skoolmunkee
I'm an e-learning educational designer at a university, which means I help develop online and hybrid programmes/courses. It's a bother to explain and would be boring. I can't say I like everything about it, but I get to work from home most of the time (I go in once or twice a week), they've kitted me out with a laptop, mobile phone etc., I earn a pension (of which I hope to see some when I retire, considering I probably won't still be in England at the time), make enough to live easily as a single person, get 40 days holiday a year and sometimes even get things like confernces and travel paid for. (Probably less and less now that the educational budget squeeze is tightening.) But if it makes anyone feel better I am in my 30s and had to get a master's and move to a whole other country for it.

Saw that and immediately thought about how much everyone I know (except one English teacher) hates that program. Seriously. up until this semester, I haven't had to use it for anything really, well I still don't. ;P

What program? I dunno what you mean by ‘you haven’t had to use it for anything.' e-learning isn't a piece of software or something. It's just a generic term for, nowadays, technology-enhanced learning. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Blackboard or WebCT (which is what I'm assuming you meant, the VLE that most schools use to house their online materials/access).

Actually, not to single you out but that kind of response is something we get a lot. Oh e-learning, pfft, I don't use The Blackboard or that stuff! Online education isn't real/good! I think people just don't get it completely, you can use e-learning tools and stuff even if everything you do is face to face in a classroom. Also people think we are techy and our job is to program Flash or something when it's completely the opposite, we are about learning designs and outcomes alignment and other terms that don't mean a lot to people who aren't teachers.

Sorry, I was talking about the Blackboard software. I apologize if I made you mad or stepped on your toes. I haven't thought about e-learning as a generic term and I think a lot of the people that have said that have had to put up with Blackboard's piece of crap ware that can't interface with browsers to save its life. I have no problem with using a computer and software as a learning aid. I'm a Comp. Sci. major and may even wind up working on things like that.

Anyway, sorry for hijacking the thread. I just needed to apologize about that.

I work as an artist for a fairly large entertainment company. I love the job very much, even though it often results in unpaid overtime as projects come to a close. It's the reason my comic update schedule is so crummy, but the job's gotta come first.

Hawk
I work as an artist for a fairly large entertainment company. I love the job very much, even though it often results in unpaid overtime as projects come to a close. It's the reason my comic update schedule is so crummy, but the job's gotta come first.

I want your job.

Salsa
Sorry, I was talking about the Blackboard software. I apologize if I made you mad or stepped on your toes.

Oh no, you didn't make me mad :] Sorry if I gave that impression! I guess it was just me griping about this reoccuring problem with people I work with not even understanding what I do. Sometimes they introduce me to others as ‘one of our technology people’ and stuff like that. It's infuriating when someone I've known for a year does that. Not when someone on a forum does!


Hawk does have a job a lot of people dream about. :]

skoolmunkee
What program? I dunno what you mean by ‘you haven’t had to use it for anything.' e-learning isn't a piece of software or something. It's just a generic term for, nowadays, technology-enhanced learning. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Blackboard or WebCT (which is what I'm assuming you meant, the VLE that most schools use to house their online materials/access).

Actually, not to single you out but that kind of response is something we get a lot. Oh e-learning, pfft, I don't use The Blackboard or that stuff! Online education isn't real/good! I think people just don't get it completely, you can use e-learning tools and stuff even if everything you do is face to face in a classroom. Also people think we are techy and our job is to program Flash or something when it's completely the opposite, we are about learning designs and outcomes alignment and other terms that don't mean a lot to people who aren't teachers.

I did ELearning. I can spell cat.

I studied some of that at uni… some tech stuff and heaps of academic whatsits; cognitive this, pedagogic that, learning outcomes… gahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

Enough to make my brain explode over and over and over. :(

I didn't even KNOW what pedagogic meant! One lecturer I had, by the name of Mark McMahon, was the kind of person that uses the phrase "paradigm shift" at least 5 times in every lecture (no exaggeration). He was full of jargony buzzwords that he would spew forth repeatedly and never explain what they were supposed to mean, and because it was one buzzword after another there was not context from which to work them out.
I hated classes with him.


So, I have an inkling into what Skool does and I'm humbled. It's not a job I could do.

If it makes you feel better I don't say things like ‘paradigm’ (although stuff like that is rampant at conferences)

It's not so bad. There's a type of system or logic to it. :] You just have to understand the theory mostly.


I'm not jealous of you folks with art or design jobs. I think those things are fun, but it wouldn't be fun to have to do them all day every day. Don't you ever just get tired of doing it? Maybe it's just as hard to force yourself to do that sometimes as it is anyone to force themselves to do work when they aren't into it…

skoolmunkee
I'm not jealous of you folks with art or design jobs. I think those things are fun, but it wouldn't be fun to have to do them all day every day. Don't you ever just get tired of doing it? Maybe it's just as hard to force yourself to do that sometimes as it is anyone to force themselves to do work when they aren't into it…

Right now I'm doing okay and can somehow manage to come home from work and spend the rest of the evening doing the same things I did at work. But it might be worth asking me again in ten or fifteen years.

I was a lifeguard for six years. Ever since then, I can't stand swimming. I hate it.

skoolmunkee
It's not so bad. There's a type of system or logic to it. :] You just have to understand the theory mostly.

The different between objectives and outcomes @_@

Hawk
Right now I'm doing okay and can somehow manage to come home from work and spend the rest of the evening doing the same things I did at work. But it might be worth asking me again in ten or fifteen years.

That just makes it worse! >.:)

I use to work at a coffee shop as the pastry baker. Do-nuts, turnovers, the whole bit.
It shut down recently and I'm not ashamed to be currently on E.I. because I earned it as a long-tenured worker.
I'm hoping to get back into the swing in the new year though.
Damn this economy. It can make Dole-receivers out of the best of us! :mad:

If I worked around pastries I would die of heart failure at 30.

skoolmunkee
If I worked around pastries I would die of heart failure at 30.

I would fall in love.

I am currently surviving of off temp jobs. Will likely get one next Christmas to pay for a new hard drive and a couple more things that i need.

skoolmunkee
I'm not jealous of you folks with art or design jobs. I think those things are fun, but it wouldn't be fun to have to do them all day every day. Don't you ever just get tired of doing it? Maybe it's just as hard to force yourself to do that sometimes as it is anyone to force themselves to do work when they aren't into it…

It's not the art and design part of it that's tiring for me. It's the endless mailing, emailing, formatting, taxes, artist meets, client meetings, contracts, invoices, and so on, so forth. Spending 14 hours a day calling clients, reminding them that they still haven't paid you takes a toll. I spend most of my actual “work” time doing paperwork or trying to stay employed, so when I sit down and create the artwork is like eating cake on top of a dirigible that's floating through clouds made of happiness and cream filling. I don't even mind that as far as my clients are concerned, I'm never off the clock and they can call me at 11 pm to get me to do work either really. But again, like Hawk, ask me again in another 10-15 years when I'm in my mid-30's and we'll see.

I've actually updated my resume too as of the last month or so. Now I'm part-timing for a bakery as their graphic design department, doing the illustration thing part-time and finishing up school. I still occasionally put in a few hours at the school on weekends and whatnot, but I've pretty much got my filthy little paws in everything I can these days. Staying as busy as is humanly possible seems to be the best solution to keeping a job in this economy. It's not so much working hard to retain my job as doing it to create my job.

This question has come up a few times for me, as I'll often make comics of me at work. ;)

I work as a Superintendent of a Wastewater (Sewage) Treatment Facility. I'm exposed to just about every disease known to mankind every day. I have seen things and had things happen to me involving said sewage that I don't care to repeat or think about. Let's just say that when I come home and I tell my wife that I really need to hop in the shower, she doesn't question why haha. :P It's decent pay, and they also pay for retirement and health insurance, so I can't bitch too much. I work with a good bunch of guys though, who keep things lively and entertaining.

I dream of doing something one day with my artwork. I reaaalllly wish I had gone to college to do something with it :/ Ah well. I'm 28, still have my whole life ahead of me!

meemjar
I use to work at a coffee shop as the pastry baker. Do-nuts, turnovers, the whole bit.
It shut down recently and I'm not ashamed to be currently on E.I. because I earned it as a long-tenured worker.
I'm hoping to get back into the swing in the new year though.
Damn this economy. It can make Dole-receivers out of the best of us! :mad:

Nor should you be ashamed. There is a difference between claiming a benefit you have contributed to and living off the state your whole life and contributing nothing.

I have some paying illustration work coming up, low money but it is a start and could lead to more. fingers crossed.

I work for a local publishing company, editing/formatting manuscripts and designing book covers. I've also illustrated a good number of children's books for them as well.

I know no one has bothered to give a shit about this thread in like a month but I just got a new job and I was reading through all these other wacky jobs. (Someone was a psychic healer? Now THAT is a noteworthy occupation.)

Anyway, I work at the very top of a federal building downtown listening to boring phone calls, captioning every single word so that a supposedly hearing impaired person on the other end can read them.

It does get really boring but it's better than working at Gamestop all my life. Pays a lot better too. Plus, I get to eavesdrop on some pretty WEIRD fucking conversations sometimes. o.O

My current job, one could say, is going to a tech school. I lost my manufacturing job at the end of September. I paid a decent middle class income but I now know waaaay to much about golf balls and I don't even play golf! Through government assistance through my former company I have been granted funding for retraining and I'm also lucky enough to collect my unemployment the whole time. And again, very fortunately, my unemployment is enough to cover all of my living expenses.

Dm Jim

I'm a full time civil engineering student (been working on it forever…) but I also work at a water recycling facility as an intern (we take poo water to make kind of okay water). Its okay but the place is loaded with spiders…

roma
the place is loaded with spiders…

poo spiders? O_o

@Baconmoose- what's the weirdest one you've heard?

ozoneocean

roma
the place is loaded with spiders…

poo spiders? O_o

@Baconmoose- what's the weirdest one you've heard?

Well, I'm not allowed to disclose call content, due to the fact that it's a violation of privacy, but I will say this.

Another important rule at my job is that if I overhear someone talking about wanting to harm themselves, others, or do anything else illegal, I cannot do ANYTHING about it. I just repeat what they say, word for word, into a voice recognition program. Occasionally while doing this, my face looks like this: O__O;