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what do you do ?

I'm a programmer/systems analyst. My advice to you is find a thing you love and follow it no matter how bleak the initial prospects.

Ultimatetly it will pan out. Follow your dream.
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Am an Emergency Medical Technition (3) (Soon to be Paramedic) I get to work by bus and rail.

If you don't like your job it might be time for a change...
 
Wow, I didn't expect such replies. Thanks so much...I don't feel so alone in this situation. I will get the book that was suggested. I am pretty handy and a decent carpenter, artistic painter (murals and Faux finisher decorative painting) I know plumbing, electric, drywall, flooring etc and would like to have a home repair business. The anxiety I have been experiencing about all this has sort of frozen me up. I'm not sure how to go about marketing myself but I'm going to push through this one way or the other. If you guys have any ideas about how to go about marketig myself I'd be most appreciative.
Thanks again everyone!
 
I've been a meteorologist for 21 years. I recently changed careers to a different aspect of weather forecasting. I specialize in interpreting weather patterns to anticipate fluctuations in wildfire danger around the western states. Its been a very rewarding career.

Like Shelby said, I had to endure years of drudgery in low paying positions to follow my dream. I gradually built my experience and acumen to the point where I could be competetive for the better paying and more rewarding jobs. I volunteered for tedious extra projects, I went back to graduate school, I worked many unpaid hours, I bucked popular sentiment that was often against the field I chose, etc. Don't give up.
 
Dr Rock said:
mercenary recidivist

Thank you Doc! I actually had to look that one up.

New word of the day:
recidivist
n 1: someone who is repeatedly arrested for criminal behavior (especially for the same criminal behavior) [syn: repeater, habitual criminal] 2: someone who lapses into previous undesirable patterns of behavior [syn: backslider, reversionist]
 
Comfortable (barely) at 47. Former nurse, goldsmith, financial anaylist, airman, dental lab tech, deck hand on a salmon boat, mailman (YUK!), student many years, unemployed a couple, waited tables, tended some bar, was kept for a few years, stockbrokers license in Virginia 1996-7, never painted houses though.

Moving to Buenos Aires, or Eastern Europe next spring, but if I get bored with retirement I am young enough to work a while yet.
 
Ask yourself what you wanted to be when you were a kid. The answer may be more telling than you would think.

Also, there are career/personality tests out there, often administrated by community colleges. Tests like Myers-Briggs and the Strong Interest Inventory can point you in a fairly accurate direction. Two drawbacks are that they do cost money and you still have to make the hard decisions. I took one of these my senior year in high school. I ignored the results because I didn’t believe any mere test could nail me down.

However, years later, I took the two tests noted above and found that the top three professions highlighted in high school were the same three highlighted for me as an adult. As an adult, I was interested in all three. If I had paid attention to this information out of high school, I would be making serious bank and my husband would be a kept man playing his music out each night instead of working a day gig.

Instead, I have meandered through many professions and titles. My favorite being “Knowledge Librarian.” Additionally, I have been a travel agent, an administrative assistant, an environment and emergency response writer/editor, a software tester, a mortgage banker, a corporate intelligence researcher, and a paralegal. I am currently a free-lance writer and a student working temporary jobs. (Which might be something you do to get exposed to different kinds of jobs.)

It sounds like you are more of the “handy-man/out-doorsey” kind of person. Note that formal school isn’t necessary in having a satisfactory or decent paying job. Trade organizations (electric, plumbing, etc.) are excellent ways to work into a profession while learning. Also, as I am sure you are aware of by now, there are pros and cons to working for others, as well as being self-employed. Keep your mind open to all possibilities.

One last thought:

In your quest for, “enlightenment and truth” remember the saying; “To thine own self be true.”

P.S. Sorry if this is all a little disjointed on the advice side. I had some surgery recently and I’m still on painkillers.
 
Started out in a winery, gas station, drive-in theatre, US Forest Service, started a cabinet shop, US Forest Service, cabinet shop; now I have: a small wholesale/retail store and I will be constructng a new building, in the new building I will be expanding the current product lines and services with attached establishments, I manufacture a line of products and I'm trying to get a line of herbal products off the ground.

I guess I am what they call a serial entrepeneur.

I have a big Internet idea that would revolutionize the telecommunication directory service market. Unfortunately, Venture Capitalists want an experienced team that has already built and run the operation and for it to already be successfull. If anyone has a high level contact in the computer industry (or a lot of money) I would appreciate the chance to discuss partnership possibilities.
 
rookaponz said:
Wow, I didn't expect such replies. Thanks so much...I don't feel so alone in this situation. I will get the book that was suggested. I am pretty handy and a decent carpenter, artistic painter (murals and Faux finisher decorative painting) I know plumbing, electric, drywall, flooring etc and would like to have a home repair business. The anxiety I have been experiencing about all this has sort of frozen me up. I'm not sure how to go about marketing myself but I'm going to push through this one way or the other. If you guys have any ideas about how to go about marketig myself I'd be most appreciative.
Thanks again everyone!

If it makes you feel any better
I went to university - got an honours degree in marketing
ended up working as a cleaner after i graduated
eventually got into admin and then got a marketing analyst's job - realised I hated the work and the hours - the money was good - but that didn't compensate for having to do 80 hour weeks
eventually went back into admin and quality assurance
and now I work in IT doing application support for an advertising business and I finally love my job :)
it took me awhile to find my rut - but i found it ;)
 
I consult on 17th, 18th, and early 19th century building conservation mostly in coastal Massachusetts and the Islands (MV and Nantucket). It largely involves scrutiny and attention to period detail (ie woodwork, fenestration, reconstruction of chimney masses and the sleuthing ability to know "what went before"). My hands-on interest in Amercian architecture comes to an abrupt halt at end of the Greek Revival period (roughly 1850).

I find nothing even vaguely interesting (nevermind subtle) in Victorian architecture per se. So I've refused many monied projects since so many seem to like those over-blown "edifici". In the words of Wolfgang Amadeus "too many notes":rolleyes:

I was educated at Deefrield Academy for prepratory. I attended RISD for undergrad and took two years at Pembroke College Oxford to finish my Master's. I had a double major and carried French until I went to England as a second passion and second major.

My first real concrete exposure to the world of period American building was a summer course when I was 12 at Historic Deerfield conducted by the famous Heny Flynt. It concreted my interest for which I'll ever be grateful to him and those fine astute educators that summer. Plus I had my first real male on male sexual experience in that ancient town. :cool:

During several Cape Cod summers I was a waiter in various establishments on Cape Cod and enjoyed one extremely hot summer in Provincetown the year before I met my boyfriend of nine years. I still have a huge fondness for the food service business since the forum is a bit like theater.

To answer "curiouscat9": When I was a kid I wanted to fix old houses. My dad would drive us through the countryside until we'd find some abandoned old relic and then let me "have at it" exploratorily. My dad wanted me to go into law but let it go once he saw the direction I was taking on my own. I kept my directive and today I count no fewer than 20 historic New England (actually two in New York State) houses I have disassembled (with my crew) and sold for reassembly in other sites. These, to me, are like there own masterpieces because had it not been for my interception they'd have been lost to history.

The only trouble with my approach to historical preservation is the purist piece in me which disallows any real compromise for modern living other than the rudiments. When I first began in this business I was handicapped by it but in subsequent years I was sought out because of it and now I have (by word of mouth) been able to hone a clientele of preservationists rather than restorationists architecturally. And in my profession there's a world of difference between the two.
 
BigPoppaFury said:
I'm a technician in the bulk filling area of a pharmaceutical manufacturer here in London. It's fairly uninspiring work but for someone who has hardly any qualifications to his name there's no hope of me earning better money anywhere else. Also, it's really not such a bad job, the manual labour is minimal and the back pain that was at times keeping me away from work in my old job at 22/23 is now pretty much all gone. I'm not permanently exhausted either and I don't have to work overtime anymore. Infact it looks like I might actually be able to get a life now and that all the hard work I've put in over the years is finally starting to yield some results.

No qualifications? You're bright and well-endowed. You have lots of qualifications, just need to develop them!