Your Job and how you chose it
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It's all in the falling dominoes.
I was a high school English teacher with a pretty good reputation. I was invited to work with a group that spread innovative and effective instructional methods throughout the district. In time, that became my job--working with staff development. We needed a newsletter, and since I had once taught journalism, I was assigned to learn PageMaker and edit the staff development newsletter. That made me the technology guru of the group, so when people started talking about this World Wide Web thing, I was ordered to check it out. I thought it was a pretty good thing with some potential, and I said we should develop a web site to help with our staff development work. They said, OK, do it. So I learned HTML basics and built a crude web site. That expanded. Then someone started talking about the ability to teach classes using this WWW stuff. Again, my job to check it out. I designed and taught my first online class 11 years ago. Eventually, I administered the school district's full time online school, and I helped create Colorado Online Learning, the state's official state-wide online education program. Having had enough, I retired from public education, and I am now the Director of Curriculum and Instruction for a nation-wide online education provider.
So, if you are an English teacher who can do a little word processing...watch out!
I was a high school English teacher with a pretty good reputation. I was invited to work with a group that spread innovative and effective instructional methods throughout the district. In time, that became my job--working with staff development. We needed a newsletter, and since I had once taught journalism, I was assigned to learn PageMaker and edit the staff development newsletter. That made me the technology guru of the group, so when people started talking about this World Wide Web thing, I was ordered to check it out. I thought it was a pretty good thing with some potential, and I said we should develop a web site to help with our staff development work. They said, OK, do it. So I learned HTML basics and built a crude web site. That expanded. Then someone started talking about the ability to teach classes using this WWW stuff. Again, my job to check it out. I designed and taught my first online class 11 years ago. Eventually, I administered the school district's full time online school, and I helped create Colorado Online Learning, the state's official state-wide online education program. Having had enough, I retired from public education, and I am now the Director of Curriculum and Instruction for a nation-wide online education provider.
So, if you are an English teacher who can do a little word processing...watch out!
I didn't choose my job, the job chose me. I'm in church ministry (video & music production and stuff).
Nut Bubblefish
Contributor
I am a physician. I work as a company doctor in developing countries. I used to work for a medical assistance company. I have done all kind of jobs in the medical fied: nurse on night shifts, ER doctor, remote site doctor (you cannot imagine how remote), GP in clinics, coordinator for medevacs, country medical director. 3 things helped me in my " career" besides my diploma: my English (I am French), my guts feelings when it was time to make a choice, my past experiences.
So when I think about it, I tell my kids: learn ALL your lessons, try new things, even if they don't look useful right now, and after you have thought thoroughly, listen to the little voice inside yoursef. Then, never look back.
So when I think about it, I tell my kids: learn ALL your lessons, try new things, even if they don't look useful right now, and after you have thought thoroughly, listen to the little voice inside yoursef. Then, never look back.
Charlie99
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For several years before retiring I had a little paper from a fortune cookie posted in my office: "Find a job you love and you'll never work another day".
Before retiring I did tech support and strategic planning for a semiconductor company. Basically talking with electronic system and equipment designers worldwide about the design challenges of their particular type of electronic equipment, then trying to match that up with economic and technological limitations of semiconductor IC designs and processes. It would take about 2+ years to get a new product out the door. In the fast moving world of electronics it was always a challenge to forecast 2 years into the future.
It was a wonderful, interesting job, but being a retired scuba bum is even better.
Charlie Allen
Before retiring I did tech support and strategic planning for a semiconductor company. Basically talking with electronic system and equipment designers worldwide about the design challenges of their particular type of electronic equipment, then trying to match that up with economic and technological limitations of semiconductor IC designs and processes. It would take about 2+ years to get a new product out the door. In the fast moving world of electronics it was always a challenge to forecast 2 years into the future.
It was a wonderful, interesting job, but being a retired scuba bum is even better.
Charlie Allen
My father was an airline pilot. For 30 years, he wondered why anybody would pay him to do something he was willing to spend money to do for fun when he wasn't working.
That was a rare example to try to match.
I chose medicine because I figured that doctors would always be in demand (true) and that practicing medicine would never become stale or boring (false to some degree). I have a scientific mind, so thinking problems through appeals to me, and I liked physiology. Unfortunately, I'm not that fond of people (common for surgeons), and I've ended up working in the ER, which is people-intensive. I don't like my job, and dread going to it for a lot of reasons. But it pays well, and the schedule can't be beat.
The advice to figure out what you love and go in that direction is pretty good advice, within limits. But you have to be aware that, if you do what you love to earn a living, it becomes work. You have to do the parts of it that you don't like, and you have to do it when you don't feel like it. This is the reason I never went into professional horse training, although I could have. I did not want riding to become a chore. I don't want diving to become a chore, either . . . I don't want to instruct, even if I should acquire the skills to do so (dubious).
Some people choose a path which leads them along their passion. If they are lucky, the passion persists, but those people are often kind of one-dimensional. If they are unlucky, the passion burns out, and they're still one-dimensional.
I say find something you have an aptitude for and can tolerate doing, that will give you the freedom to do the things you truly love to do, whether that is freedom in terms of time, or freedom in terms of money, or both.
That was a rare example to try to match.
I chose medicine because I figured that doctors would always be in demand (true) and that practicing medicine would never become stale or boring (false to some degree). I have a scientific mind, so thinking problems through appeals to me, and I liked physiology. Unfortunately, I'm not that fond of people (common for surgeons), and I've ended up working in the ER, which is people-intensive. I don't like my job, and dread going to it for a lot of reasons. But it pays well, and the schedule can't be beat.
The advice to figure out what you love and go in that direction is pretty good advice, within limits. But you have to be aware that, if you do what you love to earn a living, it becomes work. You have to do the parts of it that you don't like, and you have to do it when you don't feel like it. This is the reason I never went into professional horse training, although I could have. I did not want riding to become a chore. I don't want diving to become a chore, either . . . I don't want to instruct, even if I should acquire the skills to do so (dubious).
Some people choose a path which leads them along their passion. If they are lucky, the passion persists, but those people are often kind of one-dimensional. If they are unlucky, the passion burns out, and they're still one-dimensional.
I say find something you have an aptitude for and can tolerate doing, that will give you the freedom to do the things you truly love to do, whether that is freedom in terms of time, or freedom in terms of money, or both.
I disagree. I know people who work and live a life based on their passion, who, after many years, have not burned out and are not one-dimensional. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that this is typical in the medical profession, but I don't think it's typical in the real world, thank goodness (not that I work in the "real" world eyebrow ).TSandM:
It's quite typical in medicine. But maybe that's because the average medical professional is putting in eighty or more hours a week . . .
I know one of them that spends half her time on ScubaBoard!TSandM:
I ain't average
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