I draw things in AutoCAD that look similar to this, and I email my boyfriend.

I stare at a cardiac monitor. I enter figures. I take blood pressures and O2 sats. I wheel people to the ER if things aren't going well, like unrelieved chest pain or a new arrythmia. I teach people how to use exercise equipment. I fax things, file things, and answer phones.

I walk on the treadmill, row, and do the stairclimber. I lift weights. I eat lunch.

I am on high alert. I'm paranoid. If I hear the clanking of a Nautilus machine I think someone has fallen down. Last week a patient yelled my name across the room. I thought I was going to have to code somebody. She couldn't find the coffee cups. Jeez, don't scare me like that.

If you don't know what I do all day, you wandered into the wrong website by mistake.

I play with a very happy toddler. I try to encourage him to venture beyond Cheerios, Cheetos and Yo Baby yogurt (yes, that is all he will eat). I take him to Gymboree. We play outside every chance we get. I do the laundry. I fix a decent dinner, most nights. I occasionally do a freelance gig in my old business (tv news) but I'm mostly over that and am grooving on the mom thing for now.

Ah, Kangaroo, you reminded me. I only do the above once a week or so. My other job is taking the kids to school and doing a whole lotta nothing until I pick them up.

Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.

Kangaroo, it sounds like the skills you have would translate very well to my current job, somehow.

Actually some of what Lori does, as well :)

jonmc, i could totally use your drinking skilz right about now.

I type words into a computer.

Specklet: oooooOOOOooooo! AutoCAD = fun (picture the worshipful awe of the little blue alien toys from Toy Story, there)

Aw, lfr, that's very sweet! But actually, AutoCAD = really complex headaches when the set is 160 sheets and someone re-numbered the elevations you'd had in a particular way for a good reason, dammit and you've got neck problems from mousing so much.

I will say, though, that the other day I was talking over with an architect some crazy-ass cabinetry detail I'd designed and drafted and realized, hey, those seven years in the field actually paid off: I know how to DO this!

Specklet, but see, those aren't specifically AutoCAD related headaches. That's just people being poopooheads, which is something I confront on a daily basis.

yea, I know, isn't technical proficiency a cool thing? I whipped out some ninja Excel skilz on a dude today and he totally got this scared look of wonder that made me giggle. OOOOHH LOOK AT THOSE NUMBERS DANCE!!!!

another day, another step closer to getting fired.

I administrate a la John Stuart Mills:

"That vast net-work of administrative tyranny... that system of bureaucracy, which leaves no free agent in all France, except the man at Paris who pulls the wires."

Sometimes I get to make pretty Excel and PowerPoint things. I collect cute clip art. I'm in charge of the Web site, thankfully. It's the only clearly productive thing I do...

I refresh the email and request forms (3 of them) multiple times a day. If requests/emails come in, I go fill them (pop on the lift, get book, photocopy requested pages, send article or book to patron/library). If the request is bad or 'a special', I go look it up on the internet to collect the rest of the information. (If you give me only an author and half a journal title, I will hurt you.)
I type up the previous days request numbers. I check in books in the afternoon. I stand on the lift and write down all the information on the microform boxes in teeny squares, then enter that information into a spreadsheet (new mapping project that no one knows about yet, but is going to shit the bed when they see it).
I process new books (rarely) into trays, then put said trays on their proper shelves. I sit at my computer and refresh various websites and make snarky statements.

In short: I fill orders, make obscene amounts of photocopies, hit refresh repeatedly, type stuff into a computer, and use a laser.
(I love my job.)

I remember a post by somebody (TPS?) about how autocad causes cameltoe... Anybody else remember that?

When I'm in the office, I answer stupid questions via e-mail, phone and in person. I resist smacking my (temporary) boss upside the head for her snotty attitude (you can hear everyone in the office muttering under their breath ("three more days, three more days, three more days", referring to to time remaining in her stint as our manager). I write reports, I read and correct other people's reports, I write briefs for the Minister, I moderate decisions with other team leaders, I attend interminable meetings where I struggle (sometimes unsuccessfully) to stay awake.

When I'm on the road, I measure how well or poorly organisations have complied with the quality framework my team administers, I give presentations about the framework to industry groups and organisations, I attend more meetings and I spend time in airports ostensibly working via remote access, but really surfing MeFi/Mecha (I do that in the office too, of course).

That's about it, which is pretty sad.

I'm here in case Bad Things happen: heart attacks, strokes, fires, earthquakes, floods, famines, plagues of locusts, etc.

I have a lot of slow nights. All things considered, that's preferable.

I try my best to make the web a prettier place despite the lack of style and taste of many of my clients.

*passes lfr pint of Maker's Mark*

wolf it, babe.

I think I help people print mainly. They seem to have problems printing.

I lurch around dragging my knuckles, and grunt intelligently in response to questions.

I watch movies, and tv and surf the web then I go to lunch then I watch more tv and surf more of the web. Oh and I take peoples money and answer questions about their cable accounts during commercial breaks.

It tough work. Damned commercials...

I lounge around in a sarong at home playing with the cat, watching DVD's and spending too much time online. Occasionally, I'll box up a strangely-shaped item to post to the nice people who give me money. Some days, for variety, I'll do all the above but fully-clothed.

It's a bit of a lonely life, but somehow I find the fortitude (IRC + gin = fortitude) to get through the day.

:)

Back in 2001 - 2002, I was literally paid to read MeFi, Plastic and whatever else I fancied all day stealing ideas, er I mean, researching ideas for using the web as a marketing and training tool.

Now that I am disabled, I take a nap whenever I want.

I smile and politely help knuckle draggers. eekacat, you must be one of my customers.

I spend a lot of time answering questions, many stupid, in person, by email and over the phone. I also spend a lot of time on the bus and walking around in the wind, thinking that if I had this job in any other city I'd get a car, getting to the many interminable meetings I attend.

But lately I've been getting paid to hang out a lot with a totally adorable three-week-old baby (the daughter of one of the service users we support, who, due the nature of her mum's disability was placed on the child protection register before she was born and so must have 24-hour support until mum's assessed as a capable parent) and it is lovely. I also have to spend lots of time reassuring the mother that she can trust herself as she is shit-scared her baby is going to be taken away, which isn't so lovely.

I fiddle around making posters and brochures and rack cards and ads and labels for exhibitions. I take pictures and photoshop them into submission, then put them in the posters. I write press releases and email them off with pictures of cute kids or rocks attached. I collect info from the staff and then edit and write and design the newsletter. I fend off printers and phone book ad sales reps. Everyone calls me whenever their computer doesn't work (why me, oh lord?) and so, like richat, I help people print. I update the website occasionally. I send out membership renewal reminders and new membership cards and thank you letters to donors and track all the money that comes in and I write begging letters and make them look both attractive and pathetic like we really need the money (which we do.) I plan events and when they happen I move tables around and hang up signs and tend bar. I answer questions, often answer the phone and on Mondays I do the Z report for the cash register in the gift shop and count up all the money, even the pennies. In the afternoons I often sit at the front desk and greet visitors to the museum. Very occasionally I teach a class or supervise kids on a self guided museum tour. And, a couple of times a week I use a cast iron pipe cutter to crack a geode for someone who's bought one in the gift shop. Ah nonprofits - they're not boring.