Category Archives: Topics to Scrap

It might surprise you to find out that I (Katie) used to sell food to schools and hospitals. I journaled about the experience on the layout above. Here’s what I wrote:

Right after I finished up my degree in English from the University of Utah, I went to work full time at my Dad’s food brokerage firm in sales. I was an account specialist who sold to schools and hospitals. I spent a lot of time selling chicken nuggets, ranch dressing, cereal, and corn dogs, along with a variety of other products. In this picture, I was working at a booth at a school food show and demonstrating State Fair mini corn dogs. I spent a lot of time running samples to the buyers in schools and hospitals so they could try out different items. I also called on them regularly to maintain a good relationship and let them know about new products. Most of the purchasing was handled through a bidding process because they were such large and competitive accounts. My role was more related to communication and problem solving, but I also had some good results. The biggest sale I ever made was an entire truckload of cereal to the Jordan School District. Overall, the item I probably showed and sold most frequently was State Fair brand corn dogs.

I spent every weekday for a few years of my life focused on the job of selling these products to my customers. It was a big part of my life at the time, but many of the people who know me now, have no idea that I ever held this job. I’ve held many other jobs in my life such as; Resident Assistant in a dorm, Customer Service Representative, Bookkeeper, Technical Seamstress, Writer, and more. Each one of these experiences has shaped me as a person and had an impact on my life (and also the lives of some of my family members). However, I have never created a scrapbook layout about any of my jobs until I wrote this post! How can it be that so much of my life has gone undocumented?”

When I asked around in our team forum, I found that I wasn’t alone in this neglect. Many of our team members expressed that they have always meant to create some pages about their work (or a family member’s job) but had never gotten around to it.  I was thrilled when a few team members had some pages to share about their own work experiences!

Anne said “I work full time at a (couple) of local churches, so I might have a different kind of job to many others – but this is how I’ve scrapped a few pages of it. I should really make more pages, this is a big part of my life.“

Kim said “I teach early childhood special education and due to confidentiality issues, I can’t scrapbook my students (although I’d sometimes love to capture their quirks and triumphs). Instead, I scrapbook my classroom. These are cell phone photos I took after my room was decorated but before my students arrived because it will never look this nice again. Our school mascot is a star, so I took that theme and ran with it. I also used the same kit as I had used to create many of my classroom decorations (flash cards and subway art for the bulletin boards).”

Trina said “Here’s one about my dh’s work – he won Bakery Manager of the Year so I had to do a page about it.  I had to take the picture from the flyer, which no one saved me so I found it online and did a screen shot from it.”

Want to scrap about work? Here are some fun prompts and tips to get you started:

• Write down a list of all the jobs you’ve ever had.  You can start with the early ones like babysitting or paper routes, or focus on jobs that you’ve had after the age of 18 (or pick another milestone like college graduation). Even if you don’t scrap about all of those individual jobs, you will at least have some documentation of your work history.
• Take a camera to work with you sometimes soon. A phone camera, or a small point-and-shoot won’t be very disruptive to the work environment and it provide some great visuals to add to a layout. Be sure to capture the daily scenes and people of your everyday work life.  You will be surprised at how much those photos will mean to you down the road!
• If you don’t currently work, but scrap for someone who does, encourage them to take a camera to work. Or arrange to meet them for lunch one day and bring your camera along. Take a few snapshots of them in the work environment. This way they can just blame it on you the “crazy scrapper” and they don’t have to feel self-conscious about documenting their routines. This is especially helpful when documenting men in the workplace. I know my husband would feel a little awkward about taking pictures at work, but he doesn’t mind (too much) if I come  by and shoot a few.
• When conversing with co-workers, ask them about what they like/disklike about their jobs. It will give you an opportunity to think about the same topics and give you some great journaling information.
• Make a timeline of how your career has changed over the years. Have you switched jobs frequently? Have you stayed with the same company? What types of advancements have you earned?
• Think about what your dream job would be and scrap or journal about it. It’s ok to dream a little!

When you consider the amount of time we spend working in our lives, it’s easy to see that these experiences definitely should have a place in our memory albums. It will be meaningful as years pass to be able to look back on your time in the workforce. Your friends and family will also learn a lot more about you and appreciate your shared memories.