How much do you identify with your job? Is it merely a paycheck or does it also offer personal fulfillment/gratification? How did you get there? Do you like what you do? If you could be doing something else, what would it be? If you're unemployed and job hunting, what are you seeking and why?

You first, girly.

taz, you may be the Minister of Candy, but your name is Latin for 'Queen of the Call-Out'.

*evil laugh*

ok ok i'll answer, even though i'm not really doing a real job.
*deep breath* lotsbothaccidentlyyeswriting

I'm in the service industry. I got my first restaurant job at 15 and remained in the industry for the better part of the next 20 years. It's impossible for me to describe how badly I wanted that first job and how certain I was that I would absolutely love it, which I did and still do.

After a few years in corporate offices, I returned last year to bartending following a move to SF. While I appreciate the advantages of and can function well in an office environment, hospitality/service will always be my first love and deepest passion on both cerebral and visceral levels. It engages almost every aspect of my personality and value system in a way that nothing else has been able to come close to touching. Aside from illness, passing moments of petulance or conflicts of schedules, I have never dreaded going to work.

The challenge that I've recently presented to myself is to find a way to shift/balance/evolve/channel this energy and drive into something more significant with a long term positive impact. I'll always thoroughly enjoy simply hospitality, but I'm ready to take it to the next level. What that is or may be, I have no idea but the process is equally exhilarating, exhausting and not a little frightening, though I know I'm on the right path.

Ok, next!

Great answer, dhruva!

Frisbee girl, I wanna go to your bar, you sound like a great host.

I'm in advertising. I loved it so much when I started studying it, annoyed with all the bad ads out there I was convinced that once I got out of school, I'd land a job and help the poor sods out, all thee who make the utter crap you see every day on your TV.

I didn't know then that the client wants crap.

I picked advertising over my other love, cartoons and illustration, as I knew that I'm not the type to freelance happily which illustrators and carrtoonists do. I'd rather go to an office, and clock a monthly salary, have a few work collegues.

Litle did I know then that I'd spend the better of ten years freelancing in advertising. Often spending weeks on end working alone on a project just like an illustrator. Hmmm. Ironic.

These days I hate advertising more than I love it. I freelance still.

Over a period of years, I was a newspaper/magazine typesetter, production manager, creative director, writer, and managing editor. The most fun was being a regular writer, but I think "managing editor" was a great job for me because it pretty much drew together all my skills. The stress of always being under a deadline bcame increasingly unpleasant, but what got me in the end was crappy upper management stuff (taking advantage of the lowest rung of workers, selling out, blah, blah).

After mr. taz and I had already decided to move to Greece, I got a really, really great job offer, that I kind of turned down. (Well, what I did was ask for more money than I thought they would pay, and decided that if they went for it for some insane reason, I would stay - but they didn't, and I didn't!) Now, since I've moved to Greece, I do some freelance web stuff, and occasionally do private tutoring in English.

I love designing sites, but hate dealing with clients, handling business, and negotiating, and I'm fairly horrible at it (probably because I'm utterly bored by it, really). I'm pretty much in total career limbo, which is sort of a strange place to be after a long, long time of feeling that I could basically pick and choose my direction and terms, and having a certain assurance of my value and my importance to my coworkers. So maybe I shouldn't have flipped off the offer, yet in very many ways, I'm still glad I did. However... I haven't really figured out the solution to my current situation.

So, in other words... "meh".

I made that decision even before i got into my current field (ie ecology) that i would avoid the rat race as best as i could. If it means less money, well so it means less money. Of course now its still another kind of rat race (ie publish or perish), but still...

Well, I work at "Le Muffin et Plus", a muffin retailer in a mall food court. But that's just until the end of the summer, thank god.

do you get free muffins?

I work with a carpenter. He does whatever people want. Remodel work, building new houses, building grape arbors, whatever. Despite learning useful skills I do not like it much because most of the time I come home too tired to do anything and it makes it almost impossible to keep up my gardens. It does not help that we start at 7 and usually are working an hour or more away from home and so I get up early and get home late.

Of course I haven't been working since I crushed my finger and I am missing the paycheck. Luckily it happened at the end of one job and so he took another job he didn't need help on since he knew I wouldn't be that useful for a little while.

Ideally I would find something I could do from home so I could go outside in the morning and work in the gardens and then worry about work. But I have no idea what that would be.

I am a managing editor for several science/medical journals, and I wandered into it after deciding not to pursue an academic career and needing a profession. Like taz, I'm reaching a point where the deadlines seem really grinding, but generally I love my work. I really like science and medical writing and feel good when I can help make it more cogent. I enjoy the more magazine-like titles a lot; I like laying out illustrations. In terms of content, I've liked the social science publications I've handled best. I also like medicine, particularly surgery, and the more detailed and bloody the better, which I certainly didn't know before I started doing this!

My husband will have his MLS soon and we want to move to a place where he can find academic library work, and I've got to figure out what to do next. Honestly, I'm not sure. I've never figured out my "ideal" work; again, like taz, I like doing a lot of different things and get extremely bored with anything related to business (though I love dealing with clients -- mine have all been academics or working clinicians and are so appreciative that someone else sweats this stuff for them). I was happiest teaching, and also writing press releases and editing grants and proposals as a volunteer for an AIDS health organization. If I could find sustaining non-profit or non-sleazy commercial medical/academic work as a writer or editor, I'd be happy. I honestly don't know where I'll be in a year, and I vacillate between being excited and scared as hell about it.

I'm a legal assistant, but only until next friday. In about two months I'll be a philosophy grad student, but my true aspiration is to be a house husband, or one of the idle rich.

I'm a clerk at a music database company. It keeps me off the street. My dream job would be disk jockey or columnist, but I've resigned myself to the fact that that ain't happening.

do you get free muffins?

I absolutely do, and living on stale muffins sure helps the minimum wage paycheques go further.

And of course for a while, I gave serious consideration to becoming a police officer, but some physical ailments and the recent pay cuts for rookie NYPD officers have ruled that out.

Ha, Cosmos, I forgot just how significant the hidden financial benefit of the food/drink industry is until I quit. When you work around food you like and the family meal is de rigueur, eating yourself into a higher income bracket is entirely possible.

Cosmos, what happenes at the end of the summer? Return to school?

jonmc, the only other job that I've enjoyed as much as restaurant was being a credit card fraud analyst for 800.COM. Crazy intense, exciting and compelling to literally watch and track real time crime, interact with the criminals detail fraud circles while working with customers, banks, and the FBI to bust people. Holy shit, I'd do that again in a heartbeat. Sucked that the company went tits up and got bought out.

I'm a psychotherapist at an STD clinic where I work for the program that treats HIV and Aids patients. Several years ago I was managing a very large and successful independent bookstore in DC, which was great, but was also ultimately retail work, which I did not like. When I looked around for what else to do where I felt like I could make a contribution and engage myself intellectually etc, I settled on clinical social work and so went and got my MSW. My ideal job would be English professor, but I couldn't see going through the shit that most profs have to go through in the humanities in order to secure a job.

I'm not really sure what I thought I'd do with the degree specifically, but I worked with a couple of patients with HIV during my last internship in school, and was intrigued enough by it that I pursued working in HIV/Aids when I got out of school. I like where I work, which is in a free health department clinic, and I like even better that I actually work for a big university that pays me a good salary and great benefits. I'm not always as engaged as I would like to be because many people who come to the clinic are not interested in therapy, but I've also started a psychotherapy training company with some friends and that is engaging, and I will start seeing patients in private practice before too long.

There are things I would like to do in the future, like write a book or two and get a PhD. I would still like to teach, and I think if I can interest myself enough in a PhD program I could have a good shot at it. I'm not sure what to do a PhD in, though, since I think Social Work PhDs are not all that interesting, and the best choice for me, Public Health, is not exactly what I'm interested in. I'll probably do a Public Health program and just get through it.

Interesting thread.

Not working right now - trying to get my mental shit put together.

Before that I was employed in loans - mortgage loans for 15 years, commercial loans for about a year. Then I got married and moved to Canada. Since moving here I spent most of my employment time as a clerical flunky for a temp agency. My last job was eight weeks or so as a help desk flunky (HP Printers - I'm breaking my non-disclosure agreement by writing that. Ha! I live for danger!). I had a mini-breakdown and had to quit as they wouldn't let me take a leave of absence.

When I get my mental shit into one grid square (as Mum would say) I'll look for employment in a bookstore. There isn't any way for me to go back into office/clerical work and keep my sanity (what there is of it).

I'd love to get a MLS/be a librarian but there isn't any money for any sort of schooling.

I’ve been a radio DJ, club DJ, TV director, photographer, bookstore owner, call center manager, ISP owner in the early 90’s, teacher, consultant, and for the past several years I’ve been selling enterprise software. Last few months I have been working with some friends to develop a new product. Right now I am working on the pitch for VC money. So I guess I get tired of things quickly. My job is not a big part of my life (inside my head) and yet it must be fun, and or new and interesting or I leave. Other things I might do include getting back into photography or teaching or finding a way to apply my hobby carpentry or gardening skills to a job.

I'm a scientist. Specifically, a reproductive neuroendocrinologist. I identify with my job a lot, and the fact that I'm a scientist absolutely shapes my world view (re: god/s, evolution, abortion, skepticism, etc. etc.) I got into it by just... staying in school. I knew I always wanted to do science, but by the time I was halfway through my PhD I realised with some dismay that to do what I wanted to do, I would have to go through all the politics and crap (and begging for money) of academia. Blah. But it's better than med school, from which I dropped out when I realised that I really didn't like people enough to interact with them on a day to day basis. And I have no interest in working in industry. Currently, I'm 4 years into post-doctoral work, so it's nearly time to look for a faculty position -- normally I would have started by now, but I cut my first post-doc short to move to New York after living apart from my husband for too long.

I'm an adjunct English instructor at an HBCU. I mostly teach a survey of the humanities, covering a period between 60,000 BCE to the present. The course is taught in two one-semester chunks, and it's pretty nearly an impossible task. But mostly a bunch of fun. I also teach a few freshman composition couses.

The perks: I love my students, especially where I am now. This is the fifth college/university at which I've taught--as an adjunct I get to bounce around if I want and get a taste of different places. Summer. I'm in the middle of one of the greatest perks. I get up when I want, go fishing during the week, listen to lots of music, garden, play with the dogs, drink beers on the porch with my teacher pals, play baseball in the street, grill out, etc....

The drawbacks: No real job security. No health insurance. Low pay--I teach five courses a semester to make ends meet, which is too much. The opportunities to move up are limited. I have an MFA in poetry, so I need a book to land a stable position. Books are hard to write.

Dream jobs: Used to be I wanted to be like my former professors--teach workshops, give readings around the country, get a Guggenhiem and write overseas for a year.... I still want that, but I'm not interested in the fast track. Plenty of writers make it later in life, and I figure I have another 10-15 years to get there. In the meantime I'm considering going back to school part time to study photojournalism or biomedical photography. (That's another perk of being an adjunct--my schedule allows for this sort of thing.)

I do my job for the love it. I've worked for over a decade in the record industry doing sales and marketing, dealing mostly with record stores. I feel very fortunate that after so long I still genuinely love going to work every day. Like any job, there's a lot of crap to deal with, but I'm also spending at least a portion of every day talking about music and interacting with other people that are also driven by a love of music. And I've been exposed to so much diverse stuff I most likely wouldn't have heard otherwise, not only from the labels I work with, but also from just being around so many different people with different tastes.

Wow, I've loved reading this thread so much...looking forward to seeing what others have to say.

I'm an editor in the publications department at an art museum. I work primarily on exhibition materials (i.e., didactic panels and labels for the exhibitions themselves), as well as related materials like catalogues, brochures, educational hand-outs, etc. It's certainly the best job I've ever had -- I love working in a museum, most of my coworkers and colleagues are just wonderful, and for the first time in my life I make a decent-to-comfortable salary. The institution itself is pretty severely fucked up, unfortunately, and upper management is like something out of Alice in Wonderland, so what annoyances/frustrations I face tend to stem from that. In general I do identify with being an editor, but not so strongly that it's the first thing that I think of when I think of who I am. I love the English language deeply, and I just happen to be wired mentally in the right way that I find editing both easy and satisfying. So it's a good fit for me.

I also write on the side (short fiction, stageplays, some spoken word/performance material, etc., as well as occasionally freelance as an arts & culture reviewer). For many years I thought (on some level) that I was a failure for not writing The Great American Novel, as my teachers and parents had been predicting since I was about 16. I'm a good, though not great writer -- I don't have a lot of discipline on a steady basis, though when I'm engaged in a project I really like, you pretty much can't pull me away from it. My writing rhythm really tends to go in waves -- weeks and months of being into it, then weeks and months of not jotting down a single word. I used to be pretty hard on myself for that, but now I've accepted it as just being how/who I am. It also means I've made some sort of peace with the fact that I'm not going to make a living as a writer -- it will always be something I do, off and on, for pleasure, and I wil certainly continue to get my writing out there in various forums (publishing here and there online, staging a play, giving a reading, etc.), and sometimes it will even bring in some extra cash. And all that, I've realized, is a kind of success in its own way.

You are all fascinating people. I'm enjoying this thread immensely.

Working has been mostly a means to living the rest of my life. I'm currently a database consultant with a small computer service company. I've been with them for seven years this Fall. Current projects involve billing systems for small utilities and inventory control databases for commercial nurseries. It's the best job I've ever had in terms of people and working conditions, but about the worst paying. The current company is the surviving rump of a larger industrial engineering and computer consulting firm and I did industrial design and project management on petrochemical, electrical and telecommunications systems, with a lot of work in oil refineries.

Previously, I had spent five years on a "sabatical" doing investigative journalism, political research and domestic anti-terrorism. This was the most fun I've ever had, but it is economically impossible without institutional support. I continue to do this as I see fit, though I went through "post espionage depression" when things cooled down after the Y2K panic subsided. I don't know anybody else who has done this sort of thing on a full-time, freelance basis, so I'm sort of unique that way. It's sort of like being a cross between Sherlock Holmes and a Len Deighton character. I really want to be Buckaroo Banzai.

Among other things, I got on the militia activity over a year before Oklahoma City (and was the first source quoted in world media identifying it as domestic, as opposed to international terrorism.) I also smashed up a complex network of county secessionists, broke the first internet fraud case that involved the FTC, worked building a multi-state network of local human rights groups, started an international network that tracks far right terrorism that is still running (the border militias look like they are going to be a national problem in a year or so), provided background research for US and British media, wrote what is considered the best analysis of the WTO protests, worked on the anthrax investigation and a host of other things. It was occasionally scary, but mostly high-adrenalin scholarship. I show up in the footnotes and references of a number of books. Since 2002, I decided to work more openly. I was never undercover or used false identities, but I did try as hard as I could to be very low profile. Coming out has been the hardest part, because I had unconsciously developed a lot of very covert habits.

Before that I worked at a federally funded program housed at a university to develop interactive videodisc (a cool but totally obsolete technology) for training social workers and child abuse investigators. I previously helped develop the PROPI computer based training authoring system under contract with IBM. I've also been a ceramic tile contractor, combine driver, organized a wildcat strike, designed museum exhibits at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, built high-energy particle detectors for a neutrino research project, clerked in hardware and autoparts stores and worked as a film editor and assistant director. And I have two twelve year-old cats, Buckaroo Banzai and Penny Priddy.

As long as we're talking about former jobs: Before my current job I spent 4 years working as a salesman for a chain of computer stores that has since shut it's doors (it's logo was a cow); Before that I did a spell as a phone support guy for a small database company, the guy who got me hired was fired for excessive absenteeism a week after I arrived, and the college intern left, leaving me, 2 weeks in, as the entire support department. I got out toot sweet. Before that I worked at a large chain bookstore as a clerk (I tried to unionize it, got hauled into court for my trouble); before that I worked at another chain bookstore; before that I was a baker's helper at the world's weirdest grocery which features animatronic dairy products singing country songs (their logo features a cow, too, seems to be a theme in my life, maybe I should be a dairy farmer); Before that I worked in an industrial bakery of a company who's slogan ended in "remembahss." Before that I was a college student for two disatrous years. I also spent a couple months working at a newsstand in New Haven in the little DMZ between Yale & the ghetto.I've done my share of temp gigs, like working at a Winston Cup track as a ticket taker, and doing inventory in a clothes store in Pequena Habana where I spent an evening counting 350 pair of thong underwear. In high school, I was a busboy, landscaper, grocery stocker and countless other things.

Production Manager-Magazines--fell into it 10 years ago, and love the field and the people. It's a job i like doing, and i like providing info, and i like that there's a tangible concrete product i can hold each month and say, "I helped make that happen", etc.

It's not my life tho--it allows me to pay my rent, go travelling, live my life, etc. It's not intellectually challenging (which is why i'm always on MeFi), and it's only sometimes technically challenging--i don't really get to learn enough new things from it for my taste, altho recently it has been. And i have learnt many things from the content i'd never have known.

I kinda wish i was doing warbaby stuff--stuff that really made a bigger difference in the world. (altho i do think that providing info does make a difference, esp. where i'm working now). And i've always wanted to live in Europe, altho that's becoming less and less possible, i think.

taz, wanna start a magazine together over there? : >

[warbaby, a message from the Hong Kong Cavaliers awaits you. At least that's what this guy named John told me.]

Omigod, jon, STEW LEONARD'S!!! Thank you! I was trying to remember the name of that place just recently! I lived in CT and NJ with my boyfriend for a year after college, and I remember going to Stew Leonard's and being just dumbfounded... I was trying to describe it the other day to a friend of mine (but couldn't for the life of me remember what it was actually called), and she just raised one eyebrow and said, "you know, you did a lot of drugs in college. Are you sure you didn't just hallucinate this?" And for a split second, I wasn't sure if I did or not.

Also, the owner of that weird grocery store did time for tax evasion, a college buddy of mine went to prison for selling Amy Fisher the gun she used to shoot Mary Jo. This seems to be another theme in my life.

scody, If you happened to visit there in 1991-92, and saw a flower covered pimply schmuck in a paper hat through the bakery window, yeah, that was me.

flour covered pimply schmuck, dammit. I worked the bakery, not the floral department.

Also, I got my current job through a freindship that started at MeFi, just add more weird icing to my oddcake.

Former jobs: my undergrad degree was in neuroscience/pharmacology+toxicology and all through grad school I worked nights as a poisons info. officer at the national poison control centre. I loved that job - it was reasonably intellectually stimulating, good people and I had a lot of responsibility. But no chance for career development, unless one of the bosses left. Otherwise I probably would have stayed after I finished my PhD.

As you can imagine, there are some interesting stories from that job.

jonmc, I personally prefer the image of you covered in flowers. Taking punk to a whole new level.

Why does everybody always use "punk" when referring to me? Even though I love punk rock, count many punks as friends, and have hung out on various punk scenes, I don't consider myself a punk. Punks don't listen to Mountain and ZZ Top unironically.

I say this mainly because I don't want to be anybody's punk flag carrier, since I'm not really a member of the club.

well, I've worked a lot of food service jobs, including three years at the only vegetarian restaurant in Columbia, MO. Worked at a few bars, including a billiards hall and a live music (mostly indie) bar...

The only full=time job i've ever had was a receptionist/office support for a real-estate office/law office/spanish language broadcasting affiliate HQ...but now i lead guided canoe trips down the Missouri River, and do landscaping/home renovations in Rocheport, MO (pop. 208). Essentially I work as little as possible and am consequently very poor (monetarily.)

I'd like to get certified to teach english as a second language...and either teach in europe or japan...

I'd like to get certified to teach english as a second language.

That's been one of my mom's jobs (she immigrated from Italy at age 7) at various places over the years. She taught it in a night school class at the University of Bridgeport, which is owned by the unification Church. Her Asian students would start papers with "I am very happy to be at Reverend Moon University..."

Jon, 1991-92 was exactly when I lived in that neck of the woods! I don't recall any flour-covered (or flower-covered, for that matter) bakery assistants, but I do recall the almost other-worldly wonder of the chocolate cheesecakes we'd get there...perhaps baked by your own two hands!

My pre-career jobs included telephone operator, record store clerk, subscription renewal phone pest for Time magazine, stock boy (first job), janitor, library assistant, grounds crew flunky (lots of weed whacking and trimming bushes), and gas station attendant. Oh the glamour of youth.

Nah, those were outsourced. I made bread and rolls. I was also the only native-born whiteboy in the deaprtment except for this Down's Syndrome kid named Vinnie (who went to high school with my former roommate, she said he'd spontaneously breakdance at school dances) until this guy from Binghamton came along. Everyone else was from Italy, Poland, Latin America, or the Caribbean. A regualar linguistic boullibaise I had fomenting around me, I did.

Oh, I forgot my telemarketing gig: selling home heating tests over the phone, in the summer, during the Gulf War. The guy next to me was some kind of nut who would deliver his pitch at The Who Live In Concert decibel levels.

I say this mainly because I don't want to be anybody's punk flag carrier, since I'm not really a member of the club.

Amongst my friends, there's a difference between 'punk rock' a 'punk' attitude. 'Punk' in this case is not a nod to the music/scene sense so much as in reference to an disinclination to be pigeonholed in a way that lacks pretense and has nothing to prove. (Admittedly, I could be wrong about this assessment of you, in which case, I stand corrected.)

This is quite unlike the kidlets who come into the club to the for some of the music shows who are walking studies in conformed nonconformism. In response to the crazy ass, marginally believable stories they tell, I say, with a hint of irony but a big smile, "Dude/Lady! You're SO punk-rock!" Which appears to be the correct thing to say, as they either high five each other or try to buy me a shot.

Hope that clears things up, but I have no problem avoiding the word when referring to you.

an disinclination to be pigeonholed in a way that lacks pretense and has nothing to prove.

cleared up perfectly, and thanks for the compliment.

Yup!

I teach music privately for a living out of a one-room studio in my apartment. I teach mostly guitar but also keyboard, recorder, ear training, music theory and music history (from a western perspective: no ragas so far). I’m currently teaching myself to play the banjo and when I get a handle on that I’ll start teaching banjo as well.

I have about 20 students who come to see me each week and I keep a sideline going in music copying (i.e. printing. I’m currently copying the score and parts for a chamber opera by a local composer). I frequently wish the tables were turned--that I had more printing jobs and less students--but that would be even more lonely. All but two of my students are adults and I like it that way.

It’s a hard gig in that I have to find a balance between following an expected set program for a given “course” and still be able to respond to each student’s desires and abilities as they emerge. I get to play God a lot and it sucks sometimes. Students come to me with certain expectations but the reality is that not everyone is born to play and some people are born to do nothing else but play. It’s up to me to send them down whichever chute and I try to be creative.

I see music as a form of meditation and indeed a human right and I see every being as musical. My darkest days are when I have to discourage someone from a musical path. That has happened and those are my personal failures and I remember their faces. But I can not relate to them at all. :-( I am one who was born to it and I take so much for granted, I know. But I am learning and so I have to hope that by each failure I will be able to turn ten other students into self-described musicians. Altogether terrifying if I think about it too much. It's a good living.

Music is such a deeply felt thing. I foolishly often think of myself as a priest of sorts, but there you have it.

I have been a professional zombie, a telemarketer, a tax preparer, a radio dj, and a nightclub dj.
Right now I'm just another faceless drone in a sea of cubes, typing away at my computer all day long.

It doesn't really satisfy me, but since I'm a college dropout, beggars can't be choosers, and the health benefits are great. Eventually I'll go back to school and do something more with myself.

After a failed attempt to get into a clinical masters/phd program in psych (somewhat self-handicapped due to limited choices of schools due to a relationship I was trying to hold together, despite top (99th percentile) test scores)), my backup plan came through -- law school. Two years off during studies to travel Asia and then work in the courts. Somewhat half-hearted completion. An apprenticeship of sorts on Bay Street (Canada's Wall Street) then jumped ship to work for the Department of Justice, where I've done environmental work, human rights, public policy, and more crim -- some prosecutions, etc. Right now drafting legislative texts, but considering a jump back to crim/crim policy.

If I stay in this line of work, I'll probably become a provincial crown attorney so I can get out of Ottawa. Go to Toronto or Van.

If I leave, well, the possibilities are endless. I will be applying shortly to teach English in Japan (having had to turn an offer down previously as my law school wouldn't give me a third year off in a row -- go figure) and my divemaster ticket beckons in Malaysia. Though if I stay with Justice, I can work to take regular years off -- say every third -- and spend a season in Malaysia/Indo/Thailand, another teaching snowboarding in BC, and use the remaining time to write or do some extra-curricular legal work (barring conflicts with Justice). Still adjusting to life in an office. It ain't easy. I occasionally consider jumping ship to work as a delegate for the ICRC, but our country just does not protect our citizens abroad, and aid workers get killed more often now than peacekeepers. Were I to go the completely self-interested route, I'd chuck it all and do theatre instead.

Oh, former jobs: about a dozen jobs cooking, doing security, alarm company dispatch, working for bookstores, Greenpeace, and many more. Then some specialist ones: youth counsellor, crisis counsellor, crisis stabilization unit psych staff, air traffic control (IFR), probation officer, and the usual slough of research jobs in the law.

Ideal job: (for years and years) planetarium host. Too bad they're all disappearing.

Plan-eh-arium?

The only job I've held thus far is being a food runner at a chain restaurant. I hate it. I would be very happy working at a mom-and-pop, we-do-it-because-we-love-it place, but as it is, the establishment I work in is a breeding ground for the bastard child of restaurants and corporations: rules, rules, rules, and none of the fun or energy that compensates for the occasional slow night with low pay.

I've applied for jobs in retail at the apple store and h&m, but even though they were hiring, I never got called back. I'm thinking of getting a job driving a pick up truck around all day at the local state park.

I've applied for jobs in retail at the apple store and h&m, but even though they were hiring, I never got called back.

I had an interview at the Manhattan Apple Store. They have a strange zen koan interview style. I never got a callback either despite 4 years of computer sales experience. Kinda soured me on the company.

I'm kind of bitter and vengeful about jobs right now, so this isn't going to be the happiest post.

Right now I'm working for a nice but crazy man who owns (with his ex-wife, which adds to the fun) an upscale vegetarian restaurant, a micro brewery and a pub. He hired me 4 months ago to do his marketing and PR but it turns out that what he really wanted was a PA. So I'm his PA. Sometimes I do wacky weird stuff like drive 20 miles to pick up his special fish food, drop off his son's soccer uniforms, connect his home computer and try to sell his house, but most of the time I sit in the office and scheme on how to get out of there before he fires me on a whim or I go crazy. Then there are the days he wants me to do strange manual labor, like heft & carry restaurant equipment from one warehouse to another. I'm bored and miserable. I had a job interview last week; unfortunately it didn't go all that well. I'm still looking.

Until March I was the Communications & Office Manager for an art museum. Aspects of that were good, but I'd been there for five years when the Curator of Education quit & I applied, since I have 6 years in my background of working in museum education at a much bigger & better art museum, and I loved it. I was passed over for someone with a graduate degree and no experience or education background. When my boss than blithely told me that I could add some of the Ed. Curator's job duties to mine since I had proved I could do them, while the new person did the job of the other useless curator since he won't do it, I started looking and landed this job. In retrospect, very bad move. All I have to say is I believed the lies I was told - and I didn't realize the serious ADD craziness of my new boss.

I really want to stop working for a while and try to write a book, or stop working for a while and do nothing, but I don't think I can really do that. I need the money too bad. But I'm burned out and exhausted and all I can think is god, I wish I could just take a couple weeks off. My new boss doesn't believe in vacations or holidays or sick time: you don't go to work, you don't get paid.

I have two kids and they have been the focus of my life for 22 years (I started very young.) Now my daughter is grown and my son is 13 and I need to find a new focus, a new career, something. I'm thinking about trying to find a job in advertising, I'm thinking about trying to write a book, I'm thinking about trying to teach - but I really don't know where I'm going to go or what I'm going to do. I have to stay in Asheville for family reasons and so some of my options are limited.

Wow, CE, what a great post.

kellydamnit, any ideas of what you'll go back to school for or 'wildest dreams' positions?

invitapriore, when I finally cave and open a place with my friends, you can come and work with us. We have fun, especially on the slow nights. The rest of y'all can jusst come in and enjoy the joint.

I'm thoroughly enjoying these comments, not only because of how much more each person becomes 'real', but for how it lends a different angle on comments in other threads or thread posts themselves. For example, Critical Envelope started two threads about music this weekend. Hearing about his profession and deep connection with music adds something to the nature of those questions that I'm not sure I would have picked up on otherwise. (I have been known to be somewhat dense from time to time, however.)

And reading this thread with gaspode's thread about people's workday is truly fascinating stuff. I really like getting to know of you by reading your personal stories.

Hope there's more to come!

mgl: that's some roughness, for sure and I'm sorry to hear it, but thanks for honestly commenting. At the very least, you've now got a bunch of MeCha folk who all know a bunch of other folk. Never can have too many eyes scoping things out for you.

critical envelope is the best mispelled username ever...good on ya, frisbee girl!

Ahahahaha!!!! I was editing that while on the phone with a friend who was ranting about 'critical tasks'. Oh dear, I'm blushing. Sorry Cryptical Envelope!

*backs slowly away from keyboard*

Well, currently, I work as an Auditor - VET Quality (nothing to do with animals - VET = Voational Education and Training). I never would have pictured myself as working for the government but, after being ripped off by three different employers (all small businesses) and ending up jobless and out of pocket, I am happy to be in a stable position where I actually feel like there are people above me on the food chain who are interested in me and in my professional development. This is not at all what I expected when I started working for the government, so it has been a pleasant surprise. Plus, I have been encouraged by my Team Leader to apply for an upcoming Team Leader position, which will give my more responsibility (not to mention an extra $8k in salary).

As far as the job goes, I audit Registered Training Organisations against their compliance with a set of national standards known as the Australian Quality Training Framework (AQTF), which is not nearly as boring as it sounds. I go out and visit the organisations (private colleges, large companies who train their own apprentices, government departments, etc etc) and spend a day or so evaluating their quality systems as well as their training and assessment resources, then report on their level of compliance. I get to meet lots of people without having to be dealing with people all the time and I get to feel that I can make a difference in an industry that I am passionate about. I am also on the Board of Recreation Training Queensland (RTQ), who provide advice to government departments and industry on the training needs of the sport and recreation industry. I enjoy this a great deal, even though this is only a voluntary (therefore unpaid) position, as I work with a group of people who are as passionate about the education and training industry as I am, particularly in the sport & rec area. I acutally got my current job in large part because of my involvement with RTQ, so the work has paid off in more ways than one.

Before this job, I was Principal of a private college in the sport area, which meant huge responsibilities, long hours (including being available 24/7/365 by mobile phone), lots of dealing with stupid people (mainly my scumbag boss) and lots of stress. I get about $5k less for my current job, but it would be worth losing much more than that. Before that, I worked at a private college, starting as receptionist and working my way up to a dual role of IT Manager and International Marketing Manager. I enjoyed the job, but the company was failing so I got out while the getting was good.

Before those, I spent 13 year as a boat builder, which was pretty cool sometimes but mostly dirty, dangerous and uncomfortable work. I got out after the second time I had a company go bust and I lost all the money I was owed (the industry was very dodgy back then).

I have always identified personally with my job and would slit my wrists if I had to do a job in which I had no interest. I could not spend 40 hours a week doing something I hated and maintain any will to live.

This post and this recent post got me thinking. Does anyone use LinkedIn and do you want to join networks? Drop me an e-mail. Two of the people on my network have had interviews in the past month or so.

I used to write for a medical trade pub. When the kid was born, I decided to quit so I could be with her. Fortunately, my editor didn't want to lose me and talked me into staying on as a freelancer. It's a perfect situation. I get to be with my kid, stay in the loop and make some money, while my daughter gets to see me doing a job I love.

The message seems to be clicking with her. For her 3rd birthday she got a doodle pad. She scribbled all over it and asked me to submit it to my editor so she could get some money to go to McDonalds.

jrossi4r, that is way cool but get her off the McDonalds thing. ;)

Well, her thinking was that if she earned her own money, I couldn't turn her down. Always one step ahead, that one.

smart (and creative) kid : >

Why thank you.

I used to be an actor/director/choreographer/improver. For ten years. It got to be so thankless, wield, stressful and non-lucrative, I burn out, lost my funny, retired and I am now an underwriter. True story, can't make that stuff up. I stumbled into it, starting as an administrative assistant. It suits me, it's quiet, independent work.

kellydamnit, any ideas of what you'll go back to school for or 'wildest dreams' positions?

I would like to finish the degree I was working on when I left school. I went through a few different majors, but eventually settled on English Literature and a minor in Irish studies.
My job will pay for me to go to school, but only if it is work related. However, all I need are general education credits to finish, so I may be able to get them to cover it.

As for what I want to do... your guess is as good as mine. If I could make a living as a DJ, pull in, say, 25,000 a year, I'd be the happiest girl in the world. But even at my best I never made more than $25/hour for a couple hours a week of work.

I'm really getting too old to put off deciding what I want to do with my life, but I honestly have no idea.

I work in an investment bank, in the treasury section. Foreign currency derivatives operations -- back-office stuff. Glorified bean-counting pays the bills.

Though I work as hard and accurately as possible, work is not important to me. I've done many things: farm work, sales, retail management, teaching, cooking, production assistance (commercials), factory work (plastics), exterminator's assistant -- not in that order. I ran my own design business until the bubble I was on, burst. I played violin in the pit orchestra of an opera company.

Work pays. Paychecks allow me to live reasonably. That allows me to pursue whatever I choose, when I'm not working. Right now, that's theater.

New York is a great place to do what I do.

[Check this out -- as I was writing this, my boss came over and offered me a promotion. Not 100% certain yet, but in the works. Oh, frabjous day!]

I do newspaper real estate advertising. I have been here since October, although I spent four years doing newspaper advertising at a smaller suburban newspaper chain. (I quit that job to go back to school full-time and finish my journalism degree in 2001.)

Between finishing my degree in December 2001 and starting here in October, I did a lot of temp work. Some of the assignments were interesting, some were crappy, and from the end of June until October I had no assignments at all. Nothing like having no income and no idea when I would again, let me tell you.

Other things I've done: Office clerk for the village, computer lab monitor at school, assistant in the public information department at the library. (I got to do the newsletter and take pictures and videos of library summer events. Fun stuff. : )) I also did door-to-door sales for three weeks and am amazed I stayed that long. (For a branch of DS-Max, if anyone knows about that.)

I had a kickass internship at Advertising Age in the summer of 1994. Not the typical copies-and-coffee thing...my second day on the job I was interviewing the president of a PR agency! I got a lot of bylines, which was cool. : ) Oh yeah, and it was paid, which is a rarity for a magazine internship.

Hugh's paying for all the drinks at the next NYC meetup! ; >

sisterhavana, an AdAge internship? That kicks ass right there, but getting bylines AND paid as well? You jammy bastard!

Hey, I said I live reasonably, not comfortably!

I work for a littlish (we got big balls) indie publishing company, I do in no particular order: Editorial, web stuff, office stuff, finance stuff, direct sales, special sales, fix things and kick the shit out of toner scammers and door to door T1 line salesmen. I love it and it pays shite.

In the past I have worked as an internet production type thing manager, for a rare book dealer, as a video editor and post-production manager, a doorman in NYC (nuts!) a barback, scatch construction (hanging drywall, painting, sweeping, demo, making sure there was classic rock on the shitty little radio and that everyone had enough egg sandwhiches) a deli guy (I got sent to the basement to fill cups with ice and drank 11 snapples and they had to let me go) and in a bronze sculpture foundry.

So many people have such interesting and varied work histories, and often seem to end up at nice-sounding (even if shite-paying) jobs. Almost makes me vaguely optimistic, until I remember that I can look forward to zero experience-gaining for the next several years.

i wanted to answer this because it seems taz thinks i'm being dodgy and others lean in the divinecrypticalslackamudwino way, but mostly because people forget the internet is part of the outside world.
There's a lot of stuff i can't talk about because of a mix of deborah and warbaby reasons, and i don't cloak my personal info because last year i had to exempt myself from a lot of things, because my overall credo is do as little harm as possible and my interlife was messing up my non interlife.
so there's a lot of stuff i don't want to be specific about, because of how it will (a/e)ffect other people far more than any consequence to me. but yeah, lots of stuff end up bearing more consequence than you'd think.

work and job have very different meanings to me. "work" is what i do that is important to me and when it coincides with a "job" or "task" or "project," that's great. So i suppose that makes my work my life and my jobs' my jobs but my work isn't who i am either.
i've been way up and in and way down and out and the biggest difference in all of it is as it is nationally, if not globally: the bottom line, the poverty line. past that there isn't much difference but playing around that line, everything is a world of difference.

it's very hard to care about world peace when your eye hurts because fuck, my eye hurts! and my eye does hurt but i can take care of it just fine.
it's a particularly (but not exclusively) US idea that you are your job, and that's another US export i question.

Then there is that other line at the other end where you have to deal with leeches, sychophants, starfuckers, etc. so now i'm not sure what to say at all right now, and i'm sure this is a nice big chalky chunk of text already before i've gotten to anything specific.

I work as an IT consultant at one of Sweden's cellphone network operators. I don't do much actual consulting & am more just a regular programmer. Most of my work just involves making sure stuff gets printed out right on the bills. Previously, I worked for a company who made ticket-machines & barriers for the London Underground, for a multinational logistics company, for a satellite TV broadcaster based in Rome, for the payroll-&-personnel division of a UK software & systems company, and for a small company who sold dodgy software to TV companies.

Oh, & to answer FrisbeeGirl's question: I do it for the money, & not the fun.

btw, i still plan to cherry pick out of this lot for our budding micronation/collective 'topia but i'm still having a problem finding the dormant volcano dodgy demands we have our headquarters in

i think you do a better job when you like what you do and having been for the most part in a "liason/consultant/agent" capacity in a weird wide variety of things, i'm hoping to find the right people for the right job.
i believe we still have a slot for a gifted enviromental engineer although i have a back up.
and a bunny wrangler as well as a good ad hoc biochemist.

i wanted to answer this because it seems taz thinks i'm being dodgy and others lean in the divinecrypticalslackamudwino way, but mostly because people forget the internet is part of the outside world.

ethylene,
Am I doomed to always misunderstanding you? Is that part of the deal? I am totally into obliqueness and I love an unsolvable mystery, but you are gonna have to drop a few more breadcrumbs. I'm totally taking the bait aren't I? This is how a twenty year old battle scarred trout feels before it bites through the wonderbread and onto the hook.