I'm a cop. I work for a small department in Alabama. Pros: Yeah, I get to drive fast and shoot people, ha ha. No, really what I love is that 90% of the time we deal with pure bullshit. 10% of it is balls to the wall, never knowing what's around the corner. Just tonight was an attempted suicide, but shot a hole in the roof instead. Idiot. Cons: The politics suck, and people hate cops. We deals with the same retards weekly. It gets old, and burn out is too common. As the paramedic said, you do get jaded to people. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the time I didnt know people were animals, everything was just rosey and bad things were just things you read about news articles. Wonder why most cops are assholes? Do you really need to ask?
I've only been working as a cop for a few months, and I can safely say wearing a bullet proof vest would make anyone act like an asshole.
Pros -Great benefits -Lots of upward mobility -Easy commute -Very good managment Cons -Connecticut sucks -A few coworkers like to tell him how much my life is missing the love of Christ. I could probably go through the proper channels and get them in serious trouble, but id rather them just shut the fuck up about it. Im not an atheist, but I dont goto work to be converted into a Jehovahs Witness -Entry level position
I'm a Drainage Contractor/Farmer. Pros: -I live in a small town (pop. 5500) which is ten miles from work. It's pretty much open farm country out here and you can do whatever the hell you want. -I get the entire winter off, usually from mid-December to late March. I spend that time drinking, snowmobiling, and I also spend time working in the shop to keep from getting cabin fever. -I work with my family. I can bend the rules from time to time without any trouble. I've also told the boss (dad) to get fucked more than a few times and I still have my job, so I've got that going for me. -We're incorporated, so as long as the business exists and I'm alive, I'll collect a paycheck. -I'm in charge of the drainage portion of the business, so I get to schedule jobs how I see fit and make my own hours. -I do all the design and layout for jobs, so I don't have to deal with stupid fucking engineers. Cons: -I'm in it for the long haul, so if I ever decide I don't want to do this shit anymore it won't be as easy as just saying "I quit". -I work a shit load of hours. Having the winter to myself is a good incentive, but those 15 hour days and working weekends to stay ahead start getting pretty fucking old by September. -I work with my family. It's a miracle that my dad and I haven't killed each other yet. -I like living in a small town for the most part. It's really laid back and I've got a lot of intelligent friends to hang out with, but the small town bullshit gets to a guy after a while. All of the gossip and stupid fucking people who've never left here really wear on my nerves. I always try to spend weekends with my friends in the city as much as possible to keep my sanity.
I'm a Pilates instructor while I'm in school. Best Parts: I set my own hours and schedule clients accordingly. On average I make as much as I did working full-time. I get to let my creative juices flow. I love outlining a skeleton of a workout ahead of time and then filling it in during the session. I modify based on a client's needs/condition that day. There are hundreds of Pilates exercises with respective modifications/ intensifications. I don't give the same workout twice. I enjoy the opportunity to be creative and put together a good flow that's challenging and interesting. My clients and classes are awesome. Some of them are crazy, but they're all pretty nice and fun. I work in 2 studios, a physical therapy clinic, and an upscale gym downtown (think $150/month membership and then they pay for Pilates on top of that). So, I get to work with several populations. I like that. I get an excuse to work out more. I do Pilates almost every day just to keep the exercises in my body. If I stopped doing them I would forget them and have nothing to teach. Also, it's an awesome excuse to go to workshops and other studios. I love learning from other teachers, and I can write off classes, workshops, clothes and DVDs. Worst Parts: Since there's only background music and people aren't doing Pilates to music, I talk the entire time. I get tired of hearing myself, and I can tell when I'm teaching a lot because I start to lose my voice. My schedule is all over the place and changes daily, if not every few hours. Sometimes it seems like a client will change their time on a whim at the last minute. Some days I wake up at 4:30 to teach a client, go to school for a few classes/labs and then have a mid-day break before I teach at night. Some nights my last appointment ends at 8:30. It can be a long day, especially if I'm waking up early the next morning. There's a 24 hour cancellation policy, but sometimes people flake out and I can't fill the spot. That's a bummer because then I don't make money. That's why I would never permanently have this as my main source of income. Forgot one: People fart all the time. I don't really mind or notice too much unless it smells really bad. Some of these girls have the worst-smelling asses in the History of Bodily Functions. I pity the poor bastards who share beds with these ladies. It is disgusting and smells worse than the cadavers we have in lab. I try to NOT make a face or gag, but inside I'm thinking, "Sweet, sassy molassy! What in God's name is that horrible stench? BLECH!" I want to sing "Smelly Cat" to them every time they let out their noxious fumes. What are they feeding you? Put down the hummus and beans.
I'm a support engineer for an outsourced IT company. You know that guy you call when your computer breaks? I'm him. And I'm way sexier in person. Pros: Sitting in a climate controlled office. As someone that's worked outside and in a kitchen in the middle of a fucking heatwave, this is a no-brainer. Downtime that usually results in surfing the internet. Being able to stay on top of new technology. This includes testing it out. Interacting with tons of people. Nothing says networking like saving the ass of a CEO who needs his machine ready immediately. Great pay and benefits. Until the computers take everything over, people are going to need guys like me to fix them. Works for me. Cons: Dealing with said CEO during said crisis. In fact, talking to users at all. There are some days where you just want to ignore the phone and read sports blogs all day. 24/7 on calls. One of our clients is a sleep study company on the east coast. I'm in Seattle. Nothing like getting a page at 12:04 AM on a Saturday.
I'm wearing one right now. It's 68 degrees and I'm sweating like a ...well, like a pig. You get use to it, but it sucks none the less. Fabreeze will be your friend.
I manage sales for an industrial automation company... I sell robots and shit. Pros: - Retarded salary - Make my own schedule - Work from home or wherever 90% of the time - Business is booming Cons: - I manage a mixed bag of sales people. Some competent, some not. Some self motivating and successful, some not. Lots of hand holding, babysitting, and office squabbles to settle. - Our production departments are worth shit when it comes to meeting schedules they set/approve. 1/3 of my job is assuring customers that they'll get their equipment soon... well sooner or later. - I view it as a job and nothing more. I don't love what I do but it'll do for now.
I produce drive shafts for vehicles (mostly Honda) at an automotive part manufacturing plant. Factory work. Pros: - I work with 95% men, 75% of which are good looking - Smiling goes a long way at my workplace, and I like to smile - Pay is pretty decent, and is every week - You can yell and swear as loud as you please inside the plant because it's so loud anyway Cons: - The uniforms are white, it is very retarded considering it's pretty filthy work - It's a 30 minute drive from my house - One of the security guards is creepy and asks for your old, dirty ear plugs back in exchange for a pair of new ones - Sometimes the guys cross the line with some of their greasy comments
Uhh, so what exactly do you do? Focus: I write freelance for websites. That means everything from ghostwriting for management consultants to re-writing descriptions of reverse mortgages Pros - I get to work in whatever attire I want - Most of the writing pays better than anything I made in the newspaper industry/corporate world - I get to say screw you to clients - My income is more diversified Cons - Did you see that re-writing reverse mortgage descriptions? The question of morals vs. meals comes up on occasion - I never thought I'd miss the office atmosphere, but it can be weird to be on a laptop in Starbucks while your friends are in meetings - Advancement basically means starting my own company, and I don't want to settle down just yet.
I do software engineering for an enormous web application. Pros: - Get to come in reasonably late to avoid morning / evening traffic. - Get to instruct the (relative, I'm only 28) youth in proper software engineering techniques. - Get to work on "experimental" projects which are much more interesting and challenging than run of the mill web development. - My boss is pretty good at keeping things steady, without too much project shuffling or disturbances from other departments. - I like most of the people I work with. Cons: - Normal web development is not intellectually difficult so I'm bored out of my skull or can't focus on the work half the time. - The application wasn't originally built with good software engineering in mind, so a lot of the work is trying to rewrite people's stupidity (including my own earlier stuff). - I feel like my brains are slowly congealing, and I'm terrified that I'll be doing web development for the rest of my programming career.
There seem to be a lot of IT-focused people on this board (web development, software engineers, corporate IT folks, etc.). I was a computer science major for the first 3 semesters of college before I quickly realized that it was way too technically-focused for me. It also seemed like the CS majors we kind of an introverted bunch that didn't like having much interaction with other people. Has that held pretty true for those of you that stayed in IT? If so, do you enjoy the coding/building aspects of your jobs? How much of your time do you spend "by yourself" versus working with others, traveling, etc? One of the things I really like about my job is that in order to solve problems, I have to do 70% of my work away from the computer. I have to form relationships with competing/referring hospitals, research other acquisitions, scope out a marketplace, and negotiate terms. It's more of an art than a science, and I really enjoy working on building those "soft" skill-sets. There is definitely a part of me that is a "problem solver" and to some extent, an introvert, but I can only sit in my chair for so long. Anyways, I've always wondered what would have come of me if I had stayed on the IT/computer science path. Can some of you comment on your day-to-day responsibilities? Are you happy? Is your work rewarding, or do you think it's thankless?
I have two jobs. Job 1: selling bikes Pros: - I get paid to ride bikes - I am employed by a fortune 50 corporation; insane benefits, great discounts - I only work 8-16 hours a week, and retain my 401k, discount, benefits, etc. - It's 3 blocks from my house Cons: - Sales get slow in the winter so I am forced to wander around and help people with products I don't care much about - Pay sucks, but is better than 99% of part time non-commission retail Job 2: selling awesomeness for an awesome internet start up (can't give away details, so we will leave the product at "awesomeness") Pros: - Awesome job. I worked 8 to 7 today and didn't even realize it. Granted, 2 hours were taken up by listening to two of the brightest minds of the e-commerce world shoot the shit while eating catered snacks. - Complimentary caffeinated beverages of all sorts - I have yet to meet someone I dislike - Little to no HR. Everyone is hilarious/offensive and no one gives a shit - 90% of the women that work here are so attractive it's distracting - Barely a dress code - A lot of potential for growth Cons: - I wake up slightly earlier due to the time zone I call on - Benefits are mediocre - 1 really annoying girl (out of the several hundred in the office...) - Lots of pointless e-mails that I wish I didn't receive Basically, I have not one but TWO jobs that I highly enjoy. That's two more jobs than most people, from what I hear.
The Best: - I call hockey games, host a sports-talk show and read morning sports updates. Need I say more? - The perks: Free golf, a lot of free booze from fans, and there is a small element of 'celebrity' involved in my position. - I have total creative control. As long as I'm on time, and clients are still buying advertising, I am left alone to do my thing. - Networking Opportunities: I've met Hockey Hall of Famers, famous musicians and interviewed my favorite athletes from the NHL, CFL and MLB. The Worst: - The Hours. My work-day starts at 5:00 AM. - The wage. I make enough to survive, but not enough buy a brand-new set of tires without having to save for months. - The town. It'll do for now, but I'll be crushed if I'm still here when I'm 30. (I'm 25) - The microscope. I don't get a lot of hate mail, but when I do it can be pretty harsh.