What do you do for a living?

[Dioltach]

So how do you earn your money? Are you happy doing it? Is your job something you always dreamed of doing?

Also: how did you get into it? Is your job the logical step after your education, or did you study something completely different? Did you get a lucky break, or did you have to fight hard to get your job?

Myself, I'm a freelance translator. Dutch into English, mostly legal, financial, B2B stuff. It's not what I always dreamed of doing (fighter pilot and writer were my two preferred choices, as I recall), but I'm good at it and, as they say, it's indoor work with no heavy lifting.

I have an MA in English Language & Literature, with the main focus (there were no majors/minors or things like that at my university) on Middle English chivalric romances and poetry. It used to annoy me when people assumed that because I was studying English I'd go into translating or teaching. I figured I'd get a job in publishing, but soon after I graduated I got a phonecall: an acquaintance had passed on my name to an office of Coopers & Lybrand who were looking for a translator/editor. I went along and started almost the next day. I moved up and on for a few years, learning quite a bit about finance and law, then got engaged to a coworker and decided the time was right to freelance. That was 11 years ago, and I have to say I enjoy it. The hours are long, but the income is above average and the Dutch tax systems offers quite a few tax breaks to small businesses.

 

[Kramodlog]

I work for the guberment.

 

[Bullgrit]

I'm a technical writer and editor. The blog and t-shirts are a side hobby/moonlighting for me.

In college, I started with Computer Science, but half-way through switched to English. So technical writing/editing is a good use of both my majors.

Am I happy doing it? I'm . . . ok with it. Technical writing doesn't let me stretch my creative muscles, hence why I write the blog and design the t-shirts on the side -- they're my creative outlet.

Bullgrit

 

[sabrinathecat]

Degree in Tech writing, but it's a use it or lose it skill, and it was over 5 years before anything remotely related came my way.

Tax forms say property manager.
Resume says "multi-dimensional artist."

 

[Nellisir]

I ended up doing a split major with Creative Writing and Stagecraft. I couldn't write analytic papers worth anything, but I can tell a story. My father was (and is) a carpenter, so working in the Scene Shop was a familiar environment and a nice break from writing papers. Three years later, I didn't have enough credits in either to graduate, so they called it a split major.

And then I went home, worked in retail for a year, and went to work for my dad in construction. Built houses for about twelve years, then decided to go back to school and study landscape architecture (it was a tossup between that and city/regional planning). Did that for two years, took a year off and worked for a custom design, community-build playground company, which was incredible, and went back for another year and a half to finish my MLA.

At the moment I'm unemployed. There are a lot of things that tie into this, but it's mostly by choice, at least for a few more months. I've built two treehouses for clients, and preferentially will find something that involves building play structures & treehouses, and/or playground work. I like the mix of indoor & outdoor work, the scale of the work (a lot smaller and less intrusive than someone's house), and the variety. I've got design (MLA), construction (12 years+ carpentry/construction), and management/supervision experience (including a lot of volunteer stuff, including HS theatre, Habitat for Humanity, and playgrounds), but what I love the best is the trouble-shooting and problem-solving aspects: I can think fast and outside the box, and decisions don't scare me.

It's not wholly clear where I go from here. I'm not well-suited to self-employment. I've done it, and generally I hate it. There are firms in the area that I'd love to work for, but they're not in hiring phases right now, or are undergoing changes that I'm wary of. I'm leery of being stuck in an office. Staying where we are is not ideal, but moving has its own issues. Some kind of self-employment might end up being the best choice for now, at least long enough to drive up my portfolio a bit. I'm also looking at the "tiny houses" movement; again a nice size/scale and a lot of creative challenges.

So, yeah, if anyone here wants a treehouse or playhouse for their kids, or a wee little house for themselves....

 

[delericho]

So how do you earn your money?

Software engineering. Specifically embedded devices, with a focus on short-range wireless.

Are you happy doing it?

Yes, mostly.

Is your job something you always dreamed of doing?

Well, it's effectively the job title I dreamed of, but the actual job itself is very different from what I envisaged. Which is a good thing.

Also: how did you get into it? Is your job the logical step after your education, or did you study something completely different? Did you get a lucky break, or did you have to fight hard to get your job?

It was a pretty easy path: high school to university, to career fair, to interview, done. There was one lucky break along the way - I started in a department that got shut down ten weeks later, which saw me move to another department, and I've been doing pretty much the same work with the same people (but not the same employer) ever since.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Client Services Tech - I fix my fellow workers PC issues, phone issues and "other duties as told". Roughly been doing it for 31 years, started as a part-time job in mainframe computer operations while I was studding Marine Biology but they cut the class moving it to Costal Carolina and I had the chance to move to full time.

Am I happy, not as I use to be.

Is it my dream job, no, it is the job I settled for and it has been good to me. As far as what my dream job would be; millionaire playboy, the more I look back at things, Hef got it right.

 

[tuxgeo]

Eh, I'm late to this thread -- by over a decade. I'm retired and living on fixed income (Social Security in the USA), plus the leftovers from our parents' estate.

My college degrees were in mathematics and computer programming, and I worked in a field related to those for 10 years -- after previous years of working in unrelated fields.

I'm much happier now than when I was repeatedly flipping back and forth between work and unemployment.

 

[Zombie_Babies]

I'm a network analyst in a retail corporation's network engineering department. I sort of fell into the role because my mother told me to stop working in the factory I was in so I didn't die. I got a job at a major telco doing work in the e911 department (entry level) ... and two years later a 21 year old kid died on the shop floor of the factory I used to work in. Anyhoo, I moved over to another department at the telco and did some minor switch programming, moved again to a dept within that dept and did a li'l more. The job moved out of state and they offered me a whopping 5% to leave my family, gf and home to live in a city with less than 3k people and to do a job I hated. I said no. Took a job where I'm at now as a temporary thing ($2/hr less but I needed money and have no papers) that morphed into a career. I started on the telco side in an entry position, was moved up into an analyst role, took on infrastructure stuff from the engineering side and moved over once a position opened up. Somehow I make double what I did when I started.

I'm happy with what I do - to me it's a career and not just a job. I'm still learning my new role and that's cool. I typically get bored after about 5 years if my responsibilities don't change and if I don't see any new sort of work come through. I was almost burnt out at my last position here and was TOTALLY burnt out in the entry level role I had. This position will offer a whole lot of stuff in the 'new' category for me and will continue for a long, long time. There's so much to learn and so much to do and I'm not limited by anything more than myself as far as picking any of it up goes. We have major projects underway and more on the horizon. It's a busy time to do what I do where I do it but that's also really interesting. Yeah, I like it.

 

[The_Silversword]

I bend stuff.