What's your job and do you enjoy it?

[Kabob]

My employer just laid off 25% of our workforce, myself included. It sucks to be jobless but I'm talking it as an opportunity to explore different career opportunities. I've never really enjoyed my work but I lacked the drive to change, so this may be a blessing in disguise.

There are so many different options out there, many of which I probably have no clue about, so I figured ATOT would give me a good mix of ideas.

My questions are:

1) What is your job?
2) How much education/training was involved?
3) Do you enjoy it and why?

Thanks!

 

[Engineer]

My employer just laid off 25% of our workforce, myself included. It sucks to be jobless but I'm talking it as an opportunity to explore different career opportunities. I've never really enjoyed my work but I lacked the drive to change, so this may be a blessing in disguise.

There are so many different options out there, many of which I probably have no clue about, so I figured ATOT would give me a good mix of ideas.

My questions are:

1) What is your job?
2) How much education/training was involved?
3) Do you enjoy it and why?

Thanks!

1. Electrical Controls and Automation Engineer
2. BSEE - but that played only a roll of getting job. On job education near 100%
3. Yes I enjoy it (for the most part anyway)...because I get to play with stuff like this.

4. VOLS suck ass!!! :biggrin:

 

[schneiderguy]

I work as a math tutor for high school students.

Translation: I help retarded jailbait get a C in Algebra 1 so they can graduate high school.

 

[olds]

Instructor
Requires no college education
Kind of boring most of the time

 

[Alone]

My questions are:

1) What is your job?
2) How much education/training was involved?
3) Do you enjoy it and why?

1. Canadian Forces
2. Lots of training and waiting.
3. Yes, most of the time. I get paid to fire machine guns, throw grenades, and spend most of my time either standing around or sleeping outside.

Not a bad gig. The perks are great.

 

[Mike Gayner]

1. Accountancy
2. Still getting there with quals, but basically a chartered accountant has a 4 year degree and 3-4 years post-university study.
3. Eh it's OK. I would judge my enjoyment level at 6.5/10.

 

[KeithTalent]

1. Accounting Manager
2. Degree and accounting designation (CMA here)
3. Not really, but I'm comfortable and it's hard to leave the money behind.

KT

 

[tfinch2]

1.) Software Developer
2.) Bachelors in CS
3.) Most of the time I really enjoy it because I get to solve complex problems, but sometimes stress goes through the roof

 

[Wyndru]

1.)Network/PC Tech Support for a High School
2.) BS in CIS
3.)We have a couch in our office, and many days it's quiet enough to just sit back and watch movies. Summers are busy but it's still fun since the building is empty, you do what you want when you want.

 

[Imp]

Engineering Technologist

You need a 2 or 3 year college diploma. I'm a 4 year engineering grad, weee...

Lot of down time, not really being challenged, lot of jaded-ness at work. I'm doing a masters now and stressing out BECAUSE I was so bored at work, and had nothing to do most of the time. I wasn't going to it for years...

 

[Mike Gayner]

3.)We have a couch in our office, and many days it's quiet enough to just sit back and watch movies. Summers are busy but it's still fun since the building is empty, you do what you want when you want.

I've always wanted a job like this - the work I do is so full on. There's literally no downtime - if you finish one job, you start the next. I would love to have a job with quiet periods, and also would love to not fill in time sheets for every minute of every day.

 

[cardiac]

1. Full-time Paramedic/Firefighter
2. Hospital based 18 month paramedic program, 20 hours of ongoing training per month.
3. After 29 years, I still love it. Every day is something different. Money is not great, but not bad (Approx $60k). Chicks dig us

 

[trmiv]

1)Windows Systems Administrator
2)Have a college degree, but most of my training is experience
3)Meh, not really. Sometimes its OK, but most of the time it's boring. Hate dealing with the company politics BS, hate being on-call, hate the boring parts of my job like account creation, smartphone email administration and print server administration. I do really like my co-workers though.

 

[rcpratt]

1) I license nuclear power plants
2) I have a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering. My colleagues are all engineers, but I'm the only nuke.
3) Most of it I love. I'm paid very well for my age/experience, I rarely work more than 8 hours a day, and they even allow OT for us salaried employees if it's warranted. I work with great people, there's downtime (and really busy times). Working on the beginning stages of a potentially $10b project is pretty cool. Banging my head against the retardation of the federal government every single day kind of sucks.

 

[cKGunslinger]

1.) Software Developer
2.) Bachelors in CS
3.) Most of the time I really enjoy it because I get to solve complex problems, but sometimes stress goes through the roof

Ditto

 

[SlitheryDee]

1)I own and operate a retail business that primarily sells workwear and boots.

2) I don't have any education in the areas that I think would be most beneficial for something like this, but I would think that a degree in business management and/or accounting might help.

3)I don't really enjoy the day-to-day stuff, but seeing the thing grow is quite rewarding. Last year was the best in the 46 year history of the business ( I took over 6 years ago). I do everything; advertising, selling, buying, merchandising, bookkeeping, tax preparation, cleaning, hiring, firing, tech support, etc. It's very much me that is the primary influence, so it's quite self-affirming to see the company have success.

 

[Bignate603]

1) I design and test mechanical components for turbine engines
2) BSME, I use quite a bit of what I learned in school
3) In general I enjoy it. Some parts of it can be boring, but it's awesome to see an engine fire up with something that you made in it.

 

[Chaotic42]

1) Geospatial Engineer
2) My job isn't defined very well, but my industry is all about knowledge. It's really the only currency. Honestly the level of university education is pretty irrlevant. We need intelligent problem solvers, not kids who were good at writing papers.
3) I work in a collaborative environment for the most part. I really enjoy my work, but my job is become less enjoyable by the day. The drive to squeeze every penny out of the work has begun, and as always, this makes it much less enjoyable to go to work. Still, it's not terrible. I've had far, far worse jobs making far, far less money.

 

[BoredWork]

1) Credit Card Customer Service Rep
2) not much besides what you learn in HS and what they teach you. however, i do have a BA in Info Systems for Business. i was a Computer tech for a small company..loved that job!! got laid off no thanks to the economy
3) despise my current job. despise!! but, its a job that pays the bills and i wont complain about having a job. just the job itself blows in so many unpleasent ways.

 

[pcgeek11]

Electronics Technician at a worldwide automotive parts company.
Military Ballistic Missle Technician 20 years and self taught. No formal university.
I love my job lots of down time and some crisis time. I work on different systems every night.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

1. Home automation
2. OJT... always... never ending... for 20 years... Dear God...
3. I love it. I get to play with crazy toys in houses that 99.999% of society can't even afford to look at.

 

[2Xtreme21]

1) What is your job?
2) How much education/training was involved?
3) Do you enjoy it and why?

1) IT Systems Management (server and network monitoring -- we support the tools that send automated incidents) & Data Center Project Management. I have two roles presently.
2) BS-IS and CAPM... beginning MBA this fall.
3) Yes, for now. My company has flown me to 7 countries this year alone to do some training and integration activities with our sites around the globe. I leave for Germany for 3 weeks on Tuesday. And this is all with me being 2.5 years out of college.

I'm really enjoying it and learning a lot, but I can already see the monitoring side getting mundane. When they eventually stop sending me places, I'll fall almost exclusively back to that task, so we'll see what happens then.

 

[Leros]

1) Software engineer
2) Bachelors in electrical engineering. Currently working on a masters in software engineering (not the same as CS).
3) I love it. I never work on the same kind of problem twice. I get to be creative and I have a lot of design freedom. I can show up to work basically anytime I want (I usually show up around 11am these days). I can wear whatever I want to work. The whole environment is just very relaxed, but I still get to work on interesting, challenging problems.

 

[MovingTarget]

My employer just laid off 25% of our workforce, myself included. It sucks to be jobless but I'm talking it as an opportunity to explore different career opportunities. I've never really enjoyed my work but I lacked the drive to change, so this may be a blessing in disguise.

There are so many different options out there, many of which I probably have no clue about, so I figured ATOT would give me a good mix of ideas.

My questions are:

1) What is your job?
2) How much education/training was involved?
3) Do you enjoy it and why?

Thanks!

Sorry to hear about your job, OP. I hope you find something asap.

1) HS Math Teacher
2) Bachelors and Masters degree in Math + several education courses during certification process
3) Yes. Being a teacher isn't something you really enjoy unless it is part of you as a person. Sure, the pay sucks (especially in parochial schools) and high schoolers....well....I shouldn't need to explain how they can be some days. But in the end, imparting knowledge to a young(er) person is very fulfilling.

 

[halik]

1) What is your job?
2) How much education/training was involved?
3) Do you enjoy it and why?

1)
Quantitative Finance

2)
Two undergrad degrees, one master's (econ/cs/finance) ... plus some CFA tests

3)
Love it - very challenging analyzing enormous amounts of noisy market data and I'm never too far away from coding stuff here and there. Some of the stats analysis stuff maxes out multi-way xeon boxes with 12gb ram, so instead of the usual computational complexity (option pricing etc.) you deal with data complexity. Plus the comp is outstanding.