to "send the ball home." The caddie helps the golfer read the curves and elevation, and then offers advice on the best path to get the ball to the hole. The caddie also usually pulls the pin (flag) to help the golfer stay within the rules of the game. Realtors must do the same thing once an offer on a home is made. In addition to ensuring that everyone stays within the rules, buyers and sellers usually have things that need to be done once a house is under contract.
Ensuring that buyers get proper financing, complete a home inspection and a termite inspection, as well as ensuring the appraisal is completed in a timely manner are just a few "ups and downs" of the elevation of the green that the Realtor must help the buyer read correctly to ensure they get to the closing table.
For sellers, Realtors must help them read the curves of the green as well by ensuring the contract is fulfilled such as making necessary repairs. A good pep talk from the Realtor caddie can help the seller keep a level head throughout so that when they step up to make the putt they do so with confidence and no surprises. Just the beautiful sound of the golf ball hitting the bottom of the cup, or as I like to call it - SOLD!
Adding an international element to your workforce can help widen your appeal to your guests and employees. Guests can enjoy international interaction at your business that they may not experience elsewhere. Your international staff can also assist with language barriers if you have a diverse guest population. Your domestic staff will be excited to meet international counterparts and learn about different countries and cultures, making your park a more desirable place to work.
"I can remember the bombs falling and hitting the house," he says, as we meet in the office of the Original London Tour. "Incendiary bombs," he adds quickly, as if that would make them perfectly innocuous.
Metcalfe looks younger than his 68 years. His hair is combed neatly back, his chin is well-shaved, and a tie with buses on it peeps from the inside of his bright red anorak. No doubt by force of tour guide's habit, he first asks where I come from before telling me about his passion for his own home town.
"London has a wonderful history," he says, "with all the people that have been here in the past. And I have the chance to resurrect that and bring it back into people's knowledge. For instance, not far from here we have the most famous column in the United Kingdom, Nelson's Column ..."
And with that, he's off on a roll, telling me all about Nelson, his early career, the battle of Trafalgar and some of the capital's other marvels.
"It's not all great, of course," he admits. "We've got Jack the Ripper and all those sorts of things."
And then he is off again, explaining this time when the terrible Ripper murders occurred (August to November, 1888), how the unknown perpetrator got his name (he used it himself in a letter), and how some unlikely good did come from the case – in the form of slum clearances.
Meanwhile, in the hall behind him, the first sightseers are beginning to accumulate for a tour to be led by one of his colleagues.
I have to ask, because Metcalfe's uncontainable enthusiasm makes it a possibility: did he already know all this stuff before he started the job? "No, no," he insists. "Not all of it. But because you're suddenly going on a walking tour, and you're going to have people with you for an hour and a half asking questions, you'd better have the answers ready. This is one of the wonderful things about the job. You never stop learning. Maybe something comes up on the television and I think: 'That's brilliant!' Or I will find something on the internet because I want to know something specific."
These days Metcalfe works not on foot, but in the open-top buses that cruise the well-known currents of the city. Most of his clients are tourists from abroad, who can listen to guides recorded in other languages if they wish, but Metcalfe speaks only English. To show willing, however, he has learned several polite phrases in Arabic, and can quote at least three different facts about all 50 of the states of America.
From one of the large pockets of his anorak, he produces a considerable wad of A4 pages, some handwritten and some typed, all of them worn with use and repeated folding. "These are the things I memorise," he says proudly, holding out a sheet with "Roger Moore" written at the top.
"This is from his book, My Word Is My Bond," he explains, "and I thought it was quite interesting." I read the passage, which relates an anecdote told by AE Matthews, the veteran actor who said it was his practice each day to read the obituaries in his morning paper, "and if I am not mentioned, I have my breakfast, get dressed and go to work."
"Isn't that a classic?" says Metcalfe. "I bring that out when I'm going round Belgravia, where Roger Moore lives." Next he turns to the page featuring Samuel Johnson's famous comment to James Boswell that "a man who is tired of London is tired of life". Needless to say, he has the complete version, which he usually recites by Johnson's statue near the church of St Clement Danes in the Strand, and which, of course, he knows by heart.
So intent is Metcalfe on doing his job that I find it hard to believe he had never even considered tour guiding until just four years ago. As a boy, he studied to enter the merchant navy, but found himself excluded at the last minute because of an accident with a sun lamp that slightly damaged his vision. After school, he got a job in a printing company, from where he embarked on a long career in sales. Later, he ran his own small business importing cookware from the continent. "I love to be among people, putting ideas across," he says.
Then four years ago, when the time had come to begin running his business down, he found he wanted to seek out a less pressurised way of bringing in a bit of money. Which was when he saw the advertisement for the job he is now doing.
Metcalfe makes the moment sound like a wonderful surprise, but he does admit to an earlier enthusiasm for public speaking. "I think I was 15 years old when I went to Hyde Park Corner, got on a soapbox and had a go," he recalls. "I was interested in the study of comparative religion at the time."
At 15? "Yes … Anyway, as I came back home [from school] through the park, I noticed all these people talking. And then I got the opportunity to get up there and do it, so I had a go.
"The first time I was petrified. There's a lot of heckling. They're a bunch of scallywags, most of them are, but after a while you get used to it."
His colleague Jez appears behind him to corral the large crowd for the next walking tour. "He's very bouncy and happy," says Metcalfe, when I ask him how he and Jez compare in their approaches. "My style is more, maybe conservative, maybe informative."
When we get to the bus, it is almost full. I find room on a rainy upstairs seat among all the people waiting patiently, with a dozen different languages in evidence. "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," says Metcalfe, taking the microphone. "My name is Malcolm and I'll just be chatting away here on the top of the bus. Great stories, and great history here in London. This road here is known as the Haymarket …"
And with that, we are away.
The bus pulls into Trafalgar Square, and Metcalfe begins to tell us about King Charles I and Nell Gwynn. He never stops telling us things – interesting things, without notes – until we reach Park Lane and Speakers' Corner, scene of his former glories. Here great banks of seeds are blowing off the trees, and one of them lodges in his throat, stopping him in his tracks. Like a pro, he struggles on, recovering enough to tell us about the highwayman John Haynes who was hanged at Tyburn, not quite until he was dead. The doctors who discovered this nursed him back to life, Metcalfe explains through the pollen, and then he was hanged again.
Metcalfe is a pleasure to listen to – and almost everything he says is new to me – so it is a pity when we finally have to disembark at Victoria, missing out on Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey and the rest of the west, which he lists for me in rapid succession. "Then we go east," he adds. "We don't go farther than the Tower of London, but you go down past the Law Courts, past St Paul's Cathedral, into the heart of the City of London."
Then he stops, as if something has suddenly occurred to him. "You can just wind me up and I can carry on talking," he says with a smile, "but you'll get bored in a minute."
These books follow the adventures of best friends Carole Hanson, Stevie Lake, and Lisa Atwood, who live in the town of Willow Creek and ride at Pine Hollow Stables where they started the Saddle Club for a group for horse-crazy people like themselves.
Loving horses wasn't the only requirement for joining the group, these friends also believe in sticking together through thick and thin by helping each other out in all kinds of situations.
Mean hourly wages: Pay At Roy's our goal is to be a place for our Ohana to learn, work, have fun and earn money. To achieve this goal, we are committed to providing an environment with clear direction, training opportunities, support and a sense of belonging. Working at Roy's will be a rewarding experience both personally and professionally. All we ask in return is dedication, teamwork, responsibility and an overall winning attitude.
The by-law, introduced by Kensington and Chelsea council in January, also stipulates that in certain areas, including public footpaths and some grassed squares, dogs must be kept on leads no more than 4ft long.
Anyone breaking the dog control order can be issued with an £80 on-the-spot fine and the Tory-run council has ordered its enforcement officers to seek out repeat offenders.Today, residents of the borough joined professional dog-walkers to fight the rules, which have been labelled "draconian".
Actress Felicity Kendal, who has been a dog owner for years, said: "This kind of absurd legislation affects the way we live.
"To live in a society where the number of pets a person can have is controlled by the council, and where people patrol the streets treating animals like motor cars, is a clear example of the nanny state going too far."
Resident Tara Hewitt, 37, is the latest dog walker to receive a fixed penalty notice after being caught looking after four small dogs while waiting for a friend to come and help walk them.
She accused the council of using "scaremongering" tactics after she was warned by three enforcement officers not to fight the fine in court.
