the kwok talk forums

I think most of us are in the working class now, so I'm curious to know what most of you do for a living (or are studying to later do).

How did you end up going into your particular field?
Do you like your work or is it just a means to a paycheck?
What did you want to be when you were a kid?

For me, when I was younger I wanted to either be an archeologist (b/c I liked dinosaur bones) or a librarian (b/c I liked books and thought it’d be a nice and quiet job). In early high school I thought I might do something related to medicine or science, just because nearly all Asian parents tend to steer you that way, but also considered being a teacher since I thought they were pretty influential to kids. During my junior year, I took a Psychology and Sociology class and loved them both, so I ended up studying that in college. Doing a few internships, I realized that I didn’t really want a job that dealt with so much human baggage and such since I tended to bring that back home with me, so I went looking for something else. My mom suggested trying out some business classes and I noticed I just had a knack for accounting and I liked how it was pretty steady and seemed like something I could do on a daily basis. So after some time with a Big 4 accounting firm, I finally left because the hours/overtime/travel were getting pretty brutal. Moved to the private sector to work in Financial Reporting. I don’t love accounting at all, but definitely see my job as a means to a paycheck just to pay the bills but I definitely don’t dread coming to work, which is fortunate.

kwoker wrote:
For me, when I was younger I wanted to either be an archeologist (b/c I liked dinosaur bones) or a librarian (b/c I liked books and thought it’d be a nice and quiet job). In early high school I thought I might do something related to medicine or science, just because nearly all Asian parents tend to steer you that way, but also considered being a teacher since I thought they were pretty influential to kids. During my junior year, I took a Psychology and Sociology class and loved them both, so I ended up studying that in college. Doing a few internships, I realized that I didn’t really want a job that dealt with so much human baggage and such since I tended to bring that back home with me, so I went looking for something else. My mom suggested trying out some business classes and I noticed I just had a knack for accounting and I liked how it was pretty steady and seemed like something I could do on a daily basis. So after some time with a Big 4 accounting firm, I finally left because the hours/overtime/travel were getting pretty brutal. Moved to the private sector to work in Financial Reporting. I don’t love accounting at all, but definitely see my job as a means to a paycheck just to pay the bills but I definitely don’t dread coming to work, which is fortunate.

I'm 27 and still in school.....you beat me Kwok

I got a 3 year DEC in Comp Sci (I can explain Quebec's funny education system if anyone wants), I did some web dev freelancing while I was in school, did my stage with one of the people I freelanced for. After that I worked at a few different companies doing web development and sys adminning. Took a year break where I did translated some Future's Trading systems into a computerized system at a hedge fund that had some renown in Quebec/Canada for some issues with withholding funds. Back to web development after that where I worked on another dating site and made those annoying spam bots you see on myspace and other social networking/dating sites (if you ever got redirected to place4friends, that was me), also made one that spams people on yahoo. Yeah I'm not proud about that. Quit there to work for another web dev firm that had a terrible atmosphere and after about 3 months got a chance to go freelancing full time. For more than 2 years now I've been technically self-employed doing freelance work for lots of different projects including a division of the UN which got me some free trips down to New York which was always fun.

Right now I'm in debt repayment mode trying to pay off a fair amount of CC debt, a lot of the time I think that once I'm done that I want to just quit everything and become a cab driver or something.

Fanboys Strikes Back wrote:

kwoker wrote:

I'm 27 and still in school.....you beat me Kwok

Dude, I'm 31 and still there. Of course, this is after having quit my job as an informations systems analyst, selling everything I owned that couldn't fit into a rented minivan, and driving across the country to a place where I didn't know anyone and deciding to go back to school. I am now at CSU debating between a wildlife biology degree, then on to vet school, or a biology/ecolody degree and then on to minimally a masters in bioinformatics. I don't care, as long as the financial aid keeps coming in I am going to be in school. Grants are awesome.

CasuallyDrowned wrote: Of course, this is after having quit my job as an informations systems analyst, selling everything I owned that couldn't fit into a rented minivan, and driving across the country to a place where I didn't know anyone and deciding to go back to school.

Wow that's pretty gutsy. I don't know if I could just quit my job and start over. Being married and domesticated at this point, I'm not sure I could weather the disruption like that.

That is where it is good that I am not married and don't have any kids. I would do it again too, but I am focused on my goal of finishing school at the moment. This, of course, also explains why I travel so much.

When I was really young, the idea of astronaut really appealed to me. Then, I saw a bit on TV about what astronauts had to go through physically during training and that turned me off. Zip lines and centrifugal force machines scared me as a youngster. I was into math and science in high school, though I became an English major in college. Around that time, I figured that being a librarian with an emphasis on teen work would allow me to have a job that was relatively low stress and allow me to have an excuse to be well-versed in media and pop culture. It did help that my mother worked in a library when I was growing up, so I always felt comfortable being in that environment. So, I went on to get my Information Science Masters degree.

My work is okay. It can be a bit repetitive to answer the same questions day-after-day when I'm working on the reference desk. People need a lot of help on computers. The most basic questions get asked more often than you'd think. Working with teens with programming and book selection is more fun. The real perk of my job is getting easy access to free books, movies, and music. True, it's not the most timely access, but I usually don't need something the day it debuts.

I'm happy with my choices. I wouldn't mind working in a slightly more vibrant community, but all-in-all, I'm doing well.

After years of not going to the library, I’ve made more of a concentrated effort over the last year or two to see what was there, mostly for comic trades. But they’re doing a lot of kids that makes me jealous they didn’t do that stuff when I was back in high school. They have a videogame night, where they just set up tons of game systems and projectors and have some sort of create-your-own comic character workshop. I don’t use my library nearly enough for DVDs and music.

I used to use it all the time in FLA- but I stopped when I dropped some books off at the night depository and they said I never returned them. I was in it for like $180 for someone else stealing my books. I decided to not use the Orlando library again. Once I moved here I worked in the library for 2 years. Well, my office was in the public library but I didn't work for them specifically. I used them all the time but now I don't have time to read anything other than a textbook.