Susan Cramer:  

Taking lead from a Classmates question . . . My first work was babysitting for neighbors around our home on Melwood Drive in Glendale. I got paid $5.00 an hour to babysit (good pay for a kid in the early 70s). I made more than $350 one Summer and spent it all on clothes and birthday presents. My second job (now legal working age) was at a neighborhood drug store in Costa Mesa, CA, where I earned my way up to working in the pharmacy as a clerk. And, I was able to decorate the display cases at the front of the store. In 1976, my boyfriend (of 2-1/2 years by then) got me a job at an insurance company and I worked there a little more than two years until just after we broke up. I then went to work as a clerk at Accent Interiors on Balboa Island, CA, I gave my little brother Bill his second job there. He would ride his bike (previously has a paper route, so trained). He travelled a pretty long way (5 miles?) to get there from Costa Mesa, bless his heart. I enrolled at Interior Designer's Guild in Newport Beach for professional design classes. The art history class was extremely interesting because the teacher was so well-versed. One field trip was The Getty Museum in Malibu and he joined my carpool and talked to us most of the way. I also started working as a make-up artist for Bonne Bell Cosmetics a few days a week and did shows in three local counties' (Orange, Los Angeles, San Diego) department stores to sell their product. I was really good at it and was top salesperson. With that, I started lecturing via Bonne Bell at high schools on how health is involved in the beauty routine. I also started a modelling workshop for Bonne Bell at the Broadway department stores. (My mom had been a model in San Francisco in about 1958-61 after her first divorce and trained me in the following years.) I guess I worked for BB for less than two years when they discontinued the make-up artist program. I finally decided to get a college degree and had saved enough money to put myself through. Work experience program in college led me to the Accounting Department at Carol Eichen Interiors in Orange County, CA. Also, during college years, I worked as a hostess/waitress at Oliver's (fine dining) and inventory/sales at The Showplace South, a new interior design showroom that my school friend's mother owned (and still owns, though he passed away in the 80's). I was working two part-time jobs and schooling with a full course load until I graduated in 1982. I played tennis, jogged every day, and ate healthy (a lot of stir-fry and tea in college days). Sometimes, I'd go to McKormick's Landing, a restaurant on the airstrip on the John Wayne Airport (SNA) and do my homework after the diners were fading. On breaks, I would go downstairs to the bar/dancing area and dance for a while. At the end of studying, I'd go back downstairs for a glass of wine and read a magazine and dance. (Hint: Don't read books or magazines in a bar because some people will get mad and ridicule you or think you're rude. LOL). The owners of the restaurant were really nice. In about 1982, I started modelling locally in Orange County and was introduced to Beautex Magazine where I went behind the scenes of the ramp shows and beauty contests. I remember one show we planned, the photographer cancelled at the last minute. I found another really fast (that already knew my boss Antoine, so it was) when I was out dancing that night and happened to meet a photographer and his girlfriend. We did the models' photoshoot the next day of all the beauties to be in the contest. Then, the night of the show, after taking tickets at the door, Antoine told me I was also going to be IN the contest. They gave me a fancy dress to wear and I won 4th place! Whew ! Eventually, the work experience courses during college brought me to the law field and I worked with attorneys for the next 18 years. I think my favorite work activity in the law office was digesting depositions, but I enjoyed much of the work given me. Eventually, they asked me to help manage a law office, but I consulted only and performance increased 30%. Then, the global law firm of Baker and McKenzie asked me to open a satellite office for them in Orange County, CA. That also included doing some interior design of the office and writing manuals for the support staff and paralegals I injured my back in 2001, falling from a tree in the park with a friend. I starte...Expand for more