worked at animal vet office - grocery store - cleaned carpet
one year college
worked at Denny's and Dominos
managed Dominos
Bartended and finished degree in Electical Engineering
Designed electronics to kill children in sandy countries
restaurant owner

give me doughnuts: career: High-school teacher (biology)
Then I found out that while I enjoyed tutoring in a 1:1 or even a 2:1 setting, I hated being in a classroom.

2nd career: Lawyer
Then I wound up in debtor-creditor law, on the creditor side. I dislike making people cry. I don't like suing people that are dying of cancer. I disliked garnishing a grandmother's Christmas Club bank account in November.

3rd career. Legal Librarian
Just graduated in December with an MLS. Still looking for employment, but I feel confident.


/BA, MLS, JD
/the one who dies with the most credit-hours, wins.

I have over 200 without a degree to show for it..... Stupid major changes. I get bored easily (can you tell?)

Bagboy at 16, switched to produce at 17.
Quit for bestbuy at 18 peddling TVs and monster cables, moved to car audio instal at 20.
Got married at 22 and needed a grown up job. Joined the air force and have been in training for three years. Just got qualified and I'm leaving for more training in march. Professional student?

One major career change: I went from banking to biology about 17 years ago.

Best move down the alphabet ever.

I made horse health and beauty products by mixing hay, molasses, soy, paprika, and a host of other ingredients. I also dug rocks out of fields because the owner of the company thought that a giant divot in the ground was less dangerous to a horse than a rock. And I built fences, ground hay, unloaded trucks and mowed the property.

Now I work as a credit analyst. Despite how insane and ridiculous and outside my job description the thing things I had to do at my previous employer, sometimes I miss being outside while at work.

Middle school: Farm hand. Fruit picker.
Hight school: Gas pump jockey.
Graduated: Steel worker.
Military: Police.
GI Bill: College.
After College: Chef:
Started my own business, Antiquity restoration.
Spent a few years working in a textile mill and a chicken processing plant.
Baker.
At 45, decided to work in an office.
Been doing it 12 years, and will keep doing it because it's fun. It's tech support and I really love it.

I started my adult life as a 6th grade teacher in a self-contained setting (meaning all subjects, as in earlier grades). My first class of students were infamously obstreperous, causing one teacher to retire slightly early in order to avoid them, and that's how I got the job. (The 5th grade teacher before me also developed hives and depression.)

I might've been a moderately decent teacher had I started in Mayberry in the 1960s (I did well in college and student teaching), but this group proved that I didn't have what it took to handle the biggest challenges. All day, all week, all year: constant off time, constant chaos, probably 5 of the 25 students could have qualified for emotional impairment, and you only need one like that for the day to be a constant challenge. The parents were worse, of course...wouldn't participate, wouldn't care, and in one case, the mother of one of the ringleaders in my class was even on the school board, constantly blaming me for him not working and constantly interrupting class (she was infamous for this for his older brother at the high school, too, threatening several other teachers with their jobs including mine). I gave it another year, and for $27,000/year in the mid-'90s, I said, "To Hell with this!"

I had to get some job to keep paying the bills, so I hired in as a vending machine route guy, making a few thousand more than I did as a 2nd year teacher (albeit with little time off in comparison). All day, all week, all year: driving around from place to place without a care in the world, and saving my brain for myself. I'm still doing it. In 20 years, I can afford to go and do something fun, like be a guide at the nature center, play board games with kids at the Boys and Girls Club or something like that. Maybe it will pay to be an expert Disc Golf course designer by then?

-Grew up on a small family dairy farm
-Got into programming in high school, went to undergrad for it.
-Realized that I did not like programming, started working at the college Helpdesk.
-Loved working the Helpdesk, graduated, got a job at a small bank doing helpdesk, desktop support, networking, system administration, telecom, etc.
-Boss was a dick, I left to run a Helpdesk at a college - I'm still here
-Graduated last August with my MBA, free of charge - a nice perk of working in higher ed

/Just realized I've been doing Helpdesk for 12 years
//cries

shivashakti: I imagine since I'll have to go back to work soon, I'll be starting a new career, but in what field, I have no idea.

Though, at heart, I've always wanted to be a monk.

like s Shaolin monk or just regular monk?

Chicken Roaster
Sailor
Caregiver
Waiter
Caregiver/Group home supervisor
Musician
Pizza Guy
AV Guy
Geologist in training

CVS Cashier
Remote TV Camera Operator / Production Asistant
UI Designer at GE
UI Designer in NYC
Web Developer for NJOIT
I spent 3 days working at Cracked.com until I quit
UI Designer, UI Designer, UI Desiner

I'm finally a cashier at a bank and I think it's the coolest job I've had.

Being a UI Designer sucks.

Age: 34

Went to college as an engineering student.

Graduated with a degree in economics.

Started as a case worker at a non-profit.

Ended up running their website.

Left to become a sports writer. Mostly failed.

Went to law school. Graduated near top of my class.

Practiced for just under two months, started a web startup. Stayed at law firm.

Left law firm about a year later to join bigger startup doing product management.

Lasted two years, got laid off. Spent a year "consulting" for startups about audience development.

Got a job running social media for a company. Still there.

Christmas store as salesperson/cashier/fudge maker/manager. Continued to make/sell fudge for sister after store closed. I hate Christmas music.
Admin support for accountant's office: 3 different departments. Bankruptcy was best. Thought about/offered to stay
Canadian Tire
Research assistant #1 (greenhouse tech/herbarium)
Research assistant #2 (plant ecology/database guru/run the lab)
Grad student in forest ecology

I'm not out of my 20s yet. We'll see what happens next

...Let's see:

1978-98: Building bombs for the USAF
6/98 - 10/98: Sold Chryslers. Left when I was ordered to steal a car from a 78 year old lady who was in the hospital with heart failure.
10/98 - 11/04: Becton-Dickinson Co. driving big boxes around on a forklift. Got 86'd when I made the mistake of writing my first book during our down time (we had a LOT of it) and got caught by one of our self-appointed babysitters.
11/04 - 8/06: Local loan shark for the United Finance Co. Quit when i got tired of trying to collect money from the elderly and mentally incompetent who were being used as ATMs by their families.
8/06 - 5/07: Recruited & trained foster families. Got shiatcanned when I verbally grabbed a couple of families by the collar and told them to get their legally-mandated training NOW or I'd pull their licenses.
6/07 - 6/08: Crane and caster operator in a steel mill. Best paying and most miserable job I've ever had.
6/08 - Present: Shift Supervisor in a galvanizing plant. Weirdest place I have ever worked, but it bought me a house the first year.

15 years, 17 days to retirement.

fast food cook > furniture and appliance delivery and installation > car audio installer > electrician in limousine/hearse factory > self-employed sign builder / graphic designer / screen printer / fabricator / airbrush artist / sculptor

/no health insurance, but my job is AWESOME

AwesomeSquared: Bagboy at 16, switched to produce at 17.
Quit for bestbuy at 18 peddling TVs and monster cables, moved to car audio instal at 20.
Got married at 22 and needed a grown up job. Joined the air force and have been in training for three years. Just got qualified and I'm leaving for more training in march. Professional student?

1 year of college after high school, dropped out, joined the Air Force. Over a year of training for my job specialty, plus I started taking college classes again while I was in. Got out, went to school for four years, got my physics degree. Got a job with the Navy working on ship-air radios, turns out it's really a glorified business management position and soul crushingly boring. Took a couple CE classes to explore a CE graduate program, decided it just wasn't interesting enough. Now I'm thinking about a nuclear engineering program. Many universities offer them online and work has tuition assistance programs and I still have some GI benefits left. Would take another 2 years to complete. So yeah, professional student here too.

Caregiver throughout lifetime
Mechanic
Auto painting
Engineering Degree
NHRA licensed rocket and jet dragster owner/driver-what a awesome time !
Finally settle down to real "job" as insurance company engineer. Then propulsion engineer for Delta and Atlas launch vehicles for decades.-Love Rockets.

More important than anything you've done, or will do, is your family.

(It's been a good ride even though some days you don't think so:).

Five careers by age age 36. Those aren't careers. Those are jobs in various fields.

The plan:

Engineer >>> Law school >>> patent attorney

The reality:

Engineer >>> Law School >>> [2008 Financial crisis and meltdown of the law profession] >>> Unemployment >>> Low-level contract administrator

)=

Last 25 years...
Bartender
Restaurant Night Manager
Car Salesman
Workplace Safety Equipment Salesman
Vacuum Cleaner Salesman
Car Salesman
Went to College, BA History, and MA Military History
Seasonal State Park Employee
Sporting Goods Store Manager
Museum Guide/Researcher

First job at a pizza place. Moved to California to go to school, became assistant manager of a food service company. Quit to become a professional sound engineer, didn't finish my music business degree. Discovered an aptitude for computers, became a research assistant at UCSF. Quit to go back to sound engineering. Got laid off. Volunteered for Burning Man and moved to Nevada. Became resident property manager there. Got fired. Started RV rental business, plus work as sound engineer in Reno. Joined AmeriCorps and was groomed to become the director of a public lands nonprofit. Got fired Monday. Still have RV rental business, looking for a job.

I graduated into the teeth of Nixon's recession, and gravitated into the petroleum industry, more or less by chance.

Everything was great for a while, until the oil shortage of the 70s turned into the oil glut of the 80s; degreed engineers were literally waiting table and cutting grass, and men with impeccable resumes' could not find work at all.

Stay away from the energy industry, it is a feast--or--famine existence.

\\\ Been there. Done that.

\\\ And had it done to me.

Degree in Geology.
Data entry for oil company.
Administrative assistant for university recreational services department.
Administrative assistant for dot.com start-up.
Administrative assistant/web developer for second iteration of same dot.com start-up.
IT support for cement plant.
First-level, second-level support, implementation, and then database conversion for a legal software company.
Decided I was about to walk off a roof because these kinds of jobs are miserable and soul-sucking.
Got personal trainer certification, gave notice, and have been a trainer ever since - make very good $ (for me) as a part-time employee making my own schedule. Refuse to change career again, but may start writing essays, poems, and attempts at books on the side.

Dishwasher
Waiter
Cook
Butcher
Bartender
Auto parts store clerk
Making silicon wafers for microchips & solar panels
Silk-screening plastic cups
Fabric recycling (cutting big pieces of fabric into small pieces with knives)... worst job ever.
Bus driver
Graduated college, been an engineer since.

Having done all that really makes me appreciate my current job.

I was a physicist with the space program, then a minister for the last 15 years, and now I'm working on my doctorate in how religion and science have related to each other in the United States. People always assume that these were hard transitions, but they've made perfect sense to me, and my dissertation is helping me put it all together.

I went from warehouse worker jobs to inventory control/purchasing to law enforcement to college to technician to national service manager to emerging technologies technician to major account national sales to long term unemployment to golf course turf equipment mechanic to ready mix (cement) truck driver. Over 30 years working and 30 jobs. So far. Not unhappy. Work no longer defines me. It just amuses me. When it stops being fun or making sense I move on. Learned one can not be a complete failure as to be one would then be a success at failing which is like dividing by zero. When you realize you can relax about work you become free.

Don't judge me because I Fark, it's the off season.

Seriously... don't judge me.

Posted mine before reading the others.

One could suggest we farkers can't keep a job.

More jobs than careers:
stockboy - alternated between weird and boring & I was pretty sure my boss had shady deals to resell private label merchandise
retail salesperson - made me loathe muzak (I already disliked people)
office jobs during college - fun with cute, flirty girls
human resources - depressing seeing bad/sad resumes, but easy and I had a private office
copyeditor/writer - watched a magazine creator intentionally sink a promising publication out of spite/drug-tinged paranoia. Did get some free videogames, though.
short temp stint reviewing cable company customer support staff. First and hopefully last night shift I ever have. Listened in on live calls. Lots of old men claiming they didn't order porn and shouldn't have to pay for the supposed billing error.
freelanced as a web banner ad designer (ducks)
copywriter - half interesting, half deadening
media buyer - fun, but too many spreadsheets
now director at an ad agency, and it's kinda awesome

Uhm, at 36, a fifth "career change" indicates you have yet to start your FIRST. What, 4 years per "career?" Hon, that's merely having a JOB.

Manufacturing furniture
Army
More manufacturing of furniture
Student
IT support
Software engineer

43yo
Army (reserves), Biology BSc, surveyor, Zoology MSc, technician, touring musician, engineering R&D/support, currently 3rd year health&safety at a university (radiation, chemical and laser)

My career:

Dressed up like a giant hot dog and stood in front of restaurant with a sign. Then "promoted" to flipping burgers at the same restaurant. Started my own landscaping company when I was a senior in high school, which put me through undergrad and flight school, then sold the business to my brother who promptly ran it into the ground. Flight instructed while working as office manager at a very small insurance agency. Was hoping to make it to an airline eventually. Then 9/11 happened and that combined with a few other things made me realize I didn't want to fly for a living. Went to law school, worked for small law firms part time to get through and flight instructing part time. Went to work for a medium-sized law firm for three years. That sucked balls, although it paid quite handsomely. Left law firm to go to work as a prosecutor three years ago, which is what I'm doing now. Love it, best job I've ever had. Major pay cut but I have my weekends and holidays off and I don't have to travel and don't have to keep track of billable hours. Wife much happier now. Might leave to start my own law practice at some point, but I have three kids and a wife who stays home and not sure how I would pay for their health insurance while I get a new practice ramped up.

52 Y/O now. Started at age 13

- House painter
- Counselor at a summer camp for retarded kids (2 summers). Really. The name of the place was Retarded Children's Summer Camp. This was in '75 / '76
- Maintenance aid at a state park where I cleaned bathrooms and picked up trash
- Firefighter for the Forest Service (civil service, baby)
- USAF 20 years - electronic intelligence, aircrew member on RC-135, space operations, teacher, acquisition project manager, information warfare operations - retired
- Systems engineer for medical electronics. We put X-Rays on computers
- Product manager for start up company
- Project manager
- Manager of Services - installation, project management, consulting, training

In a weird way it all made sense at the time

AtlanticCoast63: ...Let's see:

1978-98: Building bombs for the USAF
6/98 - 10/98: Sold Chryslers. Left when I was ordered to steal a car from a 78 year old lady who was in the hospital with heart failure.
10/98 - 11/04: Becton-Dickinson Co. driving big boxes around on a forklift. Got 86'd when I made the mistake of writing my first book during our down time (we had a LOT of it) and got caught by one of our self-appointed babysitters.
11/04 - 8/06: Local loan shark for the United Finance Co. Quit when i got tired of trying to collect money from the elderly and mentally incompetent who were being used as ATMs by their families.
8/06 - 5/07: Recruited & trained foster families. Got shiatcanned when I verbally grabbed a couple of families by the collar and told them to get their legally-mandated training NOW or I'd pull their licenses.
6/07 - 6/08: Crane and caster operator in a steel mill. Best paying and most miserable job I've ever had.
6/08 - Present: Shift Supervisor in a galvanizing plant. Weirdest place I have ever worked, but it bought me a house the first year.

15 years, 17 days to retirement.

And truer words were never spoken. Rock on my fellow steel worker, rock on!

Unhip1: Taught high school English 14 years in Wilmington,CA

Now earning an MS in Broadcast Journalism at Boston U.

Dad died in July. I had to set up the apt. in Boston weeks later.
Had to move here in Aug, leaving 80 yr old mom to fend for herself until I returned in December. I set up a person to come do her shopping for her, and got her mail delivered to her door, but I was really really scared.
And I had a hernia.

At the end of one semester, I have a 3.3 GPA, and had the hernia operation.

I sometimes ask myself "What the fark was I thinking?"
Then I remember stacks of shiatty essays to grade, a megalomaniac principal, and a district that laid off a 50-something year old colleague despite her being in a fight for her life against cancer.
I didn't want to die at the hands of an inbred retard who thought he was tough shiat at 16, and saw me as a mark.

I have no idea how this will turn out, but it's better than what I knew would happen had I stayed a teacher.

Good luck. I lost my mother last year and escaped an insane batshet tyranical boss. There are decent places to work...you just have to keep looking to find one.

Marysue: I figured out what I enjoy doing and then started making lots and lots of money doing it.

Thank God for knee pads.

How YOU doin?

Staffer to a Lobbyist, Software Salesman, Law School, Counterterrorism, Iraq Contractor and self taught VBA software developer, and now civil litigator (6 years and running).

/Don't ask me how it all happened. Looking back, I still don't know.

Seems like these days the definition of a "career" is trying desperately to keep a paycheck coming in through any means possible. Engineer to fry cook to hairdresser? Accountant to ditch digger to apprentice carpenter? PhD physicist to country music singer to cabbage farmer? Yeah, anymore it's all the same "career". Whatever keeps a roof over your head and food on the table.

Speaking of career changes, anyone hiring a jr. accounting clerk (or similar) in Toronto?

software engineer to pharmacist...

McDonald's at 14; fired for lying about my age. McDonald's at 15; left at 17 when I realized I'd already passed the minimum wage for 18 and up and they wouldn't be giving me an increase. Another burger joint, for a while, then. Retail clerk in ahead-of-its-time clothing store. Sister of factory dude with hots for me recruits me to apply at factory.

Glass factory production line for twice the wage by 19. Pick up first aid training. Got married (not that dude, though). Bought house. Bought Commodore 64. Various better/more technical jobs at factory until 25. Factory closes. Divorce. Sell house.

Buy condo. Buy Windows 3.11 computer.Plastics factory machine operator/first aid. Sell condo and quit job to explore music (keyboards/vocals/writing lyrics), be a hippy, do casual first aid work to cover bills for two years. Non-paying board position with First aid association. Start doing their newsletter. Become desk top publisher. Self-employed for two-years.

Rent "jam-house" with other musicians. Eventually switch to bass to keep jam going as most bass players are too flaky to count on. Hired on loading dock, first-aid and labor. Very quickly promoted to H&S supervisor for major chain of grocery stores. I was under qualified. They were under committed. Quit with letter citing litany of complaints where their efforts were below requirement, cc'd it to local WCB/OSHA.

Unemployed and unemployable in safety, go back to casual first aid.Group home work (nuts, and that's the employees) and desk top publishing. Realize I need training.

Journalism school - dean's list. Part-time editor/reporter for chain of local newspapers. Free-lance writer/desktop publisher until invited to magazine. Magazine editor/writer until the publication was sold.

"Project technician" on an SAP implementation doing internal web-sites, marketing updates and scheduling training.
Moved to London to pursue SAP opportunities/music. Challenge: 1999 - no one was implementing anything until y2k came and went. Challenge 2: the creative folk in England were so x'ed out at the time, no one could be asked to do anything musically. Was slotted as "secretary" by British temp agencies.Moved up to marketing/desktop publishing at Charles Shwab. Left UK for personal reasons and came back home.

RELEGATED TO F'ING SECRETARIAL CRAP FOR THE NEXT DECADE!!!! KILL ME NOW!!!! THE HOWAH! THE HOWAH!
First five at children's ministry; heart-wrenching. Next five at major accounting firm; no heart at all. Nearly died. Suffered major depression. Wanted to kill self.

Still at accounting firm, but moved into desk top publishing. (No, I won't bring you your f'ing coffee or book your flights.) Things are better now. Playing with two great groups of jammers (still the most reliable bass player in town).

Moral of story: never, EVAR let people define you based on what you did last. Given the chance again, I'd be forced to lie.

pilot in arizona...company went out of business.
pilot in louisiana...company lost their contract, out of work.
pilot in missouri...laid off. with a god damn post-it note.
pilot in texas...company lost contract, so that made me laid off.

now i work call center...talking to nothing but pilots.

/more money
//less problems
///like running state to state trying to find a plane to fly

After graduation from Engineering school (Industrial Engineering) I couldn't find a (real) job so I worked waiting tables in the local TGI Fridays. Left that to go back to school for an MBA. After graduating, it took a while but I found work with the local Blue Cross plan as an Industrial/Process engineer. As a temp. With no health benefits.

After a year, got a job with a local hospital system doing more process engineering. In a bid to be upwardly mobile, I went back to school (again, part-time) for a master's degree in hospital management. Left that job after 7 years and landed as a 100% travel hospital consultant doing more of the same. Fired from that job for knowing more about my job than the regional manager and calling him out on the fact in a staff meeting (don't try this at home, kids!).

Got a job as a practice manager for a dental practice who needed some professional management. It turns out that the owner/dentist was just batshiat insane, and most if his patients and staff knew it. Left after 4 months.

Landed next as a Y2K consultant (I had done IT work as a self-taught hobby). Spent the next two years flying around the Pacific Rim making the world's date-capable industrial controllers safe for the year 2000. Got laid off in late November '99 since the work was 'done' and everyone had spent their IT budget for the next two years.

My daughter was born 3 weeks later. Did Mr. Mom for 6 months then went to work for the local university as a computer programmer in the schools of the health sciences. Left after 6 years, and I'm now a salesman for a specialty tool company. I make my own hours, work when I want, and am the go-to guy for activity transportation for my daughter.

Also, in between I've been a photo store darkroom tech, a photographer, and the IT manager on a cruise ship. This is all after years of high-school work in various fast food jobs.

/Why yes, it is a CSB.

First job at 11 as a part-time dishwasher at a local diner my step-mom waited tables at.

Since then (in order of appearance), I've been:

a busboy, a professional actor (dinner theater), Goodyear tire buster, electrician's helper, male stripper, U.S. combat medic, waiter, bartender, moving & storage company owner, bar manager, investment advisor, bodyguard (celebrities and corporate execs), project manager, electrical subcontractor (owner of the company with my Dad), and lawyer.

What do I win?

To save up for college, and to make it through college, I had up to 5 jobs at a time. Avon lady, corn shucker, waitress, babysitter, pie taster, retail, clerical, etc. Then social worker, then executive.

My favorite of all time was pie taster, of course. I earned $10 per hour to taste apple pies and give my opinions for 8 hours. (Temp job)

Least favorite was retail (sales & mgmt) because it was mind numbingly boring. I would go full days without speaking to 1 human being and being required to stand at the front of the store all day. For me, boredom is the hardest thing to tolerate.

14 - 20: Shop Rat for bolt factory
20 - 23: Production Control Manager
23 - 27: Commission Sales
27 - 29: Restaurant Management
29 - 32: Plant Management
32 - 34: Owner of Bonsai stores
35 - 38: Distribution management for Detroit News
38 - Present: Consultant specializing in Project Management and Process Improvement
Next: Speaker, Writer, and gentleman farmer

Laid off after a 14 year career as a senior graphic designer in the marketing department at a large daily newspaper. 2.5 years later, still no jorb. Doing the career change thing by attending cosmetology school! Seven weeks until graduation and then it's time to start crawling my way back up from minimum wage. (again)

If you;re in Atlanta and need your hairs did, come see me at my school! (I'm so bored since we haven't been getting many guests during the off peak season.) We're actually not that expensive and we'd never let you leave with your hair all jacked up and stuff.