What do you do for a living?

[jelerak]

Hey fellow Watchers...

OK...this may have been done before, but I am just curious about something.

Looking at the wide variety of subjects covered in all of the posts from all of the different forums...just who are we? What do we do for a living?

I am curious as to just how diverse the members of the Watch are. Maybe we may learn a little bit about one another that we didn't know before.

Personally, I feel like I have learned much that I would have never learned before by reading some of the posts here. It is amazing the amount of knowledge that is spread out among these forums. And the resources that some of the members have...to find all of these articles that are posted in the multitudes of messages spread out in the different forums. If I had to look all of that stuff up myself...well, I can only imagine how long that would take me, (that is if I even knew where to start). Just what kinds of experts do we have lurking among us?

Myself...I manage a moving company down here in New Orleans. I have 35 employees (pre-Katrina, only 10 employees at this moment) and cover both long distance and local dispatch operations.

[duchess of malfi]

I work in the pharmacy department at a Veteran's Administration hospital. My husband owns his own business; he's a state licensed builder.

[The Laughing Man]

Hey jelerak! Glad to meet you, welcome to K's W, and I extend my sincere wishes that all is well with you down there after all that has happpened. You're lucky to be alive, I'm sure. And glad you made your way here! With few exceptions, * ahem *, I'm sure you will find many friends here who have many wonderful thoughts and stories to share with you, and drag out of you!;) And I know alot of the info looks daunting, but most of it is done by "googling", or searching the internet for links to stories that are on topic. Then, with the flick of a mouse, clik, clik, a "simple" cut & paste, and voila! All that "typing" is mainly just "copying" text from articles, and takes just a few seconds to do.

I myself am a "Tech", PC repair, networking and such, kinda mishmosh of particular traits of the technology industry that suit me. I live and work in Central New York, home of the farm and the river and the lake, and the factory that disappeared. (I live near a small lake named "Neahtawantah", which means "little lake by the big lake", Lake Ontario. Funny (haha...NOT), but NY is "supposedly" the "Technology State", but that only applies to the big cities, the rest of us have to dive for scraps. I only mention this because the "previous administration" invested very heavily in money and schools and training to meet the huge demand for technical services, only to have the "current administration" ship all the jobs overseas on a phone line and a tax incentive. My 50,000 potential career was reduced to 25,000 in the blink of an eye, a crying eye! I am currently working in a PC recycling center as "The Tech Guy". I joined with a former manager of mine to start this company with a promise of 36,000 and a car to start, and the economy ended up handing me 25,000 and the same 92 Chevy S-10 I've been driving since, well..'92! A NY 13 yrs is hard to look at due to the salt they put on the roads in the winter to melt the ice, and your car!

well, I ramble, so again, glad to see "you made it", jelerak, thru all that down there, and to here! I know there are others here who have shared your fate, and you may well be able to help each other get thru this.


Pleased to meet you, as well, fair Duchess!

[aTOMiC]

My employment has changed a bit so I'll give it a shot. For over 20 years I've been in the Land Surveying business. First as a green field guy, then on to "manual drafting" pen and ink by hand stuff and then when computers started to roll into the business I graduated to CAD (computer assisted drafting). I worked for George F. Young, Inc. (where dANdeLION works) for 15 years until I got fed up with the way things were going and started making noise. When it seemed no one was listening I started searching for another job. When management heard about that they let me go. Probably for the best. I worked for a small surveying company for a while but I recently had an opportunity to start my own business working out of my home. I do drafting for 5 different Land Surveyors (though I get the lion's share from one). I thought I'd be able to set my own ours and have some freedom but I've never worked so hard as I do now. The price you pay I guess.

[Brinn]

Commercial Banker. I originate, structure, underwrite and manage loan relationships for businesses of all shapes and sizes in Massachusetts. My smallest loan is a $20,000 Line of Credit to a small transmission shop and my largest is a $7,250,000 commercial mortgage on a large office building.

[Nathan]

I don't do anything for a living yet, but I'm starting a Pharmacy degree in several days!

[Cail]

I'm a salesman for a local building materials supplier (lumber yard). I sell builders everything that goes into building a house, and I've done some light commercial work. I've been doing this for 11 years.

[Revan]

I'm a mercenary.


Don't tell the cops.

[MsMary]

There is a Who Are You? thread where people have posted this sort of information, but I guess it's gotten kind of long, and some of those people probably aren't around anymore.

I'm a registered nurse and a lactation consultant working in the mother-baby unit of a local hospital (though currently I'm on medical leave due to foot surgery).

[High Lord Tolkien]

I can't remember if I posted in that other thread or not.


Anyway, I'm an IS Manager for a small insurance company.
Since there are only 3 tech persons here I do a little of everything.
Web, SQL, tech support, phone system, and when we're totally desparate I work with AIX.
Got into computers in '97 after being totally burned out as a retail manager.
Retail will suck the life right out of you.
My wife and I had been looking to get me out of retail (she too didn't like my 70 hour work weeks)but since I only had limited college and no real skills I was screwed.
I looked into one of the many MSCE training schools that were popping up all over the place but there was no way I could go and work at the same time. (we had just bought a house)
A few weeks later my Grandmother, for reasons never explained even to this day, gave all her grandchildren a $3000 check each.
I took out a loan for school (which we only recently paid off!) and used the check to cover our mortgage payments.
I started school without a computer and not the foggiest idea what I was getting into.
Still can't believe I did it.
Bounced around for the first few years at various places always getting a bigger paycheck.
Man those were the days.
Every 6 months I got a $4K dollar raise!!!
And most times it was for *really* working less than an hour a day too.
I've never seen so much wasted resources as I did during the Y2K scare.
It was a legitimate scare but, WOW, I once got paid for 2 months to sit in a bank's cafeteria because there was so much infighting between departments and if a floor manager was on vacation we were locked out due to security reasons.
It was the greatest time of my life!!
Then the bubble burst.
Luckily I found a position that insulated me from losing my job (knock on wood)
My current fear is now that I'm approaching my 40s I'm in a horrible position if my company gets sold or whatnot.


The Esmer, I hope you're checking Monster.com every day because the market has improved tons this year.

[Usivius]

I work at the largest bank in Canada, managing non-resident accounts, mainly for persons who require an account prior to their immigration to our country.
On the side I do some freelance drawing and painting, lending my talents during the summer for a couple weeks to the Driftwood Theatre Company.
I still manage to get in a little rpg action with friends, and enjoy writing as well (many short stories, one novel, nothing published).
I'm a Scorpio and my pet peeves are bad driver's and smelly people.
My measurements are ...

.. sorry, getting a little carried away...

[Menolly]

I am the Activities Programmer for the student housing village I live at. You can see some of the events I plan for Tanglewood Village and village wide (meaning residents from all five student housing villages are invited) events held at Tanglewood Village at our Events Calendar.

[The Laughing Man]

Thanx, High Lord Tolkien, but I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression, I can do better, it's just that a sweet deal went sour, and other forces brought problems to bear, I can live with it. I am currently taking care of my father due to prolonged illness, so my current situation has to remain "tolerable". I get by, and am humble enough to be thankful for what I have. Improving my situation either means continuing my education for "certification" purposes, or having to relocate to get a decent buck. Plus I dearly love my boss like a brother, and bailing on him would make things pretty unstable if not disastrous for him. I live in a depressed area in a dying town, so treading water is par for the course, heh. Thanx for the thought!

[Furls Fire]

Well, first and foremost I'm wife to my husband Russ and Mom to our 11 children. I'm also an HIV/AIDS educator and activist affliated with AmFAR and UNAIDS. And I'm an adoption liason who helps find homes for South African AIDS orphans (that is how four of our children came to us).

I could not ask for a better life, I love what I do and who I am, and I thank God everyday for the gifts He has given me.

[variol son]

I am a Sales and Service rep in the residential call centre of a telecommunications company. On the phones dealing with customer inquiries on Thursday evening and Friday, and on Saturday I am the internal Helpdesk.

Hopefully in a couple of years I will have a nice degree and will be doing other things.

[Creator]

I am the Chief Technology Officer for the Supervision and Regulation function of the Federal Reserve System - and forever young at heart!

[Cheval]

I manipulate the flow of one of the simplest form of energy and magnetism.
In other words, I am an electrician.

[kevinswatch]

Shrubberies are my trade. I am a shrubber. My name is Roger the Shrubber. I arrange, design, and sell shrubberies.

Either that or I'm just a punk Graduate student. Heh.

Soon I hope to be a punk Environmental Engineer or some sort or the other. And clean the crap out of this planet that the rest of you have completely screwed over.

Thanks for the job security.

-jay

[Avatar]

For them as don't know, I'm a writer/editor for a marketing company, a lot of tourism marketing mainly.

All I do all day is sit in front of a computer, and write (and read). It's easy, and it's fun. (Except for the fact that it's work. )

--A

[Loredoctor]

Work in Ambulance communications. I basically control all ambulance movement south east of Queensland. Yesterday, I cycled to the local prison and picked up an application pack for a psychologist position.