What do you do for a living?

I'm a housewife. [] I've never been a "career girl" and I absolutely love staying home to take care of our animals and keep our house nice. I have to say I'm very happy with my "job". I go to sleep when I feel like it, I get up when I feel like it, I can wear my pajamas all day if I feel like it. [] If I want to I can go out to shop or run errands, stuff like that. I'm a homebody though, so I'm quite content to stay at home. Before getting married, I did everything from working as a bank teller, retail jobs, grooming, animal shelters and vet's offices.

What do I do for a living?

I'm a Service Center Analyst (HelpDesk Institute title).  Basically, I spend half of my day helping people with computer, printer, and networking issues over the phone and by e-mail.  The other half of my day, I help the student workers who do the majority of our on-site work orders, I fix/diagnose/do data recovery on all student laptops that are brought to us, and I'm in charge of making sure all of the computer and audio visual equipment in all of the college's classrooms is functioning and up to date.  I work 8-5, 5 days a week.

On the side, I do web design.  I do it for a low cost or free (for non-profit orgs or initiatives that I support and agree with).



How did I get started?

I applied for several on-campus jobs when I was a freshmen.  The HelpDesk job offered the highest started rate ($6/hr).  So I started as a technician in Jan 2003 and have worked there ever since.  When I graduated, I was promoted to an official staff position (much higher pay, salaried, benefits, etc).  My degree is in business communications with a focus on Internet marketing, but I kept the HelpDesk job b/c my husband went back to school and he gets some tuition cost waived b/c I'm a full time employee.

I like my job b/c it's very easy for me since I've been doing it for almost 5 years, I like my boss, and I get along with my co-workers, but the work itself is sometimes mind-numbing b/c I just don't take it seriously.  I'm not a computer science person and I cannot see myself doing this work for much longer.  When DH gets a teaching job, I'll probably do more web design work out of the home and maybe some part time office work.  I'm really sick of the whole call center thing and people always taking you for granted, treating you like a doormat.

Currently: SAHM
 
How did I get started: Well when two people love each other very much.....lmbo...KIDDING!
 
When I worked..I worked retail. Bookstores mainly....fun times, and no...you do NOT get to read all day, lol!

I'm a vet tech. How did I get started? I was a vet assistant for several years before in the state I lived in previously. When I was moving across country, I contacted a vet in the town I was moving to and they were hiring for a vet tech. So I traded kennel work, cleaning and really low pay in for....kennel work, blood draws and lab work...and better pay []

Prior to that I worked with the developmentally disabled in a group home setting for several years, until the company I worked for closed.

I'm a stay at home mother.  Some days I love it and others, I want to get a job just so I can get away from the house and the child!!  

I'm a stay at home wife/mom, and I enjoy it. I'm starting to get that itch to get out there and do something[]  I do photography and design for weddings/ birthdays and just for fun. Its something I really want to go to college for to learn more about it. I would absolutely love to specialize in Animal or Nature photography. Hopefully I can get that done and going when my son gets into kindergarten[]

I'm having a hard time chosing exactly what my title is supposed to be. I guess the best thing to go with would be Applied Behavior Analysis/Verbal Behavior therapist. I work/have worked, mostly with children with autism. I work a bit with one student now who probably is not autistic, but that's up in the air. Some say he is, others say he isn't. I'm in the camp that says no, not that I am qualified to make that decision though.
I'm also a student in elementary and special education. I'm student teaching in the fall, and at the end of the semester, I graduate.
How did I get started?
I got started in the elementary special ed. program because I wanted to graduate from highschool early. I hated it. In order to do so, I needed to take classes at the local community college. I also needed to choose a major. Not knowing what to pick really, I went with education. It seemed good. I was always the one teaching the stuff in school to other kids, or helping both my older and younger sisters with their homework. I also got a job in a daycare right when I finished highschool. About when I started working, a boy with autism started coming. I don't know why, but we connected rather well. I didn't have any special training at the time, I knew no more about autism than any one else there. Whatever it was though, I figured him out better than anyone else, and he liked me better than anyone else there, and his teacher at school. This was also true of another boy with asperger's. He cried every day, most of the day, for a month. One day, I produced from my pocket, a chocolate scented highlighter. He only cried for a bit first thing in the morning after that. He was my new best buddy after that.
In one of my classes, I had to do ABA with kids with autism. I went to this school, but not to his class. I absolutely loved it. I will never forget, when the student who I was working with, who we were teaching to say bye, replied bye to me when I said it to him before I left the classroom. Yup, I do really get inspired by cheap thrills. I'll probably never forget the day the first child I mentioned lied to me, and convincingly, either.
Anyway, I got my job with one child I am working with because my mom saw an add in the paper looking for therapists. I went in to the school to see the program, and mentioned that I knew a particular child's brother from Tae Kwon-Do. So, that was one of the children I got assigned. The other I got for no particular reason, but he just moved. I got another child I am working with when I happened by chance to be browsing the community college's job postings site. I saw these people were looking for someone to watch their son while he had time off from school for the summer. I was the first one to respond. There's no real program in place, I kinda do what I see as a need, and it's a bit eclectic. I got another job,that I am starting on Saturday, through a yahoo group. I was angry with the district I contract through, and I don't want to take on any more students through them. I searched, found the group, and joined it. In browsing the posts, I saw that someone else from the district is a member. I don't want to reveal to them that I am mad, so I didn't post my own ad with availability, I only replied to ads. This person wanted to add more hours to their program, I have hours, I need money, so there you have it.

I am an advertising Account Exec, altho my official title is Sales Manager.....I don't manage anyone, other than my own clients so that's not terribly accurate.  I call what I do "relationship sales", the boss calls it working the process.  The end result is that I'm not on the street peddling our "package of the week", I'm working with folks, helping them to learn how to market their business and how to use their advertising dollars most effectively.  When I develop a relationship with a client they will trust me to advise them on other media and to help them develop an effective multi-media campaigne.  This is my goal, to become a partner with them and to help them grow their business.  Very little, if anything is bought, before it has been sold.  Too many folks spend a bundle of money to open a new business....."if I build it, they will come", but don't factor advertising into their budget and they fail.  My job is to teach them that yes, if you build it, they will come but ONLY if you invite them to come.  Word of mouth only goes just so far and it's a very slow process.  And, I don't want to see them waste their advertising dollars.
 
I love the ones who've been in business for years, family business type situation and DAD always advertising in the newspaper.....been doing it for 60 years but it doesn't seem to be working as well anymore......so they buy bigger ads, buy color, and still nothing.  They don't GET that newspaper circulation drops every single year, that readership has declined horribly and that the average time spent reading a newspaper is 11 minutes.  Yep, in 11 minutes I can sure read everything I want to in the paper (comics and Dear Abby and maybe a local story or two) AND check out all the ads!  Not so much.
 
So, I don't just sell, I educate and I help folks..

I'm a Civil Engineer mostly working to help projects get environmental clearance.

I work in Market Research.  Technically I am a Senior Project Director but to most of the world that means nothing.  Basically I work with a bunch of clients running their projects, writing reports, selling to new clients, and running statistics.

For 17 years I worked in the early childhood education then social work field.  Started out at an entry level position, went to school while I worked, and ended up in a supervisory position with pretty decent pay. 
 Near the end of that time I was working in-home with families who had children under age 5 and were involved in the Child Protection system.  Hard job......and oh, the things I saw. []  The toughest one for me emotionally was the 3 yr old girl who had been raped by Mother's BF, and was still in that home. She used to hide under the table and tremble.
 Or the 2 and 3 yr old girls who had been left home alone while Mom went out to a bar.  She ended up in a fight that resulted in hospitalization, but never told anyone she had children home. When I arrived two days later, they were eating dog poop off the floor because they were hungry.  The stories could go on and on. And on and on.
Anyway....I burnt out.  And my supervisor died unexpectedly.  It made me seriously reevaluate my life---my hopes, dreams, and desires.
I quit that job 2 years ago and came to work with my husband, who is a self-employed site work contractor.  It seriously took me about a month to "decompress" from that job.  I had no idea HOW stressed I was.
Now I am proficient with a hand rake and shovel....I can drive a dump truck...and have even played a bit with a bulldozer!  And I am happier than ever!  I get to spend all day with the man I love, and we are truly more in a partnership than ever before.
 
Sometimes I am reminded of that old Monty Python line, "And now for something completely different!" []

office manager - my Mom was an office manager, she promised to pay for my college if I majored in accounting - I did, she "forgot" that promise - I grabbed the 1st job I could to pay that bill

I work for the family business, which is in the lumber sales and wood manufacturing industry.
 
How I originally ended up here:  I was enrolled in the office practice class at my high school my senior year.  During the last quarter everyone is assigned to "work" at a local business.  My best friend was assigned my family's company and I was assigned to (unbeknownst to my teacher) my family's biggest local business competitor.  They refused to allow me to come there, claiming that I'd take all of their customer files to my parents.  The easiest thing to do was to switch me with my best friend, so that's what we did.
 
I ended up getting "hired" for the summer after I graduated.  I left to start school that fall, quit school and worked somewhere else for a year.  Then insurance needs brought me back to the family business for a full time gig and I've been here ever since (ten years now).
 
My main duties are payroll & personnel stuff.  My parents are gone on their anniversary trip to Alaska this week, though, which means I'm stuck running the office myself.  That means doing my mom's job, too, which includes invoicing, writing up orders, accounts payable and all of that fun stuff.  Now that I understand it more, I actually think her job is more interesting than mine....  Maybe I should switch.  []

I'm the Human Resources Director for a large commercial heating and air conditioning company in Virginia Beach, VA.
 
How did I get started? I applied here for an administrative/accounting position, and have since been promoted a few times. I love Human Resources, but it's not what I want to do for the rest of my life. I'm going back to school to finish my degree in International Business.
 
DH and I will probably live in Virginia for the next 5 or so years, and then we'll be moving to Missouri near my parents to help them run their vineyard. That's where I see myself for the rest of my life.