What Career did you choose in RL & why

[Antivomit]

Re: What Career did you choose in RL & why

I'm in a band :D
Extremely fun, i love to play shows
too bad it only makes enough money to pay for public
transportation >.>
Thats why i'am a photographer
[while going to college] :]
Fun stuff [no....not as fun as FF11]

Sweet, me too. What style of music? Do you guys have a site with music on it?

[Icemage]

Re: What Career did you choose in RL & why

Whatever job you do take, never go in with the attitude of "I'll work here for 30 years." Sometimes it is better to make your way a bit in one place and take your skills elsewhere to move up.of it.

This is true in the USA, but not true in other countries (particularly in Europe). I know of a few extreme cases where it is all but impossible to find a job beyond age 30 if you don't have a really exceptional skill set.

If you do happen to live in the USA though, there are a number of fields where this rule applies very much (Information Technology being one of them). I've never been in a job for more than 3 years, and I'm beginning to think I never will.


Icemage

[eticket109]

Re: What Career did you choose in RL & why

This is true in the USA, but not true in other countries (particularly in Europe). I know of a few extreme cases where it is all but impossible to find a job beyond age 30 if you don't have a really exceptional skill set.
If you do happen to live in the USA though, there are a number of fields where this rule applies very much (Information Technology being one of them). I've never been in a job for more than 3 years, and I'm beginning to think I never will.
Icemage

My longest position was for 3 years as well. Things are much more fluid now then they used to be.

[Omni]

Re: What Career did you choose in RL & why

I'm currently running at 2 years on my job. It's a great job and the amount of learning I can do here is almost limitless. The pay and benefits are good as well as the flexibilty. Which puts me at a certain dilema (sp?), do I move on in a year or 2 to something else? Possibly get paid more and have less responsibilty but, most likely have less room to grow or learn?

I'm a person of habit. I like it now, I got a comfort zone. What would you do?

[eticket109]

Re: What Career did you choose in RL & why

Little story on why I do what I do, copied over from my LJ yesterday:

As I've posted before, I do customer service work. Typically I work in call centers but doing so has left me pretty jaded/disillusioned. I like helping people. I like being able to make a difference in people's lives. It's tough to really do that when you are Faceless Rep 3127 at Faceless Corporation G ect. I still had moments where I was able to really help people but that was few and far between. After a while of pushing buttons and towing the company line I got to the point where I didn't really even like people that much anymore.

So when I got offered my current position I jumped at the chance. I work in a tiny office with about 10 employees in the building at most. I'm not Dave M or Rep 127 or whatever, I'm just Dave. That helps a lot when building confidence and rapport. Plus, I work somewhere where I can actually help people and more importantly, where the company wants to help people. We produce several devices for people who are not able to speak. The devices we make and sell use either recorded speech or digitized speech in order to allow these individuals to communicate.

So anyway, I just got a call from a mom trying to set up her son's device. It's a pretty simple machine that plays back recorded messages when keys are pressed. Well, the boy got it through his school and the teacher usually sets it up for him. The mom called because she needed to record some messages and didn't know how. I walked her through the process and told her to call back if she had any problems. She was recording messages so her son could go trick or treating tonight. Once again, I am reminded of the many things we take for granted.

[ikkleste]

Re: What Career did you choose in RL & why

i'm an industrial chemist, working at a steel plant. We're the special analysis lab so we get all the random crap noone else knows what to do with. Random scale building up on a pipe? want to know what it is so you can figure out where your process is going wrong? Bring it to us. We keep the plant running smoothly while hopefully saving the company some money occasionally too. We do some monitoring of enviromental stuff although it's mostly done by the other labs.
Lately the work has become less varied, this due to a reorganisation and a new boss, so it's more of the same things coming in over and over again which gets a bit dull.

I did physics at uni and Chemistry isn't a direct application of it by a long way. Dunno what else i could of gone into though, or if things stay monotonous here, where i'll go next.

[kansmofo]

Re: What Career did you choose in RL & why

It is like an IT department. I am an IT manager. My background is application development (ASP) and network security. I like management better. I have the best peeps in the industry. well..... some of them are

[Kadenmire]

Re: What Career did you choose in RL & why

I have a master's in electronic engineering and a batchlor's in networking. People think I'm nuts though because what I like best is taking totaly F**ed up systems and making them work agen and data recovery. Data recovery is like a mystery with a deadline.

[Mhurron]

Re: What Career did you choose in RL & why

It is like an IT department.

Thats it, I'm out of here. This is way to much like work and I hate spending my free time with co-workers.

[Jarre]

Re: What Career did you choose in RL & why

After all the people posting mostly about being in the IT trade, I'm going to throw a spanner in teh works with what i do.

I am a fully qualified Architectural Technologist, use Macs with Archicad whilst doing this I am also a part time (i.e. retained respond by pager 24/7) firefighter and get around 770 fire calls a year to attend.

I love designing buildings and refurbishing old buildings, but also i do like the thrill and job satifaction from fighting fires and rescuing people, especially now i am EFAD qualified i.e. can drive our big red truck!!!

For all the IT crew, I also manage the Mac computers in the office i.e. CAD manager, and am surprised how simple to use they are. Also we have just got MODAS on our fire engine (basically a lcd screen computer that can just about do anything) which allows us to electronically view chemical data, floor plans, GPS mapping as well as message sending and allows for a link up with the police helicopter, which gives a great eye in teh sky footage of a working job.

Over to the next....

[Loial]

Re: What Career did you choose in RL & why

IT is very fluid. However, in some cases, those with ambition can rise up pretty quick. Without going into too many details, a relative of mine dropped out of college while working on a CompSci dregree in his sophomore year and tried to make his own way doing random jobs (not IT related at all).

However, we was very knowledgeable in IT just from jobs he had held in high school and college, but not necessarily formally trained.

He tried to stay away from IT jobs because he disliked it. He eventually got a "suit job" down on Wall Street doing some coding work, but 9/11 shut down his building, the company moved out of NY and he was out of a job.

He went unemployed for about 1.5 years, and eventually sucked it up and took on an IT grunt job making poor pay. However, he busted his butt, learned on the job, took on all the more complicated tasks his boss would let him do... would be willing to work longer hours to get emergency jobs done...

And now, after only 2 years in IT, is some kind of IT top-dog for another company making a hell of a lot more money, probably more than me now /grin

[M_X]

Re: What Career did you choose in RL & why

I'm goin to college to be a graphic designer. I tried doing most of what everyone else does; just didn't have enough interest to survive the boring crap. I'm very thankfull to have returned to my artwork. Didn't realize how much I missed it.

Atm though, I work at a License and Titling service. My main boss is the DMV. I prefer to think of myself as a Idiot Inspector (based on dealings with clients) and a Demon Slayer (for having to deal with the DMV).

[kansmofo]

Re: What Career did you choose in RL & why

For all the IT crew, I also manage the Mac computers in the office i.e. CAD manager, and am surprised how simple to use they are. Also we have just got MODAS on our fire engine (basically a lcd screen computer that can just about do anything) which allows us to electronically view chemical data, floor plans, GPS mapping as well as message sending and allows for a link up with the police helicopter, which gives a great eye in teh sky footage of a working job.

Over to the next....

PCs are a mystery to me. I know not much more about them than a basic user . I am more geared towards application development and network security.
My mom always tells people "Kerry Ann works in computers. She can your computer!" I always just worry that I am going to make it worse than it already is.

[Kadenmire]

Re: What Career did you choose in RL & why

PCs are a mystery to me. I know not much more about them than a basic user . I am more geared towards application development and network security.
My mom always tells people "Kerry Ann works in computers. She can your computer!" I always just worry that I am going to make it worse than it already is.

I feel for you just about every relative I have calls me with their PC problems. And of corse I'm saposed to fix them for free because their famly.

[eticket109]

Re: What Career did you choose in RL & why

yeah, I get all the pc tech support calls in my family too. what was even better then that, was when I got sent over to my grandparents' house after a time change. I'd have to go room by room updating the clocks and their watches because neither one of them could do it. I liked helping them though.