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What's your job ? What do you do?

DennisD

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I was in advertising. I did video production, editing, special effects, and motion graphics. First job out of college. 2 years.

After the place closed its doors, I did freelance video work for a buncha different clients.

The next REAL job I had was telemarketing for half a year, dating service. Then worked at the golf course mowing lawns and spinning sandtraps for another 5 months.

Offered a job at a car dealership doing marketing, turned it down. Now I'm working on a business idea fulltime. No profit yet, but it's coming.
 

milehinocmply

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Currently working in Sales selling advertisement space for a business newspaper with strict office rules that require we be there from 8-5, no exceptions and yes, it is as mind numbing as it sounds :)
 

Steele Concept

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Sep 3, 2012
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I used to do corporate B2B sales and it absolutely helps for my business venture. Getting comfortable on the phone and being able to cold call and prospect is important. I also have some electronics retail sales experience from undergrad :)

Now I pursue my venture full time. I love to interact with customers face to face and over the phone, answer questions and sell.
 
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liite

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Concierge at a 5* Hotel. As far as a job goes it's pritty good. I've had the opportunity to meet some very interesting people, lots of business owners, CEO's of large corporations, celebrities etc. Got to drive some exceptionally nice cars. But at the end of the day it's still just another job.
 

Rawr

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Dennis does this "I did video production, editing, special effects, and motion graphics." stuff pay the bills decent as a gig, how about as a job? It doesn't seem too terrible as it is creative job wise.
 

theag

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Commercial real estate broker (office leasing). Got into it for the wrong reasons and am only staying for a few more months until debts are paid off. Will move back to Germany after that and work in my dad's performance marketing agency while I set up my business (or help to grow my father's business).
 

RBefort

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Sep 14, 2012
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Underwriter for Metlife. It's really boring. I get to telecommute once I've been here 2+ years and on snow days. If I got to telecommute 3 days a week right now, I might actually consider keeping it awhile. Hate coming into the office with a dress code on 3 of the 5 days a week for no reason, other than to sit in a cube. Work is tedious and boring like no other.
 

Ikke

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Student and currently graduating by doing a project/internship at a local business which is very mind numbing.
 
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evlttwin

It's A Long Way To The Top....
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Feb 13, 2013
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Telecommunications Field Tech for a Fortune 15 company. The executives in this company are slowly killing it by contracting out the customer service to idiots.
 

DrkSide

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Currently a field IT tech for a local government entity. Boring, menial work that I hope to leave behind soon.

The executives in this company are slowly killing it by contracting out the customer service to idiots.
This seems to be what is going on with every company.
 

Wimtbimtb

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Dec 14, 2008
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License/Manufacturer of high explosives . My company and I have created a new weapon Im at a cross roads now. Do I sell the design off before the Govt takes it or ride it out. Some very hard choices seem to be in my very near future.
 
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Pete799p

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Aug 18, 2011
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Commercial real estate broker (office leasing). Got into it for the wrong reasons and am only staying for a few more months until debts are paid off. Will move back to Germany after that and work in my dad's performance marketing agency while I set up my business (or help to grow my father's business).

I was wondering what you liked/disliked about being a commercial broker. I have been considering it for a while as a way to add some additional capital, I am working with real estate on the development side, but I am afraid it will be to rigid and corporate for me.
 
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Jill

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Independent ERP Software (PeopleSoft) Implementation Consultant [yawn].

Primary advantage(s):
1) Significant compensation for the work I do*
2) Serves as a daily reminder why I MUST continue to pursue my Fastlane avenue.
3) Opportunity to work with different people, different companies and in different cities for 6-12 months at a time.
4) Enables me to accrue 100s of thousands of travel loyalty points for personal use. One of the (only?) remaining tax-free benefits still in existence.

Primary disadvantage(s):
1) I hate the subject matter
2) Requires me to be there!... and therein lies the rub.


*One of my favorite anecdotes to illustrate this:

When my step-daughter was 12ish, after watching me work from home one week, she said, "Ms. Jill, Daddy says that you work really hard to help us have a nice life. But it seems like all you do is send emails and talk on the phone.... and even I could do THAT!" So I handed her my laptop and phone and said, 'then do it'. . . to which she responded, "But I wouldn't know what to say!!" LOL

"Ahhh!", I said. "You see, they don't pay me to make calls and emails. They pay me to know WHAT TO SAY when I call and email."
 

nzerinto

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Aug 1, 2012
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Self employed, providing online marketing services (starting from web development to SEO to conversion optimization). Basically one foot in the Slowlane and one foot in the Fastlane...once I can smooth out the process anyway...!
 
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MJ DeMarco

I followed the science; all I found was money.
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Jul 23, 2007
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Underwriter for Metlife. It's really boring. I get to telecommute once I've been here 2+ years and on snow days. If I got to telecommute 3 days a week right now, I might actually consider keeping it awhile. Hate coming into the office with a dress code on 3 of the 5 days a week for no reason, other than to sit in a cube. Work is tedious and boring like no other.

OMG, I seriously had a rush of anxiety and claustrophobia reading this ... probably because I interviewed after college for an insurance job and foreshadowed a similar existence. Instead, I chose years of pizza delivery, stock clerking, and limo driving -- not exactly glamorous either.
 

DennisD

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Jun 16, 2012
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Dennis does this "I did video production, editing, special effects, and motion graphics." stuff pay the bills decent as a gig, how about as a job? It doesn't seem too terrible as it is creative job wise.

Honestly, I didn't make a lot of money. Less than 40K/year at my highest point. A lot of stuff I did I could never show to anybody ever under an NDA. I did 90% of the work, we showed the client, and then we sent it to a finishing house who put the final touches on it and got all the credit. It was a really crappy system.

Hours were unpredictable. Some days I'd get to leave the office at 3, other days I'd come in at 9am and leave the following day at 4am (still expected to be in by 9). Lots of broken plans and giving up personal freedom for seeminlgy no additional reward (On salary so I didn't get paid overtime).

Creatively the job was great at times and dull at other times. I got to practice my craft and do projects that grew me as a person... but other times (because the video department was so small) I'd be organizing tapes, digitizing files, backing up harddrives, shipping assets to our backup site, and running diagnostics on our backup servers. The job was around 50/50 great stuff and boring stuff.

I would have loved to stick around the company, it wasn't my choice to leave. We lost huge clients and that was that.
 

maverick

Aspice, officio fungeris sine spe honoris ampliori
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I'm a management consultant. If you've ever wondered what we do for a living.. read this

@Jill:
It's true that we, as consultants, work for different companies/people on each project however at the core of things we're doing the same thing over and over again. The reason we get paid so well is because the thing that we're doing over and over again has a lot of value for our clients (in your case implementations). I needn't tell you they end up over budget 9 times out of 10 as well ;-)

Couple of things to take away from our job:
1- provide value and you will get rewarded. Perception of value (="intrinsic value") drives price though..
2- a LOT of people I've worked for have been sub par (borderline incompetent) in what they do. Even if your job sucks.. at least be the best in what you're doing; have some pride. I digress..
3- a LOT of people can only work transactionally. What I mean by this is: you can't hand them a problem and tell them to sort it out themselves. You'll need to either tell them step-by-step what they need to do or guide them through the thought process.
4- inevitably consultants end up putting together tenders; usually for big sums of money. I read a thread on the forum a few weeks ago that talked about their "fear for big numbers".. we've already been conditioned to think this is the norm.

The point that I'm trying to make is that once you go through the topic with the most views / comments you will tend to come across two things:
1- Provide value
2- Focus on process not on events. It's never the idea by itself what makes successful people successful.. it's the inept ability to see a problem, construct a solution and devise a process that bridges the gap between the two.
 
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RBefort

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OMG, I seriously had a rush of anxiety and claustrophobia reading this ... probably because I interviewed after college for an insurance job and foreshadowed a similar existence. Instead, I chose years of pizza delivery, stock clerking, and limo driving -- not exactly glamorous either.

Yeah, well the only foreshadowing I had was a $35-40k a year check and being young/going out since I had more money. Not thrilled about working 40 hrs/wk or more possibly as I used to play poker for a living. Figured WHAT THE HELL though, as it was Metlife and they were a reputable company. Who knew what the real world was actually like; sadly, I didn't find your book til a few months into the job. Should have put in my 2 weeks right after and went to the types of jobs you had or back to poker to sustain living with less hours. What's even more sad, is I don't know how I got the job lol. They were desperate to hire I think, as the pre-screener basically sat on phone and helped change my answers around to sound better, or say what wasn't a good answer for the screening. :/ Gotta get myself out now!

However, I have picked up on some entrepreneurial lessons from the meetings 4 hr workweek says to avoid (overall, the meetings are pointless however). Customer service, meeting needs of customers, striving to always grow, etc. Plus, I got to pay off my credit card debts. A few others I trained with are also ready to scoot. One kid wants to do entrep stuff with a restaurant of his own; loves to cook. Other kid is burnt out from just repeatedly quoting, and another wants to go back to law school lol.

Gf's sister's in law said he walked into a corporation recently for some reason and called the cube dwellers "groundhogs" because when you walk by, everyone pokes their heads up to see, and all you see are the heads. Too true :sigh:
 

thehawkman

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Mar 27, 2013
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Translator. And studying law, maybe I will become a lawyer. Slowlane or not, if it pays enough, I may forget about the Lamborghini.
 
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JasonR

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May 29, 2012
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Full time dentist........Yep, it blows

There are a few local dentists around here that seem to make pretty damn good $$...like 7 figures a year...
 

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