amire

Hello, everyone. I've recently become interested in finding out how exactly certain pnrofessionals go about their day-to-day activities. So I thought I'd try to find out by creating a thread. What is an example of your typical daily routine while you're "on the clock," so to speak? Feel free to say what you specifically did TODAY.

I might as well start with myself. I am a high school graduate, so I'm essentially doing nothing for the next two months.

When I was in high school, my day-to-day routine went something like this:

Wake up at about 5:00 AM to study for an hour. Then shower, eat breakfast, and leave for school. Arrive at homeroom at 8:00 AM, then go to class for two hours. AFter that, I had free time for about 30 minutes. Then two more classes, a lunch period, and two final classes for the day.

This summer, I have a job at Kroger Supermarket, so I spend between 4 and 8 hours a day checking groceries, doing pricechecks, sending people to Guest Care, and making fun of James, a fellow cashier that I don't like. I'm about to start a home computer repair service, so hopefully that'll end up taking more of my time than supermarket stuff.

So what about the TFProject group? What's your daily work routine?

Jesus Pimp

I work for a web and print design firm. My typcial day is as follows.

1) Wake up at 8am, eat breakfast. Leave at 9 to catch the subway. Get to work at 10am. Ask my bosses how their evenings were. Check my email.

2) Shoot the shit with my bosses. It's a very casual non-pc fun working environment.

3) Work on my projects for the week.

4) Take the dog out for a work. Yes we have a dog in our office

4) Noon. Go to lunch.

5) Come back, continue to work on my projects for the rest of the day. Shoot the shit with my bosses.

6) Go home at 6pm. Make dinner. Shit around on the Internet, play some games, or watch a movie.

7) Go to sleep and rinse and repeat.

__________________
Never date anyone who doesn't make your dick hard.

shakran

TV journalist

up at 6:30, out the door by 7 for the commute.

At work by 8:30, spend half an hour or so surfing the net reading a jillion online newspapers and checking the wires.

9ish, in the newsroom for the morning meeting, where we suggest ideas for stories to cover in the future and fight over who gets to go cover the good stories today.

After that, it completely depends on what I'm covering that day. Usually I'm stacked so that I have a story in the morning, and one in the early afternoon. Toss the camera, tripod, steadybag, lightkit, batteries, tapes, and my run-bag (has all sorts of supplies - gaffers tape, audio connectors, wireless microphone, etc) in the truck and get moving. Shoot my stories, occasionally having time to grab lunch between 'em, then move to the location of one of that night's liveshots.

Takes about an hour to get the truck positioned, all the equipment turned on, the 60 foot mast in the air, and to get the transmitting antenna pointing at the receiving antenna - called tuning in the shot. Once the shot's tuned, it's usually an hour or two before the hit (when we're actually live on TV)

So I'll run all the cables I'll need for that shot, but leave the camera in the truck to prevent theft. Once that's done, write my stories (usually one is 40 seconds and the other's 1:30-1:50) on the laptop. I'll then voice the stories with the microphone in the truck, and I'll edit both of 'em using the truck's onboard editing equipment.

Then I'll transmit both edited stories back to the station the same way we'll eventually be transmitting the live shot of the reporter.

It's about 30 minutes to air by this point so I'll get all the lights set up and turned on. Around this time the reporter arrives and starts whining about the lighting, his makeup, the background of the shot, the story, you name it.

I get him hooked up with a wireless mic and an IFB (lets him hear directions from the control room so he knows when to talk and when to shut up) and we'll talk about what we want to do for this particular shot.

The newscast opens, they get to our story, and the reporter does his thing. After that, if we'll be doing the same thing in the next cast we'll just stay up, and hang out for an hour. Otherwise everything gets put away and we get back to the station around 7 or so.


That's a fairly typical day, although there really isn't one in TV news - every day is very different from the last - which is what most of us really like about the job

Sage

Well... currently I'm not in a job (hallelujah) BUT I used to work in the clerical department in the Lab at the hospital here in Asheville. A typical day was something like:

(Mission Lab, weekday):

Martel drops me off around 2:20. Come in by the loading dock, swing around to the break room, use the phone to "clock in", drop my stuff in a locker, get some water and see if there's any good magazines in the staff lounge. Steal them if there were, go into the bathroom and read for about ten to twenty minutes. Put the mags back, go into the lab, realize that there's only going to be four people there the entire day. AND Wald (super head boss) and Wanda (some sort of boss, but severely bitchy) are both wandering around. AND Vivian (super bitchy shift supervisor) is working on the side of the street. Groan inwardly.

Answer phone calls from irate nurses who can't do their jobs so they expect me to do it. Dispach phlebotomists (who get blood for testing) and try not to bitch at them when they whine that their slacking off has been inturrupted. Check in dead bodies at the morgue, placating Larry (the head dead guy guy) and hoping he's in a good mood. Give out test results over the phone and fax to all the people in the county who use the lab for testing. Take eyeballs in jars back to pathology. Sort paperwork. Try to read my book as much as possible while not looking like I'm reading. Go back to Microbiology to talk to my buddies as much as I can without looking like a slacker. Gossip. Get the test results together and take them up to the floors to put them on the charts- grabbing my book from my locker on the way. Throw test results away, go read in the bathroom for two hours, come back to the lab and leave. Cry on the couch for an hour because I hate my job SO FUCKING MUCH.

On a weekend, I'd sit around and read all day, pretty much. Eight and a half hours of reading (even when its a book I like) is really bad for the eyes.

I am insanely glad I quit. Best thing I ever did. (Except for kissing Martel the first time).

__________________

amire

An HOUR AND A HALF commute? That's pretty crazy. My parents' commutes are between 20 and 30 minutes, and we live in a medium-sized city...is 1.5 hrs typical for someone in a big city?

rockzilla

I cook at a homeless shelter

I'm awake at around 4:30, out the door by 5, and in my chef's whites by 5:30.

I start by checking the week's menu and the day's volunteer schedule. We set out a rough plan for the day based on what we have to cook, and what we need to get prepped for the next couple of days. Once we figure out what we're doing, we start getting breakfast ready for anywhere between 200 and 350 people. The worst part of the job is that you're never sure how busy it's going to be.

Breakfast is served at 7:20. Depending on how labour-intensive breakfast is (for example, it takes way less effort to scramble eggs for 300 than it does to fry them) and how much volunteer help we have, I may be on the line serving breakfast or I may be in the back getting things ready for lunch, or I may still be getting the last of the food ready.

The boss usually gets in around 8:00, he usually pulls me aside and gives me a list of functions that need to be catered today, sidework and cleaning that he'd like done and any other kind of wrench he can throw into our impeccably planned schedule.

We stop serving breakfast at 8:30 and clean the kitchen and dining room, or have volunteers do it for us. Depending on how busy I am, I may or may not have time for breakfast.

Now we have about 3 hours before lunch has to be ready. Depending on how much prep work was done the day before, that may be all the time in the world, or it may not be enough. We've also got to make sack lunches for guys that go to work, sandwiches to hand out in the evening, all sorts of other little tasks that have to be done or delegated to a volunteer.

When I have the time and the right ingredients I also try to cook something special for the staff meal. The homeless guys are pickier than any 4 year-old I've ever met, the vast majority of them are strictly meat and potato types. I get a lot more freedom to experiment and cook the way I like to when I feed the staff. We serve lunch from 11:20 til 12:00 for the homeless, and the staff eats at 12:30.

Once everyone is happy and well fed, we clean the kitchen again and finish the day by getting things ready for tomorrow. As soon as the clock strikes 1:30, I'm gone.

streak_56

I work for a Telecommunications Company.... I

Answer phones, trying to help customers.
Sell products (when people phone in, telemarketing is phoning out)
Explain bills


My daily routine....

1) Get to work
2) Sit at my desk answering e-mails.
3) Wait till I have to be on the phone
4) Periodically take a break.... union says I have to
5) Drive home... with frequent laughing at stupid people

thats pretty much it

f6twister

Emergency Dispatcher/911 Operator:

I get to work 15 min before my shift starts and get an update on everything that happened since my last shift and what is currently going on.

I sit and wait for officers to call or phones to ring and handle each situation as it comes up. There is no way to plan your day because each one is different. Officers do traffic stops, respond to new calls or continue previous investigations. The calls can range from the simple question (How do I get a restraining order?); to stupid (I called 911 to report that my phone doesn't work!); to urgent (My dad just hit my mom and he is chasing her around the house carrying a knife!). They can be separated by an hour or occur at the same time.

In between calls, I review messages from other departments and take action if necessary. Some messages are requests for information while others are informative such as a recent burglary, armed robbery, etc. I make copies of the informative ones and route those as needed. The requests for info I process.

Not much to type since it varies so much but that is my day. And yes, all three of those sample calls are real ones I have taken over the years.

__________________
A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day. Calvin

guthmund

I work in a library at a college.

I'm at work by 7:30. What someone would need the library for at 7:30 in the morning is beyond me, but the boss says be there so "I be" there.

I sit. On my ass. For 4 and a half hours running the circulation desk, which is fancy talk for receptionist. I direct phone calls, charge and discharge stuff, talk to patrons and try to help them out if they're having troubles with the library's computers, be it the online catalog or Microsoft Word. Usually not a lot to do, so, I've been reading....a lot. Last Thursday, I swear, I picked up a Redbook because it had Tim McGraw on the cover and I thought, "Well, he's a man....I'm a man...his wife is pretty. Maybe some pictures?" So, I gave it a read. Turns out he's not that interesting.

After noon, I bring down the mail and distribute accordingly. Magazines, newspapers and journals are all processed (it isn't nearly has exciting as it sounds), indexed and shelved. Usually takes all of 20 minutes. (I'm getting very fast )

I don't take a lunch. I could if I wanted to, but if I did, I'd be here an extra hour every day. There's a couple of vending machines and a Subway at the student center and it's not like I can't eat on the clock, so I usually do that.

I'm gone by 3:30, which is nice. And I get first crack at all the new books and movies the library orders, so, huzzah!

Edit: I forgot to add internet radio. God bless internet radio, I'm only allowed one headphone in at a time (the boss kind of likes me to you know...hear other things...facist... ). So, I've been expanding my jazz catalogue with KJAZ in San Francisco.

__________________
No signature. None. Seriously.

Rlyss

This thread is awesome.

I'm a support worker for people with learning difficulties.

Typical shift is to get up at 7.30am and be on the bus by 8am. I'll get there by 8.15 or so and grab a coffee at the coffee shop. I get to the house, have a cup of tea and chat until 9am when the district nurse comes and handles the insulin. Then we make some breakfast, make sure the user takes their medication. Then it's some house cleaning and general domestic stuff, then some lunch and some more medication. Then we go to the local charity shop where one user works part time, do the two hour shift. Then it's home for another cup of tea and some exercises, have a chat, perhaps go out for a walk or to visit the community centre, then dinner, more medication and that's it. I like my job

vanblah

I'm a SysAdmin at a small private college.

Awake at 8 or so. I live about a block from work so I walk. It takes less than 10 minutes so I'm there by 9.

Put out the various fires from the night before. Mostly email or remote connectivity issues.
Make sure backups ran the night before (or are still running in some cases).

Start thinking about lunch.

Read tech manuals/websites. Lurk and occasionally post at TFP.

Answer inane questions about whatever comes my way. Sometimes I get really good questions ... but mostly it's crap like "why is my email bouncing and oh yeah, I've been getting messages that say my mailbox is over it's limit."

Walk home for lunch. Watch whatever is on Trio or if Trio is showing crap I watch MadTV. Sometimes my wife comes home for lunch.

Walk back to work. Have some kind of meeting about why the website is so "slow" or what our plans are for future hardware/software purchases (or other stuff along those lines).

Read more. Surf more. Think about the band and how we can continue marketing it so that we can eventually all quit our day jobs (Ha!).

Walk home contemplating the quiet desperation my life has become.

OK. It's not that bad. I actually like my job. I'm extremely lucky that I live close to work. I HATE driving. Some days it's even more boring; other days I barely get a chance to breathe.

amonkie

Intern Monkey at Motorola running their Driving Simulator Lab:


Wake up between 4:30 and 5:30

work out, say mornin to my love, eat breakfast/pack my lunch

Out the door by 7 or 8, depending on what time my first subject runs

Get to work 30 minutes later, wave at the security guard on my way in

Turn on the sim, make sure everything's working, page & wake up the tech guy if he forgot to do something which in turn he'll blame ME for when he gets here

For the rest of the day - running back/forth between basement lab and lobby security front desk picking up subjects, then having them drive in the simulator for an hour.

When I'm not running subjects, I'm hanging out with my cointern in our lab conference room working on our laptops, or in my cube working on data analysis stuff as neccessary.

The time I leave is variable depending on how busy the day was, and whether I have something going on in the evening. It's a blast having a job I actually enjoy waking up for in the morning.

__________________
Calling from deep in the heart, from where the eyes can't see and the ears can't hear, from where the mountain trails end and only love can go... ~~~ Three Rivers Hare Krishna

frogza

I'm a marketing director for a real estate company. My day starts at around 7:00 and goes till about 4:30. I meet with publishers to discuss advertising, write marketing letters, meet with agents and brokers to discuss their marketing needs, and develop marketing campaigns that would work for each of the 60 agents/brokers. Since I have a lot of experience as a graphic designer and illustrator I also create all of our brochures, flyers, and signs.

On Tues., Wed., Thurs., I go to the county jail to teach english in the evening(both as second language and literacy). I also teach a religion class there.

Weekends are for hiking, climbing and volleyball.

Jinn

This topic is awesome!! There's something quite intriguing about reading other peoples daily activities.

I'm a "Software Test Engineer". It's a fancy title for someone who tests software. I work for a company that was just acquired by one and merged with another, so its quite the corporate enterprise. That said, my daily schedule seems oddly similar to Office Space.

Wake up at 0700, take a shower and eat a quick breakfast (leftovers, usually).

Shave, brush my teeth, gel my hair, and piddle around until about 0750.

Drive a short commute to work and show up at about 0825.

Check my email, grab a cup of coffee or some hot chocolate, and mess around until 0900-ish.

Chat with my coworkers about the new issues we have to test and the new bug fixes that the developers put out.

By about 0930, I start testing my area of the software.

The program suite that I am specifically assigned is a Records Management System that our customers use to make sure that their date-specific documents are handled correctly. This means that they can create a "Record" in our system that reprsents a physical object: Microfiche, Tapes, Documents, Files, Boxes, even CDRoms. They can specify creation dates, destruction dates, transfer dates, and many other things that happen automatically. They can even specify the volume of an object (a given box is 6" x 6" x 6", for example, and allocate space in a warehouse. The program will automatically configure the spaces and tell the user what spaces are available. It can also tell a Records Manager how much space would be saved by deleting X amount of boxes or documents or CDs. Even beyond that, it can automatically calculate preset storage amounts for all those boxes, and a warehouse company can charge their customers via the prices in our progam.

Even through that simplified explanation, its pretty apparent there are many dependent assets in the program. If the volume calculation was incorrect, the storage tool would not work correctly, and neither would the price calculations. This could cause a lot of headaches for us AND our customers. It's therefore my job during the release cycle to make sure that any bugs we have are found and fixed before they get to a customer. This ranges from putting in obscene values into certain fields: putting "FUCKYOU" into numeric fields to see if it'll choke, to testing security of the XML/OLEDB layer to make sure hacking the system is much more difficult. I have to also make sure that the program as user-friendly and understandable as it can be. So, that in mind..

By about 1000, I'm looking back over the bugs I've written up from the previous day to see if a developer has found or fixed a certain issue. If he has, I have to find the patch and insert it into my module and re-test it. If the problem was fixed, I mark the issue as closed. If not, I spit it back to the developer to re-fix.

Depending on the day, my time from 1000 to 1230 can be anything from re-testing the fixes from the previous day to dealing with customer issues (they want a patch) sent over from Tech Support. I eat lunch at my desk and keep testing until about 1530. By then I'm pretty burnt out and I mess around a bit until 1600 when I take off.

Half an hour later I'm at home; eat a quick dinner and screw around on my computer or watch TV until about 2100 or 2200 and then its off to bed!

A day in the life of a JiNN.

__________________
"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel

Janey

I work as an independant consultant for Information Technology implementations. currently I have a gig with the gas company as a project manager. I just finished implementing a couple of projects (Upgrading vitria to a new version; replatforming the the production oracle database to Unix) which required extensive UAT and performance testing. I am now moving on to an upgrade in the work management software for the summer.

My day starts with a wake up at 6:30, eat breakfast, make my lunch, and read or do email until 7:50, drive to work (it's uptown about 10 km so ony about 20 min drive), and login by 8:15 or so. Immediately go for coffee, and get updated by my group.

I manage deliverables and go to meetings most of the day. (and read TFP). on Mondays, Weds & Fridays, I work out in the gym at lunch time. I usually leave at 5:30 to go home and make dinner.

that's it!

Lead543

I work as a "room attendant" at a hotel *sigh*

I wake up at 7:00, get out of bed at around 7:15, eat a banana, pack my bag, put on my ugly uniform (bright purple pants and a top with multicoloured mushrooms on it) and walk to work.

At work I clean rooms, clean bathrooms, make beds, vacuum, dust. I take a break, eat a granola bar by the pool, clean more rooms, stock my cart, take out the garbage and go home, I work anywhere from 4-8 hours a day.

I hate my job. I could tell horror stories that would turn you off of staying at a hotel forever.

(is bitter)

Jinn

Tell 'em! Tell 'em!!!

__________________
"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel

Coppertop

Today:

I woke up around 9:15ish, showered and got dressed. I forgot that I had no gas and so stopped off at the local Shell before hitting the freeway. My commute is 22 miles and takes me about 25-30 minutes. I arrived at work about 10:15 or so. This is 15 minutes after I am on the clock. I boot up my PC and browse to my favorite webcomics. The exact number varies from 2-8 depending on what day it is. Today being Monday I visted 6. I then check evite to see who is going to be at tonight's hockey game (11:00, hooray). I browse TFP for a bit before my coworker calls and tells me I have some voicemails to attend to. So it is about 10:30 before I even contemplate working.

Voicemails addressed, I return to surfing the web. I also do some reading (Mark Twain's Letters from the Earth currently). Soon enough it is lunchtime. I nuke a Banquet Salisbury Steak meal and consume. Mmmm. All the while I have Yahoo Instant Messenger open and am chatting with friends and my girl. About 2:00 I remembered that one of the voicemails was still not taken care of, so I head over to another building to check on the printer there. Sure enough, a sensor in the fuser is shot so I need to call a tech in to take care of it. Back at my desk I do so.

Note that I have been on the clock for 4 and a half hours now and have done approximately 15-20 minutes of real, actual work. The rest of the day doesn't hold much promise for work either. I'll read, surf the web and chat the day away. I am off at 7:00 but will leave sometime between 6:00 and 6:45.

Today is pretty typical of most workdays. However, on Tuesday and Thursday I help out at another site in the mornings and actually work for several hours. There are things I can and probably should be doing today, but I'm putting them off until tomorrow. Or Wednesday. Or Thursday.

rhaevyn

I'm not really a PROFESSIONAL, I just finished my first year of college, so I'll give you a basic summary of my summer job:

1. Get up at 7:30, leave at 8:10, get to work at 9:00.
2. Baby-sit a 4 year old brat who doesn't listen to a word I say.
3. Usually leave around 5:00 to go home.

Yeah. That's it. I hate it. lol But it could be worse.

__________________
~Alex~

You've come far, and though you're far from the end, you don't mind where you are, 'cause you know where you've been.

raeanna74

Home day care provider and Homemaker

6:30 - up and dress
6:45 - start breakfast
7:00 - eat breakfast
7:15/7:30 - 2 children arrive (ages 3 and 1)
7:30 - hubby leaves for work
8:00 to 10:00 play with kids, get drinks, help pick up toys as they move to new things.
10:00 - snacks
11:30 - (if she can make it that long) naptime for the 1 yr old.
11:45 - start lunch
12:00 - serve lunch
12:30 - washup, bathroom, and then naptime for the 3 yr old.
1:00 - another child arrives (3 yrs old)
1:30 - baby wakes up
1:00 - 3:00 watch children, play with them, get drinks, snacks, coloring pages, pick up toys, take to bathrooms, change diapers...
3:00 - the later 3 yr old leaves
3:30/4:00 - the 1 yr old and other 3 yr old leaves for home.
4:00 - cleanup or crash depending on how many tantrums and poopy diapers I've changed.

__________________
"Always learn the rules so that you can break them properly." Dalai Lama
My Karma just ran over your Dogma.

Locke00000

I'm in college, working as a tech consultant for the university. Today for example I got up around 8:00 and had to go to a scheduling meeting for the rest of the summer. Got my hours picked out, and walked home (its about a 20 minute walk). Sat around for a few hours, called the GF who was sleeping. Decided I would go over to her place so I walked over there (30 minute walk) and we watched a movie. Walked back to my apartment then back over to the college. I'm sitting right now with 3 other consultants all just surfing. There are rarely questions for us to answer from any students, and when there are, they are 99% of the time just connectivity issues.

Tommorow, I plan on getting up around 7, getting to work around 8, sit and read fark and other forums for 8 hours (an hour lunch in there), then going over to the GF after work.

Coppertop

You start breakfast in your sleep?

FngKestrel

Cell phone game artist.

My day. Today happens to be an exception to my day to day, but I'll just describe the norm. (and yes, I know it borders on the edge of readability. Deal.)

- Wake up to alarm at 8:40. Hit snooze. Get out of bed at 9ish, brush teeth and whatnot. Leave somewhere between 9:10 and 9:20. Drive to work. Get in about 10.

- Fire up e-mail, log onto IM, log into bug database.

- Watch computer chug.

- Read the three pertinant e-mails, delete the rest.

- Receive an IM from Coppertop.

- Clink on link that Coppertop sent (usually a TFP thread).

- Skim it quickly, then either quip/subscribe/close window.

- Receive IMs from coworkers, requesting some form of work that needs to be done ASAP.

- Look at bug database and realize that more work has snuck in under the radar.

- Talk to producers who need something ridiculous done, and they need it ASAFP as opposed to the engineer's, who simply need it ASAP.

- Go to lunch with coworkers and shake my fist angrily.

- Come back and tackle the remainder of the work.

- Place headphones over ears and crank up the music to drown out the inane chatter of people who like to hang out in the bullpen.

- Receive more art requests from engineers, all ASAP.

- Receive art request from producer, ASAFP.

- Receive art request from art director, which supercedes everything else.

- Get IMed by Coppertop. Another hilarious TFP thread.

- Get griped at by engineers as to why work isn't done.

- Get griped at by producers as to why work isn't done.

- Art director knows better than to gripe at me.

- Commit homicide on engineer.

- Stack body outside cube as a warning to other engineers.

- Complete art director request.

- Get IMed by Coppertop. Another hilarious TFP thread.

- Complete producer art request.

- Complete engineer art request.

- Get IMed by Coppertop. Another hilarious TFP thread.

- Complete engineer art request.

- Complete engineer art request.

- Receive engineer art request.

- Get IMed by Coppertop. Another hilarious TFP thread.

- Complete engineer art request.

- Get ready to leave.

- Receive engineer art request.

- Receive engineer art request.

- Receive engineer art request.

- Grumble angrily.

- Get panicky producer request.

- Complete panicky producer request.

- Leave the rest for tomorrow.

That's pretty much it. Some Mondays I'll work late. Tuesdays and Thursdays I insist on leaving at 7:00. Wednesdays, we usually have a mini poker tourney. Fridays are the supreme indication that I have no social life, as I stay late and work on straggling art requests.

Edit: Despite what's written above, I actually enjoy my job quite a bit. I feel like a firefighter or short-order cook, taking care of problems and delivering requests in a timely fashion. The variety of requests keeps me on my toes and mixes up the work so that it doesn't get too monotonous.

fresnelly

I work in theatre on the producton side of things. Currently I am working as a lighting designer and assistant lighting designer for a large repertory company. (This means that they present several plays at the same time)

Every day is different depending on where you are in the production schedule approaching opening night, so i'll tell you about my Sunday June 5th.

I woke up at 8:30am and walked to work for 10am First I checked in at the office to read email and go over today's Schedule. With three plays sharing three venues plus 4 rehearsal spaces, it's easy to lose track of what is going on and where, so keeping on top of the various schedules is critical.

Right now I am assisting on one that has a few more dress rehearsals to go before its first audience and also designing my own which has just started its "tech week". This means the setting of the lighting cues and final touch ups before full technical rehearsals.

So, after a short lunch I'm off to the 12:30pm dress rehearsal of "Autumn Garden". I watch the run sitting at a large table in the middle of the house with monitors showing me the recorded lighting levels an cue timings from the control console in the booth.

As the play progresses, the designer makes small adjustments and I notate them on a spreadsheet on my laptop. The reheasal ran until about 4:30pm and was followed by 1/2 hour of catch up notes.

Off for 2 hours and then a 7pm "Cue To Cue" rehearsal of the play I'm designing; a french farce called "Something On the Side". A cue to cue is where we just run the transitions between the lighting, sound and staging cues. This is for the benefit of the Stage manager and crew rather than the actors. It also gives me a chance to polish the rough lighting levels we set the night before, now in real time with a cast onstage.

The reheasal ran until about 11:30pm followed by notes. I was home by 12:15am.

Monday's are dark and Tuesday will have a similar schedule but no rehearsal in the afternoon; only office work.

The hours are odd, the pay is low, and employment can be sporadic, but it's very fulfilling work when it all comes together.

__________________
Building an artificial intelligence that appreciates Mozart is easy. Building an A.I. that appreciates a theme restaurant is the real challenge - Kit Roebuck - Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life

raeanna74

lol Oops typo.

Sometimes it sure feels like I'm doing it in my sleep. Hubby never seems to understand why I don't like to have the lights on in the kitchen. He's always asking how I can see to cook. He seems to like my pancakes though.

__________________
"Always learn the rules so that you can break them properly." Dalai Lama
My Karma just ran over your Dogma.

amire

Seeing that you're from Memphis, I bet you admin at Rhodes! I live in Memphis, too, so I know a great deal about the place. This TFP thing is really cool...I know know what the Rhodes Sysadmin does with his time!

vanblah

You are correct. And I meant to say that I work really hard all day with no breaks or anything.

TM875

I'm an economics sales analysist for the bakery division of a large supermarket chain. Basically, I drum up ideas and, on an interesting day, get to travel to one of our over 80 stores and point out what they're doing wrong.

I like to start early, from my days as a baker:

4am - Wake up
5:00- Get to office, check e-mails, start laying out work that needs to be done
6:30- Send out any intranet messages to other bakery specialists and department managers
7:30- Finish leftover work from the day before
8:30- Rest of the staff starts to roll in
9:15 - Our first meeting of the day. Oh joy. Usually is about sales trends for the upcoming week, new product that vendors are trying to push, or potential weaknesses in our current structure. As of now, we're renovating a bunch of our stores - it's my job to figure out what the likely profit will be in the medium-long run for each store, taking into account the demographics of its location, past success of renovation, and the store's earining potential vs. current dollars.
10:30 - Break from the meeting (if we're lucky). I ususally now get the honor of going back to my desk and playing with numbers until lunch
11:30 - Lunch time.
12:15 - Straggle back from lunch, make phone calls, argue with vendors
1:00 - Continue playing with numbers until I'm happy.
1:30 - Finish reports, e-mail conclusions to CEO.
2:00- Answer e-mails from specialists and managers
2:30- Head home.

Yes, 10-hour days get to you after a while. However, I love it, and would never trade the extra sleep for being able to get a lot of my work done before people come to bother me.

__________________
"I've made only one mistake in my life. But I made it over and over and over. That was saying 'yes' when I meant 'no'. Forgive me."

CandleInTheDark

7-11 Clerk

-Arrive at work 10-15 minutes early
-Make fun of who ever is working tills
-Get a coffee/slurpee
-Make a joke about a customer who was an ass
-Get changed
-Read schedule
-Depending on who I work with I may be, extremely cocky, flirty, insulting, or quiet
-If it's the midnight shift I may or may not get into a fist fight with a customer accusing me of over charging him
-Do some of the tasks I've been assigned that I've ignore while being funny
-Make fun of who ever is on the next shift when they come in
-Cash out
-Continue insulting my co-workers. Giggle when they return the favour
-Say good night and then wait too long to get a bus

__________________
Where there is doubt there is freedom.

Mephisto2

IT Program Manager for Wireless Strategy & Architecture - large US multinational networking company


2:30AM to 3:30AM (depending on day) - Wake up; throw on some clothes; go to kitchen and make hot cup of tea.

3:45AM - Check email, respond to most urgent

4AM - First conference call of the day; try to steer team of global architects, engineers and PMs in the right direction; get frustrated

5AM - Second conference call of the day; as above

6AM - Third conference call of the day; as above

7AM - Fourth conference call of the day; as above

8AM - More email; some strategic planning & arch work

9AM - Usually some executive briefings or collateral

10AM - Shower; dress in real clothes; drive to work

10:30AM - Email; work on program activities

~3PM - Leave for home; feed and play with dog

4PM - Call Mrs Mephisto and ask her what she wants for dinner. She's pregnant and eats like a horse

5PM - Some TV; email; maybe a doze

7PM - Prepare dinner

8PM - Eat; drink beer;

9PM - If no conference calls that night, drink bottle of red wine

9PM - If EMEA are online, IM and email until about 11PM. If not, enjoy red wine and fall asleep, mouth open and drooling, on the couch

12PM - Go to bed; try to read; fall asleep with contacts in

3PM - Wake and as above...


Sometimes I will stay at home. But working from home all the time is not what it's cracked up to be. You go stir crazy.


Mr Mephisto

PS - Yes, the times above are correct and yes, this does mean I only get three to four hours sleep a day. I sometimes grab catnaps, but seem to do OK. Good practice for the snapper who's due in 6 weeks, eh?!

EULA

6:30am - wake up
6:30:20 - fall asleep sitting up in bed
6:45 - slit my wrists
6:46 -get out of bed and throw clothes on
6:50 - eat breakfast on the 10 min drive to wal-mart
7:03 - clock in
7:10 - push carts, ask God why he has forsaken me, wonder why Guns-n-Roses rocked the fuck out and then went bye-bye, wonder if the guy from The Talented Mr. Ripley was truely gay or just fucked up, wonder if all the racket from the carts is damaging my hearing....
9:00 - sit in McDonalds and eat a hasbrown and two granola bars.
9:15 - push carts
11:00 - drive home for lunch, make a Morning Star chick patty sandwich, have a fruit cup, check my email, doze off
11:50 - drive back to work
12:03 - clock in
12:10 - Push carts, chat with that old, black greeter who is cool as shit, go back to pushing carts, WHY, GOD, WHY?!, thinking about moving back to Henderson...
2:00 - sit in McDonalds and eat a medium fry, doze off
2:15 - push carts
4:00 - clock out, pick up some food, go home, check email, check news sites, read a book, hang out with roomates
10:30 - go to bed

ngdawg

I don't 'work' as in earn a living....hell, I don't work much at all...
7:30 get out of bed, slap the alarm for interrupting a dream
7:35 drag my ass downstairs, bark at the kids to get ready for school, pour a big glass of ice water. Light first of half a pack of morning cigs.
7:50 braless, in same shirt I slept in and some jama pants, drive kids to school and pray I don't get into an accident.
8:00 turn on upstairs pc, have the 7th or 8th cig, start my tea and read the paper
9:00 paper and tea are done, new pack of cigs opens, talk on IRC and check TFP.
10:00 beg off, take shower. Wake up.
11:00 back on pc, this time mine. Print, scan, render, talk, play Snood.
Sometimes at this hour I may run errands should they be needed. Or throw a load of wash in.
1:00 lunch. After lunch, back to the pc until
3:20 Kids get home from school. I look away from the pc long enough to ask about their day. They get snacks, ask what's for dinner and then go off to do God knows what.
4:10 Spouse comes home from work. Alone time, ruined.
5:00 start thinking about making dinner-take some more time thinking then
6:00 call for pizza
6:30 to bedtime This is what variety of life is all about. Might have to take a kid to something like dance or drama at school. Everyone starts announcing they have no clothes, no underwear or no towels. Directives for dishes, showers and last of homework is shouted.
Once all is calm and kids are in bed, back to the pc to do whatever it is I do to waste time.

__________________
Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

diddagirl

Customer Care Agent for an Airline

Wake up between 04:45-05:30
Have a shower and get ready
Start work by 06:30 ish
Log into the phones....and begin my hellish day of taking calls.
Speak to numerous angry and down right nasty people who proceed to tell me "I know this isnt your fault but unfortunately you answered the phone and now I am going to yell at you"...... yes they actually admit I have done nothing wrong but they are going to proceed to belittle me and scream at me anyways. And I wonder why I come home so upset?
Get 2 fifteen minute breaks and a 45 minute lunch, and aside from that I am attached to that stupid fucking phone for the rest of my day listening to ignorant assholes complain above every little thing under the sun.
Cry on my way home from work about how bad I hate my job

__________________
"Is it so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun, to have lived long in the spring, to have loved, to have thought, to have done."
-Matthew Arnold

ryborg

I wake up at 7:00 and hit snooze until about 7:40 when I finally get up and take a quick shower. I throw on some clothes and make a ten minute commute to work. I walk through several hallways before I finally make it to my office – a converted board room I share with 5 other programmers of varying skill levels. I sit down and resume the work I left off with the day before – creating Java wrappers to a C++ API that preforms credit card and gift card verification for my employer's web store. My compiler is complaining about incompatibilities and I slowly work though them until at long last...things build correctly. I suddenly realize it's already past lunch, so I take off and enjoy my hour break. I go to Subway and get a nice big sandwich. I return five to ten minutes late. I don't worry about lagging behind a little because I know I'll probably lose track of time and stay an hour later than I'm supposed to. My efforts return to the Java and C++, and making them communicate with one another. 5:00 slips by and the building starts to empty, but I don't notice. Around six my boss walks in and I start to discuss the various problems I've encountered. He offers suggestions and we discuss various approaches to the challenges the day has presented to us. 7:00 rolls around and I feel like I could just sit here and keep on going, but I know I need to go. I leave the building, thanking god for giving me a place where I can direct my energy, a place where I can learn, a place where I can discover, and reach, my potential.

__________________
Solve two problems at once. Feed the homeless to the hungry.

lurkette

I'm a research administrator, and while the "big picture" of what the networks I manage are doing is really inspiring (finding and preventing the roots of mental illness, communicating developmental and neurobiological science to policy makers, proving to Romanian lawmakers that foster care is better than orphanages) the day-to-day details of things are less than fulfilling. However, I find it hard to imagine giving up this job because of the following:

1. I get to work from home
2. My day looks like this:

- roll out of bed when I feel like it
- check email
- deal with impending crises
- browse the web for an hour or so
- take a nap
- take a shower and change out of my PJs
- check email
- check a few things off my list
- do a little paperwork
- balance the books
- choose menus for upcoming meetings
- send out emails telling people for the 3rd time where/when the meeting is (Ph.Ds can be dense)
- browse the web some more
- walk the dog
- watch a little tv while I send emails
- knock off when I feel like it

Meeting days are much more hectic - I am "on" starting at 8:00 AM and have to pay attention to the meeting since I'm writing the meeting summary reports, but I also have to manage all the logistics all day (catering, A/V, travel, etc.), and manage dinner as well, so I don't get done with my day till 9:30-10:00 at night. I do this for 2-3 days in a row. But thankfully I only do 6-8 meetings a year these days - used to be we'd have 15-20 meetings/year, and that got to be unbearable.

I'd like to do something else with my life but frankly, I'm lazy and this job suits me. And I'm paid extremely well for what I do. It's hard to contemplate giving that up, but some day I'm either going to have to move on to something that really satisfies me, or find some way to get excited about the grunt work.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

tooth

Ahhh, the life of a Sys Admin. Pretty much my day in a nutshell. I'm even in a band too

dlish

i run my own construction company.

my day to day program tends to vary every day dependant on whats happening onsite and whether i have to be there.

usally get up at 6:30, quick shower and brekky and im out the door by 7

meetings, oniste supervision, phonecalls left right centre, engineering meetings, fixing sub contractors mistakes and anomilies..

breath...lunch

ditto..meetings, oniste supervision,..yada yada yada

5:00pm, go home have shower, do paperwork

by 8:00 check mail and then read tfp!

__________________
An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere

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

canuckguy

I recently quit my job to stay home with my little girl (15 months), use to work for an ISP before....
day begins the little peanut gets up, could be 6am (doh!) or 9am
-i get up with her every other day, the missus does the other days, gives us each an equal chance to sleep in.
-get the peanut some milk and a quick snack while i rangle up some breakfast for her while she flips the channel over and over again on the tv.
she eats and watchs a bit of cartoons. that steve needs to get laid on blues clues...
-do some colouring and sing songs while i sip on a coffee and do some random surfing inbetween.
-nap time for the peanut. glorious nap time. i'll sit outside with the laptop and a coffee or do whatever cleaning i can't get done while the peanut is up.
-some lunch when she gets up, more playing and general fun.
-then a walk to the park or around the block weather permitting.
-snacks and some more playing and learning of rhymes. hard to do the nursery rhymes normal, too much exposure to the diceman when i was a teenager. there all dirty now!
-a mid afternoon nap for the little one, more surfing and random house work, couple video games. catch a bit of dr phil (don't tell the missus she would tease me).
-the peanut gets up, the wife comes home from work(if she is working days, she is on a rotating shift),
-share the days events with the wife, she takes over on lead peanut duties, while i'll get some dinner together and head to my dad zone (my HT room) to relax and zone out.
...etc

i loving being home with the kiddo, i worked my arse off putting myself through university, then my wife. I hated my job and longed to spend more time with my little treasure.....when she is not crying or screaming that is...

Grasshopper Green

I'm the Nutrition (organics) manager at a grocery store.

While my day is different depending on the day of the week, this is typical:

Wake up at 5. Fall back to sleep until 5:30. Get up, shower, eat, and get to work by 6:15...which is 15 minutes late. I have an understanding boss.

6:15-9:00 - Straighten the shelves in the drug/hba (health and beauty aids) and organics sections. People manage to make a real mess of grocery shelves. Straighten checkstand candy as well. If it is Monday or Friday, I stock the shelves while straightening...it takes the same amount of time.

9:00-9:15 - Take a break. Eat a bagel.

9:15-11:00 - Make new tags for the ones that have mysteriously disappeared throughout the week; make signs for displays.

11:00-12:00 - Put away items that customers have decided they didn't want and just put down wherever they felt like.

12-12:15 - Another break. Eat a lunabar.

12:15 - 1:00 - Audit my sections and make sure that prices are coming up correctly, and fix if not.

1:00 - 1:30 - Paperwork. Yuck.

1:30 - 2:15 - Ask my boss if there is anything that he'd like me to do because what I needed to get done is done. Finish assigned tasks; gab with fellow coworkers about how the store has really gone in the toilet since our last management change. Generally slack off.

2:15 - I'm outta there!!

__________________
"They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings; steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king"

Formerly Medusa

joemc91

These are awesome. I just started training to be an airline pilot, so it's like I'm back in college, but I'm actually studying.

6am: Wake up, shower
6:30: Check the email and breakfast with the family I'm staying with who have been great to me.
7:30: Head to the ass end of the airport in a jail like building for training.
8: Class starts and is like drinking from a firehose. My wrist is sore in 10 minutes and I'm already behind on the notes. Breaks are 10-15 minutes every 45 minutes or so.
Noon: Lunch time. Brought lunch because I don't get paid enough to buy anything.
1pm: Back in class, same schedule as when we started at 8am. Sometimes we'll have a paperwork break or a trip to the main terminal or dispatch for tours, depends on the day.
Somewhere between 4 and 5: Dismissed for the day. We almost always get out 45 minutes early.
5:30: Back home to check the email, relax for an hour
6:30: Start studying the wicked thick manual. Some time before 10 I'll eat and call the GF
10-11: Bed time

That's what pilots do for 2-3 months after they're hired.