Bad Jobs Teach You A Lot About the World | Dan Donohue Stand-Up Comedy

A foreman is a guy who underreacts to huge problems. I'm really glad I get to travel because I'm from Massachusetts. I stayed in Massachusetts for a very long time. I worked there for a really long time. I work construction. Construction's a great job. It's a great job because it's a simple job. A lot of people work very complicated jobs that require zooms and webcams and ring lights. And that's not construction. It's a simple job. You need two things to work construction. You need to buy your own boots, and you need to be okay with coworkers admitting to murder to you. That is all you need. I have had three separate coworkers on three separate occasions admit to three separate murders to me. I'm sorry if that makes you feel uncomfortable. That's who built your house, okay? I love construction. The only thing I don't like about it is I worked different jobs after, and I wasn't ready for the stuff at those jobs, right? Because there's different stuff at those jobs than construction. Like HR, for instance. I didn't know about that. I had no clue. And people complain about HR. They say HR overreacts to small problems, right? You can go to HR and be like, hey, Jeff is playing his music too loud. And they'll be like, okay, let's get Jeff arrested, right? They'll go too far. But in construction, you don't go to HR with your problems. You know who you go to with your problems? A foreman. You know what a foreman is? A foreman is a guy who underreacts to huge problems. I go to my foreman and be like, hey, Jim said he wants to make me his girlfriend. My foreman would be like, hmm, have you tried fighting him? Because that's step one through ten of our conflict resolution strategy. I think bad jobs teach you a lot about the world. Like I used to work catering, and catering is a great job because it lets you in on the internal power structure of this country. People think we live in a divided country, and we do. But they don't know where that dividing line actually is. They think it's Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, liberals. That is not where we are divided. We are divided between good, sane, normal people and wedding DJs, okay? I've worked with hundreds of wedding DJs, and I've never seen any of them not make the wedding about themselves for at least a little bit. They add their own little flair that we don't need. The worst I've ever seen is I was working a wedding, and the DJ called for the father-daughter dance, and the father and the daughter, they start dancing, everything's fine. Halfway through, the DJ goes, all right, now it's time for the father-son dance. Which does not exist. It was not a planned part of this wedding. This DJ was so power-hungry, he came up with his own part of this other person's wedding. And the father and the son look at each other scared. And they look at the dance floor. And they walk out to the dance floor. And they reluctantly start dancing with each other. That is too much power, and I wish that DJ kept going, right? I wish he kept... you have the power, use it. I wish after that he was like, all right, now it's time for the father-father dance. Get out there, dad. Now it's time for the mother of the groom to dance with the father of the bride. Now kiss. I don't know. See what you can do with the format. Now it's time for the bride to dance with me. It's time for the daughter DJ dance. It's not the weirdest job I ever worked. The weirdest job I ever worked was when I was 14 years old, I worked at a graveyard. And it's an odd job, but it teaches you a lot. Like graveyard, what I learned there is there are many poorly attended funerals, right? Don't worry, you're just going to be great. But these other people, they would have poorly attended funerals. I had a funeral with less than six people in attendance. Us, the workers at the graveyard, had to assist in pall bearing. And that's sad, but it teaches you an important lesson about life. Life is not a competition about who has the most friends. But have six. At all times. Have six friends or have four very strong friends, alright? Because the last thing you want at your funeral are five somber, well-dressed family members. And one apathetic 14-year-old in an Incubus t-shirt. One time, me and a 15-year-old, he was my boss. We had to move a casket. We had to move a casket, just him and me. And you might think if you move a casket with somebody, you should, like, one take the front, one take the back, carry it like this. And if you think that, you are smarter than a 15-year-old. He had us each take a side facing each other. And we brought it up here for no reason. And sidestepped it. And a quarter of the way there, he's shaking, I'm shaking. And I look at him from across the casket, he's looking at me like he wants to say something. And I think what he's going to say is, let's put this down and rearrange ourselves. We're embarrassing each other. So I look at him, I go, yeah, dude, what? He goes, dude, we're getting so strong right now. I was like, that's why we're carrying it up here? He was like, yeah, it works the shoulders better. I was like, there is a deceased man in this coffin. He was like, yeah, and I think he was fat. I made him put it down, and I was like, dude, I feel like this is disrespectful. He was like, I don't think so, because when you think about it, this man is no longer with us. And we're using his body to nourish our living bodies. With exercise. In a way, it's almost honoring him. And I was like, that actually is not a bad point. He was like, yeah, I call it deadlifting. I was like, ah, never mind.