I was curious... How long do you plan on staying at your current job? Is it a temporary thing until you get through school or find something better? Are you going through the motions hoping your boss puts you out of your misery and fires you? Is it your career and what yo uanticipate on doing for the rest of your life?

 

Being a teacher, I thought that this would end up being my career and what I would die doing. Hey, I get summers off, every Holiday off, decent benefits, etc. I am my own boss for the most part since I hardly see the principals. When I am tired, I can just hadn out worksheets or pop in a movie. On test days, I get to surf the net all day while the kids woek quietly. Now, I am not so sure. I think I may go into counseling and try and start up my own office. I've also thought about going into the business world and becoming what I despise... a corporate mark. But hey... I would make some cash

 

So, what's your job status?

I'm currently a programmer for Louisiana's Department Of Revenue And Taxation.

 

 

Because of the way the pre-determined career path is set up for someone in my position, I can't afford *not* to stay...

 

1. The entry-level programmer positions are set up so that we can get non-competitive promotions. That means a big pay raise based on the merit of your job performance instead of having to compete for an open position with the other programmers.

 

 

2. Annual raises based off of merit are written into the contract. That means if I score an "average" or better rating, I get a raise each year.

 

Those particular raises tend to cap out after about 13-15 years, at which time the person tends to hit the maximum pay allowable for someone in that pay grade.

 

 

3. The state has certain holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, 4th Of July, Labor Day, MLK Day in every other year, etc.) written into the state constitution. Other holidays can be declared at the governor's whim, which tend to be an extra day after Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's.

 

 

4. Civil Service employment protection. Four of the sweetest words you'll ever hear if you're a Civil Servant.

 

In order to get fired, you pretty much have to be explicitly insubordinate or do something else stupid enough to get fired for cause.

 

Even if they do attempt to fire you, the Civil Service appeals process is set up so that you can appeal it and, if you win, the agency in question has to pay you back pay and benefits if you're reinstated.

 

5. The retirement system. The LA State Employee Retirement System (LASERS) pays much better than, say, a labor union's retirement system.

 

Example- My dad, also a Civil Servant, will make a lot more in retirement than my uncle, who is a retired member of the electrician's union, despite my uncle putting in more years of work than my dad and getting better benefits while he was still working.

 

 

In addition to that, I took advantage of the "buy-in" option to purchase 5 years of retirement credit. That means I'll be eligible to retire at 25 years of service rather than 30 with the same level of benefits.

 

 

 

As for the job itself, it has its up days and its down days.

 

My entry level position was Hell On Earth, as I came in as a programmer for our mail processing section. That was a glorified triage position, as I was one of about 5 people having to figure out why certain pieces of information were being kicked back by our processing system and having to get it fixed in record time. It was a constant grind which drove me nuts.

 

 

My current position *tends* to be a lot less stressful, as I'm part of the main programming unit now.

 

Our department put in a new Customizable Off The Shelf software package to run our tax processing a few months after I got hired and it's written in Visual Basic, which is one of the languages I know.

 

I'm one of the people who got assigned to it near the ground-floor of the project (I came in right after the 2nd "rollout", of which there were 5).

 

As a result of when I came onto the project, my background beforehand (using a lot of SQL in my previous job), and the assignments I got when I joined the project, I've become somewhat indispensable. I'm thought of as one of the top go-to guys on getting data out of the system through Reports and Queries.

 

I'm also one of the two guys who were assigned to teaching the Legislative Auditors, who have oversight over all state agencies, what the new system does and how.

 

That gives me a better understanding of how a lot of the systems within the software package tie together than probably 90% of the other people working on the project, as the two of us were able to take a blank copy of the system and play with it to get results rather than doing the normal day-to-day assignments of "This piece of the system is broken, fix it to do X instead.".

 

 

The end result of this is that I'm pretty indispensable, which has its up days and down days.

 

The up-side is that I get noticed and that will help me out on promotions and pay raises. It also means that I tend not to get shit-on unnecessarily, unlike some of my co-workes. (If I get shit-on, it tends to be because my entire section or agency is getting shit-on)

 

The down-side is that, when things get busy, I get overloaded because some people's first response is "Oh, that's a report issue? Take it to Brandon, that's his specialty." I'm getting a LOT of that right now because every agency in the state is trying to get certain data out of us because of Katrina.

 

 

It'll all work out in the wash, though, so I'm generally happy with my job. Just not at this very second.

Currently, I stock shelves in the dairy cooler of a grocery store (it could be worse... it could be McDonald's), and I want to write programs, webpages (or both) after that. I have about 2.5 years of school left, best-case scenario, so I imagine after that I'll either go out looking for a fitting position or if I'm lucky, get transferred to the store's corporate office.

I'm waiting 12 months to establish residency in New Jersey and will be doing temp work in the meantime. Then, I plan on going back to school and getting my degree in Communications with minors in both Sociology and Gender Studies.

I still work for the man in Canada. In fact, I received my permanency last year. I don't know how long I'll stay in my position or branch, or even my department, but I'm staying put in the government, pretty much for life. Too many benefits and advantages to leave.

I work for the County Property Assessment office, via a temp agency. Due to budget issues, most of my department are temps, but if you do your job and befriend the right people, there's a chance you can be hired full time in the county. My immediate supervisor once was a temp doing the same job I do now only a few years ago. She's leaving to go back home to Philly, so while I doubt I'd even be considered for that job, the next person will probably come from the temp pool.

 

Even as a temp, I have an inside track for permanent county jobs since I'm already familiar with the county wide database system most of the departments use. I have applications in for 3 different positions but the county takes for-fucking-ever to go through the hiring process.

 

My career pretty much depends on where my fiancee gets hired at. She's got a higher level degree than I do (she just finished her Master's) so she's most likely to get a better paying job. If it's in the area, I'll probably try to stick with the county as long as I can.

Currently I work full-time at North Fork Bank and wouldn't mind staying there if I was internally promoted and what not without having to go back to college (only did one year). In the mean time though, I have applied to become a New York State court officer and am currently looking into a slew of civil service tests.

I'm currently a Directory Assistant and plan to move to either Cingular or another type of call center when I turn eighteen.. HOPEFULLY -- but I'm going to make my minor in college education (and major being psychology) and plan to do something as a teacher or psychologist (I know I'm not going to have the patience to get the doctorate unless I go about it chunks at a time).

I work as a Network Admin / Head Programmer for a small-ish company. Half my job is doing stuff that's too mundane for my boss (reformatting PCs, for example), and the other half is doing stuff that's too complicated for him - developing applications and so on.

 

So my day is basically a weird mix of basic tech support and hard programming work, all the while earning an absolutely terrible wage. I'm going to be having words tomorrow, and if we can't reach an agreement over the direction of my job and pay, I'll move on. But the way I feel with the place, I'd love to just get out of there.

Currently working for KFC. I'm planning on leaving my job really soon and looking for a real, honest, and good paying job.

I work at GEICO in the Internet Business Department (IBU). I was promoted to IBU 3 months ago after spending a year in the sales department (which wasn't fun, but it got my foot in the door). GEICO is a great company to work for; they pay is good, the company is strong, they promote from within and they have a great 401k and profit sharing programs. I feel fortunate that at 24 I have found my career and I am very happy with it.

Associate's degree in Office whatever and Computer Science.

 

I currently do Secretary/Tech Assistant work at my former community college. Pay surprisingly isn't that bad... I'd be making over $30k if I was working full-time... which should hopefully open up for me in the next year.

 

I'm beginning to warm up to my career. Even though the most I'll probably ever make is $40k, it's easy work and I have virtually no stress. Unlike Computer Science shit.

I'm a career bum. Currently unemployed and living off of my parents and Anvil. I'm going to be twenty-four on the 30th of this month and I think I've worked six months my entire life.

 

I hope to go pro playing cards but that might be a distant fantasy. I'll know in two months after I see how I do in Philadelphia.

 

I didn't go to college. In this town, you don't really need it anyway as the only jobs are factory work or hotels, restaurants. I don't plan on leaving this city since my entire family lives here. So, if cards don't work out, I'll work, probably, at my Uncle's pizza shop. Hooray for career $6/hr.

 

Oh yeah, I don't have a car or liscense.

 

I don't have a lot of ambition or direction in life. Never really have. Probably just laziness. Probably from having a low self esteem. Maybe a combination of several factors. I've just never really cared. I don't care about having money. I'm sure the people supporting me do though, which is the only desire I have to make an income. I can't work with others. I've considered starting my own business but I have no idea how to get started. I've never really wanted to start a family either.

I'm a computer programmer for a very large company. I live in a Dilbert comic strip. During my last performance review, I was offered a promotion, but turned it down because there:

 

A] There was no raise involved (budget's tight, ha ha)

B] Taking the promotion makes me ineligible to be paid for overtime

 

And, for anybody who's been around here awhile, you know that I'm already sick of fucking overtime. There's no way in hell I'm not getting paid for it unless I get some payroll adjustment elsewhere.

 

Even though I've done a lot of different things at my job, from recording and splicing voice prompts to leading discussions about requirements (that's business world speak for "instructions on what the hell you're supposed to do") to programming, this isn't really what I planned on doing on my way out of college. I'm hoping that I can stick around long enough for some of the benefits to vest and then bolt immediately to a better job that's not such a laughingstock.

 

Oh, and I got a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, with a second major in Music.

I'm slowly wading my way through community college; I'm not trying to break my neck to get my Bachelor's, mainly because while I've narrowed down my desired career to a handful, I haven't moved in on one. I'll be applying for an internship at the local newspaper in a couple weeks, so that might help.

 

Other than that, I'm just majoring in journalism, but realistically, I'd love to be able to do something like be one of the minds behind a comedy series/film or writing that doesn't require drone assignments the majority of the time.

Bruiser, that's sort of my goal too, and it's why I'm minoring in sociology. I plan on taking as many social sciences classes as I can, just because you learn so much about human interaction.

 

As an FYI -- the majority of the writers on Lost have sociology minors. That's not the reason I'm doing it, but I thought that was a cool little factoid.

I work for Enterprise Rent-A-Car as a management trainee. It would seem that I'm about 4 months from being promoted, as my manager is trying to fast track me (and I;m really looking forward to the $10K raise). Despite working a lot of hours I actuallt really like the job. Most of the people who work for the company are 22-30, which make the work atomosphere a lot more fun than your typical young kid working for an old guy. The cliche in my office is "work like an all-star and party like a rock star" if that gives you any indication of how we are.

Bruiser, that's sort of my goal too, and it's why I'm minoring in sociology. I plan on taking as many social sciences classes as I can, just because you learn so much about human interaction.

 

As an FYI -- the majority of the writers on Lost have sociology minors. That's not the reason I'm doing it, but I thought that was a cool little factoid.

Sociology's one of those subjects that's real interesting, but few major in. In fact, during my Soc. 211 class this morning, my professor said he's made it his goal to get the Sociology program really going at our school. I guess there isn't anyone attending the school that's majoring in Soc., which I find hard to believe, but since it's an area that's not really promoted around our school, who knows?

I just got a letter in the mail today from the county Health Department to test for a job I applied for. It'd be full time with more pay and the total benefit package which beats the hell out of this temp shit six ways to Sunday. All I gotta do now is not fuck up the typing test and I should have a fairly good chance.

As an FYI -- the majority of the writers on Lost have sociology minors. That's not the reason I'm doing it, but I thought that was a cool little factoid.

Where would you find that little bit of info out? Did you read it in an article?

Yeah, it was in Entertainment Weekly a while back.

Going on three years at a mutual fund broker/dealer firm here in SoCal. It's pretty laid back most of the day (which allows for plenty of web surfing) but we're busy as hell from the stock market close until about 5 p.m.

 

Although I do like it, this is very much a "pays the bills" type of job and by no means a career. Getting into sports journalism is my long term goal.

In high school I ended graduating with a certificate in business. Then I went to college and got my marketing diploma. I am now in university going for my bus. admin degree in General Management. So yeah, this is a nice conveyer belt I'm on.

 

My goal is to run my own business. I'd rather take full control of something rather than having to always ask "can I do this??" "is this ok??" and looking for direction from someone else. Ultimately, I'd like to run my own wrestling promotion, because that's where my interests lie and quite frankly, it's what I know and do best. I consider myself pretty well rounded when it comes to business - I can do accounting, finance, HR, marketing, market research, advertising, legal, and have taken a bunch of entrepreneurial courses so I know the steps to take and what I need to do to get started up.

 

My back-up career would be in logistics/supply chain management. Preferably either managing a warehouse or brokering deals with suppliers and distributors. One, it's not a career most people my age are looking to get into, which is an advantage for me. Two, a lot of people I know and that are in my family are involved in various stages of the supply chain. My Dad works with the railway, my Uncle was a general manager at a Chrysler warehouse before retiring, my Grandfather is a farmer, a friend of the family is a purchasing manager for Sears (and they all get paid good money) most people my age are shooting for the stars while working retail jobs, which don't really connect to each other very well.

 

I work in shipping for VF Imagewear, and thus far working there I have managed look at things that I'm doing and say "hey, this sounds familiar - oh yeah, I learned this in that Supply Chain Management course." or "hey, if we do this and this and this, we can improve productivity and efficiency, as taught in that Customer Approach to Quality class." and now I'm in a class like Organizational Behaviour, and am relating cases and topics that I'm learning to what I'm doing at work. It's not the best job in the world, it can get dull and repetative at times, but there's growth to it and it's great experience and I usually can turn it into something fun and sometimes it offers a nice challenge.

 

BTW, my schedule tomorrow is something like this:

 

6:30am - wake up

7:30 am - arrive at work

4:00 pm - leave work, take bus to mall.

5:30 pm - transfer to another bus at mall, go to university

7:00 pm - class (accounting)

10:00 pm - leave class, catch bus to mall

11:00 pm - transfer at mall, take bus home

12:00 pm - home

 

Right now, I'm a Case Assistant for a law firm in San Francisco. It's pretty much just pushing paper, but I'm slowly starting to get more responsibility shoved my way. However, right now this is sort of just a "pay the bills" gig.

 

My options kind of go as follows

 

1) stay where I'm at and go to paralegal school to eventually become a paralegal

 

2) stay where I'm at and go to school for the dream job of either sports radio or sports journalism.

 

Either way, I'm staying put for now. Like Rudo, I'd love to work for or run a wrestling promotion, but that dream's farther away than I'd like to admit.

Taking my court officer written exam saturday. Even if I do really good on that, it'll still be a good 6 months + until I get the job, plus there are a bunch of other tests to take, so not leaving the bank any time in the near future.