Jobs

[Jan]

TOPIC 1:

I'm quite surprised. The economy slumps, unemployment is rising, but today I have received the third job-offer in last six months. (to explain it - I'm employed and these offers came as a surprise - I'm not seeking a new job) That's stunning especially because of my occupation / specialisation - I'm a teacher (and a wanna-be-researcher) of geography. I've never thought that our society lacks geographers.

I'm more or less satisfied in my current job - it's not so well paid, but seems to be stable, calm but also interesting with many new experiences. So I rejected two of the three offers, but I'm still undecided about the third one. It would involve moving into another city, smaller, calmer and more pleasant, slightly higher salary (with considerably lower prices in the city), and more teaching with less "research". I't perhaps less "challenging" in the modern "flexible-young-sexy-uptodate" sense, so it would be kind of step-back in my career... but I'm not sure if career-growth is the thing I'm looking for in my life... I have to decide it in the next two or three months. The only thing that makes me stay in my current job are friends and colleagues - I just can't imagine leaving them. I can't imagine leaving the city after more than 10 years! Perhaps I'm getting lazy and self-satisfied?

TOPIC 2:

Hmmm... coming to mind, what do we know of what all the members on the forum do to earn their living? Little to nothing. Maybe a thread like "what we could do" would help... hmm again.

That's perhaps the right place and time to start this thread. So - what's your job? What is your specialisation? And, what sort of help / advice would you be able to offer to other members of the forum?

In other words - if you're seeking a help or advice in a very special field of human knowledge / activity, and you can't find anyone in the place where you live - ask here. Maybe that other members could help you.

Erm, in my case, it's simple and dull. I'm a geographer. Actually, I'm not sure what I could offer to other members of the forum. My most practical ability is probably map-making. In hobbies, my most practical activities are working with wood, working in the garden, and in the forest. That's probably also not so practical in these days, since people usually buy furniture from China, and hire gardeners from Mexico and lumberjacks from Nigeria.

Ummm - so I hope the others are more practical than me!

[ian_scho]

Erm, in my case, it's simple and dull as well. I'm a web developer. Actually, I'm only a web developer because as everyone knows computers (at their most comprehensible level) speak Bill Gates' language and I work in Spain with a poor/moderate grasp of español. I never cease to amaze myself just how little I know about my field of work, though. Big Endians? Fat Chance! I do like the logic based problem solving though.

[T0Mi]

Meh, I didn't feel like starting this thread on my own. I'm happy Jan did.
And I remember that message. But forgot to reply. Sorry about that. :-/

Also the main thing (as pointed out by Jan) was about knowing "what we could do - for each other", rather than the odd "look what I can do". For example if you'd be looking for someone to do a professional homepage, Gambit would be adress to think about. I do know 2 or 3 ppl enough to adress if I'd be in need of a coder or a lector.
Other than those few, I can't say what all the others are doing.

I'm with Jan in terms of what I can offer. Unless you need CFD (simulation of anything that flows, using StarCCM+ and StarCAT) or CAD (Catia V5) work to be done, I'm of little use. If you have an old car that doesn't start or makes strange noises, I might give useful advice though.
(and just in case you didn't notice yet: I'm also a horseman, not quite sure if I have ever mentioned this. )

Another thing of course would be the intercontinental connection itself. Someone you know from the forum might easily have access to something that isn't available were you live.

As a (stupid) example:
I've been looking for huge tractor innertubes for winterfun and the largest size one could get here in Germany is a 30.5-32. The USA can top this (as usual) with 35.5-32 or even 44-32. (It's a stupid example, because I want noone to climb all about a huge pile of old tires searching for a tube of that size. )

Anyway... looking forward to hear about the strange things you have on offer!

[cowsmanaut]

I think most people know what I do for a living. I teach art in a manner of speaking. Sculpture in 3D and in physical clay, as well as 3D animation and rigging in maya, and use of Flash for 3D, and photoshop for painting and texturing. For amusement I make sculptures that sometimes get turned into semi usable objects.. like the fiberglass 300 Helmet I made for a friend birthday. I also do video game stuff from time to time and am currently on a project I hope to share a bit about in the near future, as I'd be interested in some play testers most I can tell at the moment is puzzle platformer

I teach at two different institutes one is private and one is government supported (university). That would be BCIT, and Capilano University respectively. If anyone is interested in taking 3D or 2D I would only really suggest Capilano because of the fact that they are full time, and that our outlines there are adaptive to things used and supported by our industry. Where as BCIT has locked itself down to stagnating outlines and has more than a few people there who are just around for a pay cheque.. not for the students best interests. That aside, BCIT is twice the cost, and 400 hrs less instruction. Capilano, you leave with your own computer on top of the fact that it's half the price. There really is no competition... except that everyone in BC knows where BCIT is, and few know Capilano U exists.. funny eh?

as for what I have to offer?.. probably nothing. I rarely have free time, and when I do, I tend to start things I don't finish unless there is a potential pay at the end of it I have exported some canadian items though. I sent Candy corn to Sweden, peanut butter to france (because it's pure and cheaper), maple syrup to germany.. stuff like that. There is usually something unique in each country that is difficult or impossible to find in each country. I used to be a fan of dutch licorice, they look like little coins, but now I find it too salty. I tried exporting chaos statues, but if anyone remembers.. they broke into tiny little bits in the mail despite several "FRAGILE" warnings on the box and it being filled with news paper and other stuff to prevent it from happening.. though I think Gambit mentioned the package having been delivered by a large bear and their were teeth marks and drool all over it Though I have debated trying again, but no promises.. Mine is a chaotic mind and prone to sudden stabs of creative energy which I can neither predict or control.

moo

[Ameena]

Cows - The game-in-development thing sounds interesting - I might consider volunteering to playtest since I tend to like puzzle-related games .
As for me, well, I don't really do anything special. I work at WHSmiths, in the Books department. So I have a sort of knowledge of authors and book titles, more so those written within the lat 2-3 years since that's how long I've been working there (but not so much the specifics of what these books are about - I'd have to read them all to know that! ). And since it's a retail job, I also know plenty about how much of an arse many, many customers can be .

[beowuuf]

Quality manager for a small electronics company that manufacture custom made power supplies. I actually went to university for electronics engineering, but i've forgotten so much of it that it's scary. I have the awesome power of ISO 9001 knowledge, and can auit the heck out of things in a quality way. Go me. I can pretty much run products from cradle to grave if I have to, the benefits of working the small companies I've been in. Just don't ask me about financial stuff.

[ian_scho]

... Well, not sure what I actually can do for any of you Just ask the crowd and I'm sure we can work it out!

[Ameena]

Lol same here...I don't imagine knowing the titles of the last three Martina Cole books, or who wrote "A Thousand Splendid Suns" is of much use when anyone can just look that stuff up on the Internet .

[ian_scho]

I think I could be relied upon to take a periodic backup of the forum, with instructions. Hey, I can change nappies though! Not Beowuufs

[Gambit37]

Great idea for a topic, Jan.

Most of you probably know what I do, since I keep bringing it up elsewhere. Well, for those who don't, here's mine: I design webs. You know, websites. For the last 2.5 years I've been doing that as a self-employed person (basically, trying to run my own business which is waaaaaaaaay harder than anyone tells you.) I think I've got pretty good at it.

Prior to going self-employed, I worked for various companies where I learned my craft. Between 2004-2007 I worked for Nixon-McInnes, a small web agency in Brighton. A year before that I freelanced for a year, but wasn't ready for it back then. And before that I worked in eLearning, going right back to 1993 when I first started (feck me, where has the time gone!?) -- between '93 and '02 I went from designing stuff to run from 3.5" floppy discs at 640x480 in 16 colours and simple static images, to stuff running at 1024x768 in millions of colours with sound, video, animation, etc. 1997 saw my first website go live and I've been developing my webskillz ever since.

I'm not so hot on the development side, preferring the user experience and visual design, so if you ever want to collaborate Ian, let me know

Right, for those not completely bord, I now return you to your regular programmes.

My most practical ability is probably map-making. In hobbies, my most practical activities are working with wood, working in the garden, and in the forest. That's probably also not so practical in these days, since people usually buy furniture from China, and hire gardeners from Mexico and lumberjacks from Nigeria.

I think you have great practical skills that will be very useful when western economies collapse and we all have to go back to living in small self sufficient communities. Trust me, it's gonna happen!

[ian_scho]

I think you have great practical skills that will be very useful when western economies collapse and we all have to go back to living in small self sufficient communities. Trust me, it's gonna happen!

Somewhat agreed. And it's scary too. I'd love to live in somewhere like the Black Forest.

My job is useless when they turn the 'light' off.

[oh_brother]

I am a chemist, researching and teaching in a university. As for what I can do for you....well the most common requests I get are "can you get me some 100% alcohol?" or, more tongue-in-cheek, "can you make me some drugs?" (the answer to both those questions is yes, but I am not going to ).

[Gambit37]

Aha! Oh_Brother is my new best friend! Hey, can you get me some 100% alcohol?

@Ian - yeah, while I love fiddling about on computers and doing webstuff, it's all pretty useless as far as practical life skills go. I sometimes feel it would be better to become a farmer or something...

[beowuuf]

Lol, umm, 100% alcohol will kill you, surely?

I'll settle for something aroudn the 50& mark if you have it OB!

[Jan]

Great idea for a topic, Jan.

Actually, it was TOMi's idea.

"can you get me some 100% alcohol?" (...) the answer to both those questions is yes

Hey, you can't make a 100% alcohol, can you! I thought it was something like 97,5% or so. Or am I wrong?

I sometimes feel it would be better to become a farmer or something...

Me too. However, the modern "industrial" agriculture is more about mechanisation, chemisation, administration and subsidies. It's not that much about the earth itself and so on. I always wonder if, after the "western economies collapse" as you said, our farmers will (would) be able to produce anything. I guess that most of them no - you know, without their tractors, fertilisers, herbicides, computers, division of labour, F1 (generation one) seeds etc. most of them would actually be pretty lost, I think.

[Gambit37]

By farmer, I meant "self sufficient organic farmer". You know, just enough grub for me and the locals.

[oh_brother]

Lol, umm, 100% alcohol will kill you, surely?

Yes, or it will try its best to kill you at least. Actually what people wanted was a big bottle of pure alcohol which they then would dilute with coke or something, so 1 bottle of alcohol would supply the booze for an entire party. But even if I was willing to steal from my work (which I am not) you just know someone would end up trying the pure stuff and ending up in the hospital/morgue! As for 50% stuff...well you are Scottish, I know you have some pretty tasty ~50% alcohol drinks up there!

Hey, you can't make a 100% alcohol, can you! I thought it was something like 97,5% or so. Or am I wrong?

No, you are right in that by distillation you cannot get higher than 97% (or something around that level, I cannot remember). The remainder is water. But you can get 100% alcohol if you pass that alcohol through something that will absorb the water or react with it. But of course if you want to poison yourself, there is not a big difference between 97% or 100%!

[Trantor]

A really good topic. Now to the boring part - me:

After school, I didn't know what to do with my life. I somehow decided to study mathematics at university because I was good in it at school. After finishing my studies, I still didn't know what to do, so I burdened my parents for another year. Eventually, I got a job as an editor for math schoolbooks which I have been doing for almost three years now. I revise texts written by teachers who want to have a book in their hands with their own name in it and oversee the whole production process. It's a job where you have to tell lots of people what they have to do and when they have to finish it, but it's still quite fun, especially since I have a nice boss and nice colleagues.

As for what I could do for anybody here, the answer is nothing. I don't remember much of my studies, and the people who need advanced mathematics are usually better at them than me anyway. I could criticise and maybe re-write texts, but since I'm only fluent in German, this offer wouldn't help many people here. As for practical things, I am completely useless, I "have two left hands" as the Germans say. This is one of the many reasons why my girlfriend sometimes mentions that she has the male part in our relationship.

[Joramun]

I can't tell otherwise I'd have to kill you. No, wait, I can, I just don't like it.

I'm an engineer, I work / get bored / in front of a computer using arcane
computer codes/simulations, and ms office to present results in a shitty fashionable way.

And I'm more or less against the stuff I work on, not by principle but because I think we could do without,
if we weren't 6 billions and using loads of electricity and buying lots of useless stuff and not insulating our houses correctly.

And I should probably start an alternate thread because I have plenty of advice to get from you (well, the older ones) guys/girls,
as I really realy want to change job and also probably change country for a while, but I'm clueless about the direction.

[Trantor]

Come to Germany Joramun! Well, ok, maybe not, but at least I could show you around Berlin a bit and thus be of good use for someone.

[Zyx]

I went through several dozen of jobs but never felt I was taking full advantage of my capacities.
I have a house in Argentina and simple enough needs to survive outside of money. Yet my wife can't live without some financial resources so we work a few months a year in France to build up some savings, which is a good compromise. I'm writing a php game too.
The rest of the year, she paints and I... think.
I'm investigating the mind, the society, life and the universe and I've progressed a lot on the first three. I think it is time to write down and share but I have no idea where to start.

How I can help: I can lend some brain time which yields erratic - and currently abscond - results, unless you explain me thoroughly the situation.

[Gambit37]

It rather irks me that I envy Zyx, despite rarely understanding what he's talking about.

[ian_scho]

Can we ask about the php game? My friend has started one and I just don't have the time to help him unfortunately. What fascinates me most is how he plans his work, prioritises the tasks with milestones and visualises the game before writing a line of code!

I like some of the concepts of your wife's work.

Finally I wonder if it is a wise decision not to investigate the source of the universe. I suspect that not only will it be a task that requires near infinite resources (ho ho!), but finding out in the end the answer could be mundane, and maybe knowledge of the universe is not necessary to achieve where you want to go

[Gambit37]

Getting a little OT now, but I rather like the short story "Understanding Space & Time" by Alastair Reynolds which discusses what happens to anyone who achieves the capacity to understand the answers to the Big Questions. You can find it in his collection "Zima Blue and Other Stories."

[ian_scho]

TY. Looks interesting - Wishlisted @amazon.co.uk

[beowuuf]

It seems to me it's one of those 'journey and destination' things. You don't really contemplate the universe to understand the universe, you contemplate the universe to understand yourself - to be able to identify what's important to you, what assumption you labour under, and indeed what these limits mean to how you live.

[cowsmanaut]

I don't think one needs to contemplate the universe, but to simply be happy with their place in it. Which is why enjoyment of your job is important.. at least to me it is. I like to go home with minimal worry, to not feel as though my day was lost to just making money.. that I gained some level of enjoyment from my daily work. I've worked enough dead end jobs to know that such things take all your available free time and money to get over the trauma of the job itself. Often leading to people who want to escape and do nothing for the short bit of time they have.. often wanting to work on hobbies or side projects but lacking the energy to do so. Which is not to say a good job won't tire you.. or more of a danger.. to consume you. Which is sometimes my case.. I'm left with trying to create new things for my classes, to research things I want to show.. because I'm so addicted to what it is I do. I've purposefully set aside time to spend with my wife (known here as Karamel116 I think) and just be with her to unwind from her job.. but I find my brain often wondering to and idea or previous problem I wanted to solve without my intent to do so..

So, if you find your job is eating your life away.. you may want to think about what is it that I love to do, that can make me money?

[T0Mi]

Wishlisted @amazon.co.uk.

If I got it right from "Salmon in doubt", it was Douglas Adams himself who suggested this "wishlist" feature to Amazon.

I think it is time to write down and share but I have no idea where to start.

(Not sure if I got it right either. ) If it is a puplisher you are looking out for, there is a service called "books on demand". I've used this about 15 years ago for a book about homegrowing and it worked out pretty well. They print the book when it is ordered instead of printing several thousands of them. And I guess you'd have quite a few customers on the spot.

And I should probably start an alternate thread because I have plenty of advice to get from you (well, the older ones) guys/girls,
as I really realy want to change job and also probably change country for a while, but I'm clueless about the direction.

Indeed! A "share your wisdom, what you have learned" thread was one of the first things I thought about after joining this forum. Never had the courage to actually start it though. :-/
We do have some mighty clever folks in here, and there would be plenty to learn for average joes like me. However, after 2009 has been a thorougly bad year with 70% income loss (and a depressing "worthless" feeling covering the whole summertime), it strikes back in 2010. I plan on breaking my former 89 hours-of-work-a week record shortly, so I fear I can not really take part in the fun because of both the lack of wisdom and time. There a few threads already on the run I'd love to take part, but... speaking of it, it's now time to hug the matress.

[Maven]

What a cool thread! It is fun for me to read about what other people are passionate about, or REEEEALLY good at, or usually both. I'm going to have to find the chat room and chat up some of you guys and pick your brains.

Indeed! A "share your wisdom, what you have learned" thread was one of the first things I thought about after joining this forum. Never had the courage to actually start it though. :-/
We do have some mighty clever folks in here, and there would be plenty to learn for average joes like me...

I like this idea.

I have a degree in Computer Science, and I used to work as a Software Engineer, until my job got "Bangalored" and I trained my replacement in India and was laid off. That wasn't as tragic as I thought it might be, because my family was ready for a lifestyle change anyway. I sold all my stock and bought 40 acres of farmland and now I'm basically raising kids. We grow a huge garden and acres of hay and we have chickens and cows and way too many cats and sometimes pigs and turkeys and ducks and such. I have learned how to butcher a cow, and cure my own ham, and how much hay to feed the Jersey during the Winter so her milk production doesn't go down. I've had to perform surgery on my Holstein "half steer" because when I used the elastrator when he was a calf I only got one gonad in the elastic band, and he jumped the fence and was trying to impregnate my neighbor's beef heifers. I had to learn how to go in with a knifed and remove the other gonad. I know how to make cheese from raw milk and Ranch Dressing from sour milk and sourdough flapjacks from either. I have eviscerated so many chickens and turkeys I could probably do it in my sleep. I know how to make soap from rendered chicken fat, and how to make lip balm from beeswax.

It's a different world from city living and working in the Engineering department in a cubicle. I don't make anywhere near as much money, and that's been stressful lately, but there are times when I really love it. Nobody tells their kids to "Go write a program in PHP. It builds character." But nobody blinks when you ask them to go pull weeds out of the garden, or buck hay, or move pipe, because that actually does build character. And when I'm walking back inside with a full bucket of milk and I hear the rooster crow, there's something about it that just makes me feel content.

So anyway, my technical expertise is getting rusty from non-use, but I know how to do a lot of stuff that probably isn't very useful to many of you right now. And if Gambit is right and Western Civilization does collapse (Boy do I ever hope you're wrong about that one!) I'll be the one to ask how to do stuff. Not that it's rocket science. I think that's probably the biggest thing I've learned. When I butchered my first steer, I went in on the internet and read tons of stuff and watched videos on how it was done. But when I actually did it I learned that it doesn't really matter much how you do it--you just go in and cut all the meat off the bones. Sure I was a lot slower than the guy who does 45 of these a day, and my steaks don't look like classic T-bones, but I bet mine taste just as good.

[Gambit37]

Awesome stuff Maven! Sounds like you really are living the rural dream (though of course I appreciate it's still bloody hard work.) It must be great to hear that rooster, though I guess it could become annoying every day

I'm not sure I'd personally have the stomach to butcher livestock, but I guess like anything, you eventually become accustomed to it. Maybe we should all give up our jobs and set up a Screamer farm!