Mantus

I've been going form job to job for the past six years. I am 25 and it's time to settle on something. I am in reno right now and the money potential is pretty great but I just don't like the industry. Everyone tells me to stay...cuz I am good at it and it's easy. However I am just not feeling it and the thing is...I am not sure what else I wish to do.

So I would like to hear some insparational stories of people who found if not their passions, then perhaps that one thing which they can enjoy, to cheer me up.

Sage

Allrighty! Gather 'round, pull up a chair, sit a spell...
This is the story of how Sage came to be where she is now...

My first real job after I came to college happened in Feburary of my Freshman year. I was dating this guy who worked at the lab at the hospital here in Asheville, and he recommended me to his boss and they liked me, so I got hired. I worked that job for three years, got to know all the ins and outs, and at the end of it was ready to tear my hair out. So, I quit the month before college graduation (April 2005), having enough money in the bank to not worry about being jobless for a while.

Graduation is over, May 2005, (and I now have an official degree in Multimedia and Design), and I'm thinking to myself how nice it would be to get another job- I was quite burnt out from my hospital job and from doing school, so a break was welcome, but I did want to find something fun to do. Thus I start looking at all the ads, everywhere, and come June I see an ad that the school's career center has sent out for a Jeweler's Apprentice. Being the creative type, and never really getting into jewelry before, I send my resume in having visions of Professional Jeweler's Studio and me being the trusty aprentice, learning the tricks of the trade and having a ball and such. Bob's your uncle, I get the "job." I use quotes here because the woman, although an amazing jeweler, lived on the top of a mountain in a shack (no lie- her and her husband were building their cabin in the interim) and was THE SINGLE MOST disorganized person I've ever met. I had to drive 20 miles each way to get to her place, and she wasn't going to pay me until I had learned enough about jewelry making to make pieces that were good enough to sell. I lasted until about August.

So I was out of a job again. What to do? I paid a visit to my alma matter's career center, and after much discussion and knowing how disorganized my jelwelry woman was, and how there were many similar artists that were the same way, I got the idea in my head to make my own buisness offering orginizational services to artists here in Asheville. I was inspired by the jewelry woman, because if she had had her act together she would have been a rival with Cartier, no lie. So I read all the "start your own buisness" books and met with the Community College's Small Buisness Center head dude, and was all gung ho about the idea for a month and a half... but I just didn't have the firey passion to actually go through with the idea. It was the kind of thing that would have been awesome for me to come up with, someone else to start up and do all the paperwork crap, and me to actually do the work.

So now it's like... October of 2005. I cool on the job idea for a few months, as I have plenty of money and it's not a huge issue. About January I start freaking out because I don't have a job and it's been like... almost a year since I had a job and OMG! So my every waking moment is consumed with getting a job- I apply to lots of things that sound neat, interview with some of them, get turned down by all of them, and basically feel really rotten because here I am all smart and with a degree and NO ONE WILL HIRE ME! I was sad. But, Martel (my husband) had started a new class at college and had a teacher who was really nice and was a chiropractor, and seeing as how I was in the market for a new chiropractor I paid him a visit and happened to mention that I was looking for a job. The next visit I paid him, he told me that he and his wife were looking for someone to help with their "special needs" child and would I be interested? SO, being very thrilled, I said of course I would be happy to, and landed my job as a home healthcare aide, taking care of my chiropractor's daugher on tuesdays and thursdays, and being on-call for whatever the rest of the week.

At first I was all excited about having this very humanitarian job and helping people and blahity blahity. I work with my chiropractor's daughter from March to May, at which point I was very unceremoniously and without warning told that the gal who helped on MWF was going to be working with them full time over the summer and they didn't need me anymore. The very same day they told me this, however, another client that I had worked with asked if I would like to be her full time worker, to which I happily said yes. This client lived out in the BOONIES in a trailer park and was starting to get just a wee bit demented. It was the most boring months of my life- I literally sat around reading books all day. So in the beginning of July I'm trying to figure out what in the hell I can do to get out of this stupid, insipid job, and at the same time Martel gets a new job as a computer technician at a shop here in town.

Martel's like.. fourth day on the job, this guy comes in who's friends with his boss, and on the way out the door happens to mention that he's looking for a good web designer, seeing as how he runs an ad agency and has websites that need to be built. Martel tells him about me, we meet up, and he likes my work and hires me to freelance for him.

SO that's the story of how I got to be doing freelance web design for an advertising agency, finally working in my major and trying to decide if I like it as much as I thought I would. It is definitely more enjoyable than any other job I've ever had, and my boss is very very fun to work for. Plus I can work in my underwear!

The bottom line is- it's never time to "settle" on something. You don't have to have one job for your whole life. Hitler was a housepainter, Harrison Ford was a construction worker, Bruce Willis was a bartender. Do what makes you happy while it makes you happy, and as soon as you get disgruntled, go do something else! A rolling stone gathers no moss!

__________________

Eweser

I started college not knowing for sure what I wanted to do. Dad wanted me to be an engineer, so that's what I put down, knowing it's not what I wanted and planning to change it at some time (although I didn't tell him that). Into my second year of school, I decided to be a high school math teacher and softball coach. That lasted until Calculus I. I hadn't had any Calc in high school, so I was kinda in over my head. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I enrolled in Computer Science I to try something new to try and find something I liked. Best decision I ever made. I found what I wanted to do.

I got my first real job a month after graduating college. It was a secretarial position of sorts, but it got my foot in the door with the biggest company near home. It worked. About a month after I started working, a system analyst position came open and here I am. I really like what I do and couldn't imagine doing anything else.

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"Whoever wrote this episode should die!"

World's King

I'm a bartender. I love booze. Everything that goes along with booze. Even late nights in jail with four Mexicans and a half passed out college coed. It was like the begining to a really kick ass porn.

I'm not sure when it started but at some point in my childhood my father would sit me down and watch old movies. Mainly Charlie Chaplin and Marx Brothers stuff. From there is grew into Frank Sinatra and Rat pack stuff... then into the cocktail culture of the 50s and 60s... My 16th birthday cake was shaped like a martini.

My first job in a restuarant was short lived so I couldn't work my way to the bar. I bounced around from job to job for a few years till I got my dream job. I was bartending at a place in Denver called the Skylark Lounge. It's a kick-ass retro bar. Been around for 65yrs or so. All they play is old school country, rock-a-billy, blues and jazz. Right up my alley...

I've been doin' it ever since. Different bars and clubs. One day I'll have my own place. But I'm not in a hurry.

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heavy is the head that wears the crown

frogza

When I was about 4 I realized that when I drug the end of pencil across a paper it left marks and that those marks could be made to look like things. I started drawing on everything I could. I've been into art since before I can remember, graphic design was a really easy way to make money and keep working at ebing a better artist.

As a graphic designer I was frequently asked to give marketing advice so I went ahead and started studying marketing techniques and principles. After developing several marketing strategies for different businesses I got the reputation of a good marketing consultant. Skip to today, I'm a marketing director and about to finish a degree in Illustration. Once I graduate I will phase out marketing and graphic design and go into illustration full time.

magictoy

I had to do a report on some job, any job, in ninth grade. I chose to do it on a branch of medicine.

And I just stuck with it. It sure made college easier, with my major already chosen.

Charlatan

Mantus... you do reno work!? Shit. If I'd known I would have hired you to do some stuff around my place.

As for how I got where I am... that's a long story.

The short version is I love film and television. It started after I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark. I wanted to make films.

I made super-8 films when I was in High School. I wrote, directed and performed in plays.

When it came time to go to University I studied film. I worked at the campus radio station and produced a weekly show about film. I worked part-time at a local Art House cinema.

My first "real" jobs were in the industry as a publicist and then as the contract and distribution coordinator at an international distribution company. Within a year I was selling Asia and Eastern Europe for that company. Within two more I was the head of sales.

Flash forward a few more years and I am bored. I don't like selling. I start a three-year process to find a job in broadcasting. After years in the business I now knew that I wanted to be the one who bought and programmed a television channel. It took some time but I finally landed my current job... and I only had to move to Singapore to get it.

I have been on the job for a month, and while I recognize that I am still in the "honeymoon" phase of any job, I have to say that so far it is everything I thought it would be.

If can feel even half as good about this job in a year as I do now... I will be *very* happy.

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"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Ample

I’ve always had the wrong attitude. Work is work and play is play. I cannot think of one single job that I would “love”. The way I see it, one is just more bearable than the other.

I knew in high school that I didn’t want to go to college, well at least yet. My brother, whom was a cook in the Navy, convinced me to join the Navy, see the world, get the GI Bill… hook, line, and sinker. So I did it and when my time was up I got out, and told myself that I would never have another job where I had to get my hand dirty or wear a nametag. My ex and I decided to move back to her hometown to go to the community college there. I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I took of drafting for some reason (I think it was more her idea than mine). After I got a few classes under my belt I went job hunting. That was over six years ago, and I am still with the same company. First day it took me half a day to draw something on the pooter, that I could knock out in five minutes now. I do more design work than drafting now. In some areas I know more about building systems than some of our engineers. Most of the time though I just fuck off. I think that is the reason why I have been here as long as I have.

Since then I have obtain a Business/IT degree and hoping to maybe move into construction project management.

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Her juju beads are so nice
She kissed my third cousin twice
Im the king of pomona

The_Jazz

After I graduated from college with a degree in Russian & Eastern European Studies in '93, I had to face the hard facts that 1) there were no jobs in the US for folks like me after the fall of the USSR, 2) I was never going to make a living running road races and 3) I didn't want to leave the US. That left me with writing skills and lots of energy. I visited a buddy in Atlanta, met this really cool girl and decided to move there. I got a job in the marketing department of a landscaping company, basically working with the sales force in several markets doing designing campaigns and setting up a call center. It was interesting for a couple of months and then started to really suck when they wouldn't raise my pay despite my results. A year and a half later, the girl and I had broken up in the worst ways possible, and the company offered me a sales job in Riverside, CA. I moved without even visiting.

The sales job was harder than I anticipated because of the lack of support and the fact that the branch I was in was in serious trouble. I didn't exactly hit the ground running, and it took me 3 months to make my first sale. A couple of months after that, they eliminated my job to "increase production" but shifted me over to a hodgepodge of estimating, running a crew and sales (in that order). Given that I hated where I lived, hated the people I worked with and only had 2 or 3 friends in the area (none close), I couldn't wait to get out of there. I resigned effective the day that my lease was up and moved to Chicago since that's where most of my college buddies lived. I didn't have a job or a place to live, although I had the promise of a place to crash for a few weeks.

So I got to Chicago and signed on with a temp firm, whose first assignment for me (and the only one as it turned out) was with a managing general agent who underwrote for some syndicates on the Illinois Insurance Exchange. One of his underwriters had the pen for a used auto dealer program for Illinois and Indiana and needed help with assembling policies since he had about 300 that needed to be issued. After I cranked through all those in a few weeks, they decided to keep me on for service work and ended up hiring me full time. At that point, I thought that being an underwriter was a great idea because it was ok money with the ability to say yes or no. It seemed pretty cool, especially since the job was right downtown and I could meet friends for lunch (when I took one).

Everything was very cool until the owner of the MGA decided that he wanted to move the operation out to the suburbs to be closer to his house. Since it would have been an hour drive each way for me or a 1 1/2 hour train ride each way, I told him that I wouldn't make the move. Since he liked me and respected my work ethic, he told me he would find me another job and got me an interview.

That interview was a real turning point for me, but it was the strangest one I'd ever done (although I've now done the same thing myself several times). I got there at 6:30 in the morning and sat with my future boss while he tried to talk me out of taking the job. He mentioned long hours, constant pressure and having to check your ego at the door since this wasn't an underwriting job but a brokerage instead. When I refused to go away, he told me where I would sit and when I could start.

That was over 10 years ago, and I started at the very bottom rung. I've worked my way up to the level to exactly where I want to be. Last year I made 2500% of what I made my first year out of college and about 2000% of my starting salary here. I've learned a lot about litigation and about human nature. I've seen some of the worst things that can happen to good people next to bad people trying to game the system. I learn something every day, and every day is a new battle. Every once in a while I will show up with no motivation to actually work, and inevitably something happens to get my competitive drive going. I also get to do neat things - last year I went to Vegas to watch some guys blast out the side of a mountain, I've hacked up several of the finest golf courses in the country, I've been to the Superbowl, World Series and football games - all in the name business.

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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo