Your place in society, the work world ..

So as you finish school, or not, and now have to fit into society, or the work world. How do you think you did, or are doing ? Are you fitting in ? Have you found the place that you belong ? Is it what you always wanted, is it enough ?

My answer to my own question:

Did not finish school, have had many jobs at first, even went back to school. My job was not my dream job, but it was a job that made enough money to support myself, and my wife and kid.

I did find the job i wanted, it took many years of hard work.

Although at first felt like i didn't fit in, after a while it fit in perfectly. The work world, financial district of San Francisco accepts all kinds of wierdos like myself. A great place to be.

What about you ?

Hated school but i finished. Hated trade school, but i finished. Have career now that i enjoy. Its not my Dream Job, but ive come to realize i dont want my Dream Job anymore.

lol omfg this, ugh I hate saying it because I am so thankful for all the opportunities I've had but it's how I feel.

I mean, I kind of like my "dream job" -but I'm just kind of entering that cliche part of my life where I don't want to work for someone else lol.

I'm realizing that maybe I'm not an introvert, that maybe I've just kind of hated people all along, and that I need to work for myself to be successful.

Thats a good place to be, where your so comfortable with your current job. I worked years under a job i was not comfortable, and always had regrets, and tried to get into the place i wanted, till it actually happened. I wanted to be comfortable, but just could not. So if your there, good for you.

@mrbojangles25 - Well yes, that is the ultimate dream. My father in law wanted that dream. He purchased a copy machine, and started making copies for businesses in the Mission neighborhood. After getting much business, purchased more copiers, and before you know it, had so much business he got a small space for his business. After more, and more clients, now its a big business and makes great money being his own boss. It can happen, but lots of planning should be made. These days with the help of the internet, it might be easier, or harder, as there is more competition. Good luck.

I'm a nobody in the bigger scheme of things. I'm fine with it.

I enjoy weather both as work and as a hobby. It's all I asked for. I once wanted to be a stormchaser. But, the wife wouldn't have any of it.

I finished highschool in 05. Got my Associates degree in business in 07. Have a good paying job that I'm comfortable in and in the process of buying my first house.

I finished HS and my Bachelors. I have found my place in the world. But I'm currently not making enough to live off on my own.

I currently volunteer as a reserve cop while waiting to get a full time police job. And I started selling stuff over the internet. Just actually opened a business bank account. So I'm doing things I not only never saw myself doing. But I didn't go to school for. In regards to having a reseller business. And I quite enjoy it. Learning about products and how to present them to prospective buyers, is fun and immersive.

are you a meteorologist? I went into this initially in university but got scared away by all the physics, ended up doing environmental geography/GIS instead.

I still took a bunch of climatology/meteorology courses and found it super interesting and make my own predictions sometimes, love it when I get to experience extreme weather.

I got a good job for a awesome company but its certainly no dream job.

i have a job i generally enjoy. not sure if i have the interest / motivation to be jonny-coorporate-ladder-climber guy though. yeah a little more $ would be nice buy beyond that what's the appeal?

work to live > live to work

Didnt like school, however stayed for A Levels because thats what most my friends did. Worked part time at McDonalds at the time.

Got the taste of money, and with me doing A Levels in subjects I didn't have a potential career planned around I dropped them and got full time work.

First of all a call centre for a while, then I moved to a bingo hall as a staff member/bingo caller. A couple years later became manager and worked for several bingo halls over the next 10 years as a manager.

Last year I got my HGV licence and left my job to get a lorry driving job full time, hard with no experience so currently working odd shifts for agencies, looking like I'll be taken on full time by a big haulage firm soon, waiting for confirmation.

Bit of a long story but I've done ok, main point is my dramatic career change now at 30

Love my job but no one likes us. Customers don't want to be in a pharmacy to begin with, we make more than nurses, and we're always correcting doctors, who know all and poop gold.

Very cool, everyone has their story. All that matters is that your headed in a direction which is comfortable and make you happy. Except for @TheHighWind - sorry to hear buddy. But ey, Virtual reality is coming up. Best wishes.

@TheHighWind said:

I'm sorry for your disabled condition,but it's no excuse for not getting a job,for a strong majority who are disabled in my province work,even in serious pain disabled people.What real reason do you have for not working?

I more or less had a plan from junior high on, professionally. I've deviated very little, and I still enjoy what I do even though the schedule can be brutal.

The schedule might be better coming up, though. I learned that they finally posted for the position that I moved from, so I shouldn't have to pull double duty much longer.

I still regret not going to community college for my first two years and saving money. Instead I opted to be in about 40k of student loan debt for an environmental studies degree. I should have thought about my potential careers more seriously in high school, thus the reason going to cc for a few years would have been the perfect stop gap.

That being said, I got to work for seven years in a lab studying climate change. It didn't pay well but I really did love it. Budget ran out last year and I finally took a step into the industry setting as an instrument calibrator. The pay is better and I really do love what I do (my days tend to fly by), but I don't jive well with the social atmosphere and find myself having to be "fake" to fit in.

@brimmul777 said:

@TheHighWind said:

I'm sorry for your disabled condition,but it's no excuse for not getting a job,for a strong majority who are disabled in my province work,even in serious pain disabled people.What real reason do you have for not working?

@brimmul777: Before you pass judgement on a complete stranger, just knowing that someone is "disabled" doesn't tell you anything about them, their situation, what sort of disability they have to live with, their socio-economic status, their level of education, their work-related skillset, the local economy of where they live, or even what country they are in. Just because you know there are "disabled" people who work in your province (so, Canada?) that doesn't mean their situation is necessarily anything like this person's situation. Hell, you don't even know that @TheHighWind doesn't have a job because he/she didn't even specifically say that they didn't. So please take a breather for a moment before you start questioning other people's life choices or handing out advice.

As to the op's question, I can't complain. Been working straight out of high school. Never been to college, but chose to work in an industry where work experience trumps education (IT Systems Engineering). Been working in that industry for 25 years, with the last 16 of it specifically in corporate IT and the last 12 of that working for a major IT consulting firm. I enjoy my job, it allows me to travel which comes with its own set of perks for when my family wants to travel, and the pay is decent. I have the resources to get pretty much whatever we need (provided we don't go crazy) and I don't have to budget for games or game systems so I'm happy. Sure, there's always a bigger brass ring but if I look at things objectively I really don't have any legitimate reason to complain. To fulfil my work requirements, family time, and personal interests I don't sleep a ton (maybe 5-6 hours a night) but I don't seem to need very much so that's really not an issue.

-Byshop

If it's any consolation, I'm envious of the bolded portion. Growing up I was torn between IT, medicine, and primary research. While I don't regret the path I chose, I still wish it was possible to do all three :-P

I was, both in the military and later as a civilian. But, being one required spending time outdoors in inclement weather to accomplish some tasks. After my surgery, I got moved to doing mainly briefings, QA, and archival work. Ho-hum stuff.

Meteorology has some calculus math and physics (eg thermodynamics). But, they're nowhere as bad as my previous study: mechanical engineering. That one definitely had a lot (differential equations, mechanics, kinematics of machine elements, spherical trigonometry, etc).

I had a buddy who passed away recently in a car accident who was about my age. He worked at a lab near my house programming satellites. He had a pretty decent formal education and I used to love talking to him about all sorts of topics that he understood well that I did not like like Quantum Mechanics and Relativity, picking apart errors in sci-fi, etc. He told me that as a part of programming satellites you have to take time dilation into account because of the speed at which they orbit the planet. The idea that he used Relativity in his normal job blew me away. The more I talked with him about what he did the more I was interested in maybe doing that instead of what I did... until I found out how much he made doing it and I quickly changed my mind. Hard science is a good way to work on something that may eventually change the world, but it's not a great way to live a comfortable life. That didn't bother him, though, because he was pretty fucking awesome.

-Byshop

My situation makes me chuckle a little. I never finished college. I joined the AF at age 23 and served four years. My current job requires a BS or an AS with 3 years of experience. I managed to get hired with neither. My military background + proving myself was enough for my company to hire me. Only now am I going back to school on the government's dime while I work full time making decent money. My wife also works for this company, so with our salaries combined, we earn in the top 10 percent.

I like my job, but not as much as the industry itself. Once I finish school, I want to climb that corporate ladder and make it as far as a I can before I retire.

Yeah, I've heard the same. The desire is based purely on how fascinating it would be to actually use the scientific method to figure out new information (not new to me - new to humanity - how ****ing awesome would that be?!).

It's really a shame that we don't place more emphasis on primary research. It gets squeezed by public budgets due to politics and virtually ignored by private budgets due to unclear profit potential.

Completed Graduation.Did course on marketting.Currently employed at SIEMENS PLM on sales.Will change Job after this financial year to a private growing MNC at sales.Getting a lucrative monthly compared to Siemens.

Getting my bachelors this May and have been working in my profession for 3 years. Blessed with some good connections. Still don't feel like I fit in guess that's the hunger for more.

@mattbbpl:

I really do miss the lab setting. Since it was university linked, there was such an influx of energy. Grad students, undergrads, and lab techs like me, working together for a common goal. Where I work now, it's all about how to make a bigger paycheck, whether that's overtime or kissing ass to move up; doesn't seem like they value a solid work ethic.

I don't feel like I fit in, and I never did. I am managing, I have a place and a vehicle, and pay my bills and rent each month. I still haven't paid off my debts and they fluctuate. I've kept the same job for over 4 years, so if nothing else it's maybe a secure line of income. But to tell the truth I wouldn't be doing even this good without the occasional aid of my parents.

A lot of it is my fault. I did things because I had low self-esteem and settled. And I guess stupid things are more important to me in life than mundane things. Apparently being obsessed with things doesn't make you any good at them.

That was a really interesting story. Sorry to hear he died, but it's good to know that for some people it's really not just about the money.

No, I don't work part-time. I tried before. So if I did have a job it would have to be like part time at a grocery store.