What do you do?

[Arthur Dent]

I worked in the Career Services Office when I was in college and picked up a few tips.

I know this sounds like one of those bullshit time wasting exercises, but it actually helps.

Write a list of all your skills. And I mean ALL of them. Are you a good writer? Outgoing personality? Good public speaker? What software do you know how to use? Artistic talent? Stuff like that.

Then, make a list of all the things you really enjoy doing. Do you do web design in your spare time? Stand around in a bar debating shit with people? Do you go to the game and do better commentary than the pro's on the radio? All that plus what you've already done and gotten paid for.

Then, start looking for a job that uses stuff from both lists and you'll probably be happy doing it.


As for me, I'm an engineer and consultant. It's a specialized field that requires technical knowledge. And it helps if you know someone already in the field. That's how I got into it.

[Cunt-Twat]

i'm in school full time for radio production, and i have 2 very part time jobs, one in radio, and the other in real estate, so i can make ends meet.

[Arthur Dent]

so i can make ends meet.

You can put your feet behind your head? Cool.

[Cunt-Twat]

You can put your feet behind your head? Cool.

well yeah, bu that hasn't helped my financial problems!

[Arthur Dent]

You can put your feet behind your head? Cool.
well yeah, but that hasn't helped my financial problems!

But it could...it could...

I know it's one of the positions of the Kama Sutra, just don't know which one.

[Metalfan]

I hold a Bacherlor's in Math and I am 7 credits away from finishing my Master's in Comp. Sci. I've always worked in the insurance field, mostly on the technical side, but not always. Lately I've gone back to the technical stuff. Doing a lot of database builds and maintenance and learning more about datawarehousing and its applications to business. I think when I'm done with the M.S. I'm gonna look into getting my DBA cert.....might as well, that's how I spend most of my days at work...that is when I'm not posting in hell of course.

[Buttmunch]

I started my professional career as a brain surgeon. It was interesting for a while, but I got frustrated by working on something that so few people use. So, I fell back on my first love, a love that I developed when I was a child flying kites, and I became a rocket scientist. However, with the advent of XM Radio, I am quickly growing tired of my chosen profession.

I am currently studying for the priesthood. It is interesting and you wouldn't believe the perquisites. Gonzo, my friend, I tell you this from my heart *wink* *wink*, you have to join the priesthood. Knowing a fair bit about you, I know you'll fit right in!

[Cunt-Twat]

But it could...it could...

I know it's one of the positions of the Kama Sutra, just don't know which one.

maybe you can show me one day!! :ha:

[DGW]

Nope, no college degree for me. I mean the 2 1/2 years at Stockton was awesome but I didn't manage to get up for class very often. Sooooooooooo stupid!!

Anyway I've been at ATT ansd Lucent the last 9 years. Mostly print related work as a print specialist, and now as a Convenience Center Manager for the Murray Hill location. I'm the one point of contact for all printing needs for 5,500 people. Some days it's easy and some days seem to never end. The pay is decent and it's not a job I have to bring home. I like that.

[McBourbon]

I'm a high school English teacher after 5 years at Miami University (Ohio). The first two years were spent failing out of pre-med school because beer and chicks were more important. After that, I got out, got a good job in a good district that made me head coach of their hockey team (nice addition to my salary) and I work as an usher at Jacob's Field in the summers while still collecting a check from the school district. Life is fuckin' good. Plus...I'm on vacation right now. I'd get a degree in education.

[NaughtyAngel]

student at mercer county college and receptionist for the trenton thunder ((AA team for the red sox))

[Arthur Dent]

If you want to teach, all you need is a Master's Degree in anything and kiss up to the Dean of that discipline and they'll let you teach undergrads. One of the biggest complaints anybody had in college was that our professors were walking encyclopedias on what they taught, but didn't know how to explain it to anyone.

[WhipThisFez]

I sell my body for money

[Gooch]

You must be broke all the time.

[Silera]

I work as a contract administrator for a general contractor, and I go to Pratt (construction management) every once in a while to see if I could finish getting my degree. I hate my job not because I hate what I do but because I am surrounded by either a) morons, or b) assholes who pretend to know nothing so that I have to do it for them. I have to work though, and construction companies pay well. Plus, I've been here so long that everyone puts up with my crabbiness and I can smoke cigarettes at my desk as well as come into work in jeans.

If I could do anything else, I'd work from home so that I could set my own hours and be able to spend more time with my children.

[Buttmunch]

If I could do anything else, I'd work from home so that I could set my own hours and be able to spend more time with my children.

Gonzo would probably like to spend more time with your children as well.

[Keyser Soze]

Gonzo, I know what you're going through. I ran my own business while I was going to school and left to try to expand. I made some great money for awhile but I lost some major clients to competitors and the well dried up over time. I had to decide if I wanted to keep trying with bills stacking up or go do a 9 to 5 again. Well I had to go back to working for the man but the experience I gained from running my biz was invaluable. I'm a web designer by trade but I needed to learn all aspects of business including marketing, promotion, networking (technically and socially), and countless other skills. I worked for a big real estate firm in the city for a year handling their website and then left to work for Merrill Lynch. The stock market took a dump, Merrill had major layoffs and I wound up at a pharma company where I now reside.

Like you I long to do something more in line with my interests. I love to write, I love dealing with people, and I love the entertainment business. While I bank the money i'm making here, I keep my nose to the grindstone looking for that perfect job. I hope we both find it soon.

[Maynard]

Fuckin gooch. Beat me to the god damn punch.


Never went to college. During HS, I got a job working (for a friend of my parents) as a graphic designer. I started out doing more apprentice type shit, but quickly moved up doing my own projects. I really liked that job because I was all over the place doing a little bit of everything. I just hated the witch I worked for. I was in that job for I guess about 4 or 5 years.
After that, the owner of that company opened a second business doing record retrevial. No, not music albums. Medical records and such. Most of the stuff we were doing was gathering materials for law firms to build their case. We did alot of litigation work including the NY/NJ asbestos litigations. We were the only firm allowed to work on those cases. I was doing paralegal type work, however every now and again, I would be called on to hop in the car and drive into Cornell or something to pick up someone's half chopped up lung or an old breast implant or something.
After 2 years in that, and getting totally fed up with that witch, I went to a temp agency. I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I figured they'd pop me in somewhere and I could check some stuff out. My data entry skills are through the roof, so they got me a job doing that. When I was placed in the job, I just happened to be sitting in the room next to one of the heads of the MIS department. He took a liking to me and got me a job here full time. At first I was doing some graphic reproduction. Reproducing logos of magazines and newspapers mainly. Then I moved into the tech support department where I'm the head. I don't have the fuckin title or the salary for it, but such is life. My company does Media Monitoring. WTF is that? There's a few things that are the main part of our business. One being we have people sit and watch TV all day and do transcripts for TV shows. Oprah, 60 minutes, blah blah. The other main portion of the business, and the one the company was founded on, is aarticle clipping. We read newspapers and magazines for PR firms and companys for "keywords" that they specify. We then send them the clipped articles and charge them for it. WEEEEEEEEEEEE! Boring as fuck! But I like playing with computers all day, and I have a natural ability for it. I've done literally EVERYTHING with computers in this job.

[Galt]

Right now, I have no job, as I just wait to hear from Grad schools so I can enter a concentrated 1-year MBA program at either Babson College in Boston (where I've been accepted) or Northwestern's Kellogg School in Chicago (where I haven't heard yet). If I get into Kellogg, I move out there in July and start school.

I haven't worked since September (my leaving had nothing to do with 9/11) which coincides with my joining messageboards.

Before then, I started working at a small company in '97 as a salesperson selling Cisco, EMC, and AT&T circuits to business. We were a tiny 30 person company with very little technical staff, and no sales support, so I had to find my own prospects, cold call them, make all buddy buddy with the various manufacturers, meet with the customers (and as the projects got bigger, I was meeting with CEOs, Founders, and VC companies), propose and explain our technical solution, and monitor the accounts afterward to make sure they were all happy. Since I was 22, when I started no one would give me the time of day, so I migrated towards startups where all the management of the company was my age, and sold the infrastructure gear that built up enormous networks in the Internet Economy.

My company won all sorts of awards: Top 100 in INC500 Fastest Growing Companies two years in a row, my owners won Earnst & Young Enrepreneurs of the Year in 200, and Entrepreneur Magazine's Small Business Owner's of the Year in '99. Our company was jamming. I was the #2 rep out of like 25 in '99 and the #1 in the country out of over 150 in 2000. Late in '99 we got bought by this enormous Tech Services company based out of South Africa. They didn't change anything the first year, and everyone was doing great. I sold over $15 million, and made over $2.5 million in profit for the company. Then in 2001 they started getting worried about the economy and started fucking everyone over, making promises that never kept "due to budget constraints" of $10 billion company.

The atmosphere started to really suck, and all the joy was taken out of work. I used to LOVE work. I'd work at least 12 hour days, was best friends with all the people I worked with, all my customers, manufacturers. Then everyone just started leaving, moving, retiring (I knew sooooo many Internet millionares), a lot of my top customers got bought, and changed purchasing locations, so my numbers really started to slip. Then I just left.

But going into Sales was the best decision I ever made. Before that, I was a little introverted, but being in sales forced me out of that or not eat (since when I started my base (before commissions) was $320 a week, and only went up to $500 a week). It completely changed my personality to be a lot more outgoing, assertive, and confident. And to think the only reason I took the job was because I saw that "would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that...." speech in Braveheart, and I figured, "What the fuck, I'm 22, if I fail so what, I'll still be young, but if I don't try it, will I look back at this as a missed opportunity?"

Good times. Good times. 97-2001 was the best time of my life.

[Gooch]

I went to Art School for Illustration, but ended up changing my major to Art Education with minors in Drawing & Illustation b/c I didn't like the graphics courses we were forced to take, I wanted a more fine arts slant..plus it was pre-computers, so it was really dry and boring paste-up and shit graphics stuff. I ended up not teaching for two seperate reasons...when I graduated, it was during the recession of 92, and art teaching jobs were not there or needed (and not truly needed since either in NYC). The other reason is I felt I would stagnate creatively and not learn or grow in the areas I desired locked into teaching on a high school or grade school level....

So, I work doing Graphics, Production, Layout and Design for a publishing company for the past 5 years, and been in this field for about 7 or 8 years. I have considered going back to school for Multimedia Content & Design or Media Studies, but I'm still paying student loans, and I not so sure that going back will further me, since in the last 5 years I've gone from entry-level to management doing things on my own terms for the most part...learning what I want to learn on the way. But, that aside, lately, I think I've hit a wall, b/c I don't really think I want to go further here anymore. So, I'm kind of at a point of transition, and not sure what path to take. I find my side-projects and freelance more interesting than my day-job these days, and once upon a time it used to be the opposite. Now that things have equalized or repaired itself in my personal life, the job situation is something I need to get handled sometme soon...but the economy sucks right now, and the job outlook these days are shaky. School maybe the best place to go and learn till things sort itself out with the industries, and perhaps by the time one gets out, it will be better. Having floated job to job in 92-94...these were dark and uncertain days for me...and it took time just to get on the path i've been on currently.