Social What do you do for work?

phoopes

I did it again
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I'm sure I mentioned it at some point but when I was going through school initially I wanted to be a math teacher. Made it all the way up through student teaching and was really good at teaching the math that kids actually learn in high school! But my higher level math classes that I needed to actually graduate... didn't go so well. Hence why I'm in my seventh year of college lol, which I know I've mentioned at some point on the forums. I'm doing part-time classes while I work and hope to end up as a college admissions counselor; I used to work as an intern at my school's undergraduate admissions office and really enjoyed it and got to know some of the admissions counselors and it seems like it would be a good fit for me. So hopefully that works out since teaching didn't.

As for what I do now, there's a few things!

If you've ever tried to schedule a tournament game against me, you'll know I've said that I can rarely do Fridays/Saturdays because I work on weekends. That's because I'm a local musician! I play with my band at some of the bars downtown in my local college town. I've been in the band for more than two years, so a bunch of that time got taken out by COVID, but in the non-COVID times I've had a lot of fun with it! Really, it's nice to be able to make money doing something that I LOVE, which I know a lot of people can't say so I'm very thankful for that. Unfortunately, it's not enough to make a full time living but it's great as a part-time gig. Oh yeah and I should mention I'm the piano player haha, I've been playing since I was four years old so it's a way to keep up with that. (It's not work but I also went back to my old piano teacher for classical music purposes and that's been great for really keeping up with it).

In addition, I'm also involved in the local water polo scene! (yes that exists where I live lol) I played water polo from the time that I was a little kid all the way through high school and my first few years of college, but had a little absence from the game for a few years. However, last semester one of my old teammates approached me with an opportunity to referee for some high school games and I took it, and really started to like it! They started me with some of the low-tier games where you can't really tell if the kids are being fouled or just drowning but I'm hoping I get to see some good water polo soon as a ref.

Also with water polo, I just started assistant coaching at my old high school! This is only my second weekend doing it but I'm really loving it too. As mentioned before, I was going to be a high school teacher so I really like being able to work with kids that age even if it didn't work out as a teacher. Really happy that I'm getting to pass on some of my knowledge to kids who are really receptive to it. I've already seen some improvement in the kids I've worked with in regards to getting them to unlearn bad habits and learn good habits, but there's still work to do! The regular season doesn't start until the fall so we have plenty of time, but they've played some games recently (on weekends so I haven't been able to watch) but apparently they're doing pretty well so I'm excited to see how it all shakes out.
 

bdt2002

Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs superfan
is a Pre-Contributor
I’m scared to ask… but wtf did they have you doing on those 2 days where your parents wanted you to pull the plug so fast??
In the camp's credit, it wasn't anything that the camp itself was doing. It was more the fact that both myself and them weren't exactly comfortable with how the other workers were trying to present a Christian message. I for one am all for people having their own beliefs. That's fine. It's just this camp didn't have the best way of going about it. The real kicker, though, was the absurd job training period. I'll spare you guys the details, but they wanted me to do the full day training scenario when my position was solely going to be for the day camp counselor position. The training would have lasted literally all day long for around two weeks straight, and by the end of Day 2, my family was like "Yeah, we shouldn't do this."

Let's just say that this was probably the single worst month of June I've had in my life up to this point for reasons unrelated to this thread.
 

antemortem

THE ORIGINAL DAVE
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Socialization Head
Currently work at this big car wash place. Basically it’s just manually powerwashing, and drying cars, then also cleaning interiors of cars as well. It’s actually pretty popular, on a warm, sunny day, business will be never ending all day until like 8pm or so. The best part of the job and why I like it the most is for the 1-2 hours per shift that I get to dry cars, because that is paid in tips instead of hourly pay and on a good day you will bring home like 40-50 dollars in cash for an hour of drying
Okay I’ve seen this one really popular drive-up place like this before and never understood how it works, but this gives a lot of insight. It seems like you park your car at this place, the cleaners powerwash and detail and dry it, and then you’re on your way, but you don’t sit in the car while it happens. Is there a whole queue situation at the place you work at? I’m used to mostly do-it-yourself car washes and drive-thrus where everything is automated, so this is new territory lol
You got it right! It was Thailand, yes. I enjoyed it for a while but over time I realised it wasn't something I wanted to keep doing. Honestly I would love to be a streamer but that's a completely unrealistic goal so I'll find some chill work to do while considering my options. There's a whole world of possibilities out there!
tbh imagine if you’d started streaming back when you first said it was “completely unrealistic…” like how far in the game would you be by now? I say just say fuck it and do it on the side and grow your following while you get a survival job, you’ve got it in you
Also with water polo, I just started assistant coaching at my old high school! This is only my second weekend doing it but I'm really loving it too. As mentioned before, I was going to be a high school teacher so I really like being able to work with kids that age even if it didn't work out as a teacher. Really happy that I'm getting to pass on some of my knowledge to kids who are really receptive to it. I've already seen some improvement in the kids I've worked with in regards to getting them to unlearn bad habits and learn good habits, but there's still work to do! The regular season doesn't start until the fall so we have plenty of time, but they've played some games recently (on weekends so I haven't been able to watch) but apparently they're doing pretty well so I'm excited to see how it all shakes out.
Is accessibility to water polo a white people thing? LMAO i ask because I’ve never lived somewhere that it was on the roster, also what’s the teaching process like? I don’t know if I’ve ever watched someone play it (it’s an olympic sport, isn’t it…??) but I used to watch my friend competitively swim all the time and that learning process was really arduous
 

biggie

champ
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I work in accounting at a school for children with autism. Been in the field for just about 14 years so that's pretty entrenched I'd say. I do budgeting, forecasting, run financial reports, file required various state and federal reports, and manage payroll among other things.

On Saturday nights I bartend at a local dive bar that I was a regular at. Been doing this for a few years and it's good extra cash in my pocket to spend on groceries or put towards my upcoming wedding.
 

phoopes

I did it again
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Is accessibility to water polo a white people thing? LMAO i ask because I’ve never lived somewhere that it was on the roster, also what’s the teaching process like? I don’t know if I’ve ever watched someone play it (it’s an olympic sport, isn’t it…??) but I used to watch my friend competitively swim all the time and that learning process was really arduous
Yeah the sport is fairly white-dominated from my experience. In my area (Pennsylvania suburbs) there’s more access to it than most places from what I’ve found, but the PA suburbs tend to be white-dominated as far as I know, at least my hometown is. I’ve mostly played other teams from PA, with some from Connecticut, Jersey, Maryland, and Ohio being the most common out of state opponents and they were all mostly white as well. Nationally though, California definitely dominates. I’ve been out there to play (and subsequently get my ass handed to me) but from what I remember there was a bit more diversity? But still not much. If you look internationally, the countries with the most success historically come from Europe, especially Eastern Europe (Croatia, Serbia, Hungary) so it’s kind of prevalent from the top down.

As for why this is, I think it’s because not only do you need a pool, in order to compete with the best programs you need a pool of certain dimensions (8 lines wide, no shallow end) which I know a lot of high schools even around me can’t claim. Plus there’s the equipment: caps, goals, balls, special lane lines that indicate the two-meter, five-meter, and six-meter marks (you can use cones I guess but again, the better programs have better equipment)… it’s not something you can just pick up and play right away. Then there’s the matter of the players having to be able to swim, finding coaches with experience, and referees. Lots of stuff to keep in mind and maintain. Pennsylvania has done a great job at expanding access to the sport even in the last ten years and I think popularity is growing other places too. But yeah I think mostly because of the fact that you need a pool bigger than most places have in order to compete at the highest level that’s why you don’t see it much. And who has access to that kind of budget/resources? White-dominated areas mostly.

That’s not to say that white people are the only ones that have success in the sport though! I do always like to give a special shout-out to Genai Kerr, a Black water polo goalie that was on the United States’ 2004 Olympic team and also taught me a lot about being a goalie at a training camp that I was able to go to. I really like him as a person and a role model that passes stuff on to the next generation, and is someone that non-white athletes can look up to in the sport. On the women’s side, there’s Brenda Villa, who’s Mexican-American and one of the most dominant players in the game’s history. She’s the all-time leader in scoring at the Olympics and led the USA to the gold medal in 2012. I always remember her because that Olympics occurred right after my freshman year of high school when I was beginning to reaaalllly take a huge interest in the sport. I know I only gave one example from the men’s and women’s side, but there’s more for younger non-white athletes to look up to, proving that anyone can have success in water polo.

—-

As far as the actual coaching process, a lot of it is conditioning. It’s kind of year round, with the regular season in my area being during the fall, swim season being during the winter, and then the “off-season” in spring and summer where you still have plenty of opportunities to play. Water polo is such a tough sport: not only do you have to swim up and down the pool but once you’re in your set offense there’s a lot of battling for position that involves staying afloat while you have a defender hanging all over you. While there’s elements of swimming (obviously), the offenses and defenses work a lot like basketball (especially since there’s a shot clock), the physical nature of the game means that there’s some elements of wrestling around the two-meter line, there’s “man-up” situations (think like a hockey power play), penalty shots are very much like soccer… there’s to it!

I work mostly with the goalies on the team, being a goalie myself, and a lot of that is teaching them to work smarter not harder. Like as a goalie you’re the quarterback of the defense, and you have to be vocal, calling out where the ball is so the rest of your defenders can always know how to position themselves, calling out drives to the middle and switches/help defense… all while keeping your own legs going and getting into good position to block a shot no matter where it may come from. I feel like a well-directed defense stops a lot of the shots before they even come your way and that’s what I try to preach to my players. And then once you stop the shot and get control of the ball, it’s up to the goalie (usually) to make an outlet pass out to a teammate who’s either streaking down the pool on a counterattack or just finding someone open who can set up the offense. So really, you have to be an accurate passer too, making the quarterback analogy all the more fitting.

Speaking of the offensive side of the ball, I’m not an expert on this but what I usually do is think, “hmm, what’s difficult to stop on defense” and I encourage them to do that. Stuff like keeping the ball out of the water whenever you can since that makes you more of an immediate threat to shoot or make another pass, not being stagnant on offense and always moving so you can get open, stuff like that. There’s a lot to keep in mind and I honestly didn’t know if I was qualified to talk about anything other than being a goalie but having that “what’s difficult to stop on defense” mindset actually translates kind of well to what to do on offense.

I’m just happy my kids are pretty well-receptive to coaching and I don’t get a lot of pushback from them. In my area there’s a great feeder program (I started playing in 2nd grade) that gets you ready for high school water polo so some of these kids have already been playing for years but they know that I’ve been around longer than them and that I was pretty good before I gained all that weight (lmao) so they respect me even if I’m a young assistant coach. If anything they get more into it with each other because there’s a few hotheads that know they’re pretty good and expect good things from each other. This isn’t a bad thing necessarily but when Boy A and Boy B get into it during a scrimmage and it prevents them from getting back on defense or whatever, that’s where we as the coaches need to draw the line and defuse the situation and let them know that they always have to be thinking about the next play or else they’re going to get left behind and have one mistake compound into more.

—-

I think that’s probably enough rambling for now lol but if you want to know more ask away!
 

Surgo

goes to eleven
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I'm a software engineer at a well-known internet company. One of the few decent job fields left in the USA, and I'm actually pretty good at it, so I lucked out in that regard.

One day I'll retire and do bespoke fabrication / machining / woodworking, but that's *far* in the future.
 
I'm currently a roofer

Got asked half a year ago if i wanted a job for 5 weeks... and it never ended
Mostly we do industrial/commercial stuff like big warehouses, factories etc and it's quite cool going to all different places and seeing what they do there, tho it can also be kinda sad like one factory that makes trains where the first time I went there there were hundreds or thousands of people working and buildings and buildings full of trains/train parts but now the whole place is empty cos they shut down.

Honestly I enjoy it a lot more than I thought I would. Physically it's quite demanding and you get some really miserable days when it's wet and the wind is blowing a gale, but I like the people I'm working with and it gives me plenty of time to think about dumb pokemon sets plus I need the exercise lol

I'm looking to get into data science or something though (got an interview tomorrow!), but I'm not in a huge rush
 

Ren

i swore lips were made for lies
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Currently a barista in the mornings/afternoons, and I used to tutor in the evenings until I set aside those for my language studies and other stuff. I recently swapped cafes due to managerial concerns, at the moment I've been brought onto a cafe as someone who's in charge of elevating their coffee. Plan on swapping cafes at least once more, though, since I'm not really in love with being the sole person behind lifting a process up that naturally has many parties involved in it. Might have an opportunity, potentially as a manager, coming up. Other than that, I'm in school doing an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and trying to delay graduation as late as I can so I can maintain my personal illusion that I'm still young. Going to be heading to Japan to do a study abroad program for a year in September, and I plan on potentially working as a barista there as well.
 

dex

Hard as Vince Carter’s knee cartilage is
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I’m a consulting engineer for utility-scale renewable energy sites, usually focused on solar energy. Generally, I help essentially QC check solar sites as a consultant, making sure everything is perfect and continues to be perfect for when the site gets running. I’ve really enjoyed myself so far because it’s an inherently social job, which was something I appreciated because I really didn’t want to just be stuck behind a desk doing math as an engineer, and I get to travel quite a bit (already been out twice in my first two months). It’s also nice contributing to renewable energy, makes me feel like my work is really worth doing!
 

berry

what kind
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Don't have a real full job right now because I'm still a college student, but I hope to eventually go into academia and become an Environmental professor. Currently though, I do forestry and agriculture research, mainly focused on regrowing biodiverse forests that can be utilized for food and materials by both humans and wildlife. I get a small-ish stipend so I guess it counts as a paid job, even if the hours I put in mean that I get paid far less than minimum wage. I want to eventually study and profess the overlap between the environment and technology (not in the good way, moreso how the industrial revolution and subsequent situations ruined everything), but I have to fund and complete grad school first to do that.

I've worked a couple of summer jobs outside of my research that include being an outreach intern for a small environmental nonprofit in my county this summer, working on a small scale organic farm last year, doing field sampling for a mosquito and other insect vector testing lab the summer before that, and being a lifeguard every summer during high school.
 
I'm currently a roofer

Got asked half a year ago if i wanted a job for 5 weeks... and it never ended
Mostly we do industrial/commercial stuff like big warehouses, factories etc and it's quite cool going to all different places and seeing what they do there, tho it can also be kinda sad like one factory that makes trains where the first time I went there there were hundreds or thousands of people working and buildings and buildings full of trains/train parts but now the whole place is empty cos they shut down.

Honestly I enjoy it a lot more than I thought I would. Physically it's quite demanding and you get some really miserable days when it's wet and the wind is blowing a gale, but I like the people I'm working with and it gives me plenty of time to think about dumb pokemon sets plus I need the exercise lol

I'm looking to get into data science or something though (got an interview tomorrow!), but I'm not in a huge rush
UPDATE: the interview did go well and I got the job! I've been doing data analysis for about 5 weeks now, but I'm not very good at it yet
I work for a big credit related company but fsr they have a random business analytics team that I'm in and we basically profile customers or whatever for whoever pays us, it's pretty cool cos the clients are very varied which makes things interesting

On the downside I'm definitely getting less fit being in an office all day so I'm gonna have to start reading the cong health and fitness thread lol
 
Sales Support. I don't even know what the official job description is, I just do the office management, organize business trips, work with administrative departments like accounting, do first level customer support and most of the time, I just do what my boss wants from me

It's actually a very nice job. I am being treated like a human being, which is unusual for assisting jobs, my private life and shift times are respected and most of all, I get along very well with the people I work with

Before I got this job, I was an assistant at a big law firm. Shit was all fucked up. I never saw the amount of bullying and beratement in all of my school years combined, doing something between 10-20 additional, unpaid hours was the norm and I was never treated as badly as I was treated there. Being forced to work through a mental breakdown after weeks of constant crunch and being called incompetent, dyslexic, lazy or straight up stupid because someone refused to tell me about a court case the next day and wants everything prepared this instant is just not a life I wanted to live

Additionally, bonuses for assistants being scrapped so the big partners can take an even bigger share when they already, regularly earn 100 - 250k Euros yearly made me... Not happy, to say the least
 
I work on the software for an ophthalmology device. This device does eye exams with a non-invasive laser. It analyzes the corneal tissue in such a way as to provide data insights that apparently few (if any) other devices or methods provide. I get to talk to doctors all over the world and also help the service team abroad as needed.
The positives are that it's a cool job that helped me pay for a condo. I also became a junior scientist (kind of) having to learn about light refraction, image processing, and various tidbits about how eyeballs work.
The negatives are:
- Stress, because I'm the main programmer on the project.
- Some doctors are hard to talk to because of the fucking ego.
- Overtime hours. Having to work overtime to get things done means I have barely any time to prep for most opponents in Smogon tours :(. Or meal prep...that one's actually worse. The restaurants around the area aren't great and the fucking snack machine needs an email and password to use.
 
Pardon while I invest interest in your career: do you find the most flexibility in your commissions or with negotiating independent contracts?
No worries! Quick disclaimer that ymmv depending on where you live, your online fanbase, and how broad your art is (are you an illustrator? A character designer? Background artist? All? Neither?).

I'll be writing this as a Brazilian artist, who mainly focus on character design (trying to branch out to bigger illustrations and backgrounds though!), and my online following is pretty good. Not a super big artist but not a small one kinda deal.

For the most part, commissions are what give me a lot of flexibility. There's a different atmosphere when you work 1:1 with a client who's not going to you in a more professional way (you should still be professional as the artist, but the expectations are more casual. This has good and bad parts). Commissions are personal and I get to play with a big range of designs, both in anthro/furry communities and human ones, including less common/mainstream design motifs, more complex designs which would not be viable in big projects, etc.

There's also flexibility in how much work I do. Industry contracts usually mean around 5-10 basic concepts, then we lineart and polish, and then work with turn arounds and expression sheets (sometimes weapons and items, but I'm not hired for those since they hire specific designers for that most often). Freelance commissions can vary between one fullbody to an entire turn around sheet with multiple outfits, all with varying budgets.

Of course, that flexibility isn't always good, but I fear I rambled enough haha. Sorry for the wall of text
 
I'm a postdoctoral researcher at the university. Since I obtained my Doctoral degree in 2019 I spent my time working on specific projects. I work with mathematical modelling in population ecology, and as the name suggests, the models are applied to real populations, such as an insect living in a forest. My job involves knowledge about biology, mathematics (mainly differential equations) and computational languages (currently I use Python, but I'm familiar with C-ANSI and I'm learning Julia). My job is quite cool I guess, but I want to be a full-professor in a university, teaching the students and doing my scientific research. Being a postdoc is very stressful, and when my contract ends, I have to find another project to make a living. This constant search for projects is tiring and unstable.

I'd love to apply my knowledge to the Pokemon world, in a way we would have Pokemon populations that make sense. For example, you'd find a lot of :bw/rattata: because it's a small generalist species, but :bw/wailord: should be very rare. Some Pokemon like :bw/durant: should be aggregated, because they are highly social, but others like :bw/hydreigon: should probably be territorial, and scattered throughout the landscape.
 
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