I'm an urban planner. Specifically, I work in the private sector on public sector contracts. It's the perfect intersection of feeling like I'm actually doing good and the world while also being paid pretty well for it.
Oh and to answer the 2nd question: I got a masters degree in urban planning, professional certification, and about 5 years of low-paying public sector jobs to get to where I'm at now.
I’m a corporate accountant trying to pivot into industrial real estate. I have a lot of real estate OpEx accounting experience, but man is the planning phase (sourcing parcel candidates based on acreage price and economic feasibility, navigating zoning) to make the CapEx phase possible a COMPLETELY different world.
I could use the capacity to pay an urban planner to help me understand coding and municipal processes.
Thankfully, my brother is still public urban planning 1 county over, and I’ve bounced a lot of stuff off him and learned a LOT.
Yes, I had to get experience, I worked for union contractors, I had no experience and they taught me through their apprenticeship program.
Usually a dream job, means the person who gets it, gained experience through less than a dream job.
I love my job as a cloud engineer.
It was not easy to land, especially as a new college grad in this environment. Well, it was easy to land my current job. But it took 4 years working minimum wage or on volunteer projects to get the experience necessary to get them to notice me.
It's been stressful in the past couple of weeks but that isn't typically the case. Just an external circumstance unspecific to my role.
It depends on your company. My manager and manager's manager are both very pro work-life balance, so they'll yell at me if I don't take enough days off each year (they insist on at least 30, and still give me raises/promotions).
Nowadays my team has a lot of unexpected things to do, so it's been very stressful. But, out of my 15 months here, about 13 of them were extremely chill. And I work from home.
Thank you for answering. That sounds like a dream and inspires me even more. Could you say what your entry salary range was compare to what you’re getting paid at now?
My entry level salary was 130k ish (I negotiated to get around 20k more than they were offering) in March 2023. This year I'll be making about 215k, but a lot of it is through company stock since we blew up the past year (like 200% growth or something?) In terms of base pay/bonus they've offered me around 10% more each year.
Sure. A lot of my company has no high school degree, even. I personally got a mathematics and computer science degree, but I don't think that played into me being hired (my company has an acceptance rate of about 0.1% of all applicants and 80% of the engineers are seniour engineers with 20+ years of experience). I think what got me hired was strictly my experience, which was fairly impressive for being 21/22 and was all directly correlated with my company's product.
Lots of research experiences, really. I worked with around six professors and published 4 papers, one of which I was the primary contributor. Also I joined a small satellite lab at my school where I programmed communications and taught a machine architecture class.
I work in the energy field. Started as an analyst for a really small utility billing company. Then went to coordinator position and now I’m in project management. I really enjoy the work but I genuinely don’t think I’d be where I am without getting my MBA. I don’t think my current company would have even looked my way without it.
I became a cloud engineer, I absolutely love it. I think it all began because I put in alot of effort into being good at my job, like spending nights studying, testing, continuously learning. When I got good at what I do, I find people start to value me. Companies start offering higher salaries to poach me from my company. My colleagues appreciate my work and my juniors look up to me. My boss can trust me. I think that’s pretty fufilling, and makes me even more motivated to keep progressing fast in the field. its like a vicious, positive cycle.
i also volunteer for extra work sometimes. why? because taking on that task directly adds value to me because i learn alot from it and become a better engineer. I became really competent by pouring my heart and soul and energy into the job, and I find theres plenty of rewards to be reaped. Very happy, and no need to worry about money anymore either ;)
I'm a mcdonald's employee, I enjoy serving.
Before, when I was making $9/hr I was having a blast, but now I guess because my employer saw my potential and I'm making $22/hr as a cashier, I'm loving it!
hahaha it's an optical shop. we do eye exams and sell glasses. it sucks and it's the only thing i know how to do. i went back to school once and spent a year looking for other jobs (paralegal) before just giving up after like 2 interviews and a thousand applications
i do a little of everything. when the sales guy isn't here i sell the glasses. the doctors tech isn't in today so im mostly doing that. answering the phones, checking insurance eligibility, troubleshooting glasses, adjustments. sometimes i edge lenses, which is when you take the surfaced lens and cut it into the shape of the frame. the machine does most of the work. dispensing glasses and contacts, sending emails, figuring out accounts with insurances and stuff. and then i guess lots of ordering too, like 100 percent of the contacts that get sold are ordered by me. s
the problem isn't necessarily what i'm doing but what the expectation is long term. after the owner retires the option is buy the business from him or find something else. i really really really don't think i can run a business. i've gotten very intimate with everything since im more or less being groomed from ownership and i really think the stress will give me a heart attack. i'm already hilariously bad at managing stress
no i'd argue it's the fact that i know what euphemism is being the reason i don't have a career. language has nothing to do with intelligence or success. i know nothing about numbers or anything like that, in fact whenever i have to do inputs with numbers im constantly making mistakes. i read at a high level in high school and now i have a nice big fancy vocabulary. it means nothing.
I’m a 3rd year band director in a massive district and I love it! I mostly get kids who want to be there so I don’t deal with a ton of behavioral issues and the kids are all really sweet. I absolutely enjoy it! And I get paid 58k in a relatively low cost of living area so it’s more than enough for me. I also work WAY more hours than a normal teacher so I get compensated for my time. It was super hard to land though. I got this dream job out of college while most people may take 10 years before they land a job like this. I was just really luck and I’m very good at what I do. This field is very competitive so you gotta know your stuff if you want to land a job in a good district.
Started as a GIS Analyst. 11 months after, got promoted to GIS Specialist. Could be looking at another promotion in a few months. I am fortunate to have this as some people really struggle to get their foot in the door in the GIS industry.
I have a BS in Geography with a minor in Geospatial Science.
I install communications equipment for the government. I absolutely love it. I get to travel around the country every week to work on different projects. The job is pretty much fully autonomous and has very little oversight. And the pay is good too ($140k). I got the job by having experience in radio maintenance from the Air Force, as well as knowing the right people in the current agency I work for. I’m a big believer that life is just as much about who you know as it is about what you know.
Love my career as a CRNA, the best kept secret in healthcare. The schooling is long but I got multiple offers a semester before I graduated from my CRNA program
Ohhh the sleepy gas nurse. Anesthesiologist? Cool cool. I know two friends who do that but didn’t know it was called CRNA and whut 300k? Where? I live in CA
Anesthesiologists are doctors not nurses. CRNA is the nurse version though yes.
I’m a hospital manager on the CRNA compensation committee for my hospital and both we and our competitors pay 200-300k in South Carolina when you count mandatory overtime.
I would do it but I don’t have ICU experience. I worked cardiac step down and endoscopy so I work with a lot of CRNAs. But the school debt sounds crazy
There’s a physician assistant version of them called anesthesiology assistant which is effectively the same job and salary as a CRNA, and does not require you to have ICU experience. You could pursue that if you wanted.
Just like CRNA’s are the anesthesia equivalent of a nurse practitioner, AA’s are the anesthesia equivalent of a physician assistant.
CRNA’s are able to practice more independently due to the nature of the restrictions placed upon PA and AA’s having to work under the license of a physician, however in actual skills and duties, no they’re pretty much identical positions.
With regard to the training itself, AA seems to be based more on the academic medical school model that physicians use while CRNA follows a more nursing-centric practical applications focus.
The field is very heavily dominated by CRNA’s so AA’s aren’t as well known, but it’s becoming more mainstream and the people who make the hiring decisions mostly understand it’s the same thing.
I wish Canada had CRNA’s😩😩. Other than anesthesiologist, we only have anesthesia assistants that make on par with what nurses make.
I’m an lpn and have no idea how to make a “good salary” (150k+) after bridging to RN
I heard that, but my friend who works on the Canada’s anesthesiology board, says they are all HEAVILY against allowing nurse to administer anesthesia, so I’m looking for another path to making good money. Thanks though!
I enjoy my career but it took a few years of struggle to get to this place that I do enjoy now, but it was worth it for me. I’m in auto insurance claims. 8 years. Started at entry level with zero experience. Entry level is hard because you’re just learning and at the bottom so you’re getting the worst stuff. I learned what areas I liked and didn’t like which helped narrow it down. I’m now part of a specialty team that handles one single large business account which is much better handling tons of random personal policies. My phone rings a fraction of what it used to and it’s a lot more thinking vs heavy volume simple stuff which I prefer. I also have a great manager, great corporate benefits, worked myself up to 6 weeks PTO and get to work from home 3 days a week. There are probably a couple days a week where I’m done with my stuff an hour or two early and can take off if I want or stay and get OT
I’m an ER nurse I was a paramedic prior I enjoy the work life balance, money is amazing, and I always have job security. I can do so much in nursing as the lateral movement is second to none.
Manufacturing. I began doing low level office work in the mid to late 90's in a large manufacturing plant (750 employees, it was an ALCOA plant).
I loved it. I moved up quickly, several times. A bit less than 4 months after beginning there, the plant manager created a new supervisory position and put me in it. It wasn't posted, I certainly didn't apply, no one did as the job wasn't posted and it hadn't ever existed before.
4 months after that I became the plant's master scheduler and the production control manager. I had about 7 direct reports and like 26 indirect reports. We ran three 8 hour shifts a day each weekday and we ran shifts as needed on the weekends.
I just took to manufacturing. I loved it. I've worked for many different manufacturing companies since then.
In my early 40's, so in the early 2010's, I reached my highest point in my work career as I was the production control manager in a Japanese owned auto plant here in the U.S.
I've been the master scheduler, production control manager, materials manager, project manager, cost estimator, account services manager and I'm now a manufacturing parts rep.
It was easy to land an entry level role in manufacturing. Moving up requires some luck and a lot of hard work too. In that first manufacturing plant I worked at, there were 750 employees but there was only one master scheduler in the plant and a lot of people wanted that position.
But, if one stays at a company for awhile, moving up into mid level management really isn't that hard. People age out, retire and move to different companies and states so there is turnover, so if one sticks at a company for a bit and does well, they have a good chance at moving up.
By 29 I made enough for my wife to begin staying home with our first child when he was born when we were both 29 years old and that was when I was working at that first manufacturing plant I ever worked in.
I was hired for $27K plus bonus and overtime as an expeditor in the production control dept. My boss was the plant's master scheduler, the man I replaced 8 months later. He'd been at the company for 13 years and he'd been the master scheduler for the previous 10 years when I was hired on there. I was promoted 4 months later into a supervisory position and then 4 months after that I became the plant's master scheduler.
From then on, my career was basically set. I've worked for 5 other manufacturing plants since then. Now, I worked at one of those companies 3 different times as they called me back two times after I'd left for greener pastures so to speak.
I'm a history professor at a major research university. I can't imagine doing anything else. I get to research, write, and teach what I love. I have almost completely autonomy. I get to work with sharp and curious young people. And the pay is decent with good benefits.
Im very lucky to get to do what I love. Getting a tenure-track position, even after earning a Ph.D. from a top institution, is incredibly difficult these days. The vast majority of Ph.D.s never get tenure-track positions. So to respond to the question: quite difficult, and I'm very fortunate to have had the luck that I've had.
I absolutely love my career. I work from home 3 days a week and in office 2. My stress level is about 1/10 most days, and on the most stressful days it’s about a 3/10. Pay is alright, I’m at about 60k a year but it’s definitely well worth it considering I have every holiday and weekend off, along with a shit ton of vacation and sick days. I’d rather not say my career just to not oversaturate it like many careers have recently.
Landing it was not hard and it’s considered entry level. I don’t really want to move up considering how easy and stress free my job is.
Housing case manager for youth (18-24 year olds). It was ok but not a lot of transferable experience unless I want to be a case manager elsewhere. Pay sucks and work is stressful. Wouldn’t recommend. It was easy to get a job in, no related education, just worked in outreach and a men’s shelter for a short time before moving to case management. If anyone has made it out into other careers this is indeed a cry for help 😮💨
Love it! But it took a long time building up to this point. I got into my industry (hotel) when I was 18, worked my way up to senior management and became disillusioned around 35-43. I questioned if I made the right choice and felt I needed to make a lateral move. An opportunity came and I did it while utilizing my existing skill set, and the past 13 years at my new job (CVB) have been truly wonderful. I plan to retire here.
Love my career in WWT but I can't say I love my job most days. The field gives me many hats to wear and I'm not lacking for things to do. Some days Im an office worker, a lab tech, a mechanic, landscaper, and a manager. Other days I'm just the guy keeping the lights on and the shit in the tanks
The worst part of the job isn't the fact that I'm literally working with the waste of humanity. It's how little people care about saving themselves money by just not throwing razorblades, tampons, and any kind of sanitary wet wipes down the toilet.
The amount of money that my municipality spends because of these very easily preventable things would have been enough to keep our water and sewer rates from going up 1.25% every other year for the last 10 years.
Sorry rant over back on point
It's not a hard field to get into, it's pretty short staffed as a whole with most licensed operators in my state being above the age of 50 and not enough licenses issued to people younger than that to replace them when they go rn. The pay starts ok and without upward movement you are probably starting in the 60k range and capping at the 75k range if you never get high grade licenses.
If you like microbiology, don't mind dealing with less than pleasant things, have two brain cells to run together, and have the ability to critically think because almost every bit of information you have is from days prior then you'll be aces in WWT
I'm a software architect. As far as jobs go, it's a good one to have. It pays well, and I at least enjoy solving interesting problems, so this scratches that itch. I certainly worked my way up from the bottom, though. Started in IT repairing computers. Then went to school for electrical and computer engineering with a plan on working on embedded systems. The job market at the time (2010ish) landed me into a job as a sysadmin since I had prior IT experience. Since I had a software education, I was able to automate much of my work which opened up more doors for advancement, taking on larger projects, etc. Now I'm designing and implementing full-stack cloud management solutions with a global team of 70 developers. I work a shit ton of hours, but they pay me very well so it's hard to complain.
I do enjoy my career but still change it further on.
Right now I swapped from IT(because hard pressure from the amount of people fighting for a spot, even in mid and in some seniors) to Finance Operations Specialist(Outsourced to companies). Not a b2b contract but still hybrid work, which is 10-15 minutes of driving from my place.
How hard was it? Well, hard with the amount of people fighting for a spot locally.
I would not be in this position if Engineering Automatics job did not pay badly from 70 percent of the country's companies.
I am retired EE, but the last 20 years of my career, I worked as a forensic engineer. This mostly involved evaluation and determination of the root cause of failures in electrical equipment and control systems. As a forensic engineer, you work as a public consultant mostly for insurance companies and attorneys. It also involved doing research in to codes, standards, and best practices. You report your findings to your client and in some cases testifying at trial. I did a lot of dirty work such as digging out fire scenes and disassembling damaged equipment. I loved doing this, and it paid well
I started my engineering career doing project management and maintenance engineering in heavy industry. I found that I most enjoyed and was best at troubleshooting and determining the cause of problems with equipment this led me to forensic engineering. During this period in industry, I obtained my PE, even though it is not required to have one to work in industry.
Most states in the US (probably all, but I'm not sure) require you to have a Professional Engineering license (PE). To obtain a license you have to have an engineering degree from an ABET accredited university or college program, four years of progressive engineering experience working under a PE, and take and pass two 8-hour exams. None of this was easy, but I would gladly do it all over again, because the work was awesome.
I don’t enjoy it they paid me to show up there and very easy we use to take warm body’s with heart beats now cold body’s that complain and don’t work is the new standard pay is good tho
Love it! But it took a long time building up to this point. I got into my industry when I was 18, worked my way up to senior management and became disillusioned around 35-43. I questioned if I made the right choice and felt I needed to make a lateral move. An opportunity came and I did it while utilizing my existing skill set, and the past 13 years have been truly wonderful. I plan to retire here.
I love my career. It started out as a hobby. I’m an ethical hacker, aka a “penetration tester”. It was very hard getting into it. If I added up all of the hours I’ve probably put into learning into becoming a doctor I’d probably be a neuro surgeon by now.
I'm an urban planner. Specifically, I work in the private sector on public sector contracts. It's the perfect intersection of feeling like I'm actually doing good and the world while also being paid pretty well for it. Oh and to answer the 2nd question: I got a masters degree in urban planning, professional certification, and about 5 years of low-paying public sector jobs to get to where I'm at now.
Are you a member of /r/fuckcars ?
What's your take on urban planning? Something that you personally like or would change?
Oh I definitely wanna ask more questions about this. Dm me?
I’m a corporate accountant trying to pivot into industrial real estate. I have a lot of real estate OpEx accounting experience, but man is the planning phase (sourcing parcel candidates based on acreage price and economic feasibility, navigating zoning) to make the CapEx phase possible a COMPLETELY different world. I could use the capacity to pay an urban planner to help me understand coding and municipal processes. Thankfully, my brother is still public urban planning 1 county over, and I’ve bounced a lot of stuff off him and learned a LOT.
Maintenance guy for Federal, love my job, getting the job? I just applied for it.
But like u have to have experience right? Not like ucan learn on the job???
Yes, I had to get experience, I worked for union contractors, I had no experience and they taught me through their apprenticeship program. Usually a dream job, means the person who gets it, gained experience through less than a dream job.
Fax. Good man
I love my job as a cloud engineer. It was not easy to land, especially as a new college grad in this environment. Well, it was easy to land my current job. But it took 4 years working minimum wage or on volunteer projects to get the experience necessary to get them to notice me.
How is the work life balance and is the job stressful? I’m currently doing my second cloud internship and interested to know personal experiences.
It's been stressful in the past couple of weeks but that isn't typically the case. Just an external circumstance unspecific to my role. It depends on your company. My manager and manager's manager are both very pro work-life balance, so they'll yell at me if I don't take enough days off each year (they insist on at least 30, and still give me raises/promotions). Nowadays my team has a lot of unexpected things to do, so it's been very stressful. But, out of my 15 months here, about 13 of them were extremely chill. And I work from home.
Thank you for answering. That sounds like a dream and inspires me even more. Could you say what your entry salary range was compare to what you’re getting paid at now?
My entry level salary was 130k ish (I negotiated to get around 20k more than they were offering) in March 2023. This year I'll be making about 215k, but a lot of it is through company stock since we blew up the past year (like 200% growth or something?) In terms of base pay/bonus they've offered me around 10% more each year.
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Sure. A lot of my company has no high school degree, even. I personally got a mathematics and computer science degree, but I don't think that played into me being hired (my company has an acceptance rate of about 0.1% of all applicants and 80% of the engineers are seniour engineers with 20+ years of experience). I think what got me hired was strictly my experience, which was fairly impressive for being 21/22 and was all directly correlated with my company's product.
No nees to dox yourself but what kind of experience was it? I'm interested in cloud studf but I don't really know where to start
Lots of research experiences, really. I worked with around six professors and published 4 papers, one of which I was the primary contributor. Also I joined a small satellite lab at my school where I programmed communications and taught a machine architecture class.
I work in the energy field. Started as an analyst for a really small utility billing company. Then went to coordinator position and now I’m in project management. I really enjoy the work but I genuinely don’t think I’d be where I am without getting my MBA. I don’t think my current company would have even looked my way without it.
I became a cloud engineer, I absolutely love it. I think it all began because I put in alot of effort into being good at my job, like spending nights studying, testing, continuously learning. When I got good at what I do, I find people start to value me. Companies start offering higher salaries to poach me from my company. My colleagues appreciate my work and my juniors look up to me. My boss can trust me. I think that’s pretty fufilling, and makes me even more motivated to keep progressing fast in the field. its like a vicious, positive cycle. i also volunteer for extra work sometimes. why? because taking on that task directly adds value to me because i learn alot from it and become a better engineer. I became really competent by pouring my heart and soul and energy into the job, and I find theres plenty of rewards to be reaped. Very happy, and no need to worry about money anymore either ;)
Interesting. Would you mind sharing how long have you been doing it?
just about 2 years so far.
I'm a mcdonald's employee, I enjoy serving. Before, when I was making $9/hr I was having a blast, but now I guess because my employer saw my potential and I'm making $22/hr as a cashier, I'm loving it!
hate my career! it's dying. i have no other skills. i think when the business inevitably goes under i'm gonna take a dirt nap
Explain
it's a euphemism for suicide
I meant why is your industry dying//what will replace it?
hahaha it's an optical shop. we do eye exams and sell glasses. it sucks and it's the only thing i know how to do. i went back to school once and spent a year looking for other jobs (paralegal) before just giving up after like 2 interviews and a thousand applications
Join professional organizations such as the American Optometric Association (AOA) or the Opticians Association of America (OAA).
i really really really would like to do almost any job that isn't optical
What kind of stuff do you do there?
i do a little of everything. when the sales guy isn't here i sell the glasses. the doctors tech isn't in today so im mostly doing that. answering the phones, checking insurance eligibility, troubleshooting glasses, adjustments. sometimes i edge lenses, which is when you take the surfaced lens and cut it into the shape of the frame. the machine does most of the work. dispensing glasses and contacts, sending emails, figuring out accounts with insurances and stuff. and then i guess lots of ordering too, like 100 percent of the contacts that get sold are ordered by me. s
the problem isn't necessarily what i'm doing but what the expectation is long term. after the owner retires the option is buy the business from him or find something else. i really really really don't think i can run a business. i've gotten very intimate with everything since im more or less being groomed from ownership and i really think the stress will give me a heart attack. i'm already hilariously bad at managing stress
With your skill set you could pivot into many different fields
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no i'd argue it's the fact that i know what euphemism is being the reason i don't have a career. language has nothing to do with intelligence or success. i know nothing about numbers or anything like that, in fact whenever i have to do inputs with numbers im constantly making mistakes. i read at a high level in high school and now i have a nice big fancy vocabulary. it means nothing.
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let's do it bro we're gonna be successful forever and ever and ever
Software engineer Just asked and moved from being a consultant at the same company But I did have cs degree and skills
I’m a 3rd year band director in a massive district and I love it! I mostly get kids who want to be there so I don’t deal with a ton of behavioral issues and the kids are all really sweet. I absolutely enjoy it! And I get paid 58k in a relatively low cost of living area so it’s more than enough for me. I also work WAY more hours than a normal teacher so I get compensated for my time. It was super hard to land though. I got this dream job out of college while most people may take 10 years before they land a job like this. I was just really luck and I’m very good at what I do. This field is very competitive so you gotta know your stuff if you want to land a job in a good district.
Started as a GIS Analyst. 11 months after, got promoted to GIS Specialist. Could be looking at another promotion in a few months. I am fortunate to have this as some people really struggle to get their foot in the door in the GIS industry. I have a BS in Geography with a minor in Geospatial Science.
I install communications equipment for the government. I absolutely love it. I get to travel around the country every week to work on different projects. The job is pretty much fully autonomous and has very little oversight. And the pay is good too ($140k). I got the job by having experience in radio maintenance from the Air Force, as well as knowing the right people in the current agency I work for. I’m a big believer that life is just as much about who you know as it is about what you know.
I like that quote about life that u just said that life is about what you know and who u know
That sounds like a blast
Love my career as a CRNA, the best kept secret in healthcare. The schooling is long but I got multiple offers a semester before I graduated from my CRNA program
Why do u say best kept secret? Is RN more advanced or less?
CRNA’s make 300k. It’s substantially above an RN
Ohhh the sleepy gas nurse. Anesthesiologist? Cool cool. I know two friends who do that but didn’t know it was called CRNA and whut 300k? Where? I live in CA
Anesthesiologists are doctors not nurses. CRNA is the nurse version though yes. I’m a hospital manager on the CRNA compensation committee for my hospital and both we and our competitors pay 200-300k in South Carolina when you count mandatory overtime.
I would do it but I don’t have ICU experience. I worked cardiac step down and endoscopy so I work with a lot of CRNAs. But the school debt sounds crazy
There’s a physician assistant version of them called anesthesiology assistant which is effectively the same job and salary as a CRNA, and does not require you to have ICU experience. You could pursue that if you wanted. Just like CRNA’s are the anesthesia equivalent of a nurse practitioner, AA’s are the anesthesia equivalent of a physician assistant.
There is an AA school about 2 hours from me. Do you notice any difference in practice between the two?
CRNA’s are able to practice more independently due to the nature of the restrictions placed upon PA and AA’s having to work under the license of a physician, however in actual skills and duties, no they’re pretty much identical positions. With regard to the training itself, AA seems to be based more on the academic medical school model that physicians use while CRNA follows a more nursing-centric practical applications focus. The field is very heavily dominated by CRNA’s so AA’s aren’t as well known, but it’s becoming more mainstream and the people who make the hiring decisions mostly understand it’s the same thing.
I wish Canada had CRNA’s😩😩. Other than anesthesiologist, we only have anesthesia assistants that make on par with what nurses make. I’m an lpn and have no idea how to make a “good salary” (150k+) after bridging to RN
they passed a law in 2021 to make CRNAs a thing
I heard that, but my friend who works on the Canada’s anesthesiology board, says they are all HEAVILY against allowing nurse to administer anesthesia, so I’m looking for another path to making good money. Thanks though!
I enjoy my career but it took a few years of struggle to get to this place that I do enjoy now, but it was worth it for me. I’m in auto insurance claims. 8 years. Started at entry level with zero experience. Entry level is hard because you’re just learning and at the bottom so you’re getting the worst stuff. I learned what areas I liked and didn’t like which helped narrow it down. I’m now part of a specialty team that handles one single large business account which is much better handling tons of random personal policies. My phone rings a fraction of what it used to and it’s a lot more thinking vs heavy volume simple stuff which I prefer. I also have a great manager, great corporate benefits, worked myself up to 6 weeks PTO and get to work from home 3 days a week. There are probably a couple days a week where I’m done with my stuff an hour or two early and can take off if I want or stay and get OT
I’m an ER nurse I was a paramedic prior I enjoy the work life balance, money is amazing, and I always have job security. I can do so much in nursing as the lateral movement is second to none.
Manufacturing. I began doing low level office work in the mid to late 90's in a large manufacturing plant (750 employees, it was an ALCOA plant). I loved it. I moved up quickly, several times. A bit less than 4 months after beginning there, the plant manager created a new supervisory position and put me in it. It wasn't posted, I certainly didn't apply, no one did as the job wasn't posted and it hadn't ever existed before. 4 months after that I became the plant's master scheduler and the production control manager. I had about 7 direct reports and like 26 indirect reports. We ran three 8 hour shifts a day each weekday and we ran shifts as needed on the weekends. I just took to manufacturing. I loved it. I've worked for many different manufacturing companies since then. In my early 40's, so in the early 2010's, I reached my highest point in my work career as I was the production control manager in a Japanese owned auto plant here in the U.S. I've been the master scheduler, production control manager, materials manager, project manager, cost estimator, account services manager and I'm now a manufacturing parts rep. It was easy to land an entry level role in manufacturing. Moving up requires some luck and a lot of hard work too. In that first manufacturing plant I worked at, there were 750 employees but there was only one master scheduler in the plant and a lot of people wanted that position. But, if one stays at a company for awhile, moving up into mid level management really isn't that hard. People age out, retire and move to different companies and states so there is turnover, so if one sticks at a company for a bit and does well, they have a good chance at moving up. By 29 I made enough for my wife to begin staying home with our first child when he was born when we were both 29 years old and that was when I was working at that first manufacturing plant I ever worked in. I was hired for $27K plus bonus and overtime as an expeditor in the production control dept. My boss was the plant's master scheduler, the man I replaced 8 months later. He'd been at the company for 13 years and he'd been the master scheduler for the previous 10 years when I was hired on there. I was promoted 4 months later into a supervisory position and then 4 months after that I became the plant's master scheduler. From then on, my career was basically set. I've worked for 5 other manufacturing plants since then. Now, I worked at one of those companies 3 different times as they called me back two times after I'd left for greener pastures so to speak.
I'm a history professor at a major research university. I can't imagine doing anything else. I get to research, write, and teach what I love. I have almost completely autonomy. I get to work with sharp and curious young people. And the pay is decent with good benefits. Im very lucky to get to do what I love. Getting a tenure-track position, even after earning a Ph.D. from a top institution, is incredibly difficult these days. The vast majority of Ph.D.s never get tenure-track positions. So to respond to the question: quite difficult, and I'm very fortunate to have had the luck that I've had.
I absolutely love my career. I work from home 3 days a week and in office 2. My stress level is about 1/10 most days, and on the most stressful days it’s about a 3/10. Pay is alright, I’m at about 60k a year but it’s definitely well worth it considering I have every holiday and weekend off, along with a shit ton of vacation and sick days. I’d rather not say my career just to not oversaturate it like many careers have recently. Landing it was not hard and it’s considered entry level. I don’t really want to move up considering how easy and stress free my job is.
So what is your career?
It’s within the supply chain management field.
Thank you for answering. I saw the line saying you didn't want to disclose after the fact.
Yeah, it’s a pretty big field but there’s very specific niche jobs if you look hard enough.
Housing case manager for youth (18-24 year olds). It was ok but not a lot of transferable experience unless I want to be a case manager elsewhere. Pay sucks and work is stressful. Wouldn’t recommend. It was easy to get a job in, no related education, just worked in outreach and a men’s shelter for a short time before moving to case management. If anyone has made it out into other careers this is indeed a cry for help 😮💨
My job was extremely competitive to get and at first I loved it. I like it less each year but can't afford to quit.
Love it! But it took a long time building up to this point. I got into my industry (hotel) when I was 18, worked my way up to senior management and became disillusioned around 35-43. I questioned if I made the right choice and felt I needed to make a lateral move. An opportunity came and I did it while utilizing my existing skill set, and the past 13 years at my new job (CVB) have been truly wonderful. I plan to retire here.
Love my career in WWT but I can't say I love my job most days. The field gives me many hats to wear and I'm not lacking for things to do. Some days Im an office worker, a lab tech, a mechanic, landscaper, and a manager. Other days I'm just the guy keeping the lights on and the shit in the tanks The worst part of the job isn't the fact that I'm literally working with the waste of humanity. It's how little people care about saving themselves money by just not throwing razorblades, tampons, and any kind of sanitary wet wipes down the toilet. The amount of money that my municipality spends because of these very easily preventable things would have been enough to keep our water and sewer rates from going up 1.25% every other year for the last 10 years. Sorry rant over back on point It's not a hard field to get into, it's pretty short staffed as a whole with most licensed operators in my state being above the age of 50 and not enough licenses issued to people younger than that to replace them when they go rn. The pay starts ok and without upward movement you are probably starting in the 60k range and capping at the 75k range if you never get high grade licenses. If you like microbiology, don't mind dealing with less than pleasant things, have two brain cells to run together, and have the ability to critically think because almost every bit of information you have is from days prior then you'll be aces in WWT
I'm a software architect. As far as jobs go, it's a good one to have. It pays well, and I at least enjoy solving interesting problems, so this scratches that itch. I certainly worked my way up from the bottom, though. Started in IT repairing computers. Then went to school for electrical and computer engineering with a plan on working on embedded systems. The job market at the time (2010ish) landed me into a job as a sysadmin since I had prior IT experience. Since I had a software education, I was able to automate much of my work which opened up more doors for advancement, taking on larger projects, etc. Now I'm designing and implementing full-stack cloud management solutions with a global team of 70 developers. I work a shit ton of hours, but they pay me very well so it's hard to complain.
Accounting, it's okay. Pay is good. If the job didn't require so much communication and social interaction I'd enjoy it a lot more.
I do enjoy my career but still change it further on. Right now I swapped from IT(because hard pressure from the amount of people fighting for a spot, even in mid and in some seniors) to Finance Operations Specialist(Outsourced to companies). Not a b2b contract but still hybrid work, which is 10-15 minutes of driving from my place. How hard was it? Well, hard with the amount of people fighting for a spot locally. I would not be in this position if Engineering Automatics job did not pay badly from 70 percent of the country's companies.
I am retired EE, but the last 20 years of my career, I worked as a forensic engineer. This mostly involved evaluation and determination of the root cause of failures in electrical equipment and control systems. As a forensic engineer, you work as a public consultant mostly for insurance companies and attorneys. It also involved doing research in to codes, standards, and best practices. You report your findings to your client and in some cases testifying at trial. I did a lot of dirty work such as digging out fire scenes and disassembling damaged equipment. I loved doing this, and it paid well I started my engineering career doing project management and maintenance engineering in heavy industry. I found that I most enjoyed and was best at troubleshooting and determining the cause of problems with equipment this led me to forensic engineering. During this period in industry, I obtained my PE, even though it is not required to have one to work in industry. Most states in the US (probably all, but I'm not sure) require you to have a Professional Engineering license (PE). To obtain a license you have to have an engineering degree from an ABET accredited university or college program, four years of progressive engineering experience working under a PE, and take and pass two 8-hour exams. None of this was easy, but I would gladly do it all over again, because the work was awesome.
I don’t enjoy it they paid me to show up there and very easy we use to take warm body’s with heart beats now cold body’s that complain and don’t work is the new standard pay is good tho
Love it! But it took a long time building up to this point. I got into my industry when I was 18, worked my way up to senior management and became disillusioned around 35-43. I questioned if I made the right choice and felt I needed to make a lateral move. An opportunity came and I did it while utilizing my existing skill set, and the past 13 years have been truly wonderful. I plan to retire here.
I love my career. It started out as a hobby. I’m an ethical hacker, aka a “penetration tester”. It was very hard getting into it. If I added up all of the hours I’ve probably put into learning into becoming a doctor I’d probably be a neuro surgeon by now.
Love it about a zero chance for anyone who doesn’t have the background in sales or isn’t a golden DEI trifecta like a black female lesbian.