My career/job
 

About a year and a half ago, I was laid off from my ceramics research job that I had been doing for over 10 years by that point. Unfortunately, ceramics research is a very niche thing and finding more work in that field was not likely to happen again anytime soon. Research jobs in general, at the time, seemed to be pretty difficult to acquire, presumably for a lot of the same reasons I lost my job in the first place (research funding cuts by our Great Leader and his administration.)

To make ends meet, after my savings started to run dry and I had no income, I started donating plasma regularly. I was making close to $400/month from that, which was better than having $0/month income, but it wasn't sustainable long-term and was only a solution until I found another job.

Incidentally, I decided somewhat randomly to apply to work in the lab portion of the plasma donation center and ended up getting the job. It isn't as nice of a job as my last job, and requires far more actual work. Rather than sitting at a desk surfing the internet all day like I used to, I bust my ass non stop now.

I've been at this job for less than 6 months now, but my hard work has been paying off. Since I got hired to work in the lab, they decided to cross train me as a support technician on the floor (basically a junior Phlebotomist position, where I set up the plasma collection machines and disconnect donors when they've finished the donation process) and then a couple of months later decided to promote me to Phlebotomist. I only just started my training for that position about two weeks ago, and just yesterday I got two promotions in the same day. They decided to make me a trainer in the lab, and then shortly after that they decided to make me a trainer on the floor to train new support technicians. At the moment, I'm now one of three people who is a trainer in multiple areas, and the other two have been at this place for many years (one for 8 years and one for 23 years).

As for where I'll go from here, I'm not really sure. Being a trainer enables me to potentially travel to new centers and help train new staff which could be a lot of fun as I'd get paid to go travel around the country. It's also very likely that I won't simply be a trainer for long. The aforementioned trainer who has been there for 23 years (and has been in and out of management a few times in that period) seems to strongly think that they are grooming me for management, and based on how fast I'm rising compared to my peers I'm inclined to agree.

The new job environment was such a drastic shift for me. My last job was a largely male dominated environment where most of those males were nerdy social retards. The environment I work in now is largely female dominated, and it's a very social environment that requires near constant interaction with donors and coworkers. I've come to learn that I actually really enjoy working with women, and I also really enjoy working in a medical sort of environment, so I'm attempting to wait until I've been with the company for a year and then start nursing school at that point, since my employer will pay for it. So maybe I'll be a nurse soon, ideally a travel nurse. My goal is to work with babies because babies don't talk.

What is new in your careers or jobs?

Of course, babies not talking also makes figuring out what's wrong more difficult...

As a nurse that isn't really my job, so it isn't really a concern. I would assume that babies are simple enough and exist in large enough quantities that it isn't very difficult to associate their symptoms/behaviors with some causes, though. I could probably even argue that babies can't lie, unlike adult patients, so you are less likely to be mislead by them not being truthful or actively hiding information from you.

Perhaps their overly concerned parents that accompany them will be happy to fill you in with the required (m/d)isinformation to make your prospective job a fun challenge.

Then again, if Dawkins is to be believed, IIRC, a parent is only a little more than half as concerned with the survival of their child as they are about their own, so with some luck, they'll give you a break. :jjang:

That actually sounds pretty cool. Well, your old job.

I've been able to live off of making music/compositions and selling them for around a year now. In said time I have also been working on my own album and have tens of songs I am working to have sent to various producers to sell to their clients.

I currently work for an international bank, breaking into their web applications, mobile apps, ATMs, network infrastructure and in-house developed solutions. It's fun at times.

Out of curiosity, how did you end up in that job? I know that for a while you were hacking businesses/websites and attempting to find clients that way. Is this something that came from that?

Right, your job isn't to determine the cause of whatever has them in the hospital, but there is secondary stuff that you would need to respond to and it's harder when the patient just cries and can't tell you that they have a headache or that thier arm is numb or whatever.

I was working as a contractor basically being a one man SOC within the NOC, mitigating DDoS attacks and other network security shit. I like to do more web based stuff so after being there a year or so I updated my resume and my LinkedIn.

Someone contacted me for my current position from my LinkedIn profile, I did a phone interview and they hired me as a contractor from that. About a year later I was hired on full time.