tell us about your job

[JaBlue]

Tell us about what you do for a living.

What do you do? Do you like it? What makes you in particular well-suited or poorly-suited for your work? What kind of people do best in your work? What qualifications are necessary for people considering work in the same field as you? What is a typical day like? What kind of problems do you encounter? What are the biggest (most common) sources of frustration and elation? How much do you make? How much can one expect to make in your position?

and so forth.

[milesdyson]

I am bored at my job, so I will tell you about it.

What do you do? Structural engineering (unlicensed still).

Do you like it? Not really.

What makes you in particular well-suited or poorly-suited for your work? I am well-suited because I understand geometry well and am good at math. I am unsuited because I am very easily distracted and unwilling to apply myself very much when there is no dire consequence to being lazy.

What kind of people do best in your work? People like me, just without all the other crap running through their heads.

What qualifications are necessary for people considering work in the same field as you? A degree in civil or structural engineering basically.

What is a typical day like? Coffee, 2+2, and working on structural plans. It varies between custom homes, apartments, condos, townhomes, and other miscellaneous wood-framed buildings. I am pretty much always doing the same thing when in the office, which is designing the horizontal and lateral force resisting systems in these buildings. I am out of the office when I do structural observations on projects under construction or go to consultant meetings.

What kind of problems do you encounter? Stupid people in the field and at other offices.

What are the biggest (most common) sources of frustration and elation? Frustration is usually caused by having to finish projects in short time periods. Elation is usually caused by drinking coffee in the morning, leaving for lunch, and leaving the office at night.

How much do you make? About $60k/yr when you count profit sharing.

How much can one expect to make in your position? Somewhere around $80-100k/yr with a good amount of experience and your professional engineering license.

[Dids]

What do you do? I supervise an adminstrative support department in a university.


Do you like it? It's low stress, I have a lot of freedom, with two large exceptoins, I like who works for me and who I work with. It beats a real job.

What makes you in particular well-suited or poorly-suited for your work? I'm a good teacher, I relate well with people, I'm good at hiring.

What kind of people do best in your work? We don't ask a lot. If you can be organized, you're pretty much ok.


What qualifications are necessary for people considering work in the same field as you? Well, I'm 5 credits short of my degree...


What is a typical day like? Depends on if I'm trying. If not, a lot of 2p2. If I am, meetings, working on project and putting out fire/helping my staff as needed.


What kind of problems do you encounter? Unreasonable requests from faculty, idiots on all fronts.



What are the biggest (most common) sources of frustration and elation? I have two employees who are mostly braindead and useless. I can't fire them. Communicating them at all is a pain.

How much do you make? 40K a year.

How much can one expect to make in your position? 40K

[mmbt0ne]

What do you do? "Operations Analyst" aka GM/OM-lite at a 3rd party logistics company (we manage warehouses)

Do you like it? So far it's pretty good.

What makes you in particular well-suited or poorly-suited for your work? I'm really smart when it comes to the kind of analysis that's new to the industry.

What kind of people do best in your work? The best are the people who are able to manage people as well as compile, understand, and react to data. Lots of people in the business can do one really well. Very few people can do both. Those people are highly sought after.

What qualifications are necessary for people considering work in the same field as you? You can be an operations manager with a high school degree. You can be a GM with any kind of community college degree (and probably without if you're really old school).

What is a typical day like? Right now: in at 8:30, walk around the warehouse for 30 minutes, talk to the shipping clerk, walk around the warehouse, back to my office, read CNN, get the GM and OM together to finally talk about my project (helping w/ RF system implementation and getting the warehouse 5S compliant), work for a bit, go to lunch, come back, maybe a conference call for about an hour if it's Wednesday or Thursday, finish my work for the day, talk to boss at regional, try to find some more work, go walk the warehouse instead for another 30 minutes, leave at 3:30.

What kind of problems do you encounter? Figuring out how we're going to get all of this done in < 3 months.

What are the biggest (most common) sources of frustration and elation? For me, it's trying to explain new concepts to people who are very set in their ways.

How much do you make? Just above $50k per year after bonus (because if I don't get maxed out I'm leaving) plus all the free batteries and razors I'll ever need.

How much can one expect to make in your position? This is a brand new position, so that's unknown. I know that plenty of OMs make over $60k with up to 20% bonus, and GMs usually make 100-120 with up to 25% bonus. The guys in Regional are making a good deal more it seems.

[XXXNoahXXX]

What do you do? 1L, Law Student.

Do you like it? I love it so far. I'd still quit in a second if I won the lottery or something.

What makes you in particular well-suited or poorly-suited for your work? I am smart and good at taking tests and knowing what professors are looking for on exams. I have natural intelligence, so despite probably being in the bottom 5% in terms of hours put in, I get better than average grades.

What kind of people do best in your work? People that can view law school as a job, and put the hours in. Also, know how to study for exams and how greatly that differs from standing out during class. Definitely have to be good at both analytical and creative thinking. Hitting all the points on a law school exam will get you a B+/A-, but to get the A, you have to get a little creative.

What qualifications are necessary for people considering work in the same field as you? Undergraduate degree, LSAT. If I had to do it again, maybe some work experience would have been helpful. If unsure, major in a hard science since it opens up a lot of doors for patent work, etc.

What is a typical day like? See A Day in the Life Thread

What kind of problems do you encounter? Stress of being called on when you haven't read the cases. Time crunch when memos are due and during finals.

What are the biggest (most common) sources of frustration and elation? Grades are based off of one exam for the most part. This is great for me, but still stressful. Looking at my grades from first semester, there was 0 correlation between my relative strength in the class and my exam grade.

How much do you make? Thanks to scholarships, I make about -$30K. (125k+ for private practice after graduation)

How much can one expect to make in your position? Law School has almost no need based aid, so unless you get scholarships, expect to pay $50k per year. Jobs after graduation range from 30k for public interest to 140k for big law.

[IggyWH]

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.

[Slow Play Ray]

What do you do? I am a mechanical product design engineer for a Fortune 50 company. Currently the bulk of my work centers around explosion protection components.

Do you like it? Sometimes. I work closely with a really cool group of people, and I live very close, so that helps the bad days along.

What makes you in particular well-suited or poorly-suited for your work? I'd say seven years of engineering school, but the fact is passing those 'fundamentals' really get you nowhere in the real world. They provide a decent foundation, of course, but what suits me to my job is simply my logical nature and my natural tendency to wonder how things work and how they can be better. There's no substitue for experience either. What makes me ill-suited is laziness.

What kind of people do best in your work? People like me, but less lazy.

What qualifications are necessary for people considering work in the same field as you? A BS in mechanical engineering should do the trick. An MS never hurts either, and an MBA can move you up the ladder quicker. A PhD will hurt you more than help you though.

What is a typical day like? Arrive 15 minutes late, check email, read news/sports. Get coffee and toast, 2+2, more news/sports, etc. When I actually get cracking at working it can vary widely from day-to-day. I may spend all day on solid modeling or analysis software, running small tests in the lab, running explosion tests off-site, chasing a paperwork trail all day, putting out fires in manufacturing, or any combination of those and countless other tasks. That is the best part about my job - the variety; since we are a relatively small engineering group, we are pretty much responsible for everything. I generally try to leave on time every day.

What kind of problems do you encounter? General idiocy and unexpected results.

What are the biggest (most common) sources of frustration and elation? Frustration: general idiocy (particularly among non-engineering project team members) and unexpected results. Elation: when major tests go as planned, and when projects are finally completed.

How much do you make? Enough to live comfortably and support my many vices while still creating a nest egg for the future.

How much can one expect to make in your position? In my current position, it's presently pretty tough to get north of $120k but with some business smarts it's a pretty straightforward climb to an executive position, and then the sky's the limit.

[NicksDad1970]

I'm the chief dispatcher for a concrete company. I've been here for 10 years.

I'm treated fairly well by the boss. I make a decent income (nothing compared to the balla high stakes players around here, also nothing compared to you stock traders or lawyers)

My job in the summer is much harder than the winter. During the summer I'm usually there by 6 am and not out until at least 5. Sometimes I'm in earlier and stay much later. In the winter it's usually like 7 -4.

The way my job works is I'm pretty much hated by EVERYONE. I have drivers mad at me for working them too long. Other drivers are pissed at me for sending them home too early. I have customers mad at me because they can't get their concrete when they want it. I get the bosses pissed if I have trucks sitting on the yard. Dispatchers mad at me if they work too long. My wife mad at me if I work too long etc.

My job consists of scheduling drivers, loads for the customers, scheduling vacation for 75+ employees, writing letters when peeps mess up, calming customers down when things go wrong, and many other things.

In return I get a decent check, they pay for all my fuel, all my lunches, some of my breakfasts, a yearly bonus, a turkey for Thanksgiving and a ham for X-mas. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Freakin]

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

[limon]

What do you do? play poker, hustle golf, collect rent, book bets, "consult" for a company that lends money to illegal aliens, co-own a mexican collection agency w/ the ceo of the company i "consult" with. lament that my berkshire stock is stagnant. oh, and i married well.

Do you like it? cant hate it. really wouldnt change a thing. i would like to increase my golf % but its already ridiculous and the wife would object.

What makes you in particular well-suited or poorly-suited for your work? growing up in the woods, running away from home, knowing i could lose it all and earn it back, ruthlessness, love for chaos/actually searching out chaotic situations.

What kind of people do best in your work? people who are willing to work their ass off in order not to work (hustlers), people who will end up dead if they dont get married. people who view everything as a game where they know perfect strategy, know theyll never be better than 60/40 on average and arent afraid to lose


What qualifications are necessary for people considering work in the same field as you? would you bet everything (THAT ISNT YOUR WIFES) on a coin flip getting 60/40? can you deternmne your getting the best of it, beforehand, in a chaotic situation that you couldnt have prepared for?
What is a typical day like? get up before my t-time make and espresso, check the view/weather and let the dog piss. play some golf, head to the finance co. probably w/ someone i was golfing w/. return some e-mails. check some bets. call the mexican co. make sure the govt. hasnt seized it. go back to the course. putt for dough. in the old days i would have played poker all night but now i usually just go home, try to cook something, have a cigar and wine and watch the sunset.

What kind of problems do you encounter? before i got married...none. since i got married...extreme boredom. but the boredom is somehow fulfilling

What are the biggest (most common) sources of frustration and elation? frustration, losing. elation, winning. super elation, creating a situation where over time i cant lose. super duper elation birdie no. 4 at riviera.

How much do you make? 250k avg. last 5 years. it goes up and down but its way more than i can spend. i really have no use for the things most people want, cars clothes, jewelry, and my wife can afford her own bobbles.

How much can one expect to make in your position? most are dead broke w/ clinical ring around the collar trying to win $1000 bucks by losing 25 pounds in a week so they can play in the next "last chance" tourney at the la poker classic.