Related to the thread on “what do you really do?” (sorry, I can’t include a link, network issues), why do you do what you do.
I got into my job because I am a whore. I had recently married and was struggling to keep up with the bills. One day when I was driving home from another unsuccessful day at work, I heard that the Army was paying cash bonuses to enlistees. The amount was enough that I went home and called a recruiter. I thought that I would be rejected for being too old (I was 31), but I was accepted and figured I would stay in until I got the money, then find a way to get out. Somehow, I figured out that I wasn’t the first person to think of that. I had to stay in long enough to realize that the Army life is pretty easy. Do what you are told, and if you show up to work, they have to pay you.
I made a wrong choice about my job initially, and when I was allowed to, I changed it. I still wasn’t sure if I made the right choice of jobs until I got over here. I have been in this area for about 10 months now and see the value of what I am doing. I appreciate all the positive comments that the Dopers have made about my service. Thank you for those, but I do this for the selfish reason that I love what I do. I love the chance to see someone who initially wants to quit, go home, or die, become someone who looks forward to the challenges of being in combat.
I would like it if there was no more combat, but then I wouldn’t be able to do my job, so I guess I really am selfish. I still don’t like getting up in the morning and having to put on my uniform, but once I get to my desk, I look forward to what the day may bring.
So, Dopers, why do you do what you do? Is it because you want to, because you have to, or is there something else that keeps you going?
I do what I do because I kinda fell into it. When I started working here, it was just the latest in a series of temporary jobs but management liked me so much that they decided to make give me a permanent position in another division. Over a decade and five grade levels later, I’m still here.
Though I do have to deal with a lot of policy/procedure and rules/regulations, I do what I do because I like making a difference in the lives of the people we serve. It’s still a kick to see somebody get his or her first job and/or place to live. It’s a kick to see these people several years later and hearing about their promotions, new jobs, new homes and all that good stuff. I work for an organization that assists persons with disabilities (and others) to do stuff like that.
I’ve asked myself that question ever since I started, which is probablhy why I am quitting.
The longer answer is that I studied something similar in college, and found out about this job because my mother works with a guy who does it for the same company. Figuring I had no chance to get a job doing what I actually want to do (biomedical design) I took this crappy job.
Because I’m not as good at anything else that would pay as well and provide me with not only sufficient intellectual and personal satisfaction but with plenty of opportunity to waste much of my day on these boards.
I started working in radio 32 years ago because it was the most fascinating thing I could think of to spend all your time doing. When my voice changed, it went deep baritone, and people said, “hey, you should work in radio!” - but that wasn’t my only motivation. Back then it was the music they played, too. I wanted to be part of that “turning the world on to great tunes” thing, but music changed, and radio changed. As it turns out, I have this inexplicable knack for doing stuff that sounds just like radio ought to. I have production and editing skills to spare. I understand what is supposed to happen in radio, and I can make it happen, and sound easy.
I only regret that I never get to use the operating skills I learned when powerhouse AM stations ruled the waves and they were extremely tight and fast-paced; when you had 16 seconds to talk over the intro of a record, and you did amazing crossfades between records, then a sweep of commercials and a jingle and another record. Radio doesn’t do that anymore. Most places, the elements are played one at a time on a computer, by automation.
I’ve done a lot of other jobs in my life, but this is one of only a couple of things that I am really, really good at. There are a lot of misfits in radio, but in radio they fit. We don’t punch a clock. We don’t have some officious boss standing over us, telling us how to do our jobs and berating us if we don’t measure up. In radio, they hire people because they know how to do their jobs. And then after you prove that you can do it, they let you go away and do it. I am very fortunate to be able to get paid to do something I know inside out and backwards. I could be working for a living!
I like the roof over my head and also to eat, at least every other day.
Plus, I care about people (mostly) and I have excellent critical thinking skills and am intelligent.
In my last job, the business went belly-up. I signed on as a temp with an agency, and was assigned to my current company. I must have pulled the wool over their eyes pretty good, because I’ve been here for almost 4 years, and I’m now a supervisor. They don’t let me refer to the people in my work group as “underlings” or “lackeys,” though. Next year, maybe.
When I was a kid, I saw Star Wars, and I thought that robots and computers were the coolest thing on earth. That led to a part time job in a computer store when I was 14.
By the time I got to college, my interests had changed, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to do anything with computer for a living. Alas, computers paid the bills, so I worked my way through college doing computer stuff.
Then I was in Colorado in the early 90s, and if you knew anything about computers at all they sent out gangs to round you up and get you jobs. OK, not really, but there were a ton of high tech jobs that were easy to get if you had any experience at all and paid pretty well. So I did that for a while because I liked the money.
Then I moved back home, and had a chance to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life. After a couple years of scrounging around for contract work, I took another programming job.
I’m going on fifteen years of programming jobs now, while I decide what I really want to do when I grow up.
I do what I do because I saw an opportunity out there and took it back before there was a career like mine to pursue. I didn’t see myself as a pioneer at the time, but as it turned out I was. That lead to better and better positions and more money.
Why do I keep doing what I am doing? I have gotten used to living a certain lifestyle that requires a high level of income. I could find something much more worthwhile and fun to do with my life… but then I could never pay my mortgage. I live in an expensive area of the country so I have to do something that earns me a good living. Of course I could always move to someplace cheaper…
I ended up in accounting in a roundabout way, not intentionally at first, but I do like it. Except for the parts of the job that entail dealing with difficult people.
I got into it because I fell into it by accident and turned out to be good at it.
I stay in it because (1) I’m not good enough at self-promotion to talk my way into a job using the skills I really enjoy doing, (2) I’m too risk-averse to try making a living at something I really enjoy, and (3) I’m a fucking idiot.
Because it is what I had wanted to do since I was a kid. Because most, if not all, people who do this do it becuase the love it. And because full-time careers in this field are rare and I’m lucky enough to have one.
Up to 2004, I was mainly doing what I do for free. Doing historical research was an amateur hobby of mine from the time I was passively collecting information in the early 1980s, through to compiling a book and writing articles that were published either on websites or in the local press or both in the first part of this decade. I saw it as my way of giving to the keeping of the past, I guess.
Now, I do it for money to provide for myself, and it’s taken on a new depth of purpose. I still do it primarily out of love and passion – and that passion is keeping me fed and a roof over my head from the commissions. I also get to meet really cool, amazing people with stories to tell.
I set out in life to be an Electrical or Computer Hardware Engineer.
I detoured into the Navy to save up money to pay for it.
I didn’t save enough and detoured into HVAC mechanic for almost 4 years.
I was averaging only 12 credits a year for this time period in evening classes but socking a lot of money away.
I reached the point where I was ready to quit and go full time and ran into reality.
I had recently proposed and I was now engaged.
My friends who were graduating or had recently graduated with their Engineering Bachelors degrees were not finding work.
Therefore, I quit my job and went to a full time 7 month Computer Programming school in Business Languages. (Cobol & RPG)
I have been working as a programmer ever since, 13+ years.
I also fell into accounting by accident, when my then job was relocated and I was offered a choice of going with it or moving to the accounting branch (didn’t want to do either, but felt accounting was marginally the lesser of two evils). My present job is mostly a collection of things that I went to my boss about over the years and said “Look, this is important, nobody’s doing it, and it looks interesting. How about I look after it?” I work mostly in accounting with a secondary function as webmaster (“We really should have a website, and I’ve been reading about this thing called HTML”). Accounting is probably the last thing I would have chosen as a career when I was going to school, and the Internet was just an idea in some DARPA project proposal.
I’m incredibly lucky in that I have two careers running side by side and I love them both.
During the day, I’m a computer nerd. Specifically, database administration and application development. And I’m very, very good at it. I love rising to the challenge, tracking by down arcane bugs and squashing them or by developing something that makes the users happy (at least for 5 minutes).
During the evening, I teach Taekwondo. And I make a positive difference in people’s lives, especially with my junior students. And I’m very, very good at it, considering my age and physical problems. I’m a 5th Degree Black Belt; in a few more years, I’ll be eligible to test for 6th Degree and be considered for Mastership.