So, I'm reaching the term of my contract in the army and soon back to civilian life, so I had to choose a new job to learn. Going for welding, if everything goes right. Got a year apprenticeship ahead.
Got me thinking while fooling around on dakka: what's your profession, fellow dakkanauts?
These days I work in medical billing. Well, dental, but more or less the same. The company I work for takes care of the billing side, so providers can focus on the healthcare side. And seeing that dealing with the insurance companies is a full time PITA, it’s a good thing we do.
When I was returning to the workforce after being a full time Dad, I needed something besides IT (my prior job) as I was so far behind the curve in that field I’d have to work some really un-fun positions to get back into it (full time phone helpdesk, or drive all over creation doing physical installs). Medical billing is an entry level (no prior experience needed) nice office job that’s generally not customer facing. So if you don’t want to people for a living (sales/food service/etc) it’s not a bad choice.
Currently I'm a program coordinator for an employment agency (non-profit) where our program is a free pre-arrival service for newcomer immigrants that are landing in Canada within 2-6 months and our aim is to prepare them for the Canadian labour market and ideally get them employed before they land. The good thing is that we're not getting them to settle for basic survival jobs like working at Tim Hortons/McDonalds, but secure positions commensurate to their skills. So we have a lot of engineers that get Project Management positions so they can still work in their field while working towards their license. There was one client I worked with that was a high level executive in Nigeria that was able to get a job as a International Business Consultant at Google here in Toronto. So pretty fulfilling job, though I am being currently scouted for a Manager position for Continuing Education at a local university.
My Job is called "research coordinator" in a department of cardiovascular surgery of an university hospital. Basically a bit of physics experiment planning, a lot of statistical analysis and manuscript correction, some administrative work and a rising amount of teaching.
I have a Masters in Geography from KCL, currently working for the government on the planning for HS2 which, depending on your outlook, is a huge fethup high speed line from London to Manchester.
I work in Non-destructive testing. In my case I inspect pipeline girth welds with ultrasound and occasionally supplemental techniques.
Job's all over the workd, so I get to travel smd get paid for the privilege.
I am a practising medical doctor currently working in clinical cancer research for the NHS in the UK.
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Valkyrie wrote: I have a Masters in Geography from KCL, currently working for the government on the planning for HS2 which, depending on your outlook, is a huge fethup high speed line from London to Manchester.
Oof, that must be fun. Especially as they keep shaving bits off and making the whole thing increasingly ineffective.
Haighus wrote: I am a practising medical doctor currently working in clinical cancer research for the NHS in the UK.
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Valkyrie wrote: I have a Masters in Geography from KCL, currently working for the government on the planning for HS2 which, depending on your outlook, is a huge fethup high speed line from London to Manchester.
Oof, that must be fun. Especially as they keep shaving bits off and making the whole thing increasingly ineffective.
Well it means I'm not going to worry about redundancy anytime soon
Social Worker on a gerontopsychiatric ward. Mainly supporting patients and their relatives if they need extra support after discharge and all that comes with that plus also supporting the medical staff with anamnesis, additional conversations with the patients, that kind of thing.
Artillery Officer in the Marine Corps for 10 years strong. Last 5 have been in the Reserves (it’s like a part time job now). For my full time civilian job, I am a county cop up near DC.
Tsagualsa wrote: I am a consultant in a small firm specialising in change management, project management and IT systems implementation.
What firm?
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usmcmidn wrote: Artillery Officer in the Marine Corps for 10 years strong. Last 5 have been in the Reserves (it’s like a part time job now). For my full time civilian job, I am a county cop up near DC.
Tsagualsa wrote: I am a consultant in a small firm specialising in change management, project management and IT systems implementation.
What firm?
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usmcmidn wrote: Artillery Officer in the Marine Corps for 10 years strong. Last 5 have been in the Reserves (it’s like a part time job now). For my full time civilian job, I am a county cop up near DC.
Going reserve too
Honestly man, Reserves is sweet. No moving every 2-3 years and you can go active for up to a year with random units and billets that need filled. Three of my Marines just went to Europe, MEUs are always looking for dudes, there’s the Africa missions, not to mention the billets state side. New Orleans, Quantico, DC etc… you ever get bored or need a break from civilian life just bounce for a little. It’s what you put into it though. If you do nothing and aren’t a fairly good Marine you ain’t going. But if you show initiative and are a good dude, the world is your oyster.
If you’re in the DC, VA, MD area hit me up. I could pass along your info to the dept if interested.
Tsagualsa wrote: I am a consultant in a small firm specialising in change management, project management and IT systems implementation.
What firm?
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usmcmidn wrote: Artillery Officer in the Marine Corps for 10 years strong. Last 5 have been in the Reserves (it’s like a part time job now). For my full time civilian job, I am a county cop up near DC.
Going reserve too
Honestly man, Reserves is sweet. No moving every 2-3 years and you can go active for up to a year with random units and billets that need filled. Three of my Marines just went to Europe, MEUs are always looking for dudes, there’s the Africa missions, not to mention the billets state side. New Orleans, Quantico, DC etc… you ever get bored or need a break from civilian life just bounce for a little. It’s what you put into it though. If you do nothing and aren’t a fairly good Marine you ain’t going. But if you show initiative and are a good dude, the world is your oyster.
If you’re in the DC, VA, MD area hit me up. I could pass along your info to the dept if interested.
I'm in the French military though (til end of month), I'll go reserve their. US army reserve sounds better though. Here is how it works in french army:
In January, you get a calendar with all activities were personnel is needed in reinforcement. Then, in accordance with your employer, you report for what missions you'll show up. Or when a particular need arises then on short notice you can be summoned, but that's rare.
You can go on mission though, if you can be available for at least 2 week at once. Then if you can't do it all a further reservist will take it up and there you go
Somewhere between Sam Beckett and a Cenobite for the financial sector.
Sometimes able to put right what once went wrong. Angel to some, Demon to others.
It’s a pretty interesting career path, of often times frustrating. Oh, and it comes with an Inquisitorial Mandate. Which is often the source of said frustration, as some just don’t seem to grasp “no” is not an answer when I’m requesting evidence. Sadly it’s not a 40K Inquisitorial Mandate in terms of “well I guess I’ll just have to take correctional procedures”
I'm an 'Ops Officer', basically I try to plan and synchronize stuff, then try to unscrew what other folks screw up to keep a bunch of interconnected projects on schedule.
Also a veteran. Prior civilian jobs involved model/sim of RF networks, EW and cyber effects, and cyber/EW and network capability development.
I work as a Printing Professional in the National Printing House in Greece. Yes it's a public sector job. Currently working 7 days 12 hour shifts to prepare for the municipal elections. No, not getting paid enough....
I wrote Behavioral health programs for children. And then train others how to implement it. Then try to collect data on its effectiveness(very difficult, parents don't want too collect the data)
I get paid decent, not enough for the tress this job puts on you
Are you saying you wish you were in archaeology or that you were the field itself? Cause you could be part of archeology if you freeze yourself in a time capsule with an Atari and the One Ring MtG card.
Heck, im still trying to figure out how i can use my behavioral science degree to work with animals. I love working with people, but i wanna also work with a tiger
Unlike some of the above, I'm actually an archaeologist, and frequently wish I was something else because UK academic working conditions are horrendous
I am based in and teach at a Scottish university. I've mostly worked in Türkiye, Iraq, and Israel, and my main fields are archaeological theory, the archaeology of religion, and labour relations and colonial inheritance in the discipline.
Tsagualsa wrote: I am a consultant in a small firm specialising in change management, project management and IT systems implementation.
What firm?
Small. Like 50 people small. I'd rather not say beyond that, but it's not a thin cover for some sort of secret service or something like that and got neither two, three nor four letters in its name
Olthannon wrote:For many years I used to work as an archaeologist, but now I work for a museum dedicated to locomotives.
Reading that, I had an image of a trian in a dig site, with people carefully unearthing it with with toothbrushes and the like.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:*starts digging, whilst thinking of how to get as many anachronistic things in the same pit, and who might be willing to do the backfilling*
"Look at this. It's worthless - ten dollars from a vendor in the street. But I take it, I bury it in the sand for a thousand years, it becomes priceless. Like the Ark."
nfe wrote:Unlike some of the above, I'm actually an archaeologist, and frequently wish I was something else because UK academic working conditions are horrendous
I am based in and teach at a Scottish university. I've mostly worked in Türkiye, Iraq, and Israel, and my main fields are archaeological theory, the archaeology of religion, and labour relations and colonial inheritance in the discipline.
Olthannon wrote:Yeah, I can't stress how terrible archaeology is as a job sector I'm afraid. I'm very glad I'm not to be doing it anymore.
This is a significant part of why I have not made any serious efforts to change career. If nothing else, I do have job security at present.
Easy E wrote: I am a contact center executive for a multi-national mega-corporation and 6-sigma Lean Black Belt.
Every child's dream job.
Oh, so you're the person who refuses to let the company have any sort of inventory, instead insisting that everything we need will magically fly in through the door the second we need it?
Yeah, haven't been a fan. If I had a dollar for every unnecessary delay caused by this system not working correctly, then I could afford this hobby...
Yes. I freely admit that people like me have caused the supply chain issues we have seen since COVID.
However, since I work in Customer Service my job is to look at every time a person needs to contact us with a problem; then that is a defect. How do we fix that defect further up the stream, since Customer Service takes place at the end of the process. We have to fix it at the top of the causal chain not at the end.
That doesn't mean the rest of the organization gives a crap what some schmuck in Customer Service says though.
Easy E wrote: Yes. I freely admit that people like me have caused the supply chain issues we have seen since COVID.
However, since I work in Customer Service my job is to look at every time a person needs to contact us with a problem; then that is a defect. How do we fix that defect further up the stream, since Customer Service takes place at the end of the process. We have to fix it at the top of the casual chain, not at the end.
That doesn't mean the rest of the organization gives a crap what some schmuck in Customer Service says though.
I was being playfully flippant, but I can't imagine how thankless your job must really be...
People have the wonderful combination of getting really defensive if they think they are being criticised, and liking things that they are familiar with. Change management is hard!
Community service, ex composer (for videogames (public) and storylines (private), also working as documentary maker but that is more an urge or drive than work (although it takes the most effort and time).
revised/reapproached history, mythology, symbology, etymology' -syncretism.
My (decades of) study courses have been health related sciences, mythology and symbology and have picked up etymology the past 3 years.
We seem to be mostly in support or production.
Does that match general demographics?
Or does it say more about who answers questions on an internet forum?
Skinnereal wrote: We seem to be mostly in support or production.
Does that match general demographics?
Or does it say more about who answers questions on an internet forum?
Skinnereal wrote: We seem to be mostly in support or production.
Does that match general demographics?
Or does it say more about who answers questions on an internet forum?
Or those jobs pay well enough we can afford hobbies and come to Dakka for similar people?
Skinnereal wrote: We seem to be mostly in support or production.
Does that match general demographics?
Or does it say more about who answers questions on an internet forum?
And a couple of regretting life choices doctors
My father's an anesthesiologist. He kept telling me to not become a doctor either.
Higher salaries are probably a thing though. But if I actually get my degree as a welder at the end of my apprenticeship, I should be able to afford it as well because welder pays quite good in France.
Time also. Artisans (that's how we call freelancers jobs the likes of carpenter, painter, locksmiths... you get it) usually make good money but they earn every bit of it through longer work days and often stop working only on Sundays...
Olthannon wrote: For many years I used to work as an archaeologist, but now I work for a museum dedicated to locomotives.
That sounds pretty dope!
Edit: Might as well chime in. I am in the CAF reserves as an infantryman, specifically, I got qualified as an assault pioneer, but I don't get to use what I learned there nearly as much as I'd like
I feel you, one of the main reason why I left. Oh, actually I didn't made this detail clear in my original post, but I'm a tank commander. For 1 week still.
I am a secondary school teacher, a senior examiner for the country's biggest exam board, and I am doing a bit of private tutoring. I'll never be a wealthy man, but it is nice knowing that the only people who benefit from my hard work are the children, rather than making anonymous shareholders who wouldn't care if I died on the job even richer.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: I feel you, one of the main reason why I left. Oh, actually I didn't made this detail clear in my original post, but I'm a tank commander. For 1 week still.
I do plenty of infantry related work. Not quite so much i the assault pioneer part, tbh.
JamesY wrote: I am a secondary school teacher, a senior examiner for the country's biggest exam board, and I am doing a bit of private tutoring. I'll never be a wealthy man, but it is nice knowing that the only people who benefit from my hard work are the children, rather than making anonymous shareholders who wouldn't care if I died on the job even richer.
JamesY wrote: I am a secondary school teacher, a senior examiner for the country's biggest exam board, and I am doing a bit of private tutoring. I'll never be a wealthy man, but it is nice knowing that the only people who benefit from my hard work are the children, rather than making anonymous shareholders who wouldn't care if I died on the job even richer.
that is how i feel, the benifet of my labor is the kids and families i work with.
That said, i wish these ypes of jobs came with consistent hours and work life balance
There’s nobody higher up hogging profits from my efforts, which is nice.
No I don’t work for the government.
No I don’t work for a charity.
No I don’t work for a quango.
Whilst we’re encouraged not to say where we work (for reasons nowhere near as sexy and fun as you may be thinking), we’re kind of unique. Our power comes from Government, but they don’t have a say or particular oversight.
I too will never get rich, but I still consider myself decently rewarded, except when I’ve got a particularly Bloody Awful case or three on my hands.
It is however made up for with a truly excellent pension plan, where if it all goes well and as it current predicts, with state pension I’ll somehow be getting more than I am right now. And of course being able to tell institutions the man in the street feels powerless against that they’re, on this occasion, being Big Smelly Buttholes, and they can either do as I recommend, or I’ll pass it on to Bigger Boys who’ll effing well tell you to do something.
I am a reverse Robin Hood. I steal from the poor and give to the rich!
I take solace in the fact that I have managed to save the companies I worked for a lot of money, but I have not cost anyone their jobs. In fact, I have saved many of them. That matters a lot to me, especially when these folks are often my (literal) neighbors.
Sure, when someone leaves maybe the company doesn't feel the need to back fill an open position, but no one has lost a current job thanks to what I have worked on.
Presently, I'm mostly occupied with helping care for an elderly family member and their home, with the occasional side gig with other family members
Previously though, I spent slightly over a decade working in the mental health field, more specifically residential work at therapeutic facilitates for kids It was a rough line of work for myriad reasons that i kind of fell into by pure chance, and one I don't think i could ever return to, despite beating the odds and not burning out within a year or two like most of my former coworkers
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Somewhere between Sam Beckett and a Cenobite for the financial sector.
Sometimes able to put right what once went wrong. Angel to some, Demon to others.
It’s a pretty interesting career path, of often times frustrating. Oh, and it comes with an Inquisitorial Mandate. Which is often the source of said frustration, as some just don’t seem to grasp “no” is not an answer when I’m requesting evidence. Sadly it’s not a 40K Inquisitorial Mandate in terms of “well I guess I’ll just have to take correctional procedures”
Sounds like an auditor for one of the Big 4 or just internal audit if you've left them. An inquisitorial mandate sounds a lot like "professional skepticism". I believe you but I need evidence to believe you and then I need enough evidence to believe you but I don't want too much evidence - too much evidence and I may find an error. You're always asking yourself, "what could go wrong?" If you're trying to prevent a problem, you're Internal Audit. If you're fixing a problem and telling management, you're an external auditor. Oh and either way you're a glutton for pain and you enjoy working long hours because that is the world of accounting.
Oh and "sailing the seas of accountant-sea" is your war song. It's fun to charter an accountant, and sail the wild accountan-sea. To find, explore, the funds off shore, and skirt the shoals of bankrup-sea! Scribble away, but balance the books!
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Somewhere between Sam Beckett and a Cenobite for the financial sector.
Sometimes able to put right what once went wrong. Angel to some, Demon to others.
It’s a pretty interesting career path, of often times frustrating. Oh, and it comes with an Inquisitorial Mandate. Which is often the source of said frustration, as some just don’t seem to grasp “no” is not an answer when I’m requesting evidence. Sadly it’s not a 40K Inquisitorial Mandate in terms of “well I guess I’ll just have to take correctional procedures”
Sounds like an auditor for one of the Big 4 or just internal audit if you've left them. An inquisitorial mandate sounds a lot like "professional skepticism". I believe you but I need evidence to believe you and then I need enough evidence to believe you but I don't want too much evidence - too much evidence and I may find an error. You're always asking yourself, "what could go wrong?" If you're trying to prevent a problem, you're Internal Audit. If you're fixing a problem and telling management, you're an external auditor. Oh and either way you're a glutton for pain and you enjoy working long hours because that is the world of accounting.
Oh and "sailing the seas of accountant-sea" is your war song. It's fun to charter an accountant, and sail the wild accountan-sea. To find, explore, the funds off shore, and skirt the shoals of bankrup-sea! Scribble away, but balance the books!
Nope! In fact I don’t think the USA has an equivalent to my employer.
But not the glamorous side of marketing, more the operational side where I'm responsible for telling our hundreds of thousands of customers when something has gone wrong, gone right, or when there's anything they need to know. I prefer it to being someone who writes advertisements that just get deleted/skimmed by a spam filter. You can't avoid my E-mails.
But I am also a published writer with over ten 40k books with my name in the writing credits (and even more in other places). So that's pretty cool.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: So, I'm reaching the term of my contract in the army and soon back to civilian life, so I had to choose a new job to learn. Going for welding, if everything goes right. Got a year apprenticeship ahead.
Got me thinking while fooling around on dakka: what's your profession, fellow dakkanauts?
I'm a mechanical engineer and I am lucky enough to live from my passion, as I'm basically making tanks.
@Maréchal des Logis Walter : I know your profile picture intimately
ccs wrote: Officially retired Toy Salesman/big retail management.
Congrats on retirement.
I am interested in hearing some more about this.
It's a story with 4 parts.
1 happy, 3 sad.
Pt.1, 2005 (sad): Toys R US is bought out by a group of private equity firms. Resulting in us being buried under billions of dollars of debt.
@$×&* leveraged buyout.....
Pt.2, 2005 - 2018 (happy):
Seeing the writing on the wall....
I kicked my financial security/retirement plan into HIGH gear.
I Worked like hel +, more importantly, became very educated on how to make $ (and i was already good at it). I then proceeded to make a hell-a-lot of $ in those years.
I set an official retirement date of Jan 25th, 2020.
(That'd allow me to wrap up the 2019 Christmas season and the year end inventory - without rolling into TRUs next fiscal year)
Pt.3, 2018 (sad):
Well, all that debt TRU had from being bought out in 2005? As I'd predicted, it finally killed us.
We closed mid-2018 here in the USA. .
19 months short of my retirement date. I didn't get the joy of sending my boss a postcard from somewhere warm & sandy. :(
Not a huge inconvenience financially though - I'd hit my retirement funding goal about 3 years prior. So I just joked that I was "on vacation".
Pt.4, mid-Jan 2020 (very sad):
My mother dropped over dead.
Had a stroke while feeding the cat I'm told. Well that was about 15-20 years earlier than anyone expected! :(
She left behind a considerable estate.
And then the pandemic hit....
Being the Co-Executor of a very sizable estate & having to do it admist a pandemic screwing everything up - well I was no longer on vacation.
My new full-time job became paperwork.
Finally, eventually, the estate wrapped up & my brother & I are now in charge of the family assets.
Though Mondays & Tuesdays are still dedicated to paperwork. (Monday = family assets, Tue = personal assets)
There is now no doubt that I'm retired though.
ccs wrote: Officially retired Toy Salesman/big retail management.
Congrats on retirement.
I am interested in hearing some more about this.
It's a story with 4 parts.
1 happy, 3 sad.
Pt.1, 2005 (sad): Toys R US is bought out by a group of private equity firms. Resulting in us being buried under billions of dollars of debt.
@$×&* leveraged buyout.....
Pt.2, 2005 - 2018 (happy):
Seeing the writing on the wall....
I kicked my financial security/retirement plan into HIGH gear.
I Worked like hel +, more importantly, became very educated on how to make $ (and i was already good at it). I then proceeded to make a hell-a-lot of $ in those years.
I set an official retirement date of Jan 25th, 2020.
(That'd allow me to wrap up the 2019 Christmas season and the year end inventory - without rolling into TRUs next fiscal year)
Pt.3, 2018 (sad):
Well, all that debt TRU had from being bought out in 2005? As I'd predicted, it finally killed us.
We closed mid-2018 here in the USA. .
19 months short of my retirement date. I didn't get the joy of sending my boss a postcard from somewhere warm & sandy. :(
Not a huge inconvenience financially though - I'd hit my retirement funding goal about 3 years prior. So I just joked that I was "on vacation".
Pt.4, mid-Jan 2020 (very sad):
My mother dropped over dead.
Had a stroke while feeding the cat I'm told. Well that was about 15-20 years earlier than anyone expected! :(
She left behind a considerable estate.
And then the pandemic hit....
Being the Co-Executor of a very sizable estate & having to do it admist a pandemic screwing everything up - well I was no longer on vacation.
My new full-time job became paperwork.
Finally, eventually, the estate wrapped up & my brother & I are now in charge of the family assets.
Though Mondays & Tuesdays are still dedicated to paperwork. (Monday = family assets, Tue = personal assets)
There is now no doubt that I'm retired though.
What happened to TRU was ridiculous. Congrats on retirement, though.
Cause you could be part of archeology if you freeze yourself in a time capsule with an Atari and the One Ring 
