What is your occupation/background?

Exodor · Post by **Exodor** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 12:43 pm

WarPig wrote:Sole IT in an office of ~200 users. I work in the Phoenix office of a larger California-based non-profit health care company. Like Paingod, I do everything from fielding helpdesk calls to initiating projects, testing new hardware, systems administration, light network engineering, basically everything we don't call a vendor to do. I report to nobody locally and sit in a locked, windowless room adjacent to our small server room. I find myself wishing for the phone to ring some days, it gets very lonely..

You have my job.

Except my office has a window (and two other guys, the art department), we are a public for-profit health product manufacturer (mostly suture) and we only have ~40 users. The facility employs about 100 people but I never have to go into the clean room. Most days I struggle to find enough work to fill my day.

Prior to this I worked as a contractor at a large steel recycling company. I started on the helpdesk and quickly moved to desktop support. I was the "Executive Support" guy which meant I was the C-class executives' bitch. I really liked the people I worked with in the IT department but after a few years as a contractor the relatively low pay compared to full-time employees and the stress of supporting people who could make me disappear in the shredder became too much.

Before that I worked for 8 years at a title insurance company in the same sort of solo IT role I have now. I learned a lot but grew tired of the roller-coaster nature of title companies - I hated each fall when we had to let 25% of the work force go. Eventually my name found its way onto the layoff list. Last time I checked that company was down to ~20 people from a high of maybe 75.

I have a BA in Psychology/Sociology from Mizzou for no apparent reason and an Associates in CIS for fairly obvious reasons.

I'm now convinced that I'm much happier as part of an IT team rather than as the "one IT guy." I got into IT because I knew more about PCs than the tech person at the time and I have the ability to fix problems without making the users feel stupid (which is more rare in the IT world than you'd think) but I see burnout looming on the horizon. I think part of the problem is that my 5 year old knows more about PCs and has more patience than the average use.

I'm ready to leave IT behind but I have no idea what I what to do next.

Good thing there are lots of job openings and opportunities out there right?

Right?

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 1:17 pm

One thing's for sure: if OO ever finds itself stranded on a desert island, it's got IT covered.

Jeff V · Post by **Jeff V** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 1:22 pm

Holman wrote:One thing's for sure: if OO ever finds itself stranded on a desert island, it's got IT covered.

And when the batteries run out after a few hours, we'll only be useful as cattle to help keep the others alive.

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 1:26 pm

Jeff V wrote:
Holman wrote:One thing's for sure: if OO ever finds itself stranded on a desert island, it's got IT covered.
And when the batteries run out after a few hours, we'll only be useful as cattle to help keep the others alive.

From the physiques of most IT guys I've known, that's probably an equally valid contribution.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 1:27 pm

And everyone else will die off from coronaries caused by their high fat diets.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 1:34 pm

Don't look at me. I already know how to grow food.

WarPig · Post by **WarPig** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 1:59 pm

I may be an IT guy, but I was raised in the desert. I learned at a young age how to forage for food and water in an arid environment. We hunted, fished the Gila River, spent a lot of time camping and building our own blinds for hunting. I may not be the best candidate for a deserted island, but I've got the zombie apocalypse covered.

Side note: I've lost about 75 pounds in the last 3 years. It used to be 100, but I've slacked a bit. From 325 to 250 now.

JSHAW · Post by **JSHAW** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 2:11 pm

Currently and since May 10' I am a full-time stay-at-home father for my 2 year 4 month daughter.

Starting from my youth to current I will list as many jobs I've had in my lifetime in chronological order -

*Newspaper carrier - for the summer 1980 when I was 16.

*Grocery bagger/stocker - junior-senior years of HS.

*United States Air Force - from Nov 82- Jan 91 - diet therapy specialist (hospital cook + therapeutic diet prep & consults)
Went to Del Rio Texas, West Germany (before the berlin wall fell - went to Checkpoint Charlie and over to East Berlin for one day visit), and ended career at Minot AFB, Minot ND, the ass end of hells ninth gate.

*minature golf/arcade room attendant - busboy @red lobster - after getting out of air force with honorable discharge I returned to my home city, Charlotte NC and got these 2 low paying jobs while applying to what would be a better paying job.

*IBM Corp - microcode production - back when floppy disks existed I worked in the department that would load the information from a central point to a huge amount of machines that would copy the info to disk. During this timeframe I also worked a part-time job for less than a year as a pizza delivery driver for local pizza joint.

*Solectron Technology - shipping dept / hazardous chemical handler - IBM sold their microelectronic division to Solectron in Charlotte, went over to them in the buyout. First in shipping, then applied for and got chemical handler job.

*local computer repair shop that shall remain nameless - parts purchasing & shipping manager. Purchased all parts for pc and printer repair, handled all shipping and receiving by myself, very small shop. Got good discount on pc components and free repairs. Learned alot about building and repairing pc's and printers. Due to owner's inflexibility on pay raise I left with 2 week notice that he paid me to NOT be there during the 2 week notice. BEST money I ever made for doing nothing.

*temp job - meter install tech - applied for and trained to install wireless add-on's to water meters. Lasted from Oct-Jan of 2006

*Dining Service Supervisor - Davidson College June 2006-May 2010 - went back to my AF roots in food service and basically got paid to supervise and babysit food service workers at Davidson College's Vail Commons. During this timeframe my daughter Jessie was born and my mother-in-law kept her and both my wife and I worked. Due to health issues in my wife's family her mom needed more time to take care of issues, so we decided that I would be "retired" and stay home with Jessie.

And that's where I am now. At home, taking care of the house, the cooking, cleaning, raising Jess, and I'm enjoying
NOT being out there in the work force grinder. When my wife is getting up at 630am to get in car at 730am to be at office at 8am I'm still in the nice warm bed, waking up at 9-930am with jess, change diaper, get her breakfast and move on to other things later on in the day. It's me and her, and 3 cats that sleep all day in the sunshine rays by the bedroom windows.

When Jess hits first grade I see myself taking a part-time job at wal-mart or target working in the
electronics dept, something to make some spare cash and kill some time while she's in school and be home
with the family at night, every night.

LIFE IS GOOD!

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 2:17 pm

I could add three more since this post, but only if folks would actually read it.

Demonix · Post by **Demonix** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 2:19 pm

IT desktop/server tech with superior customer service skills (so they tell me)

Games excessively in his off time. Knows olympic and historical fencing. Has been known to write on occasion. Makes custom chain and scale armor, sometimes for money. Believes in function over form. Likes to be left alone. Recovering MMOG addict. Likes to cook, likes to feed people, likes to eat. Trying to eat less

Understands the basic principles how the technology around us works. Understands basic agricultural principles. Identifies as a "Survival Rivet". Will try to fix anything that might be broken. Uncanny ability to jury rig. Designed an enclosed exo-suit with a dry ice cooling system.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 2:25 pm

The Meal wrote:I could add three more since this post, but only if folks would actually read it.

You've got me interested.

Sandpuppy · Post by **Sandpuppy** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 2:34 pm

Field tech for a locally owned medium sized (about 700 employees) photography company. We have shops in several resorts on the Strip that take all sorts of gimmicky pictures and I go and fix/upgrade/replace all the shit that gets broken/stolen/outdated. For a while we were doing some crazy expensive holographic laser photography for silly rich folk, and I got to sit in on some nude Playboy model shoots - certainly the highlight of the job.

Before that, I worked about a dozen years on-air in radio. I decided to transition into something more prosperous when I got pulled over for speeding, and the highway patrol who had a brother in the biz, let me go out of pity.

msteelers · Post by **msteelers** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 2:39 pm

Sandpuppy wrote:Before that, I worked about a dozen years on-air in radio. I decided to transition into something more prosperous when I got pulled over for speeding, and the highway patrol who had a brother in the biz, let me go out of pity.

LO.... oh, wait.

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 2:45 pm

Demonix wrote:IT desktop/server tech with superior customer service skills (so they tell me)

Games excessively in his off time. Knows olympic and historical fencing. Has been known to write on occasion. Makes custom chain and scale armor, sometimes for money. Believes in function over form. Likes to be left alone. Recovering MMOG addict. Likes to cook, likes to feed people, likes to eat. Trying to eat less Understands the basic principles how the technology around us works. Understands basic agricultural principles. Identifies as a "Survival Rivet". Will try to fix anything that might be broken. Uncanny ability to jury rig. Designed an enclosed exo-suit with a dry ice cooling system.

In the post-apocalyptic world, I'm totally going to be your friend.

Archinerd · Post by **Archinerd** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 2:57 pm

I am not an architect, but I do everything that one does. I can't legally call myself one unless I'm licensed.

I have both a BA and MA in Architecture from a small private college. I decided to go into architecture because I didn't want to be a starving artist.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 3:03 pm

Wow, Archinerd I thought you were way younger than that.

Archinerd · Post by **Archinerd** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 3:08 pm

LordMortis wrote:Wow, Archinerd I thought you were way younger than that.

Everyone does.
I get carded for everything.

Edit: I should also add that any time I answer the door for a stranger they ask if my mom or dad is home.

gbasden · Post by **gbasden** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:01 pm

I support Exchange email servers for a living. I mostly work at one of the State of California data centers where we manage about 60,000 user mailboxes, but also do support for other public sector groups such as Stanford and City of San Francisco. I've been in IT in some capacity since college, but graduated with a History/Poly Sci degree. Go figure.

geezer · Post by **geezer** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:06 pm

Currently a partner in a media brokerage and a partner/managing director of a software company that caters primarily to schools and law-enforcement.

I also get paid occasionally for my photography and for teaching high-performance driving, and recently had an offer to test for a team driver slot for a season on a professional (auto) racing circuit. (A minor one - kind of like AA baseball.)

Edit: My degree is in history. Go figure.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:09 pm

I've come to the conclusion that all a college degree does is prove to people that you're willing to put up with an environment where you have to spend 75% of the time doing stuff that you don't consider important, the willingness to jump through hoops, and a bit of an aptitude to learn enough to get by.

Heck, I was working with database systems, generating reports, writing scripts, and builiding forms in my work environment well before I got the piece of paper that "certified" me to be able to do that stuff.

RMC · Post by **RMC** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:12 pm

Odin wrote:
Demonix wrote:IT desktop/server tech with superior customer service skills (so they tell me)

Games excessively in his off time. Knows olympic and historical fencing. Has been known to write on occasion. Makes custom chain and scale armor, sometimes for money. Believes in function over form. Likes to be left alone. Recovering MMOG addict. Likes to cook, likes to feed people, likes to eat. Trying to eat less Understands the basic principles how the technology around us works. Understands basic agricultural principles. Identifies as a "Survival Rivet". Will try to fix anything that might be broken. Uncanny ability to jury rig. Designed an enclosed exo-suit with a dry ice cooling system.
In the post-apocalyptic world, I'm totally going to be your friend.

Impressive, I almost got my Eagle scout, but just couldn't see myself doing all that crappy community service. I don't like other people getting stuff from me for free, even when I was a kid. But I can still camp in the forest and make a tent out of basically anything, and while I can't make fire from two sticks, I can make basic animal traps...Not easy, but I can still do it.

silverjon · Post by **silverjon** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:21 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:I've come to the conclusion that all a college degree does is prove to people that you're willing to put up with an environment where you have to spend 75% of the time doing stuff that you don't consider important, the willingness to jump through hoops, and a bit of an aptitude to learn enough to get by.

Heck, I was working with database systems, generating reports, writing scripts, and builiding forms in my work environment well before I got the piece of paper that "certified" me to be able to do that stuff.

I've been told that I was "lucky" to be able to get a job here (by someone I do not work with directly), not having any specific historical background to speak of. That's actually a very stupid take on it because I'm much better off in this role knowing a little bit about everything than I would be as a specialist. I also need my tech savvy, my customer service and proofreading skills, and the aforementioned ability to decipher lands info and construction specs. They needed someone who could be more than an admin, but less than a PhD.

I think my boss was more offended by that woman's insinuations than I was....

gbasden · Post by **gbasden** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:35 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:I've come to the conclusion that all a college degree does is prove to people that you're willing to put up with an environment where you have to spend 75% of the time doing stuff that you don't consider important, the willingness to jump through hoops, and a bit of an aptitude to learn enough to get by.

Heck, I was working with database systems, generating reports, writing scripts, and builiding forms in my work environment well before I got the piece of paper that "certified" me to be able to do that stuff.

A college degree may or may not give you any sort of real job skills to work with. In my opinion, a college degree gives you a much broader knowledge base to work with and additional life experience, though. I wouldn't trade my college time for anything, and I think the additional writing and analysis skills that came from it have only been a help in my career.

Certifications are a completely different topic, and I agree with you that most of them are useless. The higher level ones that require a practical portion of the exam where you have to demonstrate real knowledge and troubleshoot a real problem are the exception to that rule.

Jeff V · Post by **Jeff V** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 4:35 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:I've come to the conclusion that all a college degree does is prove to people that you're willing to put up with an environment where you have to spend 75% of the time doing stuff that you don't consider important, the willingness to jump through hoops, and a bit of an aptitude to learn enough to get by.

Heck, I was working with database systems, generating reports, writing scripts, and builiding forms in my work environment well before I got the piece of paper that "certified" me to be able to do that stuff.

Certifications are only really meaningful to companies who haven't hired you yet. I've found a general reluctance in companies I've worked for to spring for a cert in something I was already doing to their satisfaction -- it doesn't add any value to them, but makes me more valuable to someone else.

FWIW, it took me over 20 years until I made a dime on anything relating to my college education. I did time running a restaurant, then payroll taxes before embarking on an IT career after being approached by an old high school friend at our 10-year reunion (our 30th was a few months ago). When I worked for The Wargamer, I got paid for writing articles on military history, the first time my education paid off (and it has a LONG way yet to go to break even!)

stessier · Post by **stessier** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:05 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:I've come to the conclusion that all a college degree does is prove to people that you're willing to put up with an environment where you have to spend 75% of the time doing stuff that you don't consider important, the willingness to jump through hoops, and a bit of an aptitude to learn enough to get by.

Heck, I was working with database systems, generating reports, writing scripts, and builiding forms in my work environment well before I got the piece of paper that "certified" me to be able to do that stuff.

Maybe it's specific to what you study or where you go, but I've always said college just teaches you how a method to think through things. I'm a chemical engineer by degree and have never used that specific training once (which is actually a small regret - I loved that stuff). Yet I can get most engineering (process, product, quality) jobs because of the college training.

On topic,

first job was for my father in a family run lumber yard - a precursor to the Home Depots of the world
A clerk at a mall bookstore
Attended small college for chemical eningeering
- Meter reader for a gas company during the summer while the real ones were on strike,
- On a crew that laid gas pipeline for 1 month before getting a internship with an abrasives manufacturer in their research department (making new grinding wheel formulations)
- Summer Camp counselor for 11-12 year old boys at a co-ed camp during the summer before grad school
Attended Notre Dame and got my Masters in Chemical Engineering by speeding up a program that solved Gibbs Free Energy equations to determine how liquids would separate. Last time I ever did anything remotely related to chemical engineering.
Process engineer for an automotive brake manufacturer
Resident engineer at the same company in charge of their plant prototyping area (not so glamorous - me and 2 techs)
Process engineer for a Biotech startup company that makes an instrument Big Pharma would use to screen compounds. Jack of all trades there, but mainly dealt with a disposable sample plate.
Quality engineer for a company that made printing plates - the things used to make books, magazines, posters and the like.
Currently a quality/product engineer responsible for films used to brighten anything that uses and LCD display. It never ceases to amaze me how many of these things are bought around the world - not that I'm complaining! It also amuses me that very, very few of the people I work with own any of the products that use our film - they're just too darn expensive.

msduncan · Post by **msduncan** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:32 pm

I'm an IT Business Analyst for a major company in the southeast. Not the 'requirements gathering' flavor of business analyst, but rather the type that is more of a customer account manager that reports to a CIO and keeps him informed and keeps the relationship between IT and our internal customers healthy.

ChrisGrenard · Post by **ChrisGrenard** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:47 pm

Another IT monkey here. Probably my greatest asset is that I'm very personable with clients, which as noted by others is very rare in the IT field. As far as fixing computers go, they're pretty easy. Most any problem can be solved with a mix of anti-malware and scanpst.exe.

cheeba · Post by **cheeba** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:50 pm

My favorite IT comic.

deadzone · Post by **deadzone** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:50 pm

I currently work in the exciting world of major medical health insurance regulation at the Louisiana Department of Insurance. Been doing this for over 4 years now and I really like it. I initially was hired as a "restricted" temporary employee in the mail room. I used the 4 months of mail runs to develop and cultivate new business relationships and managed to land a permanent job by doing so.

In the past I have mostly worked in the specialized educational field in which it was my job to be in the know about all manner of adaptive technologies related to the blind and then to train people in there usage based on their needs. Given the challenges that I face because of my own degenerative eye problem it was a good fit but I just got burnt out and wanted a change.

I have about 5 years in the cellular phone industry as well in both sales and sales management capacities. I found myself struggling to do my job because of the limitations of my eyesight and I made the decision on my own to find something more suited to my unique set of challenges.

SpaceLord · Post by **SpaceLord** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:52 pm

My fave:

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:52 pm

Mr. Fed wrote:Lawyer. Partner and administrator in 16--lawyer firm. 20% criminal defense, 20% litigation, 20% administration, 50% posting on OO/Popehat.

Fixed that for you

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:52 pm

Archinerd wrote: Edit: I should also add that any time I answer the door for a stranger they ask if my mom or dad is home.

That's why you have to answer the door naked, with a beer and cigar in hand. Then you can say, "What the hell do you think?"

Clanwolfer · Post by **Clanwolfer** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 6:36 pm

Currently, a senior consultant for a small but thriving management consulting firm.

Of course, I got into this field completely by accident. From high school, I had sort of seen myself going into the technology field, and I did everything I needed to do in order to try and make that happen - starting in high school, I was taking computer science courses over at the local university to get ahead.

Landed an internship working for NASA during high school, stretched that out over three summers (and the winter breaks, as well). Minimum wage or less, but I learned some very valuable things - I was a competent programmer/scripter considering my age and lack of experience, but I didn't really enjoy it all that much. Still, having had a job at NASA sounds impressive, and the people I was working for were actually doing some very cool ocean science while I was sitting in windowless rooms or airplane hangars pounding out Perl scripts and regexps.

Managed to use that to get myself a scholarship to St. John's University, where I studied computer science. While I was there, landed an internship with the consulting firm - at the time, they had a 'side business' of a software suite that they had designed to help their consultants apply the methodology they were pushing. The development was all outsourced, so initially I mostly worked on designing feature requests and that sort of work, then got into writing the manuals and doing QA testing. After about a year and a half (full-time during summers, part-time during school) they sold the software to Microsoft and decided to keep me on.

After that, I was working with the marketing guy, and doing some support for the consultants in my spare time. When the marketing guy left, I spent a summer running the back-end of their webinars (basically from email invites all the way through recording the sessions).

Came on board full-time as a technical consultant when I graduated - supposedly to help them clear out about a six-month backlog of the kinds of projects that pile up when you're a small company. Instead, they had another young consultant bail on them about a week later just before starting a client engagement, and I found myself in his place.

After that, they found out I was pretty good at doing the core consulting work - six months later I went from being a tech consultant to a full-fledged one, and now I'm a senior consultant hoping to get the move to manager this year or next (since I'm already managing small teams). Turns out that either I was better than I thought at general business and people skills, or I learn real fast when I'm scared out of my mind.

In sort of an interesting situation right now - they want to move me out of the technology-focused parts of engagements and more to solution design, but at the same time, I've developed my skills across our whole suite of technology so far that I provide a ton of value there. I'd rather be on the business side because it's a new challenge, but at the end of the day I don't care THAT much - I'm still working with the same smart-as-hell people (it's the first environment I've been in since NASA where I feel like I'm keeping up, not way ahead of the pack), and the challenges are interesting in either case, since they're never REALLY about the process or the technology anyway, they're about the people and the politics. It actually puts me in a great spot professionally, as they can basically use me to support whatever the most important challenge at the time is, whether it's technology or process - no time on the bench for me! At the same time, I'm getting called on to help out with sales (basically to show off my knowledge), learning how to manage a team, and getting experience with the administrative side (writing task orders/SOWs, etc). It helps that it's a really successful small company, growing at a nice pace, and I've been there long enough counting the internships that I'm one of the core, experienced people by now.

Ended up doing all this completely by accident, as I never envisioned myself being anything more than an 'IT guy' or programmer when I was a kid (or, to be honest, even as I was starting out on the technical side of the consulting), so my mentality towards it has always been that I'll take the challenge as far as it will go. I'm hoping that means senior management or even partner someday.

dbt1949 · Post by **dbt1949** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:49 pm

When I got out of the army I found jobs for vets were non-existent, especially in my line of work. In the air force I learned the electronics trade and found my experience there were preferred to collage degrees.
But then that was the 70s and 80s.

Grundbegriff · Post by **Grundbegriff** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:55 pm

Odin wrote:
Grundbegriff wrote:I work for a huge IT company. I develop software systems
I thought I "knew" with complete certainty that you were an art history professor. I even thought I'd seen you post about stuff you were planning to use in class.

I do that on the side now (to the tune of one or two courses per semester). For about a decade, that was my main gig, but the new economy lured me away. So this is no evidence that you're mad.

I gave a final exam last night; another, next Tuesday, will wrap up the term.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 8:13 pm

Odin wrote:
Jeff V wrote:
AWS260 wrote:Health PR, mostly focusing on infectious diseases and international public health. I've been at the same firm for 11 years and seen it grow from 5 people to almost 30.
Infection disease still has a pretty bad rep. Just what is your company doing to improve its public image, anyway?

Well you know it isn't the diseases that are bad. They have been responsible for ridding the world of the likes of Otto von Bismarck, and Vladimir Lenin. It is all about better disease control. Just like guns!

Creepy_Smell · Post by **Creepy_Smell** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 8:28 pm

For about 10 years researched corporate info using public sites (sec, gov sites, company sites) and updated profile info (company name, officers, description, revenues, hierarchy, etc.) that was used by other parties for their trading decisions. Most of that time I tracked corporate actions (mergers, spin offs, bankruptcies, etc.) to update the associated records. Also helped with tracking bonds that went with the corporate profiles. Also helped to cleanse client provided data (They gave us out of date corp info and we updated it..using what we had and researching what was missing). Also worked on validating nightly stock prices from fund managers (Client was tired of daily errors in automated feed so we got data directly and looked for inconsistencies and called mgr as needed). Somewhere along the line I started building adhoc and more long term access dbs and automating XLS reports using VBA (Had taken some vb6 classes way in the past). Boss had me do stuff instead of our offsite IT since it was quicker/easier to do in house than deal with sister company in another country and had to use what was on the desktop (ms office) or free.

Now I work for a healthcare company and produce monthly/yearly reports and adhoc reports. Most of my time is now spent learning the current reports and then streamlining/automating them so we can focus more on adhoc stuff. Still do a lot of VBA stuff with office but now use Business Objects too. Also get to play with MapInfo and MapBasic to build maps for different reports.

Think I'm just the poweruser guy that people go to when IT is too busy. With all the jobs above I've always had to help figure out how to do the research/get the data, create the procedures/documents and train people.

Odin · Post by **Odin** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 8:34 pm

I admire people who are good at research. I've gotten better, but there are still times when I'm positive what I want is out there, I'm just not able to come up with a way to find it. Luckily I can usually ask my wife to help.

J · Post by J » Fri Dec 10, 2010 9:20 pm

When I was a broke college student I did factory work to pay the bills. I had also gone from planning to go to medical school to just getting by after a bad break up. Anyway I graduated but at that point I was making more money and felt important enough at my job I rolled with it. When I turned 30 I kind of realized the dead end I was in. Went back to school for Computer Engineering and went on for a PhD. At the recommendaton of my advisor I became a much older than average intern for a gov research lab.

My current title is research scientist and I do contract work for government agencies. My company just got bought out and my new parent company is known for providing Google with their satellite imagery.

DocDarm · Post by **DocDarm** » Fri Dec 10, 2010 9:20 pm

Most of the new people here have probably never heard of me. I used to post regularly, especially in the Gone Gold days. Now I check the site, but rarely post. The old timers here know me better.

I'm an endocrinologist in private practice. That's a hormone doctor. Mostly we deal with patients with diabetes. We're doing well, and we've hired another doctor. MzDarm is the practice administrator, and she has on an expanding, growing trajectory. It's working. She's incredible.

I've taken a special interest in thyroid, and my practice is tilting more towards thyroid diseases and I enjoy doing thyroid and parathyroid ultrasounds (geeky, eh?)

Endocrinology joke: What's the difference between a hormone and a vitamin?

Spoiler: