(Or education and the best part about it?)
(EDIT: Sorry! Posted this before school and didn't think it would attract anyone's attention, gonna try to reply to everyone.)
I do freelance animation, video production, web design/dev, digital design and I'm currently in university studying all those things (Bachelor of Digital Design). I love that the type of work is constantly changing and forces me to be creative. Doing creative things and making pretty things makes me really happy inside, especially when clients are really happy with the work or someone thinks what I made is cool. I just wish I just had more work in general. I also play percussion/drums in a band and every now and then I'll DJ the odd party.
I haven't had the chance to animate anything major, but I'm writing a lot at the moment and hoping to start a new project over the Summer. Here is an animated short that I made in a couple of weeks for uni. Not perfect and I can't really watch it any more because the main character is a rotoscoped model of my ex-girlfriend hahaha. I play percussion in a 4-piece acoustic band called Just Rusty. They just asked me to join recently, so I've only played a few small gigs with them. I've also been playing drums and writing music with my guitarist room-mate, but that's more of an experimental/jam-band kind of deal.
Are you my long lost brother ? I do mostly exact same stuff but with more of a focus on interactive media also studying Digital Design. The thing for me its the problem solving and the process of creating something that people will use is what really keeps me going. I also play drums with my old high school band from time to time nothing serious.
I'm an IT web infrastructure technical lead for a pretty big company. I get to listen to hip-hop all day and drink coffee, and spend my time putting millions of dollars of hardware to good use in the various applications I manage. I really like "the big picture" aspect of my job, and working with large applications that can cover hundreds of components and pieces of hardware that all need to function flawlessly together. It's my zen. Some days are also highlighted by arguing with developers over really silly mistakes they won't admit they've made and try to pin on my team.
Rookie stuff from developers that have never worked in a large enterprise scale IT environment. Hard coding endpoints to other services in code files instead of configs is a big one that comes up far more often than it should. So we'll move code from a dev environment that they own, to one of our QA or client testing environments that my team owns, and we'll wonder why a service call isn't working. We look into the code and find a Dev URL in the code, instead of making it a configurable entry that my team would manage from environment to environment. Also every time there is a sev (outtage, slowness, whatever) they try to blame it on us, even if it's the day after a code change in that environment! It will work fine Friday, we deploy code on a Sunday, Monday everything is broke and it's finger pointing at my team that we did something wrong. My team has an amazing track record and rarely makes mistakes (that's our job, we're "the gatekeepers"), it ALWAYS ends in them eventually realizing there is crap in their code or it's memory leaking, and we do a rolling hotfix of new code they send up and the issue magically goes away. I don't care that people make mistakes, but my company has a very conflict centric culture at times, and between certain teams the communication is less than great. Mistakes are fine, just admit to it. When we do make mistakes which are extremely rare, we own up to it and fix it. One team one dream.What kind of silly mistakes have they tried to pin on your team?
Dan Pink's, "The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us uses three key motivators for people; autonomy, mastery and purpose. When looking at what it is I like about my career (job) I think in those terms: 1. Autonomy: I work from home and I set my own schedule. I am compensated largely on a bonus structure that I am, to an extent, in full control of. -I get what I put in. 2. Mastery: I receive adequate training and education on an ongoing basis to help me be an expert in my field 3. Purpose: Does what I do for my organization actually have an impact? -My division comprises 38% of our organization yet it provides over 68% of the earnings. -That's a pretty big impact. But when looking at those three things Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose, there is no doubt that it is the autonomy that I like most about my "job." If I weren't self disciplined, it would be TOO much autonomy, but luckily I've never been a napper. I do think I should go take a walk though.
Thanks for linking that video, I watched it a long time ago and was really happy to be able to re-watch it again. I wouldn't be able to work from home, I'd need a lot of motivation and prioritization to be able to get anything done, it's just awesome you're so in control of everything and chilled out about it.
It does take a lot of discipline, but I wouldn't say I'm "chilled out" about it. I feel a tremendous amount of pressure most of the time to "perform" in my job. I'm in business development and therefore have numbers I have to "meet" annually. If I don't my take home is literally 1/3 of what it would be otherwise. Chill? Not exactly, but I do like not having to go to an office. I suppose I succeed because I always feel a quiet pressure and the more I "chill" the louder it gets.
I'm a busser at a restaurant while in classes. The best part about it is the people that I come across who actually regard your feelings as important and are considerate. People who pick up after themselves to make my job easier make the day wonderful for me. Please, the next time you go to a restaurant, make sure that your plates are stacked (without food in between them) with the silverware on top of the stack. Stacking cups helps too.
I was a busser for a while. Try this out sometime: when people are sitting around and won't leave, have a server approach them apologetically and tell them that you are preparing to defend your dissertation, but first you have to mop the floor. If they don't care, throw them the fuck out. Of course, if the customers are attached to a university, they might call bullshit, depending on the time of year. Life's a gamble.
Stacking cups? Isn't that your job? :) I kid. I worked all through undergrad in restaurants. I've hosted, bussed, served, bar tended, managed, dish washed, and even line cooked. It was hard work, but I think back on it fondly.
I work as a Software Tech Lead or Architect in a large global organization. The best part of my job is when I develop solutions to problems that are currently handled manually, this helps the company to lay-off lots of people and improve stockholder value.... OK so that bit I don't like but I do get to build things that generate a lot of profit for the company, a recent project I developed is currently estimated to pull in around 50 million dollars this year with more next year... I'm proud of that, I never see the cash of course but I'm still proud.
I am a technician for various theatres in the south of the Netherlands. Working with creative people is the best job there is. Every day there are more revelations, more famous people to meet and more challenges to conquer. i can do this work 'till I die.
Well, it started from one guy on reddit named timetoact2013, I joined the next day or so with a few other cofounders and we built that thing in 3 weeks from nothing to 20,000 people at protests. I did it because I am appalled at the NSA and wanted to do something about it. Now in a few weeks we have a HUGE rally coming up in DC but I have no money to fly out as I live in Louisville, KY. But that's the long and short of it. Much more complicated than you can imagine!
I'm teaching English overseas. It's a really tough job but I love it! The kids I teach are awesome and I think that I can make a difference here. The people I have met are very friendly and welcoming, and I love travelling and seeing new cultures. OP, what's your job?
Wow, I've always wanted to learn another language, I keep having a go at Norwegian but I keep going off of it, any tips are keeping a schedule for practice? Also, I'm out of a job right now, was thinking what kind of job I'd get and ended up coming up with this idea for a thread. Also, what's Indonesia like?
It's a lot easier to learn the language if you move to the country and nobody can speak English! I have to practice every day just communicating with people. If you want to learn a new language in your home country, I would suggest practicing every day... maybe setting aside 10-30 minutes for it. If possible set up skype or something similar with a native speaker to see what the language really sounds like. Indonesia is a great place! It's very beautiful here and the people are very friendly. They love foreigners... I feel like a celebrity wherever I go. Also, the culture is very different from the USA and they have some awesome traditions. Unfortunately is is a pretty poor country (which is why I'm a volunteer) but it's definitely worth seeing. There is lots of awesome history here, it's super cool.
Well, their weddings are very different. Lots of music and dance and very intricate costumes. I've been to... 3 weddings so far. For the party afterwards they block off the street and play music very loudly until nighttime. Also their traditional fabric (batik) is very beautiful and commonly worn. One tradition that takes some getting used to though is the lack of toilet paper... they use the left hand instead, which is why it's very impolite to use your left hand when greeting, giving or taking things, and if you eat with it they'll look at you funny.
Me too, although I'm new to it (~1 year in) and I'm in between jobs right now. I taught in Spain and now I'm looking at South Korea. I don't love it every day, but overall I'm pretty happy with it. A huge plus for me was that I could study what I loved in university (linguistics), since there aren't many jobs directly associated with that major.
I'm newer than you! I've only been teaching almost 4 months, although I've been here about 6 months if you include training. I majored in Psychology... I guess what I'm doing is pretty unrelated to my major, but I guess I'm in the same boat as you - not really many jobs for a psych graduate.
As someone who is interested in teaching overseas, what qualifications did you need?
I'm a volunteer, so I needed a degree and 30+ hours of ESL experience, and I was trained when I got here. I also needed a good amount of volunteer experience in other places. I imagine you need more training if you want to actually get paid, but then you'd want to work somewhere like Korea or Japan, not Indonesia (they can't really afford to pay you).
It varies by which country you want to teach in (some countries have higher standards, some have lower standards), but you generally want the following: > Native English speaker. > Citizenship in English-speaking country (US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Aus, NZ, SA). > Bachelor's degree/4-year degree from one of aforementioned countries, any discipline. > Preferably an in-class 100+ hour TEFL certification. E.g. CELTA. You can get one in a month for a few thousand dollars, cheaper if you go get it in Southeast Asia. > EU citizenship if you want to teach in the EU, which is generally rather difficult otherwise. You can find some country specific FAQs here: http://www.reddit.com/r/TEFL/wiki/faqs
Right now I'm a cashier at a convenience store. I just got my AA and I'm looking for a better job. This is just something to fill in the time. I really like that I get to talk to people, I actually really enjoy it. I've only been there a few months and I already have customers coming in just to say "hi" to me. I've always been a people person so I guess this kinda fits. (Not that I want to stay here forever)
I'm not really sure where I want to go from here. I've been looking into joining the Navy but I' still trying to decide how I like that "scene". I do know that I want to do something where I work with people. What are your plans? I read through the comments on that post and I didn't seem to find out what you're interested in doing.
Well if you're considering the Navy, don't forget that there's more after it, so you'll need to plan ahead anyway. And I'm actually thinking of going into nursing, I love the idea of medicine and working to help people out. But I'm stuck between nursing usually at a hospital or professionally into mental health nursing. The whole idea of mental health/psychology just fascinates me.
I love psychology too! I had my heart set on being a counselor/social worker for good portion of my life.
I change my mind so often I can't even tell you. It's one of those things you know..I guess I'm still trying to "find myself" or something. At least I'm figuring out what I don't want to do. That's a start right?
I'm a programmer. I've done work in a couple of very different languages. The biggest skill I took away from that is to teach myself something from nothing. It makes facing something completely foreign a lot less daunting as I know I have good shot at figuring it out with a bit of time and some luck.
I discovered computers and gaming when I was little and it always tickled me to know how they worked. I tinkered my way to literacy on our first windows pc and I took up programming in high school. I dropped out off university due to depression and I figured since programming was the only subject I truly aced I may as well give it a shot. Since then I have worked in C++, labview, C#, various Javascript frameworks, flex and a smattering of python and lua. The most insane thing I have managed was getting a finger print scanner to pick up on Ubuntu, interface with it through a c++ library I wrote called from a python script and passing the result via xmlrpc to a C# application on a Windows box. In a week. I miss those days.
I'm currently going to a university. I'm a computer science major, and I'm planning on going into game development when I get out. So for the best of each: Uni: It's a pretty chill place. And I get to feel productive without doing much :P. Oh, and free coffee. That's always a plus. Computer Science: Tons of cool topics to learn about. This quarter I'm doing an AI project. Learning about neural networks and such. Fun stuff. Game Dev: Currently in a club for this. Making games is tons of fun but also hard work. The best part is watching someone play your game and getting addicted to it. hahahaha. Seeing it come alive is pretty cool.