I'm in mortage insurance. But not for the regular schmos. We do the insurance for the lenders.
I teach American History, Government, and Bible.
I also collect arrowheads, practice karate, and raise goats.
Grad student, population genetics in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Physical Chemist specializing in computational reaction dynamics, so I guess my industry is Research and Development.
I'm a diversified Capitalist that believes any business can be made profitable with proper management.
I live by 3 words ... Everything is negotiable. or Never pay sticker.
I work in the fuel/oil industry...and no, I cannot do anything about gas prices. :teddyr:
I'm a film archivist at www.national.archives.gov.za (http://www.national.archives.gov.za) and have been since 1989; :smile:
College graduate from www.tut.ac.za (http://www.tut.ac.za) (I should actually say university as it is one now, but it was a college when I was there). :teddyr:
Active participant both on these boards, at the IMDB and at www.nakedandninety.com (http://www.nakedandninety.com) :buggedout: :buggedout:
QuoteI live by 3 words ... Everything is negotiable. or Never pay sticker.
Cheeze: I should have had you with me when I bought my car last year: I think I would have gotten a better deal. :teddyr:
Quote from: Trevor on April 22, 2008, 01:33:36 AM
QuoteI live by 3 words ... Everything is negotiable. or Never pay sticker.
Cheeze: I should have had you with me when I bought my car last year: I think I would have gotten a better deal. :teddyr:
I'd guarantee it. It's easy set your terms, think with your head and not your heart and never, ever be afraid to get up and walk away from the table. They need to sell the car, you don't need to buy it. It's a lot easier to find someone selling a car than it is to find someone who is buying car, remember who holds the cards (i.e. the money) you do, the consumer.
I work in a cannery. :bluesad: Going on 22 years.... :bluesad: :bluesad:
I am/own (i.e., I am the business, no employees) two businesses: One's a massage business doing chair massage for schools and businesses, and the other is a graphic arts business designing and producing small-run brochures, flyers, business cards, etc. I also do contract work in the massage industry with a couple of establishments. I am also the choir/music leader at my church. In other words, I do lots of unprofitable/marginally profitable things.
I got laid off 2 weeks ago and am currently unemployed. :bluesad:
Most of my work experience is customer service on the phone and face to face.
My ultimate goal is to open my own retail business selling hats and headgear which will eventually become an empire of stores across the Midwest and make me a multi-millionaire. :wink:
Currently I work in the health care industry. I did part time on air broadcasting up until a few years back on top of working where I'm at during the week.
Newspaper reporter/photographer
I work tech support for a biotech company. Lots of cell biology, chemistry, and asmattering of genomics and physics. I help researchers design and troubleshoot experiments. In the future, I hope to be a patent agent.
-Ed
I currently work in my county's Public Safety Communication Center as a Telecommunicator. Basically, I answer the 911 phone calls and do the dispatch for EMS, Fire, Sheriff's Department and the local city police departments.
Before doing this, I was in Tech Support for 5 years.
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.
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 :teddyr:
Quote from: Killer Bees on April 22, 2008, 08:12:02 PM
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 :teddyr:
I believe most of us are schmucks at heart.
I'm in the wonderful :thumbdown: 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.
Teach computer classes at a community college.
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!
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.
They have happy pills for that in Australyer too, I bet. :teddyr:
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. :buggedout:
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?
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.
Journalist for a HVAC magazine
Quote from: Killer Bees on April 23, 2008, 12:02:26 AM
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!
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 :drink: 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.
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.
I work in mental health. I used to be a shrink, but now I'm a gatekeeper for a community mental health center.
Quote from: Zapranoth on April 22, 2008, 11:57:16 PM
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? :bouncegiggle:
I'm a reference librarian in a law school.
I only moonlight as a schmuck.
Quote from: Killer Bees on April 23, 2008, 12:02:26 AM
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 wasn't really motivated to become a lawyer per se. I was working as a paralegal and I saw guys who were not as smart as me making more money and doing less busywork. So, if you have no great desire to pursue any particular career path, you can always do what I did: if you think your boss has it better than you, find out what it takes to get their job and then pursue that track.
Of course, it's fine if you don't want the extra money and don't mind the work you're currently doing, or you don't want the extra hassle. It's possible that you're not motivated to pursue a career because you realize it wouldn't bring you anything special that you don't already have.
My thanks to everyone who've given me words of encouragement. You've all given me a lot to think about, that's for sure.
I think for me it's just a matter of not really wanting any responsibility. I had heaps of it growing up and I'm just tired of it. So instead of rebelling when I was a teenager, I'm doing it now in my 40s *lol*
I like the idea of heaps of money but the working towards it all is just not appealing. I've seen people who dedicate their whole lives to their careers and that's all they have. I never really wanted that for myself.
My 42nd birthday is approaching fast (next Friday) and I always go through a bit of an identity crisis for a few days. Strange, considering each birthday is just a number to me, or at least, that's what I tell myself.
I'm reading Terry Pratchett's "Night Watch" book right now and I love the fact that the University's librarian is an orangutan. I'd love to work in library (on good money of course), but without the prospect of having to turn into an orangutan :teddyr:
Quote from: ulthar on April 23, 2008, 01:04:52 PM
Quote from: Zapranoth on April 22, 2008, 11:57:16 PM
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? :bouncegiggle:
Troll 2 reference actually. "He's taken pchem! And now pchem is gonna take me, too! Oh noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" :teddyr:
Due to lack of planning I am an estimator/order writer for a wholesale custom wood window, door and mill work company, I also do shop drawings for orders, don't have CAD so I do these the old fashioned way with a T-square, scale, compass and pencil. I recently expressed an interest in learning about the glass products we use so now when our glass guy is on vacation or off for a couple days I get to do the glass ordering too. Thanks to talking about Badmovies.org and this forum I also get to respond to all the email inquiries that come into the company website. Last year I couldn't even spell schmuck, now sometime I are one.
Quote from: Killer Bees on April 23, 2008, 08:20:23 PM
I'm reading Terry Pratchett's "Night Watch" book right now and I love the fact that the University's librarian is an orangutan. I'd love to work in library (on good money of course), but without the prospect of having to turn into an orangutan :teddyr:
Some of us are baboon, others chimps. And while there is no good money, we do get bananas.
Quote from: Zapranoth on April 23, 2008, 12:06:40 AM
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?
It says something that I find it hard to imagine a physician doing that. There aren't many professions left that are as revered. I call my boss by his first name, but never my doctor. I'm just intimidated by the profession. The irony is that my sister is a doctor and I'm still awed.
Still, I suppose it's natural to be intimidated by the only guy on earth who can stick his finger up your rear end with no questions asked.
And I have to admit I was nervous around clergy until I married one :teddyr:
Quote from: AndyC on April 24, 2008, 04:06:47 PM
And I have to admit I was nervous around clergy until I married one :teddyr:
AndyC, I warned you that no one must ever know of our forbidden love!
I work as a Production Journalist at the Horse Racing desk of a major Scottish newspaper. And no, I don't know who's going to win the Kentucky Derby!
Quote from: JJ80 on April 27, 2008, 03:48:51 PM
I work as a Production Journalist at the Horse Racing desk of a major Scottish newspaper. And no, I don't know who's going to win the Kentucky Derby!
Being from Kentucky
I do know and I get it right every year ... do you want to know?
Race Spoiler follows ...
It's the horse that comes in first. Bet on it. :tongueout:
:thumbup: :teddyr: :smile:
I guess you would say that I'm in IT, although that's not what we called it when I started in the business 29 years ago. I work for the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, so I guess you could say I'm also in higher ed.
I manage the Tech Support Call Center and I spec out all the hardware we buy, I also have to come up with solutions for problems or needs that come up in our department. I also support our WAN since we have 80 field offices.
Quote from: raj on April 24, 2008, 01:48:43 PM
Quote from: Killer Bees on April 23, 2008, 08:20:23 PM
I'm reading Terry Pratchett's "Night Watch" book right now and I love the fact that the University's librarian is an orangutan. I'd love to work in library (on good money of course), but without the prospect of having to turn into an orangutan :teddyr:
Some of us are baboon, others chimps. And while there is no good money, we do get bananas.
The Librarian also enjoys a trip to the local tavern for a glass or two accompanied by some peanuts from time to time....
Quote from: frank on April 28, 2008, 08:32:30 AM
Quote from: raj on April 24, 2008, 01:48:43 PM
Quote from: Killer Bees on April 23, 2008, 08:20:23 PM
I'm reading Terry Pratchett's "Night Watch" book right now and I love the fact that the University's librarian is an orangutan. I'd love to work in library (on good money of course), but without the prospect of having to turn into an orangutan :teddyr:
Some of us are baboon, others chimps. And while there is no good money, we do get bananas.
The Librarian also enjoys a trip to the local tavern for a glass or two accompanied by some peanuts from time to time....
OOOOK!
-Ed
I work in the Leasing Industry as a Portfolio Administrator --
If you want to lease a b-load of computer equipment & TVs for your hotel chain, I'm the guy who's going to be putting all the documentation together for that, hoping it passes legal muster. Then, once in place, I monitor your account with us, making sure the insurance is current, etc.
I actually love what I do -- Go figure . . .
Most of you also know I have ongoing showbiz aspirations as well, and have made money (and continue to make money!) as a B-movie actor, radio actor, voice talent, narrator, print model(?!), stage actor, standup comic, sketch comic, skit writer, commercial actor, instructional/industrial film actor, and whatever else there is to do around showbiz in general.
peter johnson/denny hire me!!!