What’s your job? Are you happy? What’s next?

[chupon]

Has a thread like this been posted?
I come to Racketboy every few days and see the same people posting on the same threads.
I’m guilty for not contributing much on this forum as of late.
Maybe these questions will connect like minded retro gamers and inspire!?

I’ll go first:

Architect - at 20 years professional experience (guess I’m getting old) - very happy with my job. Would like to open up my own firm. Struggle is I’m sole provider in household with four kids and lots of pets. Very risky to go out on my own. I would have a safety net financially but I never want to use it / never have used it in last 20 years. Risk / Reward is what I’m always thinking about. Hard to make the leap when things are so good and you don’t want to rock the boat. As of late though - my retro gaming and gaming hobbies have taken a back seat to other things. Books, Warhammer, professional work, and most important - family time with kids.

Who’s next?

[PretentiousHipster]

I've been a part-time dishwasher for 4 years now. I'm in my early 30s. I was in management and accounting before my mental health issues came in and put me on disability. I'm about as happy as I can be considering the circumstances. I was engaged recently, although we can't get married until I have more income cause I will be kicked out of disability. I still have a lot of issues to deal with. I did the best I could with my mental health, and can at least tolerate it, but I can still massively improve my assertiveness skills, and cure my body dysmorphia.

What's next other than that? I would like to live with just my partner without roommates. Owning even a townhouse would be nice, but with Canada's housing issues it will be tough. I guess what we'll need is for a crash to happen. It's of course difficult being a part-time dishwasher for this, despite my partner earning a decent amount. However, I'm slowly picking up more hours, and my boss says he wants to train me to be a cook, especially after how we had no one else for the line except me and I somehow did ok. Being a full-time cook in a corporate setting will help with everything.

I am balancing out more on hobbies as well. What I need next are more irl friends, which is easier said than done.

[SamuraiMegas]

Now that I'm between jobs, I'm really asking myself what's next. I don't know what I actually want to do, long term. I've realized if I can get hired at one of these interviews and finish out my degree by next year, I'll likely be able to retire at 30-35, in Asia. Id probably bounce between Japan and China. I guess I need to get on Duolingo lol.

I dunno, I'm pretty burnt out on Texas but I'm known out here for work. I just want some adventure, but I'm stuck until I finish my degree. Once I have that I can hopefully get a remote job and it won't matter.

[Markies]

Data Entry/Analyst

I graduated with a degree in Psychology, not knowing what to do. After almost two years of part-time jobs and unemployment, I took a job as an almost librarian working at a Medical Law Firm. One of the worst positions I ever had, but it got me to a Data Job at a University where I worked for 10 years and then moved onto my current job where I work at a Hospital for the last 6 years. I work from home for 4.5 Days out of the week and I'm making more money than ever before. I have no real complaints about my job. Most of the time, it is pretty laid back and I almost never take it with me when I clock out.

My job was able to allow me to purchase a house, where I live alone. I have a room for my video games, areas for my TV's to play my video games, a large collection of board games and a large table to play my board games. Also, I have garage for my car and in a quiet neighborhood where I can sleep in.

Earlier in life, I wasn't very happy. In fact, I was rather depressive during my High School/College/Post-College. I don't have the most exciting life, but I am very content with my life. That is all I wanted earlier in life, so I will gladly take it. I don't know what is next, but my goal is to spend my years playing retro video games as much as possible.

[Anapan]

I think we had a bit of this in the random thoughts last year. Better to have a dedicated topic. This is interesting.

I'm a red-seal ticketed journeyman Boilermaker Rigger/Fitter. Almost 20 years experience. I erect, repair and demolish steam pressure vessels in pulp & paper mills mostly, refineries sometimes, hydroelectric dams, and I'm cleared to work in nuclear power plants despite missing the callouts for three jobs in Ontario over my career (already working). I can do mostly all things involved with metalwork fabrication & rigging things around with cranes or inside buildings. I spend a lot of my job inside industrial equipment - steam and pressure vessels, boilers, and related chemical process equipment fixing them from the inside. I spent some of 2021 radio-controlling the biggest tower-crane in Western-Canada. It was so sloow! Not glamorous. I spend a lot of time in Tyvek coveralls swabbing the insides of dirty vessels clean so inspectors can take a look.

I love my job. It's often challenging and my tasks vary day-by-day. Problem solving is fun for me, and I'm skilled enough that given a difficult task or situation under my job description, I can be relied on to complete the task on-time. Unfortunately, because everyone knows me, I'm often chosen (sometimes along with my brother) to do some of the most difficult or intricate tasks. So long as it falls under our trade specifications, and meets osha or site-specific safety requirements, I do it.
I also know and enjoy working with most of the other tradespeople in my own union and some of the tradespeople in the other unions which work on the same sites during shutdown work (bricklayers, millwrights, pipefitters, carpenters, etc.). We're a tight-knit group and have some crazy parties off-shift. Many are personal friends to the point that we know each other's families and hang out whenever possible. I get calls from my co-workers kids to solve computer problems. Crazy having over 400 contacts in my phone of people I know IRL.

One of the upsides, or downsides, depending on how you look at it is it's either feast or famine if I do not take a dispatch regularly. It's great to have as much work as I want if I take every opportunity, but I've found that cherry-picking the jobs and turning down ones from companies or at sites that are less desirable makes my experience much better in the long-run. The best part about my job is the time I can enjoy not doing it. I work about seven months a year, and as a bachelor, that is a manageable income. Right now I'm just waiting for a good 1.5 month shutdown call at one of my yearly pulp-mills to start this year off. I turned down the 'no weekend work' or Lead Smelter jobs being offered now. If I took those, my board position in the union would drop to the bottom on the board.

What's next? I am aging, and old injuries are easily aggravated, but I don't want to do anything else. I could go into supervision, but "Taking it from both ends" isn't appealing despite the big wage increase. I usually have an apprentice to teach now. Having my apprentice do the labor part of the work together with me under my mentoring is ideal, and I've had great success paired with a green apprentice doing some very involved rigging, fabrication-machining, and difficult fitting in inaccessible locations. I am slower than I was, but get every task done properly.

If I could live comfortably on the pay, I've always wanted to be a chef... but not a head chef, just the sole chef. I'd be a terrible boss in that situation. I also want to be a butcher. Such a cool job, using a sharp knife and clean equipment to render everything perfectly in the cold, then cleaning and sharpening the equipment to do it perfectly again. I spent a year being the lead-hand to a famous arborist doing landscaping. It was so much fun; I operated equipment to shape trees, cut edges of lawn, weeded extravagant flowerbeds, and mowed lawns that belonged to multimillionaires. Best job ever, just paid too little.

I have moved to different regions in Canada, sometimes for years at a time, but always pay rent for my parent's (now in their late 60's) in-law suite. They own a large property, and without my rent, they'd have to move. I buy most of the groceries, and cook great meals whenever I am home. We renovate the house together and have a great relationship.

I don't really play videogames anymore. I modify consoles to play games, and have lots ready to go at any time. Just don't like the lack of production when I stop doing things physically. I am driven to accomplish things IRL as I used to be when playing an RPG. Side-quests.

edit:
hmm, reading Markies I'll add: I was very unhappy in high school. Probably have Asperger's. I didn't talk unless made to answer. Answers to direct questions were always correct, but I hated being singled out. I mostly tried to be unnoticed. I wore all black, wore my hair long, only looked at the ground, and did the minimum required. I failed math 10 once, math 11 twice, and homeschooled math 12 via correspondence. I took chemistry 11 in college with money from my job in a paper shredding company so I could go into Water Quality Technology (which I didn't enroll in). Glad to say, I actually forced myself to learn all of it, and those courses helped every aspect of my life since. I wish I'd taken a liking to physics.

[chupon]

Hey this is great guys (and girls?)! Thanks for chiming in. Seems like most people have figured things out and found a way to be happy. That’s the key to life in my opinion! Just wish we all had more time to do all the things. Being middle aged - my body can still do anything. I can find a way to buy almost anything. But TIME to do all the things is what is lacking.

[Ziggy]

I think I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m what people would refer to as a Jack of all trades. It’s great in many ways, but terrible at climbing the ladder in one field. Most people don’t know the full expression, Jack of all trades, master of none. Jack, meaning average Joe. Since you learn many trades, you don’t spend enough time with one to master it. Most companies don’t look for a Swiss Army knife of an employee, so it’s not easy finding somewhere you can really excel. That, and having too many interests also makes it difficult to “settle” on a job or career choice. So while there’s a number of jobs I could easily find, be good at and enjoy doing, that doesn’t mean I’d be happy. Also, at this point in my life I’d really only be willing to take a job under someone that is at least my equal. But I’d much prefer to work under someone that I can learn from. I don’t know if it’s my bad luck, but from my experience there’s so many people in management that are complete phonies. And the last time I did interviewing and resume spamming, that still seems to be the case.

For a while I had various bullshit jobs. I probably had the most fun as a repair tech in a guitar shop and as a repair mechanic for commercial cooking appliances. But then I fell ass backwards in an entry level logistics position for a clinical laboratory. From that, in a short time I was able to work my way up to managing my own logistics department for another lab. I rebuilt and ran logistics for a start up lab that was rapidly growing. It was at the same time the best and worst job I ever had. I had a lot of fun, and was finally making decent money, but the company could be difficult to work for. Let’s just say there’s such a thing as corporate gas lighting. And also, while I was good at and enjoyed managing a team, that can also be very draining. So while there was so much good there, it got to the point for me that I had to leave.

About 10 years ago I had helped my brother start up and operate a residential painting business. Aside from the fact that I hate painting, I also wanted to focus on my logistics career, so I sorta phased myself out of that. My brother ran that business for a number of years by himself, adding workers as needed. But then after I quit my logistics manager position, I eventually started working with him again. We’ve been ramping up being a full fledge home renovation company (and not just painting, which I hate). So that’s what I’ve been doing currently. It has its ups and downs. One thing that’s great is that it’s a better fit for a Jack of all trades kinda guy. I can take out a load bearing wall and also do logistics and project management. Although working with family isn’t always the most fun.

What’s next? I can’t say for two reasons. One, because I’m not entirely sure. And two, I thinking talking about future plans in such a way can have a negative effect.

Am I happy? Yes and no. If I was completely happy then I wouldn’t be working at all lol. But not being happy about things in your life can be good, it gives you drive to improve things. My career path might be a kite in a hurricane, but one thing I’d like to do is move off Long Island. This place just isn’t my style any more. I’m wise enough to know the grass isn’t greener, but I’ve put a lot of thought into this. I’m more or less just waiting for some other things to pan out first.

[Limewater]

I turned down the 'no weekend work' or Lead Smelter jobs being offered now. If I took those, my board position in the union would drop to the bottom on the board.

Can you clarify what this statement means for those of us who don't know anything about unions?

I am assuming that "no weekend work' is a desirable position that does not require working on the weekend. I am assuming that "Lead Smelter" is also a desirable job.

However, I don't know what board position is, why taking those jobs would lower it, and why you want to be high on it.

[Anapan]

I turned down the 'no weekend work' or Lead Smelter jobs being offered now. If I took those, my board position in the union would drop to the bottom on the board.

Can you clarify what this statement means for those of us who don't know anything about unions?

I am assuming that "no weekend work' is a desirable position that does not require working on the weekend. I am assuming that "Lead Smelter" is also a desirable job.

However, I don't know what board position is, why taking those jobs would lower it, and why you want to be high on it.

My pay by the hour is increased when working night-shift, weekends, and stat. holidays. I prefer to maximize my pay by taking jobs that include all of those; A weekend on night-shift pays nearly what an entire M-F of 10 hours day-shifts pays. If I accepted that job with no weekend work, I'd be stuck out of town and not be making as much money as I usually would. Most of the work I do is steady - every day - in order to get the project complete as fast as possible. These big industrial sites lose millions while their equipment is shut down for repair. A standard work cycle on long projects is 24 days work, and 4 days off. I prefer to take short jobs - 2-3 weeks and work straight through until completion. I then get a few days or weeks off, and get called for another job - often with most of the same crew from the last one. I regularly get called to work at long-term projects - new construction, where there is no end in sight. Those can go on for years. I don't like being stuck in the same place for that long, especially being housed in a work-camp.

Another job I turned down was to spend a month working at a lead smelter. This involves regular blood testing to measure your lead exposure and group showers at the end of shift as part of the decontamination process. I've just never needed money that bad to take that job. I knew a couple of guys who got thallium poisoning while working there and soon after died in the hospital of brain aneurisms. I know a lot of Boilermakers who always take that job as the pay is higher, and the work hours per day are less because of the safety protocols.

In my union hall, each classification of worker has a board that keeps track of their position; Welders, Rigger-Fitters, Apprentices, Probationary-journeyman, and Tool-Crib Attendants(retired workers). When the hall has work for us, we are called in the order of board position - starting at #1 and continuing down until all orders are filled. If the job we took is over 40 hours, upon completion when we report back to the hall as available for another dispatch, we drop to the bottom of the board and usually have to wait to receive another job. Because of this, turning down certain jobs to be available to accept more desirable jobs can (but doesn't always) pay off. I know lots of co-workers that just accept the first call they get every time, and they tell me that it pays off better. I still prefer to know who is running the job and what it will entail before I agree to do it. At least twice a year during the spring and fall shut-down seasons all of the boards are empty, and our hall has to call union halls in other provinces asking for travel-card Boilermakers, and sometimes even other similar trades to fill the job orders with skilled workers. There is a lack of qualified workers in many of these types of work.

[Limewater]

I am an electrical engineer.
I work in real-time embedded systems. These are usually-small computing components of a larger system. Think the ECU in your car. Real-time means that the system has to perform its function within hard time constraints. So, for example, live television broadcasts require real-time embedded systems to encode the video feed and provide that data at the transmission frame-rate. If that encoder takes longer than one frame-length to process a frame, it has failed to meet its requirement as real-time.

So, part of my time is writing low-level software for the digital boards in the systems that we produce. Our systems typically don't run an operating system, so it's all bare-metal code. This is all code to run on custom boards that we build, so I end up spending most of my time in the lab at a workbench, even though I'm considered to be a "software guy." I am frequently probing around with a multimeter and oscilloscope.

I also write a lot of test software, frequently in Python. Our systems are integrated into larger systems, and have to talk to some sort of external control computer to exchange information. I have to write emulators for those systems so that we can confirm that our systems communicate correctly at the required rates, and properly perform their mission function.

I actually spend a lot of time writing and implementing tests, because a failure at a test event can cost us a lot of time, money, and headache.

I also write a lot of the test software that our production guys use to test boards and completed systems.

It's all a lot of fun. I really love what I do. However, I do often find myself wishing there was a little less of it. I worked about sixty hours this week. I still remember November of 2020. I worked eighty hours every week that month. Another time I was scheduled to go on vacation on Wednesday. I hit 40 hours coming in Monday and Tuesday, finishing at 0400 on Wednesday morning. Things haven't been THAT bad lately, but that level of pressure is really bad for me and my family.

I find that aspect of my job extremely stressful. Deadlines are very short, and stuff HAS to work. It also kind of makes me a jerk, with little patience for people who don't have that level of pressure but manage to make my life more difficult.

In short, I really love the actual work aspects of my job. I wish it were less stressful.

In comparison, I previously worked for the federal government. Nothing was ever expected of me. Work was never stressful, but it was just embarrassing being a professional customer and never actually producing anything of value. I could feel my technical skills atrophying. I did not respect the leadership at my organization or agency, and it was very difficult to care about doing well at my job when nobody else around me cared.

I do wish that I had more opportunity to work in firmware development. This is writing stuff that runs on FPGAs. I did it in undergrad and really enjoyed it, but I have never done it professionally. At this point I need to do some personal development to get my chops back, but it's something I excelled at in school.

As for whether I'm happy, I enjoy my work, but that's not where my happiness comes from.

As for what's next, I'd rather keep that to myself. I agree with Ziggy that doing so can have negative effects.