Why did you choose your trade/career?

[jaxadam]

For real, personability and the ability to learn are the best characteristics of anyone wanting to excel at a professional level. I'll take a guy who wants to do what he's been asked of rather than a guy who knows how but doesn't care. Having worked in several team-forward environments, the ability to get along, listen, and cooperate is more valuable than what many people consider. I think what also drives a good team is a good leader. I had a previous position that was a good job, but the boss didn't enforce shit so it ended up being 3 of 7 people doing all the work and the other 4 dicking around. Since that job, only 1 person of those 3 is left and that team is unfortunately sinking fast.

Behind every successful businessperson is an excellent team.

 

[7stringDemon]

Carpenter here. Dropped out of high school and immediately got to work with a family friend who needed help. 10 years and a couple companies later, im making 6 figures and leading multiple crews across the country.

 

[wheresthefbomb]

My father read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to me when I was about 5 years old. Ever since then, I've always known that I was going to be a wizard.

 

[MFB]

My father read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to me when I was about 5 years old. Ever since then, I've always known that I was going to be a wizard.

Woah, wish I knew we had a klansman among us this whole time, spread the good word brother!

 

[OneTwoThrill]

I was labeled as a dumbass dunce when si was 3.
Until 18 I was the first dunce ever before meeting my GF and I became a serious student.
Today 42 I am still lacking self esteem and I work hard as a manager in a large company.
I put a lot of pressure on myself and I am not happy. My job is paying well the bills and the leisure. I am in good health but sad because of my job. I will never change something because I am not brave enough. Many people want to have my job and I hate it.

 

[bostjan]

I never chose my career. I wanted to be a rock star. My music was never good enough, or I never knew the right famous people, or some other factor or a combination of those. But I was pretty good at mathematics in school, so I ended up going to a university and studying what I loved - music, but the music teachers were all assholes, so I switched majors to something I was good at and got my degree in that, then got a job doing that stuff, and now here I am, 43 years old and the only part of me that resembles a rock star is my liver. But I make okay money doing what I do and I enjoy it, and I even have a couple bands on the side so I can blast loud music at people on occasion.

 

[MetalDestroyer]

How did I choose my career? I took the best option I could see at the time at a few different junctures. Some of these put me far behind, others pulled me ahead.

Why did I choose this career? See signature.

 

[Soya]

I was pretty aimless in school, decided to get into welding in college and got a welding technology certificate and was a TIG welder for 8 years. Always been into fabrication so got a position at the same company as a tool maker/machinist for a few years. Wanted to get away from manual stuff but still leverage my experience so I got my certified welding inspector certification (sucks) . Been a CWI for a year but the last few months I've also been a project manager for a few large scale projects, in addition to being the resident fabrication / machining expert. I do alright compensation wise but I wear too many hats and I pretty much hate my job. I've been at my company more than 13 years now and it seems terrifying to try my luck somewhere else unfortunately.

 

[broj15]

Been in the restaurant industry- specifically back of house- for most of my adult life. I've always enjoyed cooking at home so I *thought* I had an understanding of how that works in a restaurant (some things apply and having a refined palette is something that helps). I needed a job and I knew I could make enough money to sustain myself and NOT have to worry about passing a drug test.

Now I've been able to turn what most people would call "just a job" into an actual career. If anyone else chooses this life I suggest avoiding corporate chains at all cost. Entry level position is gonna be a dishwasher or food runner job but if you get an opportunity to do any prep work then jump on it, or cover someone's station on the line when they take a break to "prove yourself". I started out as a dishwasher and now I'm a prep cook at one of the top fine dining restaurants in my city.

 

[Drew]

As Vonnegut put it, "I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all."

American lit degree from a very good school, wasn't sure what I wanted to do when I graduated but figured being demonstrably able to write well would probably be useful somewhere. I graduated, moved to Rhode Island with a couple friends, and took a retail job to pay rent, when a chance conversatio ended up getting me a referal to a Boston-area custody bank for an entry level fund accounting position. Did that for a couple years, left for a competitor and into a fund servicing role that was a little closer to the investment process, and decided around the five year mark I should probably start taking this a little more seriously as a potential career so I got my CFA charter. Today I'm a partner at a boutique fixed income investment shop in town, as their head of corporate credit research and their macroeconomic strategist.

I'm not sure I'd blanket-recommend finance; it's an industry rife with type A grade-A assholes and narcissists, and I have a LOT of good ol' catholic guilt about how I'm not really leaving the world any better than I found it, though I do try to make up for that outside work. But, there are pockets of decency in it and I'm fortunate to work with a team that I like and respect. And the markets themselves are fascinating - picture the most wildly complex system you can imagine, and then imagine that if you ever start to figure it out, it evolves and arbitrages away any opportunities you find. It's been a pretty good balance, in that it's interesting enough that I'm rarely bored, but for the most part I can still put it down when I leave work for the day and focus on other interests, and pays well enough that one day I'll probably be able to retire. And, ironically, I DO write a lot for my firm, so my original plan played out reasonably well.

 

[OneTwoThrill]

C’est lease correct me but I read many people who have not choose their professional life but have followed events in life.
The dreams of our teenage years are not really fulfilled.

 

[wheresthefbomb]

I ended up as a bartender by accident. One of my first adult jobs was as a "deckhand" on a paddlewheel boat tourist attraction. We served beer and wine which I was able to turn into a job at an infamous dive bar. I've worked at a lot of other places since but I always come back to that bar. I'd honestly like to get out of the service industry altogether but everything else I've tried is harder work for way less pay. I landed a union bartending job at a hotel last year and I was making really good money but they were constantly short-staffed and the extra hustle from that was putting unsustainable strain on my carpal tunnel. My current bar gets busy, but I'm not shaking a bunch of stupid martinis while running a bar and the drink well for two restaurants by myself.

I've also been variously a substitute and a full-time SpEd aide since 2018, but the pay is mediocre and even if I went back for my master's and teaching cert I'd barely make more than I do as a bartender, with another $30k in debt to show for it. Bar patrons love to hear that I work in schools and tell me how noble it is or whatever, I always make sure to tell them I make 2-3x as much opening bottles of budweiser. As schools become more desperate to find teachers, more states are creating alternative paths to accreditation, which could be a real avenue for me at some point. I don't even want to teach anymore, that's a thankless shit job, but there is other stuff you can do with a teaching cert.

I feel it's time for a change but not sure where to pivot to. I have a linguistics degree, and the main jobs in lingusitics right now are doing spy shit for the government (gross) and teaching language to AI, which I do not have the computer science background that those jobs all want, and II have a feeling the AI would be able to do that job itself by the time I gained the skills.

 

[AwakenTheSkies]

I'm a hotel receptionist, have been since I was 19. Started working nights then someone hired me to do day shifts so that's what I've been doing the last years. Usually I work every year in a different place.
I don't feel like I belong in the day shift though. I'm social enough but it's a different treatment with the customers and I'm not made for that. I do my best to be polite and respectful to everyone, and I do try my best to solve everyone's problems and genuinely want them to have a good time at the hotel. But some people get offended if you don't treat them like the second coming of Jesus Christ. I'm not exactly a bright cheerful ray of sunshine either. My colleagues usually like working with me, so that's probably why I don't get fired. I'm good at the office and administration stuff, just not so much with the treatment sometimes.

You can go out of your way to help someone with something and they will appreciate it but unless you ask they won't leave a positive review. But if they don't like something about you then you can be sure they will leave a bad review mentioning you.

Anyway I have a computer science degree but can't get a job, so I'm studying IT / network security as well. That's what I'm hoping to do. I'm not made for the retail jobs.

C’est lease correct me but I read many people who have not choose their professional life but have followed events in life.
The dreams of our teenage years are not really fulfilled.

Yeah, I'm the opposite of who I wanted to be as a teenager. I fucking hate this.

 

[OneTwoThrill]

Same Bro. Sorry for french autocorrect from my phone.
Our job is not our life! Love the one you love, be honest with them and your values and this is not that bad.

 

[wheresthefbomb]

I'm not exactly who I wanted to be as a teenager, but I've landed closer to my completely naive dreams than I had any right to hope for. Life always has other plans.

 

[BlackMastodon]

Teenaged Me was a jackass. Present Me is very content with how my life is.

 

[budda]

Currently looking for work after more red flags thrown up at current gig. Posted to fb (i dont have coworkers on there) and a lot of replies about who works where and hiring.

 

[MFB]

I didn't choose the thug life, it chose me.

There's a great irony to me having said this at a time when I was unemployed

But seriously, I absolutely stumbled into my current career and to even call it that is a bit disingenuous. I had gone to school for Game Design & Theory and gotten my B.S. in it in 2015, something which I more than willingly declined to do because I know how absolutely brutal and soul-crushing the industry can be by taking advantage of artists' passion for what they do in exchange for labor; but alas, I was talked into it, and then stuck with a degree in a location that really didn't have a market for it, and me not really wanting to relocate was what the kids might consider, fucked.

Luckily, because I knew 3D stuff, my stepdad talked to someone who he had worked with for years as a client, and they needed help with some VDC (Virtual Design & Construction) which is closely related to BIM (Building Information Modeling). I did that work, and then another company he also knew was looking to set up a BIM department to standardize the office, so myself, one other guy around my age and our boss were all hired within a month of each other as guinea pigs for it. Boss lasted six months, he was fighting an uphill fight the entire time after the guy before him - who was a one man operation - smeared the title of "BIM Manager" in the mud, and after he was out, I became the defacto/interim manager as I just picked it up quicker than my coworker. We went another 2-3 months without someone, but they brought in outside consultants to help us in the day-to-day side just in case, and then once the new guy came in, I was at a place to where I was doing 50% BIM and had free time to help the engineers/designers with their jobs. Maybe a year or so later, I was promoted out of the department into the design team as an Electrical Drafter who has since worked up to full fledged Designer; I can lay stuff out accordingly, I just need my work done by a Senior Engineer who knows the building/NEC codes to verify what I'm doing isn't absolute ass.

 

[jaxadam]

Currently looking for work after more red flags thrown up at current gig. Posted to fb (i dont have coworkers on there) and a lot of replies about who works where and hiring.

We're hiring. I always say the hardest part of the job is reading my handwriting!

 

[gabito]

I always wanted to be a musician and to make music. I've also liked computers since I was very young (when computers were not yet ubiquitous): building / repairing / playing computer games / eventually got into development. I also like to draw (I'm not very good at it, but I like to nonetheless), which eventually turned into an interest in graphic design, which eventually turned into web design, UI design, or whatever they call it now.

I did all of those things as a hobby for a long time, but ended up working on the thing that paid more. And yeah, you guessed it: it's not music.

I still make music as a hobby, and I'm a developer / designer hybrid for money. I like it, mostly no complaints.