Escapist's Day Jobs

[Diddy_Mao]

Just left a job where I had been providing Software QA analyst duties for a retail website . Corporate restructuring put the kaibosh on that so now I'm manning a tech support line for a telematics company. It's good work and it keeps me from having to walk Cletus Q. Bumblescump through deleting his browser history before his wife comes home.

Currently looking to get my Scrum Master certification to supplement my QA experience.

 

[eatenbyagrue]

Is there anyone here with a good paying job ?

From a cursory glance, I count almost a dozen people in this thread who should have what I'd consider "good pay". It all depends on where you set the bar, though. I consider mine to be pretty good, amounting to about $27/hour (I get paid by month rather than hour, so it's actually $4725/month). I'm fairly young and newly employed, though, so it's in the bottom bracket of the convention. I have a senior coworker (same title) who makes about $6500/month.

I make less than $200 a month, but considering where I live (out in the sticks, where everything is cheaper) and the fact that I don't pay rent and utilities (the school where I work takes care of that, plus the apartment I live in), and my parents take care of a lot of the financial burden (they fill my car's tank, pay my mobile phone's bill and give me lots of food to take with me), I'm actually doing pretty well. (That said, I do try to remain as independent as possible: I've allotted a lot of my budget towards groceries so I'm less dependent on my parents for food, and I only make the drive back to their house once a month, if that)

It'll probably get higher once I earn my Master's degree and PhD, but until then I'm doing pretty well.

 

[Total LOLige]

I'm a "First line support analyst" that takes less than 8 calls a day on average and bug the 2nd line team(those guys scare me) with 3 of them. Piece of piss. It's boring as fuck but it's easy and sometimes the people on the other end of the phone are hilarious. Had a Michael Caine sound a like yesterday, amazing.

 

[eatenbyagrue]

Is it just me, or do most of us work boring grown-up jobs?

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

I'm an audio engineer.

I work into the witching hour and sometimes I have early morning stuff the next day. Stumbling into work never felt so appropriate when that happens.

At the moment, I'm doing odd gigs. Some theatre stuff (which is a little slow), a church gig (it pays the bills), and some recording stuff if I can find the work. It's a lot of high stress work and a lot of 'hurry up and wait' work as well, but I enjoy it. Never a dull moment.

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

Teach college-level history courses for a private university. . . . .but I'm staring at being unemployed in the near future.

Worst part about that is I didn't do anything to get fired or pushed out the door. We had a change over in management and the new folks are weeding out everyone who was hired by the previous directors. Guilt by association.

I am looking at various schools in the area to see if I can get work there, but I suspect I will have to go back into "whatever I can find for the paycheck" style work.

*sigh*

The pay wasn't great, but I've found that I LOVE teaching history. I love history and my students always seemed to remark on the teacher evaluations that I was one of the first instructors they had had in history that made history interesting. How in the world can someone as boring as me make history interesting? It's already amazing stuff!

 

[COMaestro]

I am a systems admin at a chemical plant, though I've only had the job for about a year now. Before that I temped as a desktop support tech for a number of years. It's pretty decent work, with days being up and down as far as how busy I am, and a pretty good wage.

 

[devotedsniper]

Officially I'm classed as a Web Developer (at least thats my job title) but I work solely in the backend which means I'm more of a regular software developer than an actual web dev (meaning I can change the area I work in fairly easily, which is something that appeals to me).

I specialize in MVC, C#, SQL, Javascript, JQuery, Knockoutjs, Windows Services, and soon vNext when it actually gets released. I've built simple sites with CMS's to really complex custom software which processes fines for leasing companies.

Fairly happy with the job but it can be very stressful when I'm left in charge for the week or all the deadlines have managed to fall onto the same week but I like a challenge.

Also thinking about doing some freelance work, could always do with the extra cash considering I only have a years industrial experience so the pay while good isn't great for an actual developer.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Looking for work as a personal trainer. Got turned down by the biggest gym where I live because, to paraphrase my interviewer, I'm a good personal trainer, but a shitty salesman. Helping people get into shape, I can do. Trying to push expensive training session packages on people who can't afford them, like the gym equivalent of a used car salesman, is something I have no interest in, whatsoever (also I suck at it).

So while my efforts so far in the job hunt have ended in failure, my main methods of doing productive stuff include training in Muay Thai (useful experience for a personal trainer to have), Yoga (also useful for a trainer), and working on my own recipes for stuff like homemade hummus, almond butter, soups, etc. (helps me save money compared to buying pre-packaged stuff).

I feel you very much.

It's a very sorry world where people don't want to train with those who know how to give you what you'll need, but train with the biggest sleazeballs there are.

As one of my old mentors once said to me: There are two camps of trainers. The Doers and the Talkers. Sadly, the Doers have to learn to be talkers and the Talkers have to learn which clients to keep and which to let go... even if said clients are receiving no gains.

 

[ExDeath730]

I'm a Lawyer, for like one month, i actually graduated in January, so i was studying for the dreaded OAB (it's the Lawyer Association here in Brazil). got my card just 15 days ago and already found a job and i'm handling my first cases, being specialized in Administrative (dealing with the government) and Corporate (dealing with Commerce in general) Law.

 

[Darth_Payn]

I'm a Database Administrator at Apple, Inc. I finally have a job that puts my Comp. Engineering degree to good use!
What I do is, I'm given a list of parts (Resistors, Capacitors, Logic Gates, Transistors, Processors, etc.) and look them up in a database of parts from other vendors for their data sheets. I then look for the electrical data that another database that the engineers use to help design all the wonderful products Apple delivers. I've been doing it since April, every month we have a beer bash, and I get two screens so I can read/watch The Escapist while I work!

 

[Dalisclock]

Is there anyone here with a good paying job ?

That depends on a lot, which leads me into a kind of rambling rant....

I don't get paid that much by the Navy, and I'd get paid a lot more for doing my same nuclear job(and working fewer hours) in the civilian power sector. The military paid me some nice bonuses and I had extremely fast promotion because of how undermanned(and stressful and how long the hours are) the job is, which meant I was earning more money earlier in my career then most people. Also, the military can pay for a lot of your stuff, such as health care, moving your stuff, not having to pay state income tax(if you set your home as being a state without income tax, even if you've never lived there) and don't to pay income tax when on deployment. Not to mention getting your college paid for

OTOH, I work with people who make a lot more then me, have been in a lot longer....and routinely have no money to spend, or are in outright debt up to their eyeballs. Because I paid off all my debts ASAP once I had the money, bought a honda instead of a camaro(which I paid off immediately) and I really don't spend that much. I buy most of my games on steam sales or from GOG.com(and my backlog is so insane that I won't buy games anymore unless they're really cheap or I really want them. Not because of the money, but I just hate adding to the backlog). I don't have a mortgage or kids or feel any need to buy flashy expensive stuff just to show off. I also don't drink my paycheck away like some people I've worked with.

Would I mind making more money? Not at all. Am I killing myself to get promoted to the next paygrade? Hell no. I'm satisfied with how much I'm getting now. I'm happy with my working hours for the first time in a long time right now, even if I took a small pay cut to work at my current duty(AKA I had a pretty decent monthly bonus for doing a really stressful job, and when I came off the stressful job I'm no longer getting the bonus).

We could probably start a whole new thread on how much money is enough.

 

[Nomad]

Is there anyone here with a good paying job ?

From a cursory glance, I count almost a dozen people in this thread who should have what I'd consider "good pay". It all depends on where you set the bar, though. I consider mine to be pretty good, amounting to about $27/hour (I get paid by month rather than hour, so it's actually $4725/month). I'm fairly young and newly employed, though, so it's in the bottom bracket of the convention. I have a senior coworker (same title) who makes about $6500/month.

Hmmm...Your job?

It's on page two of the thread: comptroller at a university. Basically, I do forecasting and general analysis. Mostly the forecasting revolves around keeping track of how many students we have in different categories (and how many we're likely to have in the future), estimating the economic impact of the distribution and the relation between our capacity and our production. There are also elements of forecasting the production of research, but we have more of a laissez-faire policy in that area. The "general analysis" portion of what I do is very much governed by what appears to be important at the time: changes in organisational structure, results from national evaluation processes, adaptation to changes in government directives or labour market developments and so on.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

Just left a job where I had been providing Software QA analyst duties for a retail website . Corporate restructuring put the kaibosh on that so now I'm manning a tech support line for a telematics company. It's good work and it keeps me from having to walk Cletus Q. Bumblescump through deleting his browser history before his wife comes home.

Currently looking to get my Scrum Master certification to supplement my QA experience.

 

[jackknife402]

I work as a surveillance operator for a casino. Job is pretty kush but boring.

Do the exact same things everyday and after a certain point in the day I have nothing to do. Do get to do some investigative work for the state police or feds from time to time otherwise its just watching for cheaters or employees not doing their jobs correctly. I know 2 different card counting methods which is really not that difficult to do. Movies have really gotten that one wrong as the majority of card counters are dumb idiots who just don't want to work. Don't take a genious just a bit of repitition and memorizing basic strategy as well as a couple variations.

 

[Mahemium]

I'm a Carer for my father who's terminally ill with last stage cardiomyopathy, a heart disease. For those who don't know, in Australia; Carers are pensioners, typically family members or close friends of the disabled or ill, who are paid by the government to perform the same duties and care as a registered full-time nurse.

Prior to this, I had worked as a security guard and barman.

 

[rdaleric]

I'm Learning Zone manager in a High School. I am also the school photographer and editor and manage all the schools mobile tech (iPads cameras, Nexus, and video equipment)

 

[Super Cyborg]

Well It's not the usual 9-5 job, Monday to Friday deal. I work Offshore doing mitigation for seismic activities. I usually either visually look for marine mammals, or this year I've listened underwater using a hydrophone cable. While it can be monotonous at times, being able to see, hear various things is really neat. I've seen various whales, dolphins, turtles, and sharks.

Not really a job, but I'm currently in South Africa getting ready to start an internship helping with shark research, with an emphasis on Great Whites. Not something that's going to be a job or anything, but just something to gain experience and trying to learn what I want to do for my masters.