District Geophysicist with an oil & gas exploration company.
It’s fun to find a new oil or gas field, so that part is satisfying. But I’ve got a lot of work and much of it makes my brain hurt. I personally think the compensation rocks, but I only recently came in from the cold (April of this year after 10 years of having my own company); even my boss gripes about the pay. It’s a corporado life, so there’s politics and a pecking order; fortunately nobody else around here thinks they understand what I do, so I don’t get second-guessed too much.
Overall I think I do like it. I’ve been in this industry for 20 years, though, and I’ve seen disaster strike (we don’t “adjust to market conditions;” we just have the bottom fall out every few years). I think if I get caught in the next downturn I might just go sell t-shirts at the beach.
Software Engineer with major Storage Software company. I get to write blindingly exciting software products like backup software and stuff that compresses your files and stores them on tapes.
I’m overpaid,
underworked 75% of the time, overworked 25% of the time
and I hate it.
I’ve sold out & decided to work for the money for another couple years. Luckily, I can get to the Straight Dope most days, so it makes it somewhat enjoyable.
I work in an automobile new car dealership as a warranty adminstrator. The pay sucks. The job sucks. The people that work there wouldn’t know how to communicate if their lives depended on it. It’s boring. Been there 13 1/2 years. I hate it. I am going on vacation in a week and a half. I am going to spend the whole week putting in applications at other places.
Hopefully I’ll be able to find something that matches my sig.
Computer programmer at a University.
Sometimes I like, sometimes I don’t.
I’m paid ok but less than my coworkers, who get too much. They are workaholics with lousy personalities. That’s one of my biggest dislikes at this place–my coworkers. I wish they were more like me.
Help desk manager for a national health-benefits company. Good pay, good benefits, 8-to-5 hours. On call all the time (even on vacation) but never get paged.
I’m a document analyst for a major insurance company. Basically, I create and revise forms, control the traffic to our print shop, and review anything to be printed that has been done by other departments. Occassionally I get to do something creative designwise.
Great benefits (free health insurance!), good hours (8-4:30), decent pay (Enough to pay for an apartment and truck note and have enough left over at the end of the month to save a little bit).
I work as a janitor at a BOWLING ALLEY! Yes, and the bad part is, I absoloutly hate bowling. All those rental shoes, and bad outfits… I shudder to even recall it. The worst thing about it, though, is that some people actually CLIP THEIR TOENAILS and then LEAVE THEM ON THE FLOOR! BY THE SEATS! I mean, what kind of inbred, disgusting person does that*? Huh? Ok, I will only say this once. If you absoloutly HAVE to clip them, please do so IN THE BATHROOM!!! Ahhh, ok, I feel better now
*Note- I mean no offense to those who are actually inbred and disgusting. I think you’re great people. Really.
Web designer for a law firm’s intranet. Underworked and overpaid (yes, that’s correct). 8 hours a day here, with maybe 15 minutes or so spent actually working. Not exactly what one would call fulfilling. I feel like my brain is atrophying. I think i’m gonna talk to some nonprofits to see if i can work on their websites. I certainly have the time! The pay used to be very very good. Now i’ve gone from contract to full time and the pay has dropped to just very good. The benefits are a lot better, though: 4 weeks paid vacation! Woohoo!
This is, of course, assuming i don’t get laid off because someone notices just how little i actually do.
I’m a Technical Typist at a very large midwestern state university. Which means, I do desktop publishing, typing up of grant proposals, articles for publication etc.
I like it. It keeps me busy, which is very important (some of you older Dopers remember my job woes the past couple years) and the people in my department are great.
I have my own office (with two windows!), drive 10 minutes to work, will be able to ride my bike to work in the summer, have basically no dress code (other than “keep your body covered”), and the benefits ROCK.
Plus, after I’ve put in a year here, they will give me free tuition up to 14 credit hours a year at either the University or the local community college. Of course, the best part is a great computer, scanner, T-1 line access and all the surfing I can do! Especially since I don’t have a computer at home.
To all those out there who hate your job, I’ll say to you what my dad said to me while I was employed at someplace I hated: “The only thing you can never replace is time. You spend too much of your life at work to not enjoy what you do.” This from a packaging engineer who quit GM to become a carpenter because that was what he loved.
I work for a major Telco selling DSL to residential users. I have had way worse jobs but this one is no peach. The pay is okay but there is no flexibility and quite honestly, people can be very difficult to deal with. Nobody wants to hear that they do not qualifiy for DSL. I leave with a headache everyday. It’s a good “springboard” job though. If things don’t work out, my band is starting to pick up speed so maybe I will be in a new full time career soon. If broccoli could find a drummer our bands could have a show together and all the tampa dopers could come out.
IT risk consultant. Spend my days drawing flowcharts, interviewing grumpy IT staff who’d rather be anywhere than speaking to me and explaining to auditors and accountants what these brightly coloured bleeping boxes do and why they are important to company accounts.
Work is very interesting, usually, though I’m starting to get “fidgety”. Pay? OK, I guess. Still it does piss one off to talk to your college friends who are making nearly six-figs for selling widgets. These are the same friends who flunked out of college for a semester (or year), then came back strong and graduated with a sterling 2.1 GPA. Meanwhile, I double majored with a 3.4 and am currently going to grad school at night.
Ah well, no one ever said saving the world would be lucrative.
Then again, maybe we’ll get bought out and my options will be worth something
I’m a Marketplace Co-Worker at IKEA, a Swedish furniture store. I like it, sort of. I am underpaid for the work I do - every day, I process and oversee all the incoming stock for my department (Textiles), make sure the stock gets on the floor (I do most of it myself - about 5-10 pallets a day), organize stock coming from the air, help customers, make signs, merchandize new products, etc. All the normal bullshit for a sales job. Unfortunately, I’m the only full-timer in my department, so I run it during the day. For three months, I had no stocking help, which meant I put everything on the floor myself. That was awful.
My department covers bath linens, shower curtains, throw cushions, throw blankets, bedspreads, quilts, quilt covers, pillows, sheets and bed linens, curtains, curtain rods, finials, roman shades, pleated shades, and mattress pads. I know all the Swedish names for every product in my department, and in Children’s and Rugs too (the dep’ts are next to mine). It’s a lot of work (especially when customers think I’m a personal shopper).
The only thing keeping me going is the benefits (full coverage, dental and vision, also acupuncture) and the people I work with. They keep me smiling.
In January I switch to part-time and go back to school full-time, which will be a much needed break.
I work at mcDonald’s. I’m a manager in training, so I’m basically a slave right now. I don’t get to do the real manager stuff (counting money, filling out paperwork, etc), but instead I get to babysit. Try keeping 6-12 teenagers occupied for a good 8 hours. The adults that work during the day are a piece of cake. They know what to do, when to do it. Once school gets out, it’s hell.
The pay’s decent, for a job with no college education behind it. Minimum is $6, I make $7.75
Nothing to brag over, but hey, I’m not complaining.
Eve, copy editor… I LMAO remembering exactly how big a shovel I needed, when I was editing.
Now I run my own renovations thingy. Mostly fences and decks but this winter I’m building a barn. The pay fluctuates between wikkit and sucky.
I spent the latter part of today chipping and shovelling about ten tonnes of frozen 0-3/4 gravel in a snowstorm so that the dump trucks can get in to the site tommorrow with another 200 tons. At least it won’t be frozen.
I love my job. If I won a million tonight, I’d still go in tommorrow. (wearing much better boots and I’d have a brand new back-hoe with me too.)
I’m a do anything that needs to be done guy in a small law firm in the valley. My firm has 2 lawyers and 1 paralegal and 3 people with my job (the 3 are all part time). I get paid very well for the work and considering it’s part time. No dress code, I could come to work naked with blue pubes if I wanted. It used to be busy but my boss the main lawyer made way too much money suing insurance causes for bad faith (Multiple multi-million dollar verdicts on 45% retainers) and now comes to work twice a week usually after 6pm which is when I leave. Now I do almost nothing. I have the best job I can think of for being 18 and going to school, but I hate it. I don’t know how I’m going to survive in the real world
Underpaid, undertrained, and constantly worried that I’m doing more harm than good (having had my share of bad teachers in my life). Free to work more or less whenever I feel like it, and to teach my classes however I see fit. Totally over the moon when students ask me how they can register for my class next semester. Totally despairing when one of them is having trouble and I just don’t know how to help them. Occasionally in the grip of a crisis of conscience. Usually fascinated by the complex process of figuring out how people learn. Amused to the point of hysteria by some of the typos I get in student papers.
Especially since I don’t have a computer at home.