How did you get into your field of work/ study?

[Mexal]

3 hours ago, Raja said:

I know we talked about this when we met - but I still don't have a good grasp of what you do! What does your normal work day look like? 

Depends on the project. For example, we could develop a growth strategy that helps an insurance company expand into additional product lines or geographies. We could create a strategy to help them cut costs to a target level across various lines of business. We also bring to clients the latest trends in the marketplace so for example, we could put together a strategy or proof of concept for using Artificial Intelligence to help improve underwriting capabilities. Or we could help an insurance company understand the dire need to revamp their talent strategies with baby boomers set to retire in the next 3-5 years and millennials despising insurance and the antiquated ways they approach recruiting/developing talent.

So it just depends on the client, their issues and what we can bring to the table to solve them. We may focus our time on high level c-suite level strategies that are very data/financials driven (if you do x, you can realize y benefits in 3 years) or we may get a bit more into the weeds on line of business level strategies (Commercial Lines, Personal lines, Group Benefits, etc) to help improve processes and position themselves to take advantage of the industry tends that are manifesting themselves rapidly. 

That make sense?

 

[baxus]

On 7/22/2016 at 0:49 PM, Buckwheat said:

I am glad to see people saying they more or less stumbled into their profession or changed after they studied. The career advisor at my uni seems to think we should all have a detailed plan ahead of us right now ... and I get very worried because I, well, don't.

Don't worry about it. I don't have a detailed plan ahead of me and I'm almost 5 years into my "career" by now. In some cases, having a detailed plan ahead of you could even hurt you, since you might miss out on some great opportunities that don't fit that plan. You should have some general idea of what you want to do (or at least, what you don't want to do) and see what happens.

[3CityApache]

Strangely enough, I wanted to become a journalist since seventh grade. I went to journalism at the University of Warsaw thinking I become a sport journalist, but on the second year I started working in the economic department of the daily newspaper (economy being the only area of my studies I really hated), and so I stayed, for almost twenty years now, with a four years break for being a spokeperson (which I really enjoyed much more than being a journalist, but the company was state owned, and after the change of the government the new CEO brought his own spokeperson, so I had to go back to my old job).

[MercenaryChef]

i kind of just decided i would be a chef. i was 16. 

school was not for me. i didn't get particularly good grades, i hated almost everyone and just wanted it all to be over. college was never going to be a reality for me. my father encouraged me to join the military for both the discipline and for job training. i was too rebellious for that. 

so one day during a argument with my parents over my future i decided right then at that moment that i would become a chef.

we hunted, fished, foraged and gardened as i grew up. there was always a connection with food, both eating and preparing it. i found a job in high school as a dishwasher who quickly became a prep cook who then became a line cook. right after graduating high school i moved away and continually challenged myself to learn more and be better.

i love my job. i get paid to do something that i love to do and am pretty good at. it is fun to continually challenge myself and in turn my coworkers to learn and expand their skills.

 

[Westerosi Coast Gangster]

Irrigation Technichian-I like spraying things.

[scotcat]

I work in admin.  It wasn't what I'd planned, but it's what's ended up happening.

I had to make a career change 6 years ago when I fractured my back, so had to find a job where I wasn't on my feet and had no heavy lifting to do.  I enjoy it, so it all worked out

[S John]

More or less been in the same field since junior year of college.  I definitely stumbled into the major (which was Geography).  After college I was going to join the military, but was encouraged to apply as an officer, which takes time.  The primary reason I wanted to be in the military was to travel to different places as at the time I did not think I would ever be able to afford to do that otherwise.  After graduation I spent the summer trying to get into the best physical shape that I could get in while I worked on putting together my application for the Navy.  

I had not applied for any regular jobs except for one.  Near the end of my final semester of college I had sent off an application to a company that did airborne surveys all over the world that was looking for people to operate the system in flight.  20 days in the field, 10 days off, can live wherever you want.  Towards the end of the summer I got called by that company and they flew me out to LA and I decided to do it.  Pay was crap, but I never had to spend any of my own money.  That job led to a string of other jobs.  Some more desk oriented, some more field oriented but all kind of expanded my knowledge in one way or another.  Went to grad school in there somewhere.  Now I work at a university doing research on different types of airborne systems.  

 

[Frog Eater]

After High School, I wasn't going anything with my life so I joined the Army. 

In the Army I worked as a Finance and Accounting Specialist. 6 1/2 years later I got out, and went to the West (by God) Virginia University and majored in Accounting and Finance. After I graduated I went to work for a public accounting firm, was licensed as a CPA a year later, and have been a CPA working in public accounting since. 

[Underfoot]

Coming out of high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do but was pretty sure it was going to be in the arts and humanities (college was never not the equation for me). So I go in undergrad undeclared, toy around with History, Classics, Anthropology. Take a Geoscience class just to get the science requirement out of the way -- hell, rocks are pretty cool, right? 

Fell in love with it! Who knew? Declared for Geoscience my sophomore year and couldn't be happier, despite the chemistry/physics/calculus requirements - ugh. Unfortunately, I never got into research and was too burned out on school to move onto a graduate degree, so I crossed my fingers my final semester and applied to 50+ geology/environmental consulting jobs, hoping someone would take me with just a piece of paper in my hand and good intentions in my heart.  Heard back from two. Unfortunately, you have to be a man (sorry, it's true), have a Masters, or have 3 years of experience to get any job I was "qualified" for, so I burned out hard and fast trying to follow my dreams. 

Instead, the part time job I had  in technology and customer service during my four years in undergrad paid off like crazy. Applied to a big tech company, got insanely lucky and passed each interview stage, and now I'm working for a tech giant and walk into work every day thinking how surreal my life is. The pay is pretty good for where I'm starting, the perks are amazing, and my coworkers are great, and I don't love it even a little bit; it's mostly just tolerable. I think that's called settling, but I'm okay with it. For now, at any rate. 

[Filippa Eilhart]

On 22.07.2016 at 0:49 PM, Buckwheat said:

Hey, translating is not boring! May I ask what you usually translate? I want to translate literature, but I know most translators do completely non-fictional texts.

Legal texts -- I work for the EU. I did want to translate literature, but it just never happened. In my first job I was a translator/interpretor for a construction company.

[Theda Baratheon]

im currently working in a museum getting paid to do fun science experiments and help kids make race cars (for the bloodhound supersonic car project) and it's basically so much fun and a great experience and just how is my life going quite well at the moment ??? i got into it because i was volunteering in the galleries of the museum and i was asked if i wanted to take part in this STEM ambassador project and i was like im a history graduate but also yes please this is really cool??? 

[Raja]

On 7/25/2016 at 7:24 PM, S John said:

 20 days in the field, 10 days off, can live wherever you want.  

 

That sounds pretty great, especially the travel! 

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

I have recently found my way into insurance sales. I'm not sure how I feel about it but I'll see how it goes.  

[Mexal]

On August 6, 2016 at 8:40 PM, Arch-MaesterPhilip said:

I have recently found my way into insurance sales. I'm not sure how I feel about it but I'll see how it goes.  

It can be very lucrative once you build a book but really hard at first. People don't tend to cancel their insurance so if you still get commission on renewals, you'll do well in a few years.

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

12 minutes ago, Mexal said:

It can be very lucrative once you build a book but really hard at first. People don't tend to cancel their insurance so if you still get commission on renewals, you'll do well in a few years.

I'm not sure if I can afford to stick it out if it takes too long. I don't have much of a network so it's going to be tough. 

[Thorongil]

I own a small ecological consultancy so spend most of my days chasing newts and badgers while looking at pretty flowers. Wide variety of clients but mainly big infrastructure projects in the gas and water industry.

 

Started off thinking I would do a physics degree but loved biology way more at A-level (grew up in the country and have always loved nature but viewed it more as an interest than a potential career) so did my undergrad in Ecology at Durham and graduated in 1999. Volunteered for a year after graduating with the RSPB then got a job with a little environmental consultancy via a healthy dose of nepotism (I grew up as a blacksmiths son on a country estate where the old boy who owned the estate was an ex Oxford and Cambridge genetics researcher who had been pleased that I had studied Biology and got me an interview at the consultancy he had helped set up), stayed with them till they were taken over by a multinational engineering firm and then set up on my own in 2007 to act as environmental advisor for National Grid on a big gas pipeline I had done all the initial surveys for in my previous job. From there I have been working as a specialist ecologist for the last nine years.

 

Essentially the job boils down to, working out what lives in the footprint of a development, if it is rare/protected, if the development will adversely affect it, how the developer can avoid those impacts and if they can't be avoided what mitigation or enhancement will be required to comply with the legislation then standing in a muddy field with a load of diggers and angry builders making sure they do it. 

 

I bloody love it, it allows me to indulge in my passion for nature, travel the country doing so and satisfy my problem solving needs as you try and juggle the clients desires, the wildlifes needs and the legislative requirements.

 

Running your own firm is stressful and exhausting but extremely rewarding and gives huge flexibility (I only work a four day week so I can spend a day going on adventures with my little lads and can go on holiday or just out to enjoy good weather with the family with relative impunity). Couldn't imagine working for anyone else again to be honest.

[Kelli Fury]

I have no recollection why, but my dad getting me the Bob Ross master painter oil painting kit and VHS as a 10 year old kid made me decide I wanted to be a tattoo artist. I didn't grow up around tattoos, my parents weren't tattooed, I didn't know anyone with any so I'm not even sure how I knew it was a thing. But that is the thing I decided to do. When I was 14 we had to job shadow someone for a class report and I somehow annoyed legendary Twin Cities tattoo artist and owner of Electric Dragonland Shahn Anderson to let me annoy him all day. My mom used to live right by the Aloha Monkey, a shop built by the great sage and tattoo pirate Mike Malone/Rollo Banks. He was one of Sailor Jerry's only two apprentices and himself the man who popularized an American interpretation of Japanese style tattooing in America. Jerry's other apprentice was Ed Hardy. I'd bother Mike once in awhile and was in awe of him. He looked like a scary Santa Claus and he had GOAT LORD tattooed across his knuckles. I thought he was the coolest person alive. I got him to tattoo my hand on my 18th birthday (something I really had to harangue him about and no amount of haranguing would ever get me to do today). A few months later I started apprenticing at another shop in the Twin Cities. Shortly after that Mike sold the Aloha Monkey and opened another shop in Chicago, a few years later he died. Being a tattoo apprentice is a full time job you pay to be at, and it comes complete with all the hazing and abuse that comes with old school indentured servitude. Back then it was also something almost no women were involved in so the assumption was always you fucked someone to get there. You are also an apprentice for as long as the person you are under says you are. You tattoo yourself, you scrub toilets, you scrub tools and run an autoclave, you mop constantly, you draw constantly, you draw the same things over and over and over. You are yelled at all day. You can be kicked out forever at any time. Any mistake is forever. You learn to build, rebuild, repair, and tune a machine long before you ever get to operate one. There are industry secrets and traditions and you lean them, you follow them. You pay your dues through abuse and humiliation and every day, someone trying to make it so bad you give up. And eventually you're done and you've had all the glamour of the work peeled away (everyone thinks it's glamorous and boy oh boy is it not. I shave body hair on strangers more often than I eat. People cry. I've been puked on many times, peed on, had dudes whip their dick out, had people try to lick my face, someone's toenail cut my arm, a tweaker broke our huge front window by throwing a smokers outpost through it, I've been threatened by clients and other artists, I've been stalked by people a bunch of times, a guy jerked off into the bathroom soap dispenser, it goes on and on), and you are prepared for the beauty and horror you will face and you are worthy to wield the power to transform or disfigure anyone. It takes a tremendous amount of sacrifice and suffering and you don't make anywhere near the money people think, and the quirks of the industry have led me to willingly eat a piece of my own flesh and allow someone to cut a hole in my finger and shove a magnet in there and sew it shut. But, I get to have a career where I do real life fucking magic and I can look however I want, I can say whatever I want, and I can go to any major city in the world and could be working at it inside of a week and walk into any tattoo shop anywhere and find people who have shared a struggle and a culture that none of my regular friends and family would ever understand.

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

I can't get over someone jerking off into the bathroom soap dispenser. I feel like the distance between "crack den" and "tattoo parlor" is a lot closer than I ever realized. 

[all swedes are racist]

23 minutes ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

I can't get over someone jerking off into the bathroom soap dispenser. I feel like the distance between "crack den" and "tattoo parlor" is a lot closer than I ever realized. 

Well for one, I don't imagine many crack dens have hand soap dispensers, but of course I've been wrong before

[Kelli Fury]

The place isn't at all like a crack den, even the clientele is not like a crack den. I work at a high end classy shop, most of my clients are people's moms. But, everyone from a crack den and every creepy pervert  will also show up here. It's like Target, not everyone who goes to Target is a tweaker, but all the tweakers still need to buy toilet paper.