What Industry Do You Work In?

[Rev. Powell]

Currently happily unemployed, unless indulging in a little freelance cerative writing counts.  After I pass the bar in July, I'll be employed in the legal industry. 

[Killer Bees]

Wow, what a wonderfully diverse group of people we have on this board!

And I here I thought you guys were all schmucks like me   

[CheezeFlixz]

Wow, what a wonderfully diverse group of people we have on this board!

And I here I thought you guys were all schmucks like me   

I believe most of us are schmucks at heart.

[HappyGilmore]

I'm in the wonderful food industry.  Work in a restaurant.  Pretty much, watch Waiting and that sums it up.

I'd like the old job I had.  Granted, it was washing pots in a nursing home, but, I had two weeks paid vacation, 7 Paid holidays (you got time and a half if you worked, and a paid day off regardless of if you worked it or not), plus health insurance and sick time.  I have none of that now.

[sideorderofninjas]

Teach computer classes at a community college. 

[Zapranoth]

Medical doctor (familly medicine, ie, "GP").

But I'm a schmuck with the rest, for sure.  Case in point:  I cannot accurately count the number of characters I have ascended in Nethack over the last 15+ years.  I used to keep the FAQ for rec.games.roguelike.nethack.

Oh, Ulthar -- let me just say, for anyone else who felt the same way I did -- pchem!   oh noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

[Killer Bees]

I'm only a schmuck because I could be so much more in my life, yet I'm too lazy to pull my finger out and apply myself to a career.  So I sit here like schlub every day plugging away at data entry for idiots who get themselves into too much debt for a home.

I'm so jaded I don't even know what I'd like to do instead.  I don't think I ever had any huge dreams as a kid.  It would be so much easier if I had a goal.  I'm good at working towards goals.  But if you have no goal to start with, what then?

My whole philosophy these days is "it's not worth it."  A terrible state of affairs, I know.  But I have trouble remembering what real motivation feels like.

[Zapranoth]

They have happy pills for that in Australyer too, I bet.   

But seriously...  I think that many of us need a push from someone, sometimes, to pursue a dream.  I had that in my dad, or I wouldn't have gotten the education I did.  But aren't you a single mom?  I can't imagine how hard that would be.     

Does it count to be a schmuck because you have a lot of education, but still like nothing so much as playing a game based in ASCII, or else watching incredibly horrible movies... and because you watch the Starcraft 2 page for updates obsessively, several times a day?    Or does that just make me a geek or a nerd?

[asimpson2006]

I work for a major IT Staffing company. Used to do tech support, but took a transfer and now doing Quality Assurance for the same company. 

[Dr. Whom]

Journalist for a HVAC magazine

[Derf]

I'm only a schmuck because I could be so much more in my life, yet I'm too lazy to pull my finger out and apply myself to a career.  So I sit here like schlub every day plugging away at data entry for idiots who get themselves into too much debt for a home.

I'm so jaded I don't even know what I'd like to do instead.  I don't think I ever had any huge dreams as a kid.  It would be so much easier if I had a goal.  I'm good at working towards goals.  But if you have no goal to start with, what then?

My whole philosophy these days is "it's not worth it."  A terrible state of affairs, I know.  But I have trouble remembering what real motivation feels like.

I do a lot of different things, but I was in much the same boat last year: Fourteen years in the same dead-end, high-stress, low-pay job, mostly because I didn't know what I wanted to do instead. I have a master's degree in Creative Writing and Literature, but was working as the graphic artist for a local printing company. My situation is different from yours, though in that, after putting my wife through school, she encouraged me to quit my job and pursue something else. I chose massage because it gave me a third career option: I'm a teacher (intellectual pursuit), a graphic artist (pseudo-creative pursuit) and a therapist (physical pursuit). I should be able to get a job somewhere. I have many abilities and do well at everything I set my mind to (not being conceited, or at least trying not to be; my whole family is made up of highly intelligent, desperately insecure people, and I am good at that also). Anyway, I suspect that you are similar: intelligent, capable, etc., doing what you have to to support your family. You know that's not a bad thing, but you feel there should be more. I wish I could offer a goal or some real encouragement, but words are kind of empty. Still, things can change, but you have to make some decisions to bring about those changes. I wish you luck in finding a new goal and achieving it. An Irish blessing (even though I'm not Irish):

May love and laughter light your days,
and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours,
wherever you may roam.
May peace and plenty bless your world
with joy that long endures.
May all life's passing seasons
bring the best to you and yours!

[Hammock Rider]

I'm a Teleconference Operator. My company conducts conference calls of all sizes from 1(yes you can have a conference call with only 1 person) to 4-5000 participants. Once you set the call up and execute it, all that's left is to monitor it for audio quality.Most of the time it's very boring. I hear lots of businesses dronig on about revenue projections blah blah blah.I spent 3 hours once listening to software architects talking to other software architects about software architecture Sometimes things get interesting though. I've done calls for celebrities,politicians and athletes. I called Kelly Ripa once and talked to her for a few minutes before dropping her into a conference. She's exactly the same on the phone as she is on tv, very peppy and upbeat. It's pretty much a dead end job though and right now I'm only sticking with it because I'm lazy and because when I'm monitoring a call for audio quality I'm allowed to surf as long as I keep an ear in the conference. After awhile the interwebs get boring too, so I'll be going back to school this fall in order to become a teacher, a reading specialist to be exact.

I've also had a problem finding motivation and direction in my life and I finally decided to stop trying to formulate some perfect "master plan"  and just get on with my life on a smaller more managable scale. I've always been interested in language, language acqusition and linguistics but could never figure out where the perfect entry point into the field was. Well, teaching little kids to read would give me decent front line experience in dealing with language acquisition and the experience itself might help me decide which direction I would like to move in. And it's a good thing to do. So that's what I'm going with. I think in the past it's been the old" Paralysis by Analysis" for me. So maybe you could take that approach Bees, if you're not up for a grand scheme start out small and gradually work your way into something that fits.

[Newt]

This may add even a bit more variety:

I am a self-employed horse trainer and riding instructor/coach.  We have our own small farm and 18 horses and ponies. I take in outside horses on contract to train as riding mounts - 'English'-style, so we do jumping too. 

I am also a full-time Mom, and have been an office manager, worked for software development houses and on a magazine staff, and ran several day camps (horsey).  Went to university for a degree in Anthropology.  Still love that, but I am doing what I also love and what I am very good at - so it's good.

[Fishasaurus]

I work in mental health.  I used to be a shrink, but now I'm a gatekeeper for a community mental health center.

[ulthar]

Oh, Ulthar -- let me just say, for anyone else who felt the same way I did -- pchem!   oh noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

LOL...are you trying to say PChem is the Manos of Chemistry?