Occupations

[cheerful_deviant]

It occurred to me in reading the threads recently that we have quite a cross section of society here. And I started wondering just what occupations were represented.

So here is a two/three part question. What do you do all day? Doctor, lawyer, writer, salesperson, technician, stay-at-home mother/father?

Second, do you enjoy it?

And third, if not what would you rather be doing?

 

[cloudy]

Currently I'm a stay-at-home mom, but that's a recent thing. Until last year I was a regional training manager for a nationwide retailer. Great job! Traveled all over the place, holding training seminars for store managers, went to new stores and opened them, etc. I miss it terribly.

The company went bankrupt, and completely out of business, so the decision was made for me to stay home for a little while - at least until my youngest starts school.

I absolutely loved my job! It was just luck (and hard work) that I got it, but it was perfect for me! I'm naturally a very outgoing person, and the satisfaction I got from seeing someone I had trained succeed was wonderful. Plus, the company I worked for was very employee-oriented, and it was nothing for me to call the vice-president up about this or that...all first name basis.

Staying home has it's perks, that's for sure, but I miss the day-to-day camaraderie of my job.

 

[matriarch]

Me?

By day, I'm a local government officer, in the education department. I am personal assistant to the head of Special Educational Needs. He's the guy who has a team under him of specialists.....child psychologists, behaviour therapists, learning support, teachers who specialise in resources and facilities for deaf, blind, disabled children, and immigrants for whom English is their second language. Also children who are school phobic, the ones who are educated at home.....and lots more. A wonderful team of incredibly dedicated people, who's focus in life is making education work for children who don't fit the mainstream.

I deal with bolshie central government officers, abusive and/or distressed parents, up-ther-own-ass local government officers, teachers, headteachers.

I do my job with finesse, patience, and consumate skill only found in a woman.

Basically, I bully him. I nag him. I tell him where to be and when. And how long he can stay there, and what time I expect him back at his desk. Occasionally I make him a coffee, which he doesn't get until he says please and thank you. I deflect as much crap from him as I can, taking it myself, with a sweet smile and a polite tone. When I can't take any more he has to deal with it himself.

By night? I'm a grouchy old Matriarch who sits in Abs cafe drinking brandy, sketching the assorted visages present, and mumbles abuse at them, while berating the housekeeping skills of the staff. In my better mood, I escort newbies around the horrors of AH for the first time, u ntil they feel able to say hi to people like Colly, Lou and Lucky without gibbering and dropping to their knees in awe.

Mat

 

[cheerful_deviant]

I just realized I didn't even answer my own question.

I am currently a construction superintendent working on heavy civil projects. That means no building construction for me. I work on the big dirt projects like tunnels and highways.

It's close to what I really want to do but not quite. Before I was married I was a superintendant/engineer for a specialty geotechnical contractor. I really enjoyed that but it involves travel and that was not really and option with a new family. So I had to give it up.

BTW, Cloudy, my wife is a stay at home mom too, she loves it but also misses her job (she was a teacher). It is one of the most under appreciated job in my opinion. (And my wife hates it when someone calls her a "housewife" or "homemaker")

 

[cloudy]

I just realized I didn't even answer my own question.

I am currently a construction superintendent working on heavy civil projects. That means no building construction for me. I work on the big dirt projects like tunnels and highways.

It's close to what I really want to do but not quite. Before I was married I was a superintendant/engineer for a specialty geotechnical contractor. I really enjoyed that but it involves travel and that was not really and option with a new family. So I had to give it up.

BTW, Cloudy, my wife is a stay at home mom too, she loves it but also misses her job (she was a teacher). It is one of the most under appreciated job in my opinion. (And my wife hates it when someone calls her a "housewife" or "homemaker")

I hate that, too! "Mess-maker" would be closer to my description, anyway.

 

[Alex De Kok]

I've already said this on another thread somewhere, but I'm an (early) retired UK Civil Servant, late-life University graduate, now working part-time as an Associate Lecturer for the Open University and our local university, here in the UK.

Basically what that means is I play at working, doing something I like, and have a lot of time for writing which I waste by answering questions like this!

My wife quit working recently as our mortgage was paid and we laugh a lot together. Probably hysterically. She writes, too, although not erotica. She's a better writer than me, too, dammit!

Alex

 

[Honey123]

I am a legal secretary, administrative assistant, paralegal, personal assistant....whatever you want to call it...me, I sometimes say I am the office moron!

I do my job and I do it well. I have bosses which I love and hate usually at the same time. There are people in my office who are constantly mad, sad and downright annoying...so I try to stay happy, laugh, joke around, tease people all this while working!!

Yes, yes...I multi-task!

I almost lost my job since the firm I work for is splitting up. But they found a way to keep me. This makes me happy and sad. I had visions of just fixing up my new (old) home, being with my son and getting a bitching tan this summer, but alas...I still have a job.

So, to annoy everyone for keeping me working..I will wear short dresses, short skirts, tight tops and maybe, just maybe panties!

 

[dr_mabeuse]

It occurred to me in reading the threads recently that we have quite a cross section of society here. And I started wondering just what occupations were represented.

I don't know, CD. It seems you've got people here who are able to waste most of their days posting to the AH. I wouldn't call that a cross section of society. I'd alway assumed that what we had here at Lit (at least on the US side of the clock) was a bunch of unemployed or severely underemployed scribblers.

I fall in the latter category. I teach college chemistry part time now after my job in pharmaceutical manufacturing R&D was shipped overseas. I miss it. Lord, I miss being in my own lab with a problem to solve and everything I need to solve it with right there.

But, as Kurt Vonnegut said, personal catastrophes are often dancing lessons from God. About the only thing I care to do anymore is write, but I doubt whether there's a living to be made in it.

---dr.M.

 

[Liar]

Part time web developer/webside manager, part time news editor and reporter coverng the tech industry.

Like it? The writing part is fun (even though the subject doesn't really interrest me, bu ti beats flipping burgers, as they say), the rest is really getting on my nerves.

So I'm quitting this month. I only work until 30th july, and then I'm a full time student for at least two years.

#L

 

[Honey123]

Part time web developer/webside manager, part time news editor and reporter coverng the tech industry.

Like it? The writing part is fun (even though the subject doesn't really interrest me, bu ti beats flipping burgers, as they say), the rest is really getting on my nerves.

So I'm quitting this month. I only work until 30th july, and then I'm a full time student for at least two years.

#L

Gotta love college-men...

Good luck to you, Liar...I wish I had the get up and go to, well, get up and GO~!!

 

[Guest]

Care taker.. i take care of mom and all her medical and home issues.. take care of my kids and moms hubby

just graduated with a less the useful degree in computer sciences with a concentration on programming and web design.. going back this fall for a BS in nursing.

all my adult life i worked at a cardiac tech or emergency room tech. ... wanted a change but the harder i fight it, the harder it pulls me back.. damn....

i would like to be able to do something creative.. work with my hands... but i dont think that will cover the medical insur. issues or put my kids through college.. so.. i do what i gatta do.

 

[Just-Legal]

Me?

Monday thru Saturday I am a Retail Sales Assistant (I work in a shop) and a Merchandiser for a Concessions Company (I organise a jewellery concession within said shop).

On Friday and Saturday nights I'm a Bar Wench.

I hate all three but need the money. I'd like a 9-5, Mon-Fri with decent money.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

I am currently unemployed and a stay at home mom.

Before that I was working as a visual merchandising assistant in a East Coast department store chain. I got to work with the mannequins, set up cosmetic displays, do the windows and all seasonal decorations.

I don't miss this time of the year, it's Christmas prep time. Which means going over all the swags, wreaths and trees. Checking and changing miles of light strands, refluffing, and redecorating which takes up until October when everything goes up. I don't miss that, I do however miss my co-workers.

I am pursuing something else, but for the first time in 9 years I have the summer off.

 

[Raizal]

Im a poor... poor... poor poor student...

No i dont. I want MONEY!

Become somebody who works on computers, wearing womens clothes and not to be laughed at...

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I am currently drawing disability and I define stay at home, since it takes more pills that Bill romanowski takes in a week to let me leave the house. If it weren't for lit & the freinds I have made here I would already be in a paded room somewhere.

Before my brain decided to take early retirement I worked for the phone Company as a linesman. Iloved the job, because I have always been terribly shy and I almost never had to deal with the public. Basically, if one of our I&R guys couldn't get dial tone at the pole he was supposed to be doing his work from he would pass the ticket to me and I would go clear a pair for hi, but only to the pole. I would then pass the tick back to dispatch and someone else got to go deal with the customers. The pay was good, bennies were good and aside from being the only woman in a agarage full of men every morning, it had little downside.

I also worked summers as a park Ranger. Another nearly perfect job, since no one was allowed in the parks after dark and I never came on before 8.

If I could have any job, I would be making enough writing to support myself.

-Colly

 

[SnoopDog]

I'm a student who's just about to quit studying 'electrical engineering' and about to start new studies in 'journalism' and 'movie-studies' (sorry about the terms, don't know the correct english terms for it).

I realized that the world of technology isn't my cup of tea though I was always good at science and maths in school.
So I'll have to start over now and do something completely different, i.e. follow my heart instead of my mind.
I'll be looking for a job in the movie-industry or I'd like to become a movie-critic.

Oh and I just sent in my application so if someone got some fingers left for crossing, please do so and I might be accepted by the university.

Snoopy

 

[Guest]

 

[dark&stormy]

 

[ABSTRUSE]

I am an illustrator and designer of product for children...mostly activity books using specialty inks; invisible, color-change and the like.

It is really great, I would like to be doing more illustration, currently I am the Creative Director, so most of my drawing is product concepts and the bulk of our product is licensed based.

I am working on my own children's stories with illustrations as well as coming up with a company based on urban fairies. Currently there are 3 locations of fairy homes within our house. This weekend i am going to China for a week of work and during that time hope to have a preliminary sculpt made for my own project.

rhino

Hello Rhino, great to see you!!!
Please take pics of China, I've always wanted to go and will have to live it through you.
Have a great trip!!!!

~A~

 

[oggbashan]

I used to be a Civil Servant.

Then my unit was made into the Post Office, then British Telecom.

I was Lord High Everything Else in a technical department - finance, buildings, personnel, computers, training, film and video unit, etc with about 150 staff of my own.

I was medically retired with a damaged back from too many active sports that I wasn't any good at - horse riding, mountaineering, rock-climbing, surfing, motorcycling (on road and off road in competitions). I fell off the horses, the mountains, the rocks, the waves and the motorbikes but the effect didn't kick in until my 40s.

I started a second career in Local Government until they fired me for doing what I'd been recruited for - to bring hard line commercial management. They f**ked up firing me and didn't read my CV otherwise they would have known that I had far more experience of firing people than their whole personnel unit.

Then I started a third career as a hobby - secondhand bookshop owner. I retire from that next year and start travelling the world.

Og

 

[Guest]

 

[Guest]

OOOOOOoooo!

Og!
where is your bookstore?
I will be in London/Westminister july 28 -aug5

anywhere near?
also looking for a copy of Les Baisers by Dorat (published in 1947) with illustrations by Brunelleschi. Might have better luck in europe than here.

Rhino

I thought you said Winchester?

Such a shame it won't be possible to arrange to meet up.

Lou

 

[Guest]

 

[cheerful_deviant]

It's interesting how we develop mental pictures of people as we talk to them in the threads. It's also interesting how sometimes we nail it and sometimes we are a completly wrong.

I had a mental image of many of the responders here. Some I already knew most of it. Some my guesses were pretty close and with a few, I was not even in the ball park.

Of the ones I had guesses for:

Honey I was right.

Og and Dr M, I was pretty close.

Liar, Mat, I was kinda, sorta not really close.

Colly, I was a million miles off, never would have guessed that in ten lifetimes.

And the rest I either know already or didn't have a guess yet.

Anyone else guess right or wrong?

 

[Guest]

yeah i think i did....
hmmm...
now i am not sure!
winchester i think is right.

our friends live there (whichever it is) but i only e-mail them, the moved from Bournmouth (however it is spelled) after living here for a couple years.

rhino

Yep, it would be Winchester. Westminster is right in the centre of London.

Bournemouth? Really?

It's a small, small world.

Lou