What was the driving force when you selected your career?

For some it is money and they care less about what they do as long as the paycheck is there.

Some folks have a passion and never really thought about anything else.

Some folks never had a career and just subsisted on minimum means or bouncing from job to job.

Where do you fall?

do and make enough to support my family.. So, I have a job.. and it sucks... and I hate that America doesn't utilize its best potential to make a better, more enjoyable stay on this planet, but rather creates corporate cogs that meaninglessly push paper around.

My dad worked the corporate middle management grind for years until the kids were out.

He finally got a job, 30 years after he graduated from college, that utilizes his degree and now he is out zipping around and loving it all.

Edit - Cubicles scare me and it was enough to let me know I never wanted that.

*shudder*

back here if you feel alone in your views.

It's taunting me..

I have a degree in Marine Science and Environmental Science... I never wanted to get married or have the kids and a house or a dog.. I wanted to be on the sea 6 mos at a time.. However, love surprised me and kids are wonderful... So maybe one day, when they are grown... I'll have some time to do what I want.

my passion is music, and I've been able to make a living composing and arranging. Good thing, because I can't do anything else ha ha.......

I remember asking many people that question when I was in my late 20's because I had no idea what I wanted to "be".
This was before I knew that "being" and "doing" are sometimes different.

In the end, I fell into Social Work, simply because I had fought a hard battle to even GO to college, at the late age of 25.
I wanted to learn "stuff". And, as it works, after a couple of years in college, they make you choose a major,
there was a respected School of Social Work available, I was not good at math..therefore......


Originally, in the 70's, I work in Community Organizing, there were certainly enough issues to keep us busy.

Years later, I developed a passion for Addictions Treatment, and worked in that field for over 20 years, was very fulfilled doing it, tho the money slowly disappeared, first the government funding and then insurance funding.
Fortunately, I was always in the right place at the right time and never lacked for work.
Now, looking back, I would not change a thing, and have the satisfaction of knowing I did save some lives and did make positive changes in other people's lives.
Retirement income sucks, tho.

...when I got out of the service I was hired for the first job for which I applied. The critical question in the interview was "Do you play softball?"

Turned into a pretty decent career.

People would ask me what I wanted to be, and when they heard my answer, the reply was usually, "Girls are not lawyers, they are secretaries." I did what I always wanted to do and am now retired. I knew that if I did not accomplish that goal in my life, on the day of my death, that would be my dying regret. I wanted to defend people ~~ and I did. Bill Kunstler was my hero.

:hi:

The major choices open to women at the time were nurse, secretary, teacher. Nope, not for me. The only thing left was art. So I have happily spent most of my career doing one form of art or another. I traded money and security for happiness, and although in the economic times it is scary as hell, I wouldn't trade a single minute.

I have a little book somewhere--one of those scrapbook type things, two pages for each year of elementary school, with pockets where you can put your report cards and papers and photos. It had the usual topics: My Teacher, My Favorite Subject, etc., and "What I Want to Be When I Grow Up". There were two checklists--one for boys and one for girls. The girls' list had ONLY "nurse, secretary, teacher, and mommy". Oh yeah--might have had "stewardess" in there as well. :puke:

I had started out at a community college.
they gave aptitude tests.


A girl got the pink paper test.
A boy got the blue paper test.

My pink test came back as "florist" "nurse" "secretary"
"florist"?????????????

I demanded they let me take the blue paper aptitude test.
Sure enough, different questions.
and the results?
"pilot" "lawyer" "doctor".

Same for IQ tests, they were slanted. I took the "boy" one, got a very very high score.
Now I wish I had taken the pink one, too. Would have been interesting.

Fortunately, this was in 1969. The 70's were peering around the corner and boy, did things change!!

:scared: :scared: :scared: :scared:

They want to drag us back to the days where women were kept barefoot, pregnant, in the home, could be beaten with no recourse, and of course never had an education.And did not vote.
think 1880.

Would have been a history major if there was any real chance to earn a living in it.

Went with a dual Computer Science/Finance degree and it's worked out well. The money has been great and I believe you can find interesting things in most professional careers. One upside to my career is that I travel a LOT, so I get to read at least a book per week. Over the last 25 years, I've read a library's worth of history.

I am a college graduate, but I never worked any job which required a college degree. In the early 1970s I was a professional student (went to school on the G.I. Bill--qualified because my dad was a 100% disabled vet), plus it kept me out of the Vietnam war.

I will not work a job that I do not like and all my working life I've been able to indulge myself in that. I've worked lots of different jobs, some paid well, some did not. I never had any passion for any job (to me that means I would work whether I was paid or not).

Currently I have been out of work for 7 months and have funds on hand to last for another 4 months. My expenses are so small that I can survive quite nicely on a very low paying job. In another 3 or 4 years I will retire and will get by quite nicely on that, small though it may be.

at 58 you would never have been drafted for the Vietnam war.

Yes, I could have been drafted for the Vietnam war. Fortunately, my draft lottery was a winner for me: #358.

The draft ended January 27, 1973.

I'm 58 and received a draft number but no one from my age group was drafted.

The fear of it was there. I had friends who had low draft numbers from the lotteries that enlisted in the National Guard because they were afraid they would be drafted.

Luckily I was talented enough to manage to find enough jobs in the field (writing and editing) to keep me employed most of my life. I did have my head turned by a couple of anthropology classes in college, but not enough to sway me from my creative writing major. And I did try to do the "practical thing" by becoming a teacher, but that lasted only one year. Nope, I was born a writer, and a writer I shall remain.

I guess after 20 years in the same field, it *could* be called a career. I have always worked in restaurants. There have been trips into retail-world, but the bulk of my working life has been waiting tables/catering with some management here and there. Sigh. I don't love it, don't want to do it, but in terms of $ per hour, waiting tables beats the other options I have... until my body can no longer do it.

And why didn't you pursue it?

and part of the problem. Due to family stuff, money issues, I had to leave college with an outstanding balance for tuition which kept me from being able to attend any other school for several years. (my transcript was held hostage until the ransom was paid)That is when I started waiting tables. I did finally pay the bill and had to start completely over at community college. I had just had my son, was working two jobs and took two classes a term for a long time. About the same time I was finishing my AA degree, I got promoted into management at the restaurant I was at, so finishing BA/BS degree was out due to scheduling/motherhood/money. I never really decided what I wanted to be when I grew up, I was busy reacting to the various flare ups in my life and scrambling to pay the bills... you know? Age 40 now, and armed only with an AA degree and very little experience outside of food service, the economy being what it is....I lost the management job back in 2008 because essentially I had a nervous breakdown. Outside of waiting tables, there just isn't anything out there for me. Now I am working with my dear friends helping them get their dream of restaurant ownership fulfilled (open 3 weeks now... yay us!)

I have puzzled for some time about what I WANT to do vs what will pay the bills vs mental health. It is a problem, and as yet, I am no closer to solving it. Once upon a time I really wanted to earn a Phd in history (to what end? no idea, teaching holds no appeal) but I gave up that quest a while back because of age, money, time. I have been trying to work out something, anything, I can do on my own, but again money is an issue. I have some ideas percolating, but until the restaurant I am at now picks up and I can squirrel some cash away, I am stuck. Sigh

restaurants until my body just couldn't take it anymore. At that point, I (sort of) got lucky. My children were grown, I met a wonderful man and remarried, and he supported me while I completed my degree....at age 53... in teaching, argh! I always wanted to be a teacher, and still do, but there are several hundred teachers being laid off this summer within a one hour driving range, and that is on top of those laid off last year. Now I substitute teach, which creates a below-poverty-level undependable income, less than what I earned in a restaurant: a lot less than I did in management, and even less than I earned as an hourly hand. And I still owe $20k for tuition. Only the Hand of God or pure dumb luck will get me a teaching job in this environment. I can't wait ten years for things to change; I am too old. By the way, my education degree is in social studies/early US history concentration........really worthless in the market....too many of us so don't go there.

But if you could somehow get into school now, you would still have time. Believe me, you are still young.

Wishing you the very best!

When I grew up in the 60s, women who intended to work usually became secretaries, teachers or nurses. I didn't want to do any of those subservient-to-men things.

I wanted to be a newspaper reporter like Lois Lane in the old Superman TV show. There were very few role models of working women on television in those days -- just housewives. Lucille Ball had all kinds of job schemes, but they always ended in chaos.

Several teachers told me I was a good writer, so I majored in English and worked in journalism for more than 25 years, followed by 7 years as a semi-technical marketing writer. Alas, the corporate world needs old journalists (especially ones that refuse to write corporate propaganda) about as much as a fish needs a bicycle, so I've been out of work for more than 2 years.

And his fathers and his fathers...
Served a four year apprenticeship to become a union sheetmetal worker. The pay was good, not to mention the pension and health benefits. That is till the economy turned sour.

My father always warned me that the trades can be feast and famine. Its been REAL dry since about 2003.

Always wanted to become a marine biologist, but the fear of huge student loans and debt in general steered me in a different direction.

...however, that did not pan out as well as I'd intended.

As far as the career I've been working in for 20 years, it was something that I found that I had an aptitude for while on the job and worked my way up.

from America, but that was some 20+ years ago. Guess what? My chosen "hot" profession, Health Information Management" was used to deny people the care needed and pushed up healthcare costs (LOL, coding for reimbursement, profit, and fraud). Instead, my initials appeared beneath or alongside the "honorable" doctors that spoke them into tape and digital recorders until off-shoring dried that up too. My degree is now worthless, and my long experience in specialized areas of practice ineligible for hire being "uncertified" and non-acute care acquired. of couse, I'm also 20+ years older, if you know what I mean. I'd need to re-take expensive education and a what-was a $200 certification test to become a coder for another few years of work, IF THEY'D ACTUALLY HIRE ME. Nevermind DH, his river is all DE-NILE and illusion, but at the moment, it's helping us to survive - until either of us get sick or in a wreck or take a tumble.

Elizabeth Warren's evaluation of the two-income trap about sums up my "real" life. No longer with job, home, or healthcare...what's to become of the remainder of my life--I just can't wait to find out--queue Mash theme. Just come and shoot us both - it would be kinder--a one-time expense for our kids before they tackle the national debt and the demise of their jobs too.

The back-office is dead, long live the Wal-Mart for the rest of you. :sarcasm:

Oh yeah, I forgot, the faith-based folks won't help because I'm no longer throwing it in their church pot and because, as they claimed: "You're too angry."

Can't imagine why they claimed that you have some anger issues...

Who/What is DH?

Either I got rocks in my head or rocks in my heart - either way - bitter end.

Consistent with Mazlow, we all need to survive over all other considerations.

Where we discover that we have a passion or a talent or an interest of intersection of these, we will take careers that harness these.

And, given the opportunity to, we all want to make a difference, to leave the world a better place.

:P

Our culture works against these last two, however, and conditions us to think that money is all that matters and that greed is good.

It didn't work on me. I'm lucky, it took years to get to it but I've got all three: survival, passion, and working to help others.

... others don't. In the end it is a choice anyone can make.

I was raised on space opera heroes and a family history of service.

I like money. Alot... but it wasn't the driving force in my career decision.

I'm much happier trucking through the desert looking for bad guys to shoot/have tea with than I would be selling doorknobs.

They sat me down around the time I turned 18 and said slide your ass up to that Ford plant and get with the program.

30 years later I was retired.

Glad I had that talk now.

Don

To paraphrase Thoreau:

"Most people lead lives of quiet desperation."

There was an option for the "oppressed masses"

Number 3 I think...

When this place gets sold, I'll focus on volunteering and studying philosophy. That would be my calling.

I've NEVER, even when living hand to mouth, had a job in an office. It would probably kill me.

All of jobs have been working for small businesses, my own business or my family business.

I had a useless degree in History...unless I wanted to teach 6th graders in Fresno or some other god-awful place. So, I stuck with the Postal Service, added on my 4 years military, and retired at 55.

I spent a large portion of my working career studiously avoiding work which is a highly overrated pastime.

I worked for 35 years as a legal secretary/paralegal and later self-employed as a legal transcriptionist. I enjoyed it a lot, but I just sort of fell into it when I moved to Alaska and needed a job. My dad was friends with a law firm partner through his church, and as "dumb luck" would have it, they needed a legal secretary trainee, and since I could type, I fit the bill.

I have a bachelor's degree in psychology with minors in sociology and English. I suppose it was relevant in some ways, but I certainly wasn't thinking "law" when I was going to school.

Lucked into an internship during my last two years of college and after college I've only had one employer. I like what I do. It pays okay and it is never boring. Each day is a different challenge. I feel fortunate.

And the money isn't great (just okay) - I could earn more per year but I don't feel the need. We are comfy enough and more wouldn't make our family filthy rich so what's the point?

but didn't go into engineering because I thought trains were obsolete.

My original major was astrophysics and my career plan was to be the next Albert Einstein, of course. Unfortunately, the only thing I ever mastered was the hair. Eventually I got really sick of school and just took the math major to be done with it. By the time I sorta flunked out of astrophysics I was a junior in college. So I went into math education and those courses kinda sucked and I wasn't doing well. They seemed pretty determined to discourage me from teaching, even though I always was a top math student. I did badly in those classes, which I still find to be kinda ironic. There I was an A student in almost every other subject. So then I take some courses to learn how to teach and I kinda fail (actually I think I got C's which felt a lot like failure to me). So there I am, able to learn most other subjects, but the people who are gonna teach me how to teach apparently cannot do it.

Ironically, I kinda had the same problem in that graduate school course in teaching that we were required to take.

but have sorta been bouncing from job to job ever since. First I went to grad school because I could not find a job. Then I opened my own store in a little town and had to work other jobs, where I could get them, to support it. Finally I gave that up and went looking for jobs in another little town where I bought a building. It's not a matter of me "selecting a career" but rather taking what I could get. I work as a janitor now because I applied for that job because I had experience in that line of work. Not something I really wanted to have experience in. I have applied for dozens of jobs at libraries, but have no experience in that field because I have never gotten one of the jobs I applied for. I've applied for dozens of jobs since I got the one I have now, including being passed over for promotion six times by my curent employer (but really, who's counting?)

Ultimately, my only choice (or selection) has been that I can either like it, or lump it. So I just keep lumping along like any other heffalump.

finances at home wouldn't allow it. Went to basic training 4 days after graduation, retired 28 years later.

During those 28 years got a wife, two daughters, and a degree.

Now, I'm happily retired with a house, the same wife and daughters, and five dogs (and the daughters don't live at home)

edited to add: high school was 1960.

The idea that those of us who are not college material, who have seen 30 years of our jobs offshored only to get another job paying less, that is eventually offshored - repeat ad nauseum - just willfully bounce from job to job is just a wee tad offensive.

... I think you have some unresolved issues that you should look at.

Mine was a statement of fact. Some folks don't have a "career" in the traditional sense but rather bounce from job to job. Also it has nothing to do with college.

We live in a world where hard workers are punished and ONLY investors are rewarded. It is a well substantiated fact that the vast majority of workers with HS or less have almost no chance of "a career" = and we are quickly hitting a world where most college graduates may never have that luxury. My post was intended as an add on to yours.

No idea whatsoever why you felt the need to go personal.

I fell into a career that I truly enjoy. I took some detours along the way, but I'm back doing what I enjoy - and I'm making decent money as well. The best piece of advice I've ever heard is "do what you enjoy well enough that others will pay you to do it". There you have it. I do what I enjoy and get paid for it.

I've worked the longest at accounting jobs, but I would just as soon dig ditches, or sweep the floor, etc.

Although I've been out of the field for over ten years, I my career was in physical therapy. I wanted to make a positive difference in people's lives and it was very rewarding.

At the time, the job market was good and the pay was decent. I knew I had to choose a career that I could support myself on, so money was a factor to a point. I never wanted to be rich, but I did wanted to make the world a little better and I've always enjoyed helping people.

when I first enlisted it was because I hated my civilian job.
I enlisted in the US Navy and applied for an administrative type job.
I didn't get one and received orders as a deck seaman, heard they were
looking for Hospital Corpsman volunteers, I applied and got it,
(At that age I wasn't very political and didn't realize the reason they needed
Hospital Corpsmen was to send them to Viet Nam with the Marines). Anyway about
seven months before I was to get out my wife asked for a divorce, this came out
of the blue and sent me reeling for awhile. Anyway when it was time to get out
I was emotionally at loose ends, ended up staying in for a total of 22 years then
used my Navy Training as an Independent Duty Corpsman to land a civilian health care
job and in another 15 years I retired for good.
So I had 2 driving forces
1 I joined the military because I was not happy in my civilian job
2 I got involved in health care because I didn't want to chip paint

and glad i did.

my first career was all about money and adrenalin was a bonus. My second career is a labor of love. Fulfilling on many levels. Here's a link to a 3 year thread about my adventure.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=236&topic_id=41536

Took on a part-time work-study job at the campus bookstore in college, because I was paying my own way through. Eventually, financial and family circumstances dictated that I finish school part-time (and with an easier major, Psych) while working full-time...luckily, they had a full-time position open just then, so I applied and got it. Promoted to a higher position a couple years later. Finished the degree only to find that there's no real work for BS degrees in Psychology, you have to go to grad school. Since I was never really all that fired up about Psych anyway, I just kinda stayed here in the college retail world.

Hoping to go back to school for clinical lab science (the folks who read your bloodwork, biopsies, etc.) in the near future.