What do you guys do for a living?

I'm happily retired! But up until this year, I was in the field of real estate market research. I did feasibility studies and analysis for housing developers and state agencies, primarily for affordable rental housing developed using Sec. 42 of the IRS code (generally known as Low Income Housing Tax Credits). The feds required an independent 3rd party market study, and that's what I did....for nearly 30 years. The LIHTC program started in 1986, but prior to that I did studies for lenders, developers, state agencies and the feds.

Before that I was a housing planner, waitress, clerical worker (in the 70s when there were few jobs) and maid in a hotel in Vermont!

Degrees are BA & MA in Geography, and an MBA

BTW - my favorite professor in MBA school said "do what makes you happy; you can always go back to school and become an accountant". This particular prof had gone to university late in life, after leaving a production line job in a plate glass facility. He moved sheets of glass from one pile to another and always laughed that his job was eliminated just after he quit. He just missed being replaced by suction cups!!

I'm 29 and I'm a weather forecaster .

I currently work on an RAF base, providing forecasts for the military and local area and giving weather briefings to the pilots before they fly their sorties.

It's actually a really cool job (apart from the day and night shifts - we're open 24/7, 365 days) - I get to talk to pilots who are on base, in the air, or even abroad, and sometimes they let me fly in the planes too . In the summer I brief the Red Arrows for their public displays, which is pretty cool. Although, sometimes pilots will just appear in the office unannounced and ask for a forecast for a trip to Canada or Afghanistan or somewhere the next day, and you have to give them a brief right there with no notice or prep time at all!

The job also gives you the opportunity to travel and work on various RAF bases abroad. Next year, I'm going to be living in the Falklands for 5 months and in 2014, on Ascension Island in the middle of the Atlantic for 3 months .

I didn't originally go to university to become a meteorologist; I was going to be a geophysicist, but then I couldn't get a job in geophysics, so ended up as a weather forecaster instead.

I spent 6 years at university in total: I have an MPhys degree in Theoretical Physics (Master in Physics - a 4-year undergraduate 'masters' degree, during which I spent a year studying physics in the US) and an MSc by Research in the Science of Natural Hazards (specialising in Seismology/Geophysics).

I did move to the US on a student visa in 2008 to study for a PhD in Geodynamical Modelling, but I wasn't happy with the research or with being so far from my family and friends, so I moved back home after 8 months and started looking for jobs.

The last few weeks I've been doing a placement in one of the scientific research teams at HQ, which is basically just computer programming (using data from the Met Office supercomputer global models). My original plan was to try to move into scientific research after a few years of forecasting, but actually I've been enjoying forecasting much more, so I'm going to keep forecasting for now... you never know, I might even end up as a BBC weather presenter one day .

ksand24, that's hawt.

Um, said with respect tho...

Like, that is a smokin' hawt career.

I work in mortgage securities for a bank.  
Yes, it really is that boring.
But I'm just grateful to have a job at this stage, after redundancy from my 'real' job (like a career job) in Nov 2009, and struggling to even find temp work for a long time afterward.

Tracey -
You work in Mortgage Securities, as in mortgage-backed securities? As in the ones that have been singled out as the culprit for economic turmoil in 2008, and are partly responsible for the present global economic crisis?

Or are Mortgage Securities something different from mortgage-backed securities?

I am the proud owner of a useless Bachelor's degree, got halfway through a Juris Doctrate degree (law school) and quit because it was not the direction I wanted to take with my life. On my path to figuring out what I wanted to be when I grew up I did the married with children thing taking on jobs here and there to bring in some extra money. We ended up here in the UK just over four years ago when my British husband wanted to come back to the UK.

As my kids were a bit older at the time of the big move over, I took any job I could get when I first landed and ended up in retail. Every day I spent in that field drained a little bit more of my soul. One day I had enough,  decided to grab life by the horns and show it who was boss. I ended up in a civil servant role in Legal Aid that utilizes all the blood, sweat and tears spilled in law school. Almost two years on and I still freaking love my job! I have never experienced that before! Every now and then I even toy with the idea of finishing my law degree. (but with the change in uni fees I think hmmm, maybe not.)

ksand24, that's hawt.

Um, said with respect tho...

Like, that is a smokin' hawt career.

Word.

How can one career contain so much awesome?

Wow, all of you have such fabulous careers, and almost all of you are much younger than I. Kudos to all of you for having found something you love while you're still young.

For most of my life, I've been a self-employed CV writer. I kind of fell into it as a graduate student working at a university. I've also done copywriting, edited books, manuals, websites, etc., created marketing materials, basically provided writing assistance/proofreading to individuals, other self-employed people, and companies small and large.

My most interesting (and heartbreaking) assignment was proofreading psychological reports for a therapeutic foster care agency. Some of the things I read have haunted me for years.

All in all, I really enjoyed what I did. I got to meet a lot of interesting people from all walks of life, and every assignment was different.

My most interesting (and heartbreaking) assignment was proofreading psychological reports for a therapeutic foster care agency.

Fallgal, I have done that too. And I will never forget it.

 

I work retail in a shop. I was also doing contract SEO copywritting but I had to quit when I got pregnant as looking at a computer screen made me nauseous. (I feel better now, but they hired someone else to work in office. Also, the money was okay but the work was pretty much the opposite of exciting.)

Wow, all of you have such fabulous careers

Errrmmm... not all of us.   I *did* have a fab career that I loved for a few short years, but have been forced (by redundancy, and the poor job market/economy) into basically an entry-level bank job, with corresponding rubbish pay.  But for someone with only a high-school education, I could be a lot worse off!  Thankfully, the job I've got to do to get money doesn't define me, and i can forget about it once I walk out the door and into the pub with my friends!  

I worked in Law Enforcement up until July of this year and moved here.

I have *no* idea of what I am going to do for work here. And it's freaking me out. Part of me wants to open my own shop selling equipment for horses and riders. But there are many out there so I just don't know. It's what I've always dreamed of doing though.

But for now, at 43 I am just hoping to find something to get me started here. And it's seriously freaking me out.

Well, my life has always been my family. I've never had a "career" . Plenty of jobs though    Up until moving here, I drove a school bus. I absolutely adored my job. I loved my coworkers and all the children I drove. Two years ago, I became disabled due to my RA and qualified for disability through social security. I was still able to work a few hours a week though so I did because as I said, I LOVED my job.
Now being here, I'm home every day. Part of me loves being home,but a bigger part of me misses working. I miss the interaction with people and I really miss my bus and my co-workers.

Meghan2828, you might have thought of this already, but they seem to need Parole Officers in the UK, and, you would be considered a very good candidate for a Youth Programme Manager! Ya know, working with 'troubled teens' and all that jazz. Maybe look into that? If I can think of anything else, i will let you know!

Tracey - I can relate. The economy is really bad. I loved being a librarian, and they have closed most public libraries, and in private ones, they are digitising everything and hiring paraprofessionals, rather than actual librarians, to work in them, in order to pay less wages. Anyway, to me, your job sounds rather hard. Because of the historical specifics attached to it. But, good on ya for getting something steady in this economy! It ain't easy!

Tracey - I can relate. The economy is really bad. I loved being a librarian, and they have closed most public libraries, and in private ones, they are digitising everything and hiring paraprofessionals, rather than actual librarians, to work in them, in order to pay less wages. Anyway, to me, your job sounds rather hard. Because of the historical specifics attached to it. But, good on ya for getting something steady in this economy! It ain't easy!

Hi- not sure what you meant about 'historical specifics'.  You might have picked up an erroneous idea of what my job is?