Well, there is why did I and why do I?
Why did I become a psychologist? Probably because I grew up with a depressed mother. Nothing like on the job training. 
Why do I still do it? I love it. I get to talk to people all day, and help them figure out what they want and how to get it. I get to ride the waves of emotion with them, which I love.
Because I like helping people. Sounds trite, I know, but there it is.
Seeing the black silhouette of the heads of the audience at the cinema watching something I did is a real thrill; so far I´ve experienced it only on an animation shorts festival; but in the next couple years, if everything goes as planned, the studio I´m working at will begin with the production of a full feature CG film.
Meanwhile I get my kicks from TV and mobile phone series, an ocational videoclip and the ever challenging TV commercial stuff.
I love my job, one day I animate a soccer match, another I dress up a cossack, then it comes creating a forest landscape and before I notice it I´m building a flying robot… there´s always something new and interesting to do; it´s a complex work, (I always have aspirins at hand) and sometimes it gets on my nerves (“you changed the camera on MY scene??? YAAARGGHHH!!!”) but it all pays off when a project is finished.
Why do I do what I do?
The summer I turned 16, I began teaching at the summer arts camp I had attended for the previous 6 years. The minimal pay kept me in LPs for the summer, so I went back after Junior and then Senior year of college. Worked minimally in college, so I kept going back year after year. I enjoyed the experience of helping people learn a skill or explore a new area for themselves.
After ending up having to leave college due to financial concerns, I picked up jobs where I could, always quitting them in time for summer because I had so much security in my teaching job during the summer that it paid twice as much.
Began working after school programs during the winters in the early 1990s. My few attempts to try out “real jobs” in the business world left me cold. An equipment assembler project at Bose, temping in various offices, etc. made me dislik the business world intensely. I’m not particularly in love with teaching at this point though, either. I’m not even so sure I’m all that great at it. There are still far too many days, after two decades in this biz, where basic classroom management eludes me.
Anyhoo, as I had been marginally involved with computers since the early 80s, I made a serious go of it beginning in the mid-90s in an attempt to move beyond teaching, eventually doing college all over again and getting a BS in Comp Sci in 2003. Just in time for the worst domestic IT job market in 20 years.
A private school was looking for a computer science teacher. And here I am. I remain dedicated to quality education, even when I doubt my own abilities to deliver it.
I wake up and do my job every morning because if i dont, I could be thrown in jail… right now, that’s pretty much my only motivation. Fucking shithole
My drug habit won’t support itself. Well, I suppose it could but I’m not going down that road.
(A) I love it. I love every day on the job, even the bad days.
(B) I don’t know how to do anything else.
It was the spring of 1973, and I was in college, hating it. On a whim, I went to talk to a Navy recuriter, and that August, I was in uniform. I spent just over 11 years on active duty, during which time I went back to college and got an engineering degree.
A year after getting out, I was hired for my first engineering position, on the very Navy base where I did my last tour. I started out doing tool and fixture design, then did some process engineering, and finally got into aerospace structural design.
My husband got a job out of state, and I managed to land a mechanical engineering position aboard a Navy base near his new employer. This July, I’ll have 32 years of service with the Navy, both military and civilian. I’ve had the opportunity to do a lot of different things in a number of different places. Staying with the Navy all this time has largely been a comfort issue - I know the language and the culture. And at this stage, it’s just the smart thing to do - I can retire in 4 years - I’d be foolish to look elsewhere.
Once I retire, I may try something else. I can’t imagine not working.
I do my job because I’m good at it. I dont always like it, I had always envisioned myself as a rock star, a tv celebrity, a celebrated author, or something gigantic, but those were never goals, just daydreams. I tend to try a lot of things, lately its dabbling in woodworking, but the only thing Ive ever stuck with is what I do for a living.
I think I’m really lucky to be able to do something I find rewarding, that constantly challenges me, allows me to travel and meet interesting people, and that I’m good at.
I think a lot of people tend to dismiss what they are good at, particularly if it doesnt “fit” into what they think society really values(like being a movie star or something). If they can accept your own talent and make the most of it rather than fighting it, I think they’d be happier.
I do several things for money, mostly I do minor remodel and window/door replacement for Home Depot. So, I do a lot of demo, tile, wall work, and finishing.
In addition, over the past 5 - 10 years, I’ve done portrait and wedding photography, fragrance and cosmetics ‘modelling,’ sound engineering for a locally produced CD, cinemagraphic set up for local business comercials, and sold some short stories, songs, and poems.
Yippers, I can and will do all sorts of things. But you’ll notice that they all have some creativity involved. Sometimes, it’s not a lot. Like pulling out old window frames from behind a brick facade. That’s mostly just hard and dirty. But when I finish the install and you can’t tell it’s a redo but looks like original construction, well, that’s because my creative side lets me finish to a superlative degree. When I’m helping some mix just the right sound for them, or making them look 15 years younger in a very carefully created ‘candid’ portrait, then there’s a lot of creativity coming out. And just give me a blank peice of paper and an idea, and you see my pure creatitivity.
So, there you have it. I don’t mind getting dirty. I like hard work. I like a challange. And having a creative soul make all of those things come together in beauty. (In my eyes, anyways. Well, someone else’s eyes too, I guess, they pay me.)
Well, I like to know why I’m doing what I do, and I do what I do because I don’t know what to do when I’m not doing it.
But seriously. I like to help people. But not because I’m all full of empathy or anything noble like that. It’s a dysfunction. I like the way people make me feel when I’ve helped them. Yes, that’s it. And my brains are particularly adept at the tasks involved with my job, so I can do it really well–and I discovered that if I do my job well and efficiently, I get to “help” more people and feel even better. As a result I have this amazingly productive record at work (finish my quotas well before the middle of the month). So I get to Dope a lot and I get to fool around with Xcel and Word and make really complicated programs in them that essentially automate my job and improve my performance and that of the rest of the team (because I share the things–makes them more productive, which makes the bosses happy, who in turn make my coworkers happy which makes me happy).
So what I do when I leave home in the morning is to get a break from the estranged and kids, give money away to people who need it, haggle like an Arab trader, and play on the computer. In return I get a decent paycheck, some variety, and lots of strokes. I could go for a promotion, I guess, but then I’d have to actually work.
Several years ago, I was married and was a stay-at-home mom. I helped to ensure that my husband advanced in his career and that he had the means to make a nice living. We then ended up divorcing, and I was the one whose economic status took a big downturn, as I had practically no skills and couldn’t get a job that paid much more than minimum wage. An all-too-common story as far as divorces go.
My ex did pay child support, but it wasn’t much in proportion to his income, so I had to go on public assistance. Add to that the fact that I had a child with some fairly complicated health problems, and I couldn’t work because of his extensive doctor’s appointments every few days. Then the state of Arizona said I could go to school to learn a skill for free. It had to be something I could finish within a year, and after researching various programs, I chose medical assisting. Now, 7 years later, I’m making more than twice the minimum wage, something I doubt I’d be making without getting an education of some kind. So, next time you’re feeling discouraged about welfare mothers getting handouts that they don’t appreciate or use towards a better future, rest assured that some of them have.
I used to be asked to speak every year at a luncheon honoring the training programs for welfare recipients, as a success story, but after a couple of years I quit doing it because the stress of public speaking was too much.
I don’t love my job, but I’m good at it and it pays the bills, and I’m glad I took the opportunities that I did.
I do what I do because it pays me for doing what I enjoy doing. I put words and phrases and sentences together in order that other people will have some sort of reaction to what I write. If I didn’t get paid for doing what I enjoy doing and what I think I’m best at, then I wouldn’t do it. Alternatively, if I had to do for a living something that I didn’t think I was good at doing, then I’d quickly change careers. If you’re not independently wealthy, life’s too short to spend any appreciable amount of time paying the bills doing something that you don’t enjoy doing.
I do what I do because I get paid to read the best stuff ever written and talk to some smart people about it. What’s not to love?
I’m a secretary for a non profit. Not because I love secretarial work, but because of the really neat place I work. We’re a therapy center for kids with cerebral palsy, developmental disabilities, etc. and every day I get to play with 40+ children, talk with their parents, help new parents who are searching for the right answers for their child, and support our incredible staff who genuinely love the children and their jobs.
Each and every day I get to clap and cheer for children who’ve made milestones in their therapies! Of course the clerical aspect of this position lets me play on the computer during the day, satisfying the nerdette in me.
The position pays squat, but because Mr. Adoptamom supports us quite nicely I get to work for the joy of it rather than the paycheck. It’s also nice that health insurance benefits are offered which covers the gap in DH’s self employed status.I wish I’d found this place twenty years ago when I first entered the work force, and plan to stay their until I retire.
Dear Glee,
Would you like to teach chess full-time at a top school? :eek:
You would report directly to the Headmaster, and be responsible for coming up with a strategy to make this school a real ‘chess centre’.
You would move out of a crowded city to charming countryside, complete with a massive drop in house prices and the chance to walk to work. 
Oh, and we’d pay you a lot more money than your present job… 
You get paid to read the Dope?! That’s awesome.
I fell into it and it pays the bills. That is truly the only reason I do it. There is no personal reward whatsoever.
Because physics is awesome, fun, and cool stuff.
As a senior in high school my job prospects after graduating looked mighty slim so I joined the Navy. I was looking for something easy to do but was steered into electronics, having taken 2 years of electronics in high school helped. After 4 years in the Navy I applied for a job at a large aircraft manufacturer in the Seattle area and was hired to help build Navy hydrofoils for them instead. After I was laid off I worked a number of jobs and went to school and learned auto repair. 2 months before graduating from the tech school the big aircraft company called and I was rehired 20 years ago this March and I’m still building airplanes. I started out doing electrical installations on the 737. I took an offer and went on the 777 program when it was launched and took a job performing functional tests. When the 737 Next Generation program was launched there were a lot of problems and I was brought back to help. I’m still there, I figure I have worked on over 3000 new 737’s since 1986. Last week Boeing delivered the 5000th 737 built to Southwest Airlines.