tell us about your job

[Quercus]

What do you do? Own a company that designs and manufactures women's apparel. We sell via our own website, Amazon and a number of retail outlets in the US and abroad.

Do you like it? Yes

What makes you in particular well-suited or poorly-suited for your work? I think I was born to do this sort of thing. Prior to the apparel space, I was involved as a principle in a number of venture backed tech startups. That experience really helped us carve a niche as a nearly pure-play Internet apparel company (if we weren't the first, we were one of them). I really just enjoy entreprenuership. I enjoy having my own company, founded from scratch, more than I enjoyed being involved with venture capital.

My wife is my partner is this company, which is nice too. She handles the design and photography part of the business, and I handle production and marketing.

What kind of people do best in your work? People who understand the delicate balance of risk and caution required to start a company from the ground up. People that hire and fire well. People who have the stomach and means to go without pay for long periods of time as a company gets rolling.

Oh, and people who married smart women.

What qualifications are necessary for people considering work in the same field as you? Mostly just intelligence and drive. A willingness to listen to and love your customers is a big help as well.

What is a typical day like? Up at 630, in to work by 730. Check overnight emails and orders to see if there is anything that requires immediate attention. Help out with manufacturing and production. Quick lunch around 2pm. Answer the phones and talk to customers. During busy season (November through May) finish up around 7pm and head home. In slower season, finish up around 6pm and head home.

Its hard to quantify a typical day. Some days I may spend on the factory floor from start to finish with quick breaks for email. I could be doing anything from cutting fabric to ironing tops. Other days are spent almost entirely in my office, where I could be doing anything from book-keeping to talking with television producers who want our garments for an upcoming show.

The fact that every day has the potential for something interesting is part of what I like about it.

What kind of problems do you encounter? Manufacturing equipment breaking down. Sales growth faster than production capacity growth. Employees leaving and needing replacing. Retraining employees from the (wrong) way that they learned to do things somewhere else. Customers needing help with sizing and fit. Customers with problems that need addressing. Finding photo models. Balancing the need to get hands on with production with the longer term needs of sales and marketing.

What are the biggest (most common) sources of frustration and elation? The single biggest frustration is production. Not being able ot manufacture product quickly enough drives me batty. Not so much because of the lost sales potential (which is bad enough) but because a customer may have to wait an unacceptable amount of time to receive product. Second to that is our lack of a robust ERP suite. We're too small to afford one of the major packages and its attendant customization, so we've wired a bunch of junk together that only sort-of, kind-of gets the job done.

The elation? Hmm.. good question. I wouldn't say I feel elated about much at all. I'm happy with the progress we've made - from a company formed out of an upstairs bedroom by my wife and I into a company employee a half dozen people with strong sales growth. Some of the firsts are neat too. Our first magazine cover was cool. Getting written up in the most influential monthly magazine in our general space was nice too. Really though, I like it when customers call me and say, "I just LOVE your stuff. I've bought several pieces and I've told all my friends!" That's pretty cool.

How much do you make? Enough to pay the bills. Everything else is plowed back into the company.

How much can one expect to make in your position? Well, we made zero our first two years in business. So, zero at the low end. At the upper scale of our space, I dunno - enough to enter the Forbes rich list.

[Evan]

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private money with some corporate funds/cash also.

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What is the private money if not cash? Even if you manage and existing portfolio wouldn't that mean you're managing other people's cash? I guess it would be pretty cool if you went around bartering with anything clients gave you like spools of thread or recyclable cans.

[Georgia Avenue]

Reading these is a lot more fun than writing mine. Limon is now my king.

WARNING: BORING

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What do you do?

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I teach writing to gifted high school kids for an reputable online program. I also design courses and do tech support and training and lots of other stuff so I go into an office.

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Do you like it?

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I used to, and I still think it's a very worthy cause and it gets me chicks somehow (writing/teaching/kids/charities/computers= punk rock chicks want me to play daddy), but I am bored with it. I need something more deadline driven and creative.

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What makes you in particular well-suited or poorly-suited for your work?

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I think quickly and speak clearly and can talk down angry parents= +++
I am easily distracted and bored, so thats a huge minus.

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What kind of people do best in your work?

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My predesessor was a lot more organized than me and impressed everyone. But I do less work and get paid the same amount. You decide.

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What qualifications are necessary for people considering work in the same field as you?

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MFA in writing and plenty of computer savvy. I doubt there are 3 other people in the world with a similar job description though.


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What is a typical day like?

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2+2, some tech support, fiddling with course design.

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What kind of problems do you encounter?

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My own laziness...general academia issue where noone completes things they say they will.


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What are the biggest (most common) sources of frustration and elation?

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Working with kids is great but you have to have a special kind of altruism to be a teacher. I've realized I dont have it so I'm looking for another job. I really like designing courses online so I'll probably expand that aspect of my job and go back to school for instructional design.

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How much do you make? How much can one expect to make in your position?

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40/40

[NajdorfDefense]

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private money with some corporate funds/cash also.

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What is the private money if not cash?

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Not all funds are cash, which should be obvious. Cash can be uninvested funds, or simply part of an asset allocation decision to hold short-term floaters or t-bills.

[Hornacek]

What do you do? Trading Desk at a large investment bank. Asset Management Division, pretty much our group is separate from the rest of the bank, as we think of ourselves as a ridiculously large hedge fund.

Do you like it? Yes

What makes you in particular well-suited or poorly-suited for your work? Math and game theory. Just an overall love and appreciation of the markets. I also have a computer science background (undergrad and grad), so it helps that I can add technologically to our desk, where others may not have an expertise.

What kind of people do best in your work? People who are hard working, motivated, and quick on their feet. Detail oriented, good communication skills (since you're on the phone with brokers ~40% of the day), and teamwork skills. Is this the most cliche response ever, or what?

What qualifications are necessary for people considering work in the same field as you? Mostly just intelligence and drive. If you want to find a nice 40-hr week job, this is definitely not for you.

What is a typical day like? Up at 6:00, in by 7:30. Check out economic data, emails, etc for a bit, then heavy trading occurs until about 1 pm, when London is done for the day. 8 am to noon is pretty hectic, since its the overlap when both NY and London are available, so everyone is busy. Grab lunch, come back, and review trading. Speak to portfolio managers, run optimizations for the following day's trading, book trades, reconcile trade breaks, meetings, etc. This may sound trivial, but this is a pretty time consuming activity. Generally, things may start to wind down by 7:30, but if problems persist, its not unnatural to stay past 11 pm.

What kind of problems do you encounter? China sucking at life, everyone fleeing to Ten Year Bonds, killing the EQ markets, blah blah blah. /rant

What are the biggest (most common) sources of frustration and elation? Losing and making money. Plain and simple. For you financial guys out there, there was an article on us on the cover of Bloomberg magazine last month... down years suck (esp when S&P is up 17%), good years end up acting like status quo. Pretty much your basic example of prospect theory at work.

How much do you make? I'm still at the analyst level (2 years out of grad school), but I think anywhere from $100K to $300K is reasonable for an analyst level person at my firm.

How much can one expect to make in your position? It's a lot about meritocracy AND seniority. If you're good, you will get paid. You've seen the numbers, and putting in long hours and good work will end up being fruitful down the line. I think for VP-level and above, a buck is not out of the question.

[Str8Fish]

What do you do? I'm currently about to defend my Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in mid-March. My project was extremely interesting to me... I worked on a NASA project, looking at alternative ways to capture CO2 from the respiration of the crew for the long-term mission to Mars.

Do you like it? Most definitely.

What makes you in particular well-suited or poorly-suited for your work? I'm good at what I do and have great hands-on experience. I'm also extremely math-gifted like most people here and have a very easy time visualizing a process occurring.

What kind of people do best in your work? You have to be willing to give up 4-5 years of your life (sometimes more) to get a Ph.D. It's not for everyone... the pay sucks, the hours are extremely long, experiments never go right the first time... etc.


What qualifications are necessary for people considering work in the same field as you? B.S. in Chemical Engineering helps. Finding a grad school to take you.

What is a typical day like? Up at 5:30, go to gym, back to shower and out the door to get there at 8, work till 5 on experiments, go home to dinner, work on papers, reports, etc until 10ish, then chill. Depending on experiments, I could be in the lab until late. My wife, who just got her Ph.D. had to go in one time at 9, 11, 1, 3, 5 am. Thank God I never had to do that.

What kind of problems do you encounter? The largest problem I face is dealing with the idiot Electrical Engineer lab technician. I really hate that guy. Other than that, meh, experiments don't always go as planned, but that's really expected, so it's not so much a problem. I plan for problems to occur.

What are the biggest (most common) sources of frustration and elation? Frustration is taken care of in the last one. Elation is meeting with NASA and getting the thumbs up! Another one is building reactors in the machine shop and having them work. I've built two packed-bed reactors and one wetted wall reactor and it felt great!

How much do you make? For my research, I get paid 24k a year. Hopefully now that I'm graduating I can start ~75k? That's my hope.

How much can one expect to make in your position? As a graduate student, nothing... but when I get in the real world, hopefully more than I can imagine. 3-4 years down the road with a Ph.D. and some experience, one could easily be making over 100k.


Now that I'm finishing up, though, I'm looking for an entry level position... anyone here looking to hire a Ph.D. Chem Engineer?

[That Foreign Guy]

What do you do? I work in internal marketing (so not the cool adverts you see on TV - mundane stuff like organising freerolls etc) for a poker site.

Do you like it? Yes. It's close to my dream job (realistic dream at least)

What makes you in particular well-suited or poorly-suited for your work? I'm smart, creative, and have several years experience in a variety of poker stuff.

What kind of people do best in your work? People like me. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] more accurately there's a variety of skills and experience, the one thing the guys who do well have in common is we love our job and our company.

What qualifications are necessary for people considering work in the same field as you? Knowing a straight beats a flush. Beyond that, the ability to think like a fish and plan large events.

What is a typical day like? Well almost every day involved me sitting in front of my computer. I'd say my main tasks are running reports / analysing the results, writing plans for future events, and ensuring current ones go off smoothly.

What kind of problems do you encounter? Excel only goes to 65k rows and I can't use Access. Localisation is the other big one as almost everything that goes out to players needs to be produced in multiple languages.

What are the biggest (most common) sources of frustration and elation?
Frustration - running reports and excel when I don't feel them to be worthwhile. When a project I was psyched about gets canned.

Elation - Seeing a project I conceived and babysat through a bunch of revisions and discussions finally get launched and getting positive feedback and seeing site activity go up.

How much can one expect to make in your position? Depends on the company and location. A good company pays quite healthily for wherever you are, a [censored] one might bounce your already meagre check. Thankfully my current company is a good one.

[ispiked]

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What qualifications are necessary for people considering work in the same field as you? <font color="red">Knowing a straight beats a flush.</font> Beyond that, the ability to think like a fish and plan large events.

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[img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

[Cancuk]

What do you do? Run/own a section of a wine distribution company.

Do you like it? Very much

What makes you in particular well-suited or poorly-suited for your work? I never graduated from Uni. but I have a mind for business. Where to go with it, what works and what doesn't. You have to get creative with it too, which is my favourite part.

What kind of people do best in your work? People who arn't afraid to risk a lot for the potential to make a lot. Outgoing and creative people who understand what people want, and how to get it to them.

What qualifications are necessary for people considering work in the same field as you? Business savvy. Thinking logically about what people want and how to get the product to them. Not afraid to lose. Being able to shmooze snobs is nice as well.

What is a typical day like? There's no "typical day". Some day's i'll be out doing tastings from 10AM until 4:30ish if we got a product in that I want to push. Somedays i'll get up at 10, get on the phone and be on it yelling at the Liquor Board for most of the day. Nothing's the same. I love it.

What kind of problems do you encounter? Wine snobs who we have to pretend to like. Dealing with archiac gov't regulations. Telling people you can get them something when you probably can't and figuring out how you can do it for them (even if it's -EV short term for you)

What are the biggest (most common) sources of frustration and elation? Frustration: Dealing with gov't regulations and wine snobs.
Elation: Walking into a tasting that you think has no potential and walking out after they buy 20K worth of wine. Tasting unreal wines that I would never know about if it wasn't for this job.

How much do you make? Haven't been in the business for a full year, don't know.

How much can one expect to make in your position? Our goal is to have 10% of the immediate wine market within 10 years, which is 500 million annually.

[Freakin]

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What do you do? My official title is "Environmental Services Technician" but that doesn't tell you much. I work for a civil engineering consulting firm and I mostly do field work for projects that need some kind of government approval and that is mostly environmental related.

Do you like it? The people are (mostly) great but the work sucks since I'm low man on the totem pole and always will be.

What makes you in particular well-suited or poorly-suited for your work? I'm well-suited because I'm smart. I'm the only one in our company that does this kind of work that doesn't have a degree in either Environ Science, Environ Engineering or Civil Engineering. However, I'm also poorly suited because I don't have a degree. None of my actual work gets validated in my name. I do the work and someone else (with a degree) takes credit for it.

What kind of people do best in your work? People who at least somewhat care about the environment. A lot of the work I do is for the eventual destruction of such environmental features so it's probably best to not be a tree-hugger (extremely passionate). You must be albe to at least stand working outdoors if not enjoy though unless you enjoy the cubicle farm. You also need to pay attention to fine print details and be able to put up with government and client imbeciles.

What qualifications are necessary for people considering work in the same field as you? A college degree is pretty much mandatory. I sort of lucked into my job from knowing the right people and proving to them I could do the work.

What is a typical day like? There is no such thing as a typical day, but I can say what I did today. I had to be at a power plant this morning by 8AM. They want to add "scrubbers" to their facility that are used to reduce emissions (at this plant it will reduce S02 by 98%) and part of this project is to put in a new stack. They are filling in mines under this area with grout and concrete, which is where I come in because I am certified in testing these to make sure they are up to specs. Today we had 5 concrete trucks (all of which needed tested and 1 truck had samples collected that will be pressure tested in a lab). The pour lasted from 8AM to 1PM when the concrete pump broke down. In between testing the concrete trucks, I also had to test and get samples of the grout. Got out of the plant around 2:30 today after doing my paper work and then had to take samples that I made on Friday to the lab.

All in all, it's not really hard work. It killed my back the first couple days but then I got used to it. Tomorrow they're not pouring so I'll have an easy day before going on vacation for San Diego. If you're interested at all, here's the power plant on google maps. Currently, we're working maybe 100 feet off that river (Allegheny).

What kind of problems do you encounter? Well, since I'm the bitchboy and [censored] flows downstream, I'm covered in [censored] all the time.

What are the biggest (most common) sources of frustration and elation? Trying to understand what my boss is saying. He's from Thailand and has lived here for like 30 years, yet it's near impossible to understand him.

How much do you make? $25k *sigh

How much can one expect to make in your position? If my position included a degree to go with my work experience and training, easily double what I make.

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