Various jobs and careers were had from the time I was out of high school until the present time.  My first paying job was working at Thiokol where solid rocket fuel was made and tested for the NASA rockets.  I worked in the rocket propellent casting can cleanup.  I liked the money, since they were the first paychecks I received.  The dislike was that we were told that if anything wrong were to happen, we would have 3 seconds to clear the area.  The building was such that if an explosion were to occur, the walls would blow to the outside rather than to implode.  I worked with men who wanted to spend most of their time "resting" on the cleaning-rag bales.  With propellent containing everything to be able to burn in space when rockets were out of the atmosphere, we were cleaning explosives from the propellent casting cans and at times we did so with large butcher knives since the plastic knives they gave us wouldn't cut through the propellant.  One spark and we would have all been history.  I disliked that as well as not having enough to do to keep us busy.

During the time I was in school I worked as an orderly at the local hospital in Logan, Utah for 90 cents per hour.  Working my way through school after my scholarships were used up as a freshman, this was my work through sophomore, junior years and then getting loans for the remainder.  I changed my major to secondary education with biological composite my senior year which kept me busy.  I liked giving back rubs, but I disliked emptying bed pans for the patients and having to restrain some patients by tying them in their beds.  We had a patient that wandered from the hospital wearing nothing but his hospital gown, barefooted during the winter.  He was found about three blocks from the hospital near main street and brought back by some passers by.

I worked at San Leandro Doctor's Hospital in San Leandro, California during the summer between my junior and senior year in high school as an orderly/porter.  I didn't like to clean the operating rooms between cases, but that was part of my job.  I also lived with a cousin whose neighbor helped get me a night job at Continental Can Company making pop and beer cans for Vietnam.  Trying to get money to keep me in school, I worked in the daytime 8 am to 5 pm at the hospital and 11 pm to 7 pm on the graveyard shift.  I liked the money but didn't like riding my bicycle between where I was staying to the hospital in the morning and the can company at night.  Lots of hours without enough sleep also was a dislike.  I liked that I could stay with my cousin because my grandmother lived there also, but didn't like the rent I had to pay.

Teaching junior high school in Wyoming and Oregon, I loved to teach and see the students "light up" when they understood a concept of skill I was teaching because they came to understanding.

I managed my father-in-law's bakery and I loved the smell of freshly baked homemade bread (my wife's grandmother's recipe) and the taste and smell of the cookies.  I hated that whenever one of our employees didn't show up for work, and I had to go in and help during all hours of the night and make sure the dough was made for the midnight shift, as well.  I disliked that I had to manage in a manner that my father-in-law always had to have it his way! That was after my work at BYU as a genealogy research director.

As I left the bakery, it was sold and eventually the recipes became "Grandma Sycamore" Bread now baked by Sara Lee.  I then worked for Utah Genealogical Society (now known as FamilySearch) as a negotiator and microfilm operator in the midwest.  I had the opportunity to negotiate the vital records of Cook Co., Illinois and microfilmed various records in Michigan and some in Des Moines, Iowa.  I liked the fact that I was getting 1/2 cent per image and could work as long as I wanted to.  Since Diane had just had our third child, Paul, and had stayed in Utah for part of the time I made quite a bit of money.  What I didn't like was that it was so cold that we had to cut off part of the house for heating (in Dekalb, IL) which was over $400 per month, that Diane and the three children were alone while I was in Chicago.  I came home only on weekends.  I didn't like it when I was locked in the warehouse of the circuit court overnight and spent my sleeping in the administrator's office on a sofa.  I also didn't like that I was targeted to possibly be killed at that same warehouse, but that's quite another story!  My camera quit working and I had to go to the airport to get a replacement but couldn't make it back in time, so I wasn't there when an arsonist set the warehouse and various records on fire.

During the years of teaching in Utah, I loved working with the students, writing curriculum, and just learning!  I didn't like, nor do I now, all the time it takes to grade papers and put scores into the computer, do grades, and have students that refuse to learn or make any effort.  I have principals and assistant principals that I have disliked, and some I have liked--especially Dr. George Bayles.  His philosophy became mine.  "The only two things that should be graded are beef and lumber!"  If only there were a different acceptable way to assess learning, rather than to work to get a "grade" on the part of the students and parents.  I have come to really dislike the statement by both students and parents: "Eighth grade doesn't count" as if it didn't matter whether or not they learned science and established good study habits.