Fly

one of the best things to happen to you too right????


i'm a few steps closer to my plan/goal too........went and bought a small mobile home.....sold,bought a house........sold,bought acreage..........

and that's where we sit.........


good for you guys..........i'm glad you're retired.

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BASTARD

SterlingStudios

Rodney

Bunch of stuff. I have been:

* a public info/public relations hack producing press releases, in-house newspapers and customer newsletters, etc. for an insurance company, a job training agency, etc. I still do it for fun as a volunteer sometimes, for local nonprofits. Had a journalism degree, but after dealing with journos from the other side the desk for a few years, I decided it was all too sleazy for me.

* Technical writer. Never worked for a hot-start up (some that burned out), but I kicked around the SF Bay Area for 20 years as a grunt writer, manager, and W2 contractor (the easy road). Document your general ledger system? No problem! Installation manual for that rack server? Rightaway sir! UNIX manpages? My specialty! E-commerce online help? A pleasure, guv! As a W2 contractor for a _really_ good agent, I could take three or four months off whenever I wanted, and come back when I was ready to find a job waiting. It was sweet, no denying. It's not like that anymore, but I'm attempting to get back into tech writing after an abortive adventure in...

* Education. Got laid off from a manager job (yep, promoted to my level of incompentence, and laid off -- typical story) and decided to go into education; I enjoyed working with kids. Got the credential and found out that I enjoy working with kids until, oh, Wednesday noon every week. Then I'm ready for a four-day weekend. I just don't have the stamina and frankly, I'm a team player -- and no, kids don't count as part of the team. I get antsy in that classroom with no other adults to bounce things off of.

Currently looking for tech writing jobs in my area since November, and not having too much luck. But it's the end of the year and things should pick up. I've also got multiple applications out for admin jobs at the local university. With a background in writing, supervision, education, software, databases, and education, there are about six openings up there that I'm qualified for, and there's nothing I'd like better at this point in life (50) than a good, steady civil service job. I'm hoping that my age doesn't weight against me up there, or back in tech writing.

We're not rich, but the house is paid for. So we've got options. But my wife has continuing medical problems and we have no company retirement plans, so I'll probably work straight on until 65, and beyond if necessary.

SpikeQX99

Radioactive liquid waste processor.. I help run the filter/processing system for a Naval shipyard.

I also perform maintenance and cleaning on Radioactive liquid waste collection tanks.

Fun times for all...

I am still waiting to glow in the dark!! Should be cool!

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I'm so in love with a girl... she is my everything

Rodney

I knew a guy, a retired machinist, who did the the first overhaul of a nuclear submarine reactor, on the old Seawolf, at Mare Island back in the '50s. The stories he told about how they handled the radioactive water and disposed of spills would curl your hair.

Eweser

My official title is Systems Analyst...but basically I write programs to help my coworkers do their jobs better. Mostly I use visual basic.

I got this job, which I will have been at five years at the end of this month, a month after I graduated college with my bachelor's degree in computer science....and a month after I got married. It was a very busy month. I accidentally got into computer science. I was going for a math degree (teaching) with a coaching minor and I figured out that wasn't for me, so I took Computer Science I on a whim and fell in love. I really like the programming part....the politics that come with any job I guess, I really don't like...but I can't see myself anywhere else. I'd like to go back and get my master's, but there seems to be no time, so that's my goal for the future.

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"Whoever wrote this episode should die!"

flamingdog

A plan is always good. I wish I was savvy enough to do that kind of thing, but it's practically impossible even to get a foot on the very lowest rung of the property ladder in this country unless you're buying as a couple or absolutely prostituting yourself at work... or you're lucky enough to be earning a fat wage - which is practically impossible for a writer.

I'm hoping, hoping, hoping I'll be moving to the states this year (was supposed to be the year before last, but didn't happen, then last year, but didn't happen either, hence my recent depression), where it's no so hard to get along. This country is a bitch.

snowy

flyman actually lives in Canada...in beautiful British Columbia no less (I am incredibly jealous), and so you might consider that an option as well--though I wouldn't recommend trying to find property close to any urban center for any reasonable amount of money.

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

cowudders14

I'm a Permanent Way (i.e. railway track) design Engineer.
My job is to design track layouts and alignments. We are stupidly busy - loads to do. People see railways as just sleepers and a couple of rails, but the track is actually hugely complex. My job involves sitting on a computer using CAD most of the time, but I do get to go out and walk amongst the trains sometimes. (Standing on the side of a railway, 1.25m away from a train as it passes you at 90mph is great fun!)

I design where to put the track, what radii, what cant (how high is one rail above the other - used for better cornering - think cambers on roads round high speed corners), what speed the track can be set to, and, the thing that takes most of my time - how to put it all together, so you have the various track components all able to be supplied in their standard length or near as damnit, and so that the trains can be properly detected by the signalling system as they move around and that they can be properly given electricity (where appropriate).

FYI much of the track here in the UK is not electrified, much is electrified at 25000V AC overhead wire, and several hundred miles of the Southern Region and a few bits elsewhere is electrified with a third rail adjacent to the running rails, energised at 750V DC. You don't want to be trespassing on the railway around those lines, although many people do, and often pay the ultimate price for it...

Part of my job is also to detail in what order things get installed and when final tamping (smoothing out of the track) takes place, to ensure it can actually be built sensibly and in the time available during the railway closure, and that it can be re-opened at the appropriate speed at the end of the work.

Part of the work my office does, although I don't do it myself, is also to run, in a computer, every type of train that can go down that track along the proposed alignment, along with every other type of train on the adjacent track, to ensure that the trains don't hit each other or any structures such as platforms when the design is actually built.

I love my job - it's great fun. I have a passion for the railway and it's infrastructure. I have a lot less passion for the trains, but I find the actual track, signalling, electrification, control and communications systems totally fascinating. Definitely my career for life.

Oh, and I've been at this for nearly 3.5 years now. I'm 26.

And you all thought that it was just ballast, two rails and a few sleepers...

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Moo! I'm mooey!

Poppinjay

I love trains. They're quite different here in the US, but I like them just the same.

I was a broadcast journalist and news director, now a print editor M-F, and a producer for radio talk shows on weekends. I also do traffic reports in morning and afternoon drive, but they're only heard by me and occupants of my car.

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I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet

flamingdog

Yea, I know he's in Canada - sorry didn't mean to be confusing.

I'm a bit out of the loop as far as property goes here, but from what I gather, for what you would pay for the shittiest of bedsit/studio apartments in a city here, you could actually get yourself a pretty decent house in the states. Obviously, your mileage may vary... I just know it's not in the cards for me. The reason I'm moving is emotional though, not financial

Atropos4

I'm 25 and worked in a nursing home for close to 5 years. I was miserable. Alpha Phi paid my way through an excellent pet grooming school. I graduated April 1st of 2005 top of my class. I'd always wanted to work with animals since I was a very little kid. A week after I graduated I got online and did some job hunting. Alpha Phi and I already knew we wanted to move out of Michigan so I looked for jobs in a couple states we'd vacation in before. First place I called acted like she wanted to meet me that day. We did a couple phone meetings and decided an interview would be great. A month later we drove to North Carolina for my interview and I knew from the moment I sat down I had the job. She had already called my school and found out that apparently if I hadn't of wanted to move my school wanted to hire me as an assistant groomer. So I work in a vet clinic and have my own grooming salon downstairs. My bosses are great and back me up whenever I need it and my coworkers are nice also.
There is something to say that when you spend over 8 hours at a place of work and don't even notice because you enjoy it so much. I really love my job. Don't get me wrong I have some insane customers and crazy mean dogs and cats but even then it's still awesome.

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genuinegirly

What a great story!

I haven't jumped into a career yet. Been doing temp office work and the occasional lab job over the last couple of years. Also dabbled some in theatrical lighting before I realized that it wasn't my calling. Got my AA in general studies last year. Planning on continuing my studies with Botany. Turned in applications to a bucketload of schools, we'll see where I end up.

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"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

dlish

ive noticed that not many people that do 'hands on' jobs get on tfp here..am i the only one, or am i just imagining things?

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An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere

I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay?
- Filthy

flamingdog

I do think you're imagining things... though I can't claim to be an expert. My perception is that there's a pretty wide range of folk here.

cowudders14

Don't know what you mean - I have my 'hands on' a computer almost all day every day!
I'm getting real "hands on" next week though - I'm out walking track again! Yay!

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Moo! I'm mooey!

rlynnm

I'm go to school fulltime... I work as a lowly customer service person (sometimes when I wake up on the wrong side of the bed, I don't even live up to the name) nearly fulltime, and I'm parent to a 4 year old spoiled brat hahaha....I don't make much, but I guess I could say I'm fairly happy.

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The hardest thing is to be honest with yourself, especially if that means completely redefining the world you've come to know.

Don't look too hard, I'm right in front of you.

DonovanDuVal

I'm a fully qualified button pushing monkey temp, although my current job is as a helpline operator.

Hmm how to best describe it.

Well in Dante's Inferno you are treated to the visions of hell in descending order. Layer after layer of nastiness and cruelty getting gradually worse and worse the deeper into hell you roam. The final layer in Inferno is a block of ice, encapsulating Judas, his eyes frozen open for all eternity, for his sins against humanity.

What Dante failed to mention however is that if you slide old Judas over to the side there is a tunnel leading down to my helpline, complete with headset. Getting into work in the mornings is a real bitch.

To the lit aware amongst you, apologies if I got the Inferno wrong, I haven't actually read the thing, it's just bits and pieces that I've picked up over the years.

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"I've been Donovan DuVal. Take care of yourselves, and each other."

BadNick

I think I'm lucky in that I've mostly enjoyed the jobs that I've done/had to do since my formal schooling ended. My feeling was that of course it was not constant perfection, but it could always have been a lot worse.

As for schooling background, I think I lucked out that some of my elementary school teachers convinced me and my parents that I should go to a "better" school than the local public or parochial high schools; so that sent me to a "prep" type school in Phila area that was a very significant benefit to most of my later years. In hindsight, it did more good for me overall than any later education I got. From there I went to a local college engineering school ...V for Villanova V for victory - GO Basketball team!!!... and got my BSME and what I think is a pretty good engineering education; graduated in the very early '70's when engineering work was relatively tough to get, was still jobless and was sleeping late one day in early summer when the ME dept chairman called to ask if I had a job, I didn't, so he suggested I take this interview with a very small (10 people) local specialty controls manufacturer; I did, and ended up being there for 15 years and finally resigned as Director of Engineering after I got fed up with some other new management but overall it was a great experience and I made a damn good income by engineering standards; then a few years experimenting with self-employment/consulting/technical sales that didn't work out in the long run so I went back to work for others again. I had a couple short terms of under a few years in interesting but not longer term jobs; then I arrived where I am now for over ten years which is another small company doing very similar work as my first job and I'm VP of Engineering and enjoying most days. Life is pretty good ...for me

ziadel

certified welder/hitman


/has yet to actually receive a contract on someones life, but i'm hopeful!

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Ron Paul '08
Vote for Freedom
Go ahead and google Dr. Ron Paul. You'll like what you read.

Xazy

Local network admin..

Local realtor (this is the main job)..

But almost tired of it, and might consider looking for something else that will bring me closer to my goal faster (retirement).

BadNick

Do you think about creative ways of combining those two talents? ...I mean if you were to actually get a hit contract

Biscuit Buns

Cosmetic formulation (my own business).
Web admin and design (business number two).
Internet marketing (part of business one and two LOL).
(soon to be adding...part time medical assistant)

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A hard man is good to find. ~Mae West

yellowchef

Student... with 19 weeks to go!!!! Ill be finishing my BS in Food Service Management from Johnson and Wales University in North Miami, FL. At wich point I will pack up and move home or to grad school. Ill eventually get into grad school for the broad scope of "Food Science" and mainly Agribusiness Economics and Food Engineering(essentially packaging and Research and Development) at some point I want to work for like Proctor and Gamble(Folger's and Pringles) in purchasing of raw materials... or Coors doing the same.. I have decided I LOVE COLORADO after going out there..

I currently work for Hyatt Hotels in Ft Lauderdale, FL and I am a Swing Shift Supervisor(aka glorified line cook) while I enjoy my job I hate my management comapny and wish they would all go away to some stupid Island or something. They piss me off and recently my Executive Chef left to go work for the Panthers so morale is slightly low.... The new "Area Executive Chef"(we're a franchise Hyatt so we are sister hotels with another hotel in the area) is an ok guy, but hes fucking weird. I love the people I work with but our management company is freakin stooopid. They dont pay me enough to deal with all the shit I deal with..

oh and Im a total bum.... I love to sleep, eat and drink...

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the voices in your head are not real--but they still have some really great ideas.

always remeber you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family. But..you CAN choose the insane asylum where you have them all put away!

settie

I'm in my second year undergraduate uni, with a steady and lovin' it job as a figure skating coach. I spent from ages 5 to 16 figure skating, and got all my teaching certificates about two years ago, even though I've been coaching since I was 12. lol. I LOVE it! Nothing makes me happier, so far... Especially the toddlers, coaching them is the best.

vermin

Mechanical designer currently working on telescopes. Like this one.
Previously worked on heavy lift crawler cranes (Manitowoc), military/commercial trucks (Oshkosh), and a paper mill in Green Bay. Most of these jobs involved CAD drafting while sitting at a desk all day. At my current job I'm also out in the shop putting the thing together.

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If puns were sausages, this would be the wurst.

soul_wisdom

Currently in US Air Force, did it for eight years then got out, then came back in, hahahah and yup I'm still kicking myself for it. Reason: Ever heard of a placed called Clovis NM, look it up, it's right next to hell, one block over

P.S.
Love reading about all of you, thanks for being here.

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“Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so”

attr. Bertrand Russell

taboo

i'm an actor, singer, broadcaster, host and love my jobs!

art of leaving

I'm a college student working toward who even knows what, so I suppose I'm not currently working toward anything.
For money I grovel at the feet of parasites equipped with lethargic stares and boasting the brain capacity of a ball of dryer lint.

Basically, I work in retail.

When I "grow up" I'm going to be a writer, director, actress, and anything else I feel like being at a given moment.

pan6467

I am an addictions counselor soon to have his own therapeutic house up and running and eventually a coffehouse for clients to sell art, have poetry reading, write and produce their own plays and so on.

I love my job and after having been a stock broker, owning my own pizza place, being in C-store and national pizza place managements among other management experience, I can honestly say I have no desire to do anything but what I am doing now, helping people recover and watch them better their lives.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Skettios

I'm an english teacher in Taiwan. It's quite rewarding, and my kids are supercute, but I'm about ready to be finished with it. Anyone want to give me a job back stateside?

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Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

Frederich Nietzsche

oberon

I am 23. I finished my B.S. in Computer Engineering from Purdue University in December 2004. I moved to Colorado 6 months ago after receiving job offers there. I love this state! There are a lot of things to do and see here, and it's politically neutral. Plus, I'm a fan of winter sports, snow, the mountains, and the Snow Miser.

My job title is "Senior Firmware Engineer". It is a specialized form of computer engineering. But currently it boils down to designing and writing large amounts of C code for "embedded devices". These are devices which are basically appliances, i.e. designed for one purpose. Consumer electronics, car computers, kitchen appliances, etc. are all examples. But inside they're still computers. My employer is in the business of building the next generation of digital video recorders (DVRs). I've learned an awful lot about the cable business in my tenure at this job too.

In a few years I'll probably get a MBA and/or a MS in electrical/computer engineering, and hopefully run a company like this. I am a big fan of intellectual work, and I believe we need more people doing this kind of work in the USA.

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"There are finer fish in the sea than have ever been caught." -- Irish proverb

healer

I'm 23. Finished my National Diploma in IT (software development) 2 years ago. Since then I've only had 2 jobs, both support. The 1st was for a small textile manufacturing concern where I supported everything from their users down to doing mail admin and writing sales/marketing reports for management. And they paid so shit.

My current job is for a metering systems company where we work for local municipalities running the back-end of their pre-paid electricity systems. Mostly just hardware support with a little bit of Oracle and proprietary software thrown in every now and again. Currently based in Jeffrey's Bay - one of the best surfing spots in the country - and I can't surf to save my ass. The work's very laid back (we only really work when shit goes wrong), the town's extremely laid back but I'm yet to find a place to stay here in town. I live 75kms away and the commute is killing me, both financially as well as physically. Hopefully they'll start paying me better soon as my contract's up and I'm due to be employed on a permanent basis as from this month.

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KungFuGuy

A lot of interesting people/ stories here.

Currently I'm 23 and attending New York University film school. Ultimate goal is to be a film director. Currently I've got three unfinished feature scripts (i'm about 30 pages into each), and am working on my senior film. I plan on shooting it in upstate New York april 19th - may 3rd. Kind of a sad aside is that the only reason i can afford to go to NYU is because of a WTC scholarship I've recieved because my mom volunteered and was injured at the WTC on 9/11/01.

I started out going to college at RIT for mechanical engineering. didn't like it so I went to a community college and earned an A.S. in mathematics. I was a math tutor for awhile. Other main job was ski instructor. Currently I work part time in the school Television Studio helping out the freshmen.

After graduation I just plan on getting a job within the film industry which will get me on the right track for getting to directing. I'm also toying with what subject I should get my master's in, or if I should even go for one.

If anyone has any Q's about film school / film in general I'd be happy to try and answer.

Fly

this is just fucking awesome man......good for you.


see folks......there are good people in this world.


nicely done pan..........

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BASTARD

SterlingStudios