What do you do?

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Most of us have a pretty decent idea about what others around here do for fun, but what about for work? What pays your internet bill?

For myself, I fix looms.

Dornier rapier jet and jacquard looms to be precise. In essence, I spend eight hours a day walking around with tools in my back pockets and grease and dust all over my clothes. Anything that the loom operators can't deal with, I deal with. Sometimes that can be a problem as simple as turning the power off and on, but other times (and it's mostly the 'other times') I end up on the floor under a loom laying in dust/crud/grease/oil or I get to climb up to the top of the Jacquard gantries and stick most of my upper body into a giant weaving computer that's about the size of a compact car.

I do enjoy it though, as every day I'm doing something different. It can get a little frustrating though, if a problem persists despite the 72.77 things you've done to try and fix it. I haven't graduated to throwing tools, but I have thrown a few temper tantrums which ended with a kick. Mostly it's just a lot of cussing and yelling.

And here's a video of a jacquard loom to put a face to the green beasties I play with every day :)

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I won't get into completely explaining how these things work unless people are really interested, except to say that the loom in the video is using an over and under warp system, which we no longer do at my company. It was too much of a pain in the ass, frankly.



Now. What do you do?

[Wyl Staedtler]

I don't work!

... for now, at least.^_^; I'm on hiatus but when I do behave like a normal, functioning member of adult society, I work for a veterinarian doing (mostly) surgical and anesthetic procedures. When I still lived on Oahu near the big cities where there were VCA's, I specialized in ER and rehabilitation. We're just too small for nice things like that out here though. :(

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a266/lizmclellan/puppy.jpg

In order to put myself through school, I became a licensed massage therapist. My credits are current but I don't practice beyond doing it now and again for a few friends. It's a competitive field out here with all the resorts - no lack of sweaty tourists with money, that's for sure. ;)


eta: I suppose I also kind of work for my dad? He does international building work and all of us help network clients and arrange contract negotiations although none of us actually do on-site work besides padre. Family biz, yo. (It doesn't pay well)

[Sanis Prent]

I'm a banker. I crush the dreams of the common man while stacking paper to the ceiling. Did I mention I'm a finance major and Jewish, and get a +10 modifier to my banking skills?

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In fact, Ronnie van Zant wrote this song for me specifically.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I don't know yet! I am starting a new job on Monday with the National Health Service :)

Previously, I was working for the governmental department for work and pensions, trying to reduce levels of unemployment. Mostly what I did was answer customer queries, manage the time and paperwork of more senior members of staff, order all the office stationary and generally hold the place together.

[Miranda Tarkin]

Most of you know I am a Registered Nurse and I work here:

http://www.alexianbrothershealth.org/services/abmc/index.aspx

I work on an Medical/Oncology unit and wouldn't change it for anything... though there are times you wonder, why the hell did I become a nurse XD I can't go into details, but some days are haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard. Rutabaga can attest to that :)

[Park Kraken]

I started work again a few months ago as a Security Officer, 3rd Shift. Well, technically it's 3x3rd shifts and 1x2nd shift. In addition to pulling normal routines I also check the temp on reefer box trucks and do a few things to try and fix them if it's not working properly.

[Rutabaga]

Most of you know I am a Registered Nurse and I work here:

http://www.alexianbrothershealth.org/services/abmc/index.aspx

I work on an Medical/Oncology unit and wouldn't change it for anything... though there are times you wonder, why the hell did I become a nurse XD I can't go into details, but some days are haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard. Rutabaga can attest to that :)

Absolutely positively :D. People always ask me if I like my job, and my stock answer is that it depends on what day you ask me O_o.

I've done a bunch of different things during my nursing career, but what I've been doing for the last 5 years is working as the intake coordinator for a local extended care center. My main job is doing rounds at the main hospital each morning and selecting patients for admission. I then prepare their paperwork and do the actual admission. We take easy patients, like people who've had knee or hip replacements, but we're also the one facility in town that takes really sick, complex people (trachs, wound vacs, radiation and chemo, etc.). We can have slow days, and then we can have horrendously busy days. I'm also on a managerial level, so I supervise a few people.

Perhaps the biggest perk of the job is that it's a regular Monday-Friday job, so I get every weekend and holiday off :eee.

[Miranda Tarkin]

Eventually I will have that job Rutabaga! lol it isn't horrible. Five days a week for me with every other weekend and holiday off :)

[The Original BuffJedi]

I barber, landlord, act,occasionally personal train....I'm allergic to work so I refuse to do any :)

[Sanis Prent]

Most of you know I am a Registered Nurse and I work here:

http://www.alexianbrothershealth.org/services/abmc/index.aspx

I work on an Medical/Oncology unit and wouldn't change it for anything... though there are times you wonder, why the hell did I become a nurse XD I can't go into details, but some days are haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard. Rutabaga can attest to that :)

You, my mom, and my sis all have the same job, but I'm sure I've already talked to you about it.

I've been around oncology for like 20 years, it seems like I grew up hearing about it all. I do not envy what y'all do at all, and I have no idea how you do it honestly.

[Nathanial K'cansce]

Quality Engineer.

Quality Control + Quality Assurance + being on call 24/7. huzzah.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

SAHM checking in.

No money, but the work is rewarding, especially if you enjoy celebrating a little person holding up one finger and saying "One!" with sloppy kisses.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Learning new stuff for the next month :eee

Instead of rapier jet looms, I'm learning how to fix projectile looms. Tons more moving parts, and vastly more grease and oil to get covered in. Charley likes to tell folks the potential 'horror stories' he hears from me about these things, hehe.

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[Lieutenant William O'Hara]

It has the word "projectile" in, and is thus more badass. B)

I am a Reporting Analyst for these guys (http://www.cokecce.com/pages/homeContent.asp), as a lot of you possibly already know. It's only maternity cover at the moment (long story), so we'll see what happens come October.

I'm part of the Business Process team, which is part of Procurement. The Procurement team doesn't do the actual buying: their job is to negotiate the best deals and contracts for what is bought - consolodating suppliers, negotiating bulk discounts, and all that jazz - to either generate Savings (making what we buy cost less) or Avoidance (not buying things we don't need to buy). My job is to take the spend numbers from a half-dozen different systems, smush them all together, and turn them into meaningful reports to track how much spend we have on particular things, how much of that is under a contract, how much of that is with our preferred suppliers, etc. I also do a bit of database admin work, website maintainance, and order the financial version of a background check as and when needed.

In theory it's fairly routine, but anyone who knows me will know that I like to fiddle with things, so over the six months I've been there I've been overhauling some of the clunky old methods for reporting, building new databases, and stuff like that. We recently (well, in October) took over the Norway and Sweden franchises, so my next big challenge is to convert their spend data (on a different system) into a format that will plug into everything I've built so far.

Unfortunately, my line manager went and got herself pregnant, and they're not going to bother hiring maternity cover for her, so I've got to do her job as well for the next four months. :uhoh

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

We have a coke bottling/distribution center here in Tuscaloosa, about five minutes away from my work ^_^

Now you gotta finagle some way to get sent out here for 'business' purposes :D

[Ilias Nytrau]

I'm a student of accounting, wee-ha!... as of this coming September.

In the off-season, which is right now... well, at present I work at a little lebanese joint. Or lesbianese, if you ask a certain Zereth. :rolleyes

[Pierce Tondry]

Unfortunately, my line manager went and got herself pregnant, and they're not going to bother hiring maternity cover for her, so I've got to do her job as well for the next four months. :uhoh

Curse those women with their kids! Sure am glad we don't have any of them 'round here!

It's occurred to me that I never discussed what I do for a living. I will fix this now.

I work for the Virginia Department of Taxation in the Customer Contact Center. I'm a Tax Specialist/Administrative Analyst, which is a new position as of January. It's higher on the totem pole than the Customer Service Representative position that our main workforce fills. Regular CSRs are the ones who answer the phones when you call with a Virginia income tax question (I used to be this). I'm now the guy those questions go to when both the initial rep and their team lead/supervisor doesn't know the answer. In addition, I draft topical e-mail content for our e-Subscription service, work with new hires to help them learn tax material they need to know, and I frequently liase with other parts of the agency on this or that project that they're trying to get going. I specialize in situations regarding returned refund checks, Virginia Fixed-Date Conformity issues (and thus, conformity to federal tax law in general), and Net Operating Loss for individual taxpayers.

I've been told that at some future point, I'll be helping with legislative impact analysis (how much passage of a particular law or bill will impact the contact center in terms of work hours). I'm assuming that will begin in August when the Virginia General Assembly goes back in session.

The Beatles wrote this song for me:

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[Lieutenant William O'Hara]

We have a coke bottling/distribution center here in Tuscaloosa, about five minutes away from my work ^_^

Now you gotta finagle some way to get sent out here for 'business' purposes :D

Unfortunately, "Coke" isn't one big company. Coca-Cola Enterprises is a bottler that owns the franchise for Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemborg, Norway, and Sweden. We buy the concentrate from the Coca-Cola Company, mix it and carbonate it in one of our bottling plants, and then distribute. (We also distribute in Monaco, but have no facilities there) We also bottle a bunch of other products, some of which are Coke company, and some of which are EU-specific. We bottle Dr Pepper, Oasis, Minute Maid, Capri Sun, Monster, Relentless, Appletiser/Fruitiser and a bunch of others in Europe for example, which aren't necessarily owned/bottled by Coca-Cola in the US.

CCE used to be the North American bottler, so we may have previously run the plant in Tuscaloosa. However, we sold our North America plants to the Coca-Cola Company for a truckload of money, and used some of the proceeds to buy the Norway / Sweden franchises.

We still have our corporate head office in Atlanta, but I don't get to go out there (though my sister was there two weeks ago). I am flying out to Paris on Thursday though, and to Brussels in June. ;)



...I've never been on a plane before. :uhoh

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

It wouldn't surprise me if CCE ran the T-town extension. And if you ever do find yourself being sent to ATL, let me know! It's only three hours away, and Charley and I can treat you to some chicken and waffles ;)

[Xavier Synik]

I don't see a post by me before this post was revived... So...

I'm in transition.

Currently, I am finishing as an event coordinator, focusing more on the logistics side of things. I also do the financial books for the company, which is what I am pretty much focused on right now. Also do other odds and ends that they figured out I knew how to do, like working with Adobe on various items...

In September though I am heading back to school to get my B. Ed. So hopefully in a year and a half I shall be teaching somewhere.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Somehow I've ended up being the person who advises doctors, dentists, nurses etc about their pensions :uhoh

[Peter McCoy]

I currently work for Virgin Media as a Broadband Technical Support Agent. Well that's what I actually do. But I'm not classed as a technical support agent - I'm classed as a Customer Services Representative just so they can get away with paying me £4000 less than they should as industry standard. This is despite the fact that if I get a call that requires the hand of a Customer Services Representative, I have no choice but to transfer to that department. Similarly, if an agent in Customer Services has a technical/fault-related call, they transfer to me - how does that make me Customer Services then!?

Anyway, I'm also not actually employed by Virgin Media. Virgin Media have a contract with IBM who manage the accout and tend to all the broadband-related things. They in turn have a contract with Adecco, a worldwide recruitment agency who in turn employ me. But to customers, I work for Virgin Media. And if a customer asks 'Is that tech support?' my answer is Yes.

The actual work is enjoyable. Especially when you get a fault on the computer that you haven't seen before - something to sink your teeth into. I had a call not long ago where a customer tried to sue a particular function on his email client with a particular email that just would not work - but that function would work for other emails, and that email would send with other functions. And the issue only occured when he tried to send it to the email address we provide. 2 hours long, in the end we cracked it, and I really enjoyed the call. The only problem with this usually is that we have calltime targets to meet. If your calltimes are particularly high, you're pulled up about it. But if you rush the call, the quality of it suffers, and you get pulled up. The company seem to think you can have it both ways but in reality, given the nature of the majority of our calls, this does not work. You get long calls and quick calls so the average is supposed to work out below the threshhold time of 10.5 minutes. Or at least the powers that be (who don't actually take any calls) think it should. In reality, 85% of calls now are wireless connectivity issues that can take on average 20 minutes to resolve - longer with customers who have zero technical capabilities or understanding of computers. The majority of quick calls no longer exist such as email password resets - customers can sort this out online themselves so we rarely get such calls.

Further frustrations come from the fact that our call center in Liverpool is the flagship Broadband Faults center - any new systems are trialed here before being rolled out to the other sites, and there's a priority line through to us for Customer Relations when they have an escalated situation and the customer is fed up with speaking to our offshore agents in India, or has calle din multiple times with no resolution - so we're the ones who are called upon when it still ain't fixed. But surely we're incapable of such an escalated situation!? We're just Customer Services - what can we fix!?

Big things are in the works right now since our union, the Communication Workers Union, just got official recognition by our employer, and the major campaign for pay rises is in full assault. The last meeting the union had with our employers had the outcome of 'Yeah, no payrise again, sorry. Next meeting in 3 months' as usual. So now there's plans to really make them shit themselves, starting with a 'Work to Rule' campaign, where we do no overtime, and instead of arriving 15 minutes before the start of our shift to get logged on (systems very slow) we arrive on time and then start to clean the desk since we hotdesk - so we'll make sure the desk is wiped down, the chair is okay, the screen is the right distance away for our eyes, the right height for the screen and the chair, the keyboard is wiped down etc - so we'll probably be in a position to take our first call 15 minutes into the shift rather than at the start. They've relied on our compliance and good nature for too long and given nothing in return, so it's about bloody time something like this was done.

The absolute minimum payrise demand center wide will be £1000. So I'll get at least that but probably more given my current skillset - assuming it works and they cave which, according to my Team Leader who is also the Union Co-ordinator, they will since they won't be able to cope with no overtime offers etc.

My current plan is to do a Physics degree via the Open University, then do a years teacher training and become a Physics teacher - A-Level or higher since I wouldn't like teaching any younger - plus the subject matter would be more stimulating at A-Level or higher. It'll be hard work, but worth it in the end.

[Flux]

I work overnight as a grocery clerk. I'm the man who puts more product in the shelves, makes 'em look presentable, and keeps count of how much product we have beyond what goes in the shelf. In a pinch, I also set up product displays, take out trash, clean, and bag groceries.

[Park Kraken]

I thought for a second that Dornier was the same company that built the WW2 German Bombers, but nope it appears to be a different company. They're both German, and namied Dornier, but they do different things. Which would've made an odd transition from airplanes into textile machines. :lol

[Karl Valten]

Most of my bills are paid using student loans and the occasional parental donation. :(

Currently starting graduate school at the University of Colorado - Boulder and working co-op as a Systems Engineer doing satellite navigation + command and control for Raytheon. Primary client is the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy.