What is it like to have your job/career?

[Gaze]

What is it like to have your job/career?

For someone who is considering the job or profession you are currently in, especially those with years of experience in your fields, how would you describe it to someone who is interested or heading in that direction? How should they prepare for it? What kind of personality, skills, abilities, attitudes, work habits, social dynamic, leadership, etc. requirements are unique or specific to your job or profession? What unique struggles or challenges do you face?

How would you advise someone who is preparing to enter your job, career, industry or field?

 

[Ecton]

At the moment, somewhat confusing but fun. I'm an engineer in the entertainment video game industry. My work is largely scalable server systems. I work with a lot of artists and engineers and designers. Sometimes the end of the day comes down to playing with what we have made and seeing how fun it is. Not a bad way to end a day.

We can go for months working on a difficult problem, and if we succeed we become the few and highly sought after. If we fail, we are immediately discarded. The business people who run this industry are a mix of the most dedicated artists and most callous misanthropes you can ever meet. THe result is continuous business turmoil.

The challenge in this industry is bringing dreamers into a reality scope. All of us here are dreamers, and we all have different holds on reality. Some of these holds are at best, Hollywoodesque. Others are the ramblings of continuous pipe-dreamers. Others are the overreaching dream of young engineers. Execution is a bitch in a world full of clouds.

To work in this field you need to be creative, able to get along with different types of personalities (some of which would be unemployable in other fields) accepting of lots of false starts and failures, strong in math and arts, and able to communicate well. You have to be able to sell yourself on a regular basis, and you have to want to constantly learn and improve your skills. You need to focus on making successes and be able to do both short and long term planning. You need to be able to dance the thin line between the elegant and the practical. And finally, you have to enjoy games and virtual worlds. Cause you ain't going to be payed a ton. You don't have to believe that every game is going to be a work of art, and you probably should be prepared for most other people to disagree with how you would like to see the art mature. If you are an idealist, be prepared to be pragmatic in the short term. In 100 years, we might have a story telling artform, but at the moment, its still the blood and gore of primitive hunter/gatherer story-telling around the campfire. If you prefer story, be prepared to fight those who like wallowing in the basist desires, they have a way of gravitating here. You need to find a good team of likeminded individuals, and when you do, it can be a very rewarding experience.

We'll see how I feel if a project completes successfully.

 

[Gaze]

bump

 

[Sloe Djinn]

"Allright, who's been smoking in here!? Hand over the lighter."

"I am not fucking around! CUT OUT THAT FUCKING HORSEPLAY!"

"HELL no I don't have change for a five!"

"If you are not using a computer or playing pool, HAVE A SEAT!"

"HEY! HEY!!!"


Eight hours a day, five days a week working with probation kidz.

 

[middle1]

Political office = DRAMA all day everyday

It's like high school but worse. It seems our work is irrelevant, it's all about the drama. I don't know how much longer I will last.

 

[Entyqua]

Stay at home parent:


Think LONG and HARD before choosing this carreer path ladies and gents...It is the most challenging, low paying, demanding job on the planet.

You cook, clean, launder, and scrub everything.

You plan the household to the very last detail, and at the end of the day...oh wait there is no end of the day. You have no weekends, no vacation, and no comp pay.

The expectations from your Significant other are high, because what do you do all day but sit around. You don't work.

Appreciation for a job well done is nil, but forget a job, and the torrent of your upset employers is enough to crush any rock solid business person.

But...the rewards are beyond monetary compensation.

 

[RecklessDreamer]

"Allright, who's been smoking in here!? Hand over the lighter."

"I am not fucking around! CUT OUT THAT FUCKING HORSEPLAY!"

"HELL no I don't have change for a five!"

"If you are not using a computer or playing pool, HAVE A SEAT!"

"HEY! HEY!!!"


Eight hours a day, five days a week working with probation kidz.

Can I have your job?

When I was on probation, my PO loved me. It was so easy, I just had to go once a month, smile, show her my good grades, and piss in a cup. How's the pay?

 

[Sloe Djinn]

Can I have your job?

When I was on probation, my PO loved me. It was so easy, I just had to go once a month, smile, show her my good grades, and piss in a cup. How's the pay?

The pay is decent. It's about 15/hr which isn't a career-inspiring wage but it's enough to live on and save a bit. It's just a helluva lot of supervision as where I work we're dealing with some 40 male minors who are mostly coming from juvie and think they're all ghetto stars. As a male, I doubt I'll ever land a job working with girls, but that's totally okay with me as I've heard from coworkers that girls are 50 times worse to work with.

I have to be way more assertive than I had to be working in adult psych, and my poindexter ass is quickly getting schooled in street vernacular.

 

[bamf]

The pay is decent. It's about 15/hr which isn't a career-inspiring wage but it's enough to live on and save a bit. It's just a helluva lot of supervision as where I work we're dealing with some 40 male minors who are mostly coming from juvie and think they're all ghetto stars. As a male, I doubt I'll ever land a job working with girls, but that's totally okay with me as I've heard from coworkers that girls are 50 times worse to work with.

I have to be way more assertive than I had to be working in adult psych, and my poindexter ass is quickly getting schooled in street vernacular.

I give you props. I never gave my PO any problems, but a lot of the people coming through were complete dicks. Being an adult PO would suck, I can't imagine being one for kids.

Are there ever any rewarding stories where kids actually straighten out, or do most of the kids seem to be "returning costumers?"

 

[bamf]

Night Shift Security for a university

Perks: easiest job in the world, get paid to watch movies and study, if people are being jerks you keep them locked outside

Downside: eats into social life, eats into sleep, feel like a zombie almost every day of the week

 

[beetpoet]

after a lot of years of front line teaching and social service work i am now in a management position and i REALLY LIKE IT. i help the state agency to correctly do what the taxpayers and funders expect them to do, and to help clients get services that really make a difference in their lives. i'm one of the people who help try to assure that it's all done fairly and properly.

i like the variety. i write curriculums and teach trainings for employees. i do reviews and audits, and collect data and make reports and graphs and things, and then help develop improvement strategies. i get to be kind of a librarian/resource. i like traveling around the state.

and...i don't really think about it when i go home. (which, even though i loved the front line and directly helping people it was hard for me to deal with as an introvert. i always felt a bit drained). it pays pretty well. more than i ever thought i'd earn (in the 60,000s a year).

a master's degree wasn't required but i think it helped me to gain the confidence i needed. it also helped to have lots of years as a teacher and case manager because i think it's hard to be an effective manager with people if you don't know what their job is really like.

 

[laurie]

Official status - student: Not really a career, but it's work.

Unofficial - Novelist (unpublished) : Don't do it. It's an emotional rollercoaster, but now I've started I can't stop D':
However, it is quite rewarding to just finish a piece... but then you know you've got to go back through it about 6 times to get it reasonable enough to send off to an agent who will then probably reject you.

Hopefully, I'll soon have a real job over my gap year - I want to work in Pizza Express

 

[testing]

Stay at home parent:


Think LONG and HARD before choosing this carreer path ladies and gents...It is the most challenging, low paying, demanding job on the planet.

You cook, clean, launder, and scrub everything.

You plan the household to the very last detail, and at the end of the day...oh wait there is no end of the day. You have no weekends, no vacation, and no comp pay.

The expectations from your Significant other are high, because what do you do all day but sit around. You don't work.

Appreciation for a job well done is nil, but forget a job, and the torrent of your upset employers is enough to crush any rock solid business person.

But...the rewards are beyond monetary compensation.

Yes, this was my experience when I was a stay-at-home parent.

I am now a working parent and it is in ways considerably easier. I am a graphic designer/web designer for a large multinational corporation. I really like the work, and as corporations go, mine is pretty good, BUT corporate culture can be... difficult.

To do this job, you have to somehow squeeze an artist's brain (for creativity and visual skills) and an engineer's brain (for making things/spatial relations; as well as computer science) and an accountant's brain (because cost and details matter) and a proofreader's brain (because you NEVER want an expensive print project to go out with the words "pubic domain" substituted for the words "public domain", trust me.) and a little bit of a writer's brain helps, and then you need to have a counselor's brain and the empathy that goes with it, and... let's see, a mommy's brain actually helps, because sometimes people in corporate culture act like two-year-olds, and dealing with that is easier if you've been through mommy boot camp, and a Customer Service Representative's brain (because you are making things for clients, and customer service matters) all together. And then if you've managed to squeeze all these types of brains together (I think there are what...7?) then you will have an excellent ability to do the job well and enjoy it.

If you can work in an enterpreneuer's brain and a salesperson's brain then you are officially perfect and do not need my advice or any money, and may I please have a ride on your yacht?

Also, never be afraid to try new things, it's how you learn.

I'd still rather be home with my kids. They're more demanding, but I love them much more.

 

[middle1]

Stay at home parent:


Think LONG and HARD before choosing this carreer path ladies and gents...It is the most challenging, low paying, demanding job on the planet.

You cook, clean, launder, and scrub everything.

You plan the household to the very last detail, and at the end of the day...oh wait there is no end of the day. You have no weekends, no vacation, and no comp pay.

The expectations from your Significant other are high, because what do you do all day but sit around. You don't work.

Appreciation for a job well done is nil, but forget a job, and the torrent of your upset employers is enough to crush any rock solid business person.

But...the rewards are beyond monetary compensation.

I feel ya on this one! Although I work coming home is like going to a second job, work never ends.

I do wish I could stay at home the with my girls, I know someday I will really regret not being able to spend more time with them. But I gotta do what I gotta do!

And probably not today or anytime soon, your kids will appreciate you staying home with them. Looking back on my childhood I'm grateful my mom was able to stay home with us kids. She created alot of good memories for us : ) My Dad is still a workaholic, and he has/does miss out on alot of our lives, which is regretable.

 

[That Girl]

Occupation: Student

Study, freak out about grades, study, freak out about grades, study. With Bipolar disorder it's hard during Spring semester because that's usually when I have episodes. This semester I had to take incompletes in everything. I have a year to finish up but I'm hoping to do that before Summer II semester starts.

I used to work at the Outback Steakhouse which was a lot of smiling till my face hurt. The thing about the restaurant business is there is a lot of drama. It's like these people never left high school and feel the need to make everyone's life miserable. It's awful.

 

[Sloe Djinn]

I give you props. I never gave my PO any problems, but a lot of the people coming through were complete dicks. Being an adult PO would suck, I can't imagine being one for kids.

Are there ever any rewarding stories where kids actually straighten out, or do most of the kids seem to be "returning costumers?"

Well actually I'm not a PO. I'm a counselor/staff at a residential program for kids, the majority of which are on probation and have been in the camps or the halls.

-edit- The majority are likely going to fall victim to their own shortsightedness and the environments in which they live, but not everyone is a lost cause. I haven't been there long enough to have any success stories to relate.