What is Your Job/Career?

[Dubbag]

What do you do? Me, I work at my family's Italian restaurant as a cook.

Edited July 3, 2021 by Dubbag

[Lüt]

Officially, I went to college for graphic design. They offered 3 separate focuses for graphic artist, print production, and package design. I ended up doing all 3, along with a digital photography certificate. It would end up being the certificate, rather than the degrees, that got me most of my work. I started off by doing some photo restoration using Photoshop, and eventually references grew until it became my main thing.

 

That said, I've only done it freelance, and never as an official company employee. Not surprisingly, pretty much nothing has happened in that line of work since 2020. I'd like to get employed by a proper company eventually, if only for standard employee benefits.

 

My last official job was as a private tutor at the local community college. I also did their music program back in 2008-2011, and apparently I did well enough that they decided to hire me to teach music theory / aural skills / class piano / music lit to enrolled students for the next 4 years. Once I finished working there, I still took a few general students for private lessons, but again, nothing has happened in that line of work since 2020.

[Dubbag]

5 minutes ago, Lüt said:

My last official job was as a private tutor at the local community college. I also did their music program back in 2008-2011, and apparently I did well enough that they decided to hire me to teach music theory / aural skills / class piano / music lit to enrolled students for the next 4 years.

i envy you, ive studied music for over 20 years and alot of theory goes over my head.

[smeghammer]

Most of my working life I've been a coder/developer.

 

I actually started my university career training to become a microbiologist/biochemist specialising in molecular genetics (DNA and gene sequencing and all that fun stuff) but got interested in basic web site building too in my spare time.

 

The whole GM food media scare hit around the time I got looking for academic and research jobs so that was a no-go unfortunately. I managed to get a crappy job installing IT hardware and thus my career went that way.

 

I learned to program properly (in another company) with Java, SQL and a bit of C# and that gave me the skills to base learning other languages on. Currently I'm working for a local search and site optimisation consultancy as a python3, MongoDB and javascript full stack developer.

 

 

[Lüt]

3 minutes ago, Dubbag said:

ive studied music for over 20 years and alot of theory goes over my head.

Heh, you know, the best way to learn it is to teach it.

 

I spent 3 years fumbling around with simple / compound time, and was so happy to finish the program and never have to get a test question on it ever again. Then they hired me, and the first thing that happens is I get flood of messages from MUS101 students needing help with simple / compound time, so immediately I'm like "ohhhh shit, here we go!"

 

The first few lessons were a bit shaky, but I mostly got the students through with example exercises, and after that, it became really easy to explain. Something about seeing people react to your explanations can be a good guide as to whether you're even thinking about it clearly yourself, and because there's such a variety of personality types and educational backgrounds among college students, you get really experienced at adapting your explanations to all kinds of audiences.

 

I'm pretty sure most of the things I learned in class would've slipped out of my mind or remained a confused haze if I hadn't had to explain them so many times to so many people. That process was the one thing that really made it all stick. Acing the classes was just a rough start at best.

[Chezza]

Direct answer: Marketing

Long winded version: Years ago there were a couple similar threads. In one I said I was unemployed after completing uni but still content.

 

The next thread, I said I got employed in a phone sales role that I really didn't like but managed to commit to it for a solid few years. I was disappointed that after getting a degree I landed in such a job and was poorly treated, also my ethics prevented me from performing well. I stuck around to move up where I wanted to be.

 

And I'm happy to say just a few months ago I finally got the role I wanted as a Marketing Specialist. My efforts has paid off. I've never been so content in my work life as I am now. Even my "flaws" from my sales role preventing me from hitting targets the are now strengths and already has won me awards.

 

I'm happy!

[RDETalus]

Went to engineering school, started a couple businesses, one related to engine technology another related to video game accessories, now working in construction

[ZeroTheEro]

I'm a meter reader for electricity. My job is to stare at meters (with binoculars most of the time), punch in the numbers to my PDA and then print out the bill for you.

Also I don't work in USA.

[Biodegradable]

I'm a freelance video editor. I got my start in November 2018 and have been at it consistently ever since. I don't make a great deal of money currently, but I've been slowly able to improve my income over time, even during the pandemic which has been a welcomed relief. My current goal is to simply make a substantial enough increase so I can improve my overall quality of life. I mainly work with YouTubers right now but I'm hoping to expand my clientele in the future and land some larger contract jobs. I'd really like to edit a documentary or a short film or even a full length movie one day. It's not the career path I originally envisioned for myself, but that's so ridiculously common that I shouldn't be too concerned about it. I'm just glad my original career ambitions of being an animator (a job I REALLY wasn't cut out for) gave me a lot of training/skills that are quite transferable since both disciplines fall under the same umbrella of Filmmaking.

 

I really enjoy what I do and I don't have any plans to do anything else. After being unemployed for 6 years, editing videos has proven to be the only thing that's actually worked, so I plan to keep on doing it for a long time.

Edited July 3, 2021 by Biodegradable

[leejacksonaudio]

Officially: Disability Retirement, on Social Security Disability Income.

 

Unofficially: Making a paltry sum off of my discography at https://leejackson1.bandcamp.com . No, paltry is too kind of a word. Meager is more like it, I think. Nothing is selling lately.

[Yumheart]

I'm a student. I generally like school because most people in my class are pretty nice, and the assholes mostly keep to themselves.

[TwinBeast]

I'm kinda unemployed. I do gig work at a gender diversity support centre as an instructor in support groups for transwomen and volunteer in other groups. I get paid a little, but also get unemployment benefit. Currently they've been just online, hopefully live groups later when the covid situation improves.

Also making a game at home, though I've had some concentration issues the past two months and work on that has been pretty minimal.

 

Just started driving school, but not planning on making a career from driving, although I have pretty good navigation skills.

[PBeGood]

Student/Programmer

[Mayomancer]

Comp sci student. Until recently i worked part time in IT support, but just yesterday i scored a job as a C# dev.

[RDETalus]

2 hours ago, ZeroTheEro said:

I'm a meter reader for electricity. My job is to stare at meters (with binoculars most of the time), punch in the numbers to my PDA and then print out the bill for you.

Also I don't work in USA.

Do you ever use your binoculars to look into peoples houses

[Teo Slayer]

For now I am a student. In the future I want to be either a chef, actor, historian or programmer

[MFG38]

I work at a local sanitation service company, sorting laundry and putting it into different containers and machines. Not the most glamorous job, but I like how straightforward it is. Don't need to be switching modes on a second's notice, since I always have the pre-determined station where I work for the day.

Edited August 17, 2021 by MFG38

[Phobus]

According to my job title, I'm a Tech Lead. That's not true in any sense.

 

According to my certifications, I'm an AWS Cloud specialist, with a raft of other experiences in Cloud and other IT (particularly SQL and databases), although that doesn't really cover what I actually do. Cloud Architect is where I'm heading, though... I think. Hell, go back to my degree and I'm a Computer Games Software Designer, which is something I've never done professionally (i.e. been paid for).

 

According to the team I'm in, I work in Cloud Architecture Transformation, which is just about vague enough to encapsulate what I'm doing. The reality is that we're a technical pre-sales team in a huge company, and I'm so junior and with incomplete experience, despite my qualifications and years "in the industry" that I don't seem to do much, so much as assist with things and complete training. There's a leap to being a competent professional in my field, and it's incredibly difficult to scratch together quantifiable experience and success in order to make it. That, above all, is what I'm doing as a job - trying to make that leap. Then I'll be a skilled professional in an in-demand field and finally start advancing a career.

 

 

Edited July 3, 2021 by Phobus

[INfront95]

Well, i have a degree in International Trade and Foreign languages.

 

Right now i am working at familly business with occasional translation jobs.

Edited July 3, 2021 by INfront95

[Redneckerz]

A little bit like Phobus, a jack of all trades.

 

On paper: A servicedesk engineer at a medium sized hospital.

 

In practice: Workplace engineer, process manager (for Information gathering and documenting, basically something like the DoomWiki, but for the hospital), project coordination (Hospital wide upgrade of the nurses pager system back in November) and various other stuff.

 

That has been all in the 1.5 years i have been working there. I get a lot of freedoom to do what i want to achieve, which suggests a rather high level of trust is in place.

[Biodegradable]

59 minutes ago, Phobus said:

There's a leap to being a competent professional in my field, and it's incredibly difficult to scratch together quantifiable experience and success in order to make it. That, above all, is what I'm doing as a job - trying to make that leap. Then I'll be a skilled professional in an in-demand field and finally start advancing a career.

 

You can do it, pal!

[Major Arlene]

I'm an accountant.

Not The Accountant, just an accountant. :P I work in a hospitality setting, doing income auditing (checking food tickets for accuracy), accounts payable (yelling at vendors or employees to give us invoices so we can pay bills), and handling cash (sure, I'll break out $300 into quarters, no prob chief).

 

All said, it's a fantastic work setting and my year and a half there has found me much less stressed than my retail job, even despite COVID.

[Clippy]

I work from home e-mailing clients about stuff and binge watch shows on a second computer, shows I would never watch on my own time. It's like background music to me - I finally got to watch the sopranos this way cause who has time to watch stuff

 

Play with my kitties all day I turned my work from home office into a kitty amusement park - always hanging out with me

 

Since pandemic working from home but try not to be lazy, I walk more then ever power hike every morning and play with deer and nature

 

Good times I never want to go back to office screw ppl amirite - my cats never complain

 

Pandemic sux but I been very very lucky

[inkoalawetrust]

None, I have no job, nor any skills or motivation to work anywhere really, and I doubt I'd be able to do any job with a set time to get up, work, sleep etc and a boss telling me what to do, especially since I'm pretty bad at following orders and don't do well in a team or anything like that AFAIK.

At best I may be able to get some miserable IT job that barely makes ends meet, but I'm not too sure about that, because while computers may be one of the few things I have any knowledge in, I still barely know how to actually use one. Plus the exams I had last month to get a diploma or whatever covered computer networking and programming, literally the two IT subjects I know the LEAST about, so I'm pretty sure I'll fail and have to redo the exams next year, which means that instead of being done with school, next school year my mom will enroll me to also learn to become an electrician. Something that I have absolutely no interest or knowledge in. Not getting a diploma or whatever it's called is a problem, since without a paperweight claiming that I know stuff I won't be able to become anything besides a waiter or some shit, and god knows I'd fuck that up with how socially awkward/inept and extremely clumsy and out there I am. So I'd struggle even in a minimum wage job with barely any entrance requirements.

I'm basically spending this summer worried about what the fuck I'll do with my life when I'm so inept and unknowledgeable is much of anything. And how I'll be able to do anything once I have to do another year of school.

TL;DR I don't have a job, may never have one, and if I do have one eventually, it will certainly be miserable, leave me with no free time, and barely give me any income. I'm racing against what are possibly the last 2 months of (A lot of) free time I'll have, to get a new computer and be able to finally resume Doom modding. To at least be able to do something I like before I start wasting away the rest of my life worrying about RL responsibilities and problems 25/8 until I'm 6 feet under.

Edited July 3, 2021 by inkoalawetrust

[magicsofa]

I work on the production team at Fractal Audio Systems. I got hired to do shipping, which takes about 1-2 hours most days, so for the rest of the time I just sit around and play guitar/play chess/stare at my stock portfolio/work on doom mods. Okay, I actually do other stuff... the other major thing is testing. We test and QC every single unit that goes out the door, which is great because I wouldn't have anything to do otherwise. It's fairly easy and monotonous, basically you just plug into every jack you can find and make sure it works correctly. Hit all the buttons. Smack it hard if the fan is noisy, usually fixes itself.

I did get some soldering experience a while back, because there was a major issue with the USB connection. So I learned along with my supervisor how to replace a resistor and cap on the main board. About to launch back into that because it's slow and we still have around 150 units that we never did last year. Company should really be happy because sending it to a third party would cost around $45 per unit, and we would have to remove all the screws for them anyway which is half the job. But I can't complain because I'm making $20 an hour to spend about 25% of my day working and the rest just hanging out. It actually drives me crazy so I will give myself cleaning jobs and stuff.

It's not my dream job at all, but I try to relish how easy it is compared to my previous job (kitchen hustle) and my future goals (to have a farm/restaurant/bed & breakfast). It's incredible how much people get paid to do next to nothing, and how hard others have to work for mere peanuts. At my kitchen job I literally worked 8 hours in a 7 hour day, my lunch break was shoving a burrito down while peering around the corner to make sure no customers/timers going off, and I was incredibly lucky to receive $18.50/hr. If I wasn't a supervisor working at a sort of upscale place in a very rich town, I'd expect a lot less than that. Money is stupid.

[Quasar]

Senior Developer / Software Engineer at Nightdive Studios. I program games and development tools. So far I have worked on Strife: Veteran Edition, Noctropolis, Turok, Turok 2, Forsaken Remastered, Doom 64, SiN Gold, the previously announced SiN remaster, and made minor contributions to Blood EX, Shadow Man Remastered, and the upcoming Bladerunner remaster. In a maybe somewhat surprising manner, due to the small size of our company, programming isn't the only thing I've done - the majority of those games also include some art, sound, and/or writing work I've done. My primary areas of expertise are UI programming, social/platform  systems integration, low-level algorithms and data structures for Kex's library code, enhanced controller features, arguing with Kaiser about the proper associativity of the pointer indicator in C++ declarations, and reverse engineering.

Edited July 3, 2021 by Quasar

[Bubbabooie]

I went to school for Philosophy with a focus on ethics. (In defense of my degree, I've gotten good offers and interviews for other jobs but the store is a five minute walk from my house and the wage is comfortable for me and I have no ambition at all. I can sell myself well -- I'm good at digesting large amounts of info and finding what's relevant and what follows from it, and I have good speaking and writing skills.) I'm an assistant department manager at a grocery store. Most of the time I quite like it. I take it seriously -- I act like a buffoon most of the time but I really care about making the store look nice and getting it stocked -- and look at just about everything I do as practicing social and communication skills. Like how do I respond to angry customers? to unmotivated employees? I read a lot about communication skills, social psychology, and pacifism which largely influences how I act at work everyday and I enjoy challenging myself in that way. Most of the time I can de-escalate and motivate and I'm proud of myself for it. And my job is not very stressful, nothing is life or death and the only way I'm getting fired is if I punch some old lady. so life is good!

[3t0]

Higher level Unix admin, around 4-6 customer fleets (some come and go every now and then). Usually two formations of 4-10 heavy cruisers, each formation running around 100-300 frigates. Gotta keep those spaceships happy. Mostly Red Hat (and analogues) crap these days, sadly. Real hardware is disappearing, faster than you can blink your eyes :).

 

Due to the nature of the work I often disappear from internet for extended periods of time, but it's normal for me. In my spare time (if I ever get one), I like to weld (I am still novice) and play with doom and quake engines, I also do some self taught C and am trying to invent "proper unix" systems tools, but I am never happy with them enough to release them.

[roboticmehdi2]

Technical instructor of construction machines.

 

(batman at nights)

Edited July 3, 2021 by roboticmehdi2

[Aurelius]

Graduated in 2016 with a master's degree in mathematics, I currently have a tenure at a local upper secondary school as a teacher of mathematics, chemistry and (occasionally) physics, working in both the national curriculum in my native language, and also the international IB curriculum in English. I also worked as the secretary of the local branch of the Trade Union of Education for a couple of years.

 

So basically I'm the guy who year after year keeps telling teenagers that if you increase something (non-zero) by 10% and then decrease the result by 10%, you won't get the same number you started with. To this day it hasn't failed to spark fierce debate.