Happy Birthday! / Daily Prophet / Jobs and Work

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Alex dracos_boyfriend and Suzanne Rainy_Lilac had birthdays, and I 
missed them! People whom I actually know (well, know on HPfGU). 
Here's wishing that Draco and Sirius, respectively, gave them good 
birthday parties.

David Frankis Stein, Pip!Squeak: I *LOVE* the Daily Prophet articles.

Cindy C. wrote:

<< Does *anyone* like their job? What kind of job is it, and why do 
you like it? >>

Well, my job is perfect, but I can't advise anyone else to go into 
this field, because my job is obsolete and will be gone in a year or 
two. The obsolete job in question is as a COBOL pgmmer at MTA ... 
This kind of programming is fun, like some people have fun solving 
crossword puzzles (altho' I generally find crossword puzzles too 
frustratingly difficult) AND I like feeling that I'm solving real 
problems to help real people to do their jobs. Also, the pay is good 
and the ethics are okay.

I've been supporting the Material Management System for *counts on 
fingers* for 17 years. By now I'm deeply familiar with the software 
(and not totally ignorant of the business), I know almost all the 
people, and all the people (down here at the level of people who do 
the work, not top management *thank gods*) know me. I'm on call 24/7 
but the system is so old that most of the bugs have been fixed so 
it's pretty stable so I rarely get called. I don't have to meet many 
strangers and I don't have sell myself or my product: "networking" 
and "marketting" are two of the things I hate most. The people with 
whom I work all have an excessively high opinion of me, much better 
than I deserve, and I like the positive strokes. Also everyone holds 
their tongues about me *ignoring* the dress code, refusing to write 
formal memoes/documents (my boss made an arrangement: I write the 
facts and recommendations and she adds the formality), leaving early 
on boring days, and being generally *weird*.

(And they intend to keep me to support the new Oracle/AIX system 
we're installing to replace the old Material Management System and 
Vehicle Maintenance System and also cover a number of areas which 
have never had any software except if they faked something up with 
Excel spreadsheets. Installing the new system is exciting, but 
personally, I expect that supporting the new system will be 
excessively boring, and I won't be exceptionally good at it, and 
therefore lower management will not be able to save me from being 
fired by top management for dressing badly or being rude.)
 
There is so little travel in this job (once every five or ten or 
fifteen years, I guess) that it is viewed as a treat rather than as a 
burden, so I have never yet had a problem seeing to it that someone 
else does the travelling.

And despite all that, I dream of winning multi-millions of dollars in 
the lottery (for which I don't buy tickets) so I could quit the job 
and dedicate ALL my time to doing whatever I want, starting with 
sleeping twelve hours a day, and then reading a great deal of HP 
fanfic for which I currently have no time. And be freed from the daily 
commute, which takes too damn long and is too damn crowded and for 
years has made my knees hurt and lately is making my arse hurt, too.  

Amy Z wrote:

<< I wonder what would happen, Cindy, if you applied for one of 
those interesting, overly-demanding jobs and informed them, during 
the interview, that you plan to work an average of 40 hours a week 
in order to take care of yourself, sustain a healthy family life, 
and Maybe they wouldn't hire you; or maybe they'd respect it. (Most 
likely they would hire you and then try to pressure you into working 
60 hours/week <g>. Good luck!) >>

Somewhere I got the impression that the "mommy track" in law firms 
is for two mommies who happen to both be well-qualified lawyers to 
team up to share one job, so each one only has to work 40 hours a 
week, but each only gets half the pay and half the benefits and no 
chance of making partner.

Cindy wrote:

<<counting a few teachers, an architect and a minister among the 
group, but figuring there must be other occupations out there >>

>From the posts before the one I just snipped: Chase_Wildstar likes 
being a Tool and Die maker. Shanna slstich likes being a guide dog 
trainer. Naama likes working at a used book store. Anna Dradamsapple 
likes being a Medical Technologist AND says the pay isn't bad.

Barb wrote:

<< I didn't figure out what I wanted to be when I grow up until I was 
34. >>

I'm 45 and only about one year ago did I figure out what I want to 
be when I grow up: RETIRED! Actually, there should be a different 
word, as NOW I am TIRED, and I hope to get some rest and become 
de-tired-ized.

Phyllis "erisedstraeh2002" wrote:

<< There's a great book by Richard Nelson Bolles entitled "What Color 
is Your Parachute?" >>

Arrghhh! I hate that book! Everyone always recommends it, so I 
dutifully bought and read a copy (it was skinny in those days) when 
I dropped out of college in 1977. The book made me despair of EVER 
being able to catch any job, so I was very relieved that my mum paid 
for me to take a COBOL pgmming course at Santa Monica College, whose 
job placement office listed job openings, one of which actually hired 
me.

Fifteen or twenty years ago, I read the book again (it was very thick 
by then) and once again it plunged me into despair. The descriptions 
of all the constant labor and drudgery and networking and marketting 
that must be done in order to catch a job made me believe that I would 
NEVER get a job ... even tho' I was already on my fourth job and had 
received a good annual review.