What do you do for work?

[Slenn]

I am a third year graduate student in nuclear physics. My overall goal is to see if Chi-C particles are a good particle to use as a thermometer to measure what's referred to as a quark-gluon plasma or "soup". Right now I'm in the step of properly finding the invariant mass of J/Psi (one of the particles Chi-C decays into) as well as finding the lost brehmstralung that were presumably emitted by the electron-positron pair from J/Psi.

It has its ups and downs. There are times when I'm hot on the trail and coding away, and there are times I'm reading a paper or waiting to hear some feedback. But I like it; it's a nice mystery that dissolves ignorance. And working with simulation and real data is quite interesting. Because you get to learn a lot of details about how the detector works.

 

[Evil Moo]

I'm a programmer at a relatively small, local game dev company. I must be absurdly lucky to be in this position as this is pretty much my dream job, it is my first proper full time employment and I was hired with relatively little to no hassle (due mostly, I suspect, to the fact that I'd spent the last couple of summers before that doing work experience with them, on top of some other more short term work I'd done with them previously, so they knew me and what I was capable of without needing any formal interview process).

I enjoy programming and I enjoy games and game design, so I feel like I'm in a pretty ideal situation at the moment.

 

[GabeZhul]

I am a third year graduate student in nuclear physics. My overall goal is to see if Chi-C particles are a good particle to use as a thermometer to measure what's referred to as a quark-gluon plasma or "soup". Right now I'm in the step of properly finding the invariant mass of J/Psi (one of the particles Chi-C decays into) as well as finding the lost brehmstralung that were presumably emitted by the electron-positron pair from J/Psi.

It has its ups and downs. There are times when I'm hot on the trail and coding away, and there are times I'm reading a paper or waiting to hear some feedback. But I like it; it's a nice mystery that dissolves ignorance. And working with simulation and real data is quite interesting. Because you get to learn a lot of details about how the detector works.

I totally love how you sound like Star Trek technobabble, except it makes sense (well, some sense... I only took two uncredited courses on particle- and quantum physics, so I only have a broad idea of your field.)

 

[MCerberus]

I customize warehouse software

Spoiler: I live this image

 

[Slenn]

I totally love how you sound like Star Trek technobabble, except it makes sense (well, some sense... I only took two uncredited courses on particle- and quantum physics, so I only have a broad idea of your field.)

Thank you for the compliment! I do try to make some effort and not leave the common layman out of the loop of the current science. Here's some glossary terms that might help:

Brehmstralung : Translates in German to "breaking radiation". When a charged particle slows down, it will emit photons mostly in the forward direction it was traveling. It's sort of akin to if you were driving down a dirt road and you were slam on the breaks, there would be a cloud of dust that would be moving ahead of you.

Quark Gluon Soup/Plasma : The parts of an atomic nucleus are the proton and neutrons, which are broken up into smaller bits called quarks and gluons. These particles are held together by the strong nuclear force. At high energies, it is presumed that the strong nuclear force's strength breaks down. So instead of balls of quarks and gluons at high energies, we get a fluid of quarks and gluons. Or a "soup" or plasma.

J/Psi : A particle that was originally proposed as an indicator for the presence of the quark gluon plasma. If the plasma were present, we would see less J/Psi forming. J/Psi will also decay into an electron positron pair. Funny story about its name: This particle was simultaneously discovered by two individuals that both wanted to propose a name for the new particle. The end result was that it's now called by two names simultaneously (J since K was already assigned to a particle called a Kaon, and Psi the Greek letter).

 

[Elfgore]

I work at a store support line for a gas company on the East coast. Third shift life kills the social life and makes you constantly tired, but the fact I can watch anime and read while at work because it is so slow is awesome. I work ten hour shifts too, so I get a sweet three days off in a row.

 

[Redryhno]

Six days a week ~4 am ~2:00 pm at a restaurant, working the breakfast/brunch shifts. Relatively new place that's only been around for a year after finishing up my chef certificate and various "apprenticeships"(also known as internships to the rest of the world, though we do get some kind of pay for it other than experience.) about the time it opened. Pretty good pay too for a newbie honestly, especially considering pretty much everyone else has some kind of investment in the place or the owner.

Basically I do what you'd expect, I have about two hours of prep along with the rest of the shift and the like three people that are me about a year and a half ago, then another seven or eight of all hell breaking loose and Fancy McRichPants thinking they know how everything needs to be served in the "traditional" manner because they turn on the Food Network every once in a while.

Other than patrons like that, job's honestly pretty great. Doing something I've always been pretty good at, at a place that's relatively close to where I live(like, I can walk there without passing any highways). Well, that and cleaning up while the next shift is busy doing their own prep, kitchen's gigantic, but when you've got fifteen people in there washing and cutting at the same time, it feels really small.

 

[jawz13]

I'm a Matte Painter at MPC in Montreal. I work on films, MPC has divisions that work on commercials and tv shows as well, but I prefer films personally.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Danm, some people jobs on here sound impressive especially when compared to my job...

I'm just a sales assistant in a cheap branded/ discount retrail store.

I am content with it since I am fortunate I don't have to deal with bad costumers all the time for the most part. They are mainly local people (most are elderly) who are all friendly and understanding. The ones that can be awkward to me are usually the tourist or those who are on holidays/ visiting (I lived in a costal town).

 

[gritch]

I'm currently a graduate student studying Chemistry. Part of my stipend requires me to teach a few organic chemistry lab sections. The rest of my time is spent in the lab doing actual research. Teaching is too fun but it's honestly not that much work so I can't really complain.

 

[Dirkie]

I'm currently a graduate student studying Chemistry. Part of my stipend requires me to teach a few organic chemistry lab sections. The rest of my time is spent in the lab doing actual research. Teaching is too fun but it's honestly not that much work so I can't really complain.

If chemistry is your thing, i think you might enjoy Derek Lowe with his blog "In the pipeline" (found here http://pipeline.corante.com/ - because i'm a bit too lazy to figure out proper formatting).

Reccomended sections: "Things I Won't Work With" and " Things I'm Glad I Don't Do".

 

[ForumSafari]

I'm an IT administrator, I help manage a small to medium business with sites across Europe. I cover everything from level 1 through to systems administration.

 

[Auron225]

Trainee Teacher - high-school level maths.

I'm in a quarter-life crisis at the moment though, due to the realization that I don't like teaching. The problem is that I have no idea what I'd want to do instead. Teaching was almost the "obvious" conclusion to finding a compromise between what I like and what I can do but it feels like the worst of both worlds.

 

[Breakdown]

I'm unemployed for around another ten hours, and then I start a new job doing admin work and dealing with funding grants and stuff.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Just an unemployed undergrad student. I'm a bit of a lazy bastard.

 

[Sassafrass]

I stack shelves, make the shelves look neat and ***** about you behind your back on break with my co-workers.
I also shout at my managers, shout at other co-workers and sometimes shout at customers for not moving out of the way while I'm carrying a box filled with pizza cutters.

Ah, retail.
How I love/loath you.

 

[Armadox]

Just curious.

Currently I work at a paper manufacturing plant where I spend 12 hours a day grabbing bits of cardboard off a conveyor belt and stacking them on pallets. Only work 3-4 days a week though, so it's aaalll goood.

Ugh, poor bastard. We have a paper mill in, hilariously Millville, that can make it smell from there all the way to the Gulf on a bad day. That smell gets into everything in Millville til the entire town smells like ass. I hope they pay you well..

That being said, keep up the good work as I'm your primary customer! I work as a graphic designer. Primarily I am a commercial graphic designer and work in posters, banners and digitally printed vinyl signs. I make everything from those little coroplast political signs, to vehicle wraps, store lettering, and more. Outside of that I run my own freelance commissions and comics. Basically I draw all day...

 

[Chemical Alia]

I've been designing and making cosmetic items for Valve games (mostly Dota, stepping into CS:GO a bit more lately) full time for about a year and a half. I've been making cosmetics as a side thing, with mods before that, for over five years. Eventually it got so overwhelming that I chose to quit my studio job to focus on doing this.

It's been pretty cool. I can work on what I want, make art that I concepted, and there's a lot of skills I didn't normally have to do or think about, from art to business-related stuff. Setting my own hours and being able to take off whenever I want to travel is also great.

On the other hand, I don't know how much longer I can keep working from home like this. On a typical day I interact with about zero humans. I relocated halfway across the country about six months ago and know very few people here. I tried livestreaming my work for a while and determined I sorta hate doing it, and it doesn't really take the place of talking to other people. I often miss the environment of working in a studio and being surrounded by awesome artists and having opportunities to make friends and stuff. I might start looking for one by the end of summer, at this rate.

I have major respect for anyone who is able to work from home and not go insane. I love what I do for a living, but I just don't know how people do it!

 

[ExDeath730]

I'm a Lawyer.

I work in corporate, administrative cases, usually in litigations between Companies and other types of Enterprises, and also estabilishing contracts and representing clients sometimes in board meetings and protecting them against unwanted government intervention. In the administrative side, i usually work on public licitations and contracts, representing clients and companies interested in working with the government, at the same time i am a thorn in the governments shoe, since i protect clients who have their property expropriated or there's some kind of unlawful or arbitraty intervention.

Most of my time is actually not in court, but making deals and having people sit down and try to reach an agreement, specially in the Corporate side, in the Administrative side is where i usually go to court since the brazilian government loves to abuse their citizens.

I can work in civil cases for friends, or clients that i trust and like, but i would never go for a criminal case, i just don't like it, maybe only if i have 100% certainty that the person is innocent, but that is unlikely, and my Penal Law Fu is not very strong.