Job Thread

[greg775]

On 7/7/2019 at 8:19 PM, Texsox said:

There are a couple of firms out there that pay you to write blog posts. The issue may be the work is per article and to make the best money you need to write fast and on a wide variety of topics.

My family was in the transportation industry. Driving a truck is a cool gig if you can handle the solitude and like to travel. 

I'm not finished, I just need some time to think. 

 

Would u consider driving a truck? I know a guy who did it and he enjoyed it when he got to drive alone and not have a partner. Also, what about you being one of those guys who works for Jewel or Hi-Vee and shops for people then delivers the groceries to their house. You do that 40 hours and overtime you could make a liveable wage. What about driving a van for old folks home or do laundry at an old folks home. Once they see you are reliable you could work at the old folks home a long time doing laundry. Not high pressure. If you do laundry a couple years maybe they'd sponsor you to get some degree to help out with the residents meals or things like that. It wouldn't be like being a maid at a hotel. It'd be more low key as usually the old folks homes/assisted living places are run at a slower pace. Are u a good driver? Some kinda driving job.  Finally, what about janitor at a high school or grade school. Again, it's not high pressure and once they see you are great they might have suggestions on moving up.

Edited July 9, 2019 by greg775

[Bob Sacamano]

15 hours ago, The Beast said:

Jack, what about checking out some technical writing jobs or even seeing if you can get a certification at a community college that would lead to employment?

Also, I may have a post for all of you because I too have a career dilemma and can’t seem to figure it out.

Feel free to share. The board has been a good place to come to for career advice (especially for me over the past few weeks).

[The Beast]

8 hours ago, soxfan2014 said:

Feel free to share. The board has been a good place to come to for career advice (especially for me over the past few weeks).

It seems like ever since my sophomore year at college, I have tried to do different things to try and find the right career path for me. I was an average student in high school and I grew up wanting to be in sports media. I tried journalism and broadcasting out a bit more in college after liking it in high school and found out it wasn’t for me. The life of a reporter, the uncertain job prospects and salary and writing or doing radio or TV for a living just didn’t seem like a fit. I also thought about becoming an English teacher because I loved writing and reading autobiography books, but I didn’t care much for literature, so I felt education wasn’t the fit for me either. Some days I have I thought teaching business or PE or being a guidance counselor might have been a fit and that maybe I was in the wrong content area. But my wife is a teacher and after hearing from her, it doesn’t seem like I would fit well with kids. I also observed guidance counseling and think it takes a certain kind of person to work in that role and I don’t think I am that person.

I switched majors, went to a different school and finished my degree in business administration/management. I reached out to the White Sox about jobs in sports and spoke to Boyer about opportunities and interned with the St. Louis Rams, but nothing ended up coming from those opportunities. I tried my hand at PR, worked at a start up and interned at a PR agency and didn’t like pitching to reporters. I needed a job with a salary to support myself as the other jobs didn’t pay anything. So I did FMLA administration for a few years, but it was call center work and I hated the pay that I got even after being promoted and felt I would be a better fit elsewhere since I didn’t like the company or work. 

So I have been working at an insurance carrier, where I work with underwriters and sales representatives to get proposals out to brokers. The pay got better and the work had been okay, but I felt that I could do more, but I didn’t know what to do. So I heard about Data Science being a good field and the my company’s tuition reimbursement program and thought I would try that, since the program was online, I could also take electives in MBA or Health Care Administration courses and I wouldn’t hurt financially as long as I passed.

Fast forward to today, where I have three more courses until I graduate with the master’s degree, but I need to take one that is an elective this fall and two more next year so my employer can pay for the two remaining courses. The problem I have is that after doing some of the work with actuaries and analysts at my company, there appears to be a learning curve with learning from them remotely, since our main offices aren’t in Chicago and I am no where near where they are at with their analytical abilities. (We have a small office in Chicago but nobody is really on the same team and we all work from home a few days each week.) I am not a math person, but I work hard to try and learn things. I am not big on being in a small office and learning a new role remotely.

I have to stay until the end of July so that I don’t owe my company anything, but I also don’t know if I want an analyst position, to try to work in health care on the business side (something in either purchasing or with data, for instance) and use my data science training to solve business problems at a hospital or insurer and if I should get a job at a Chicago based organization so I can be around people more often, learn from others in an office, earn more so I can support a family (my wife and I bought a house last year), see if the next company will pay for the two remaining courses and hopefully have more job satisfaction.

There are times where I wish I figured things out earlier in life and that I wish I could be on my feet for a living or help people doing something like nursing, counseling or physical therapy, but I don’t know how I would make a living to support our responsibilities if I retrained (my wife will also be doing a graduate program to boost her earnings and she wants kids soon) and if I would even be good at those things (I was a C+/B- student at best in those courses in high school). These are also jobs people that I know have and have enjoyed success in terms of job satisfaction and financially, but these are just recent thoughts in the past year or so and weren’t things I really considered until then.

Long story short, I guess I am wondering if I should make the job change soon and if I am going about things in a good way by reaching out to people in different industries in health care, am working on data science projects and am trying to learn coding on my own, even if I will never be a data scientist and would use the skills I have in a different role. I would love to have job satisfaction, make more money and keep my options open in case I decide to do a career change in the future. I have also done several informational interviews with the industries I am interested in and will continue to do so. I’m also open to suggestions if anyone has any.

Edited July 9, 2019 by The Beast

[BackDoorBreach]

I fractured my right thumb, tore some tendons in it, and ripped the UCL in my left thumb off the bone at work.

So I'm professionally drunk the next 3 months.

[greg775]

On 7/11/2019 at 1:59 AM, BackDoorBreach said:

I fractured my right thumb, tore some tendons in it, and ripped the UCL in my left thumb off the bone at work.

So I'm professionally drunk the next 3 months.

Sorry about that. Must be so painful. How did this happen? Best wishes.

[greg775]

On 7/9/2019 at 1:15 PM, The Beast said:

It seems like ever since my sophomore year at college, I have tried to do different things to try and find the right career path for me. I was an average student in high school and I grew up wanting to be in sports media. I tried journalism and broadcasting out a bit more in college after liking it in high school and found out it wasn’t for me. The life of a reporter, the uncertain job prospects and salary and writing or doing radio or TV for a living just didn’t seem like a fit. I also thought about becoming an English teacher because I loved writing and reading autobiography books, but I didn’t care much for literature, so I felt education wasn’t the fit for me either. Some days I have I thought teaching business or PE or being a guidance counselor might have been a fit and that maybe I was in the wrong content area. But my wife is a teacher and after hearing from her, it doesn’t seem like I would fit well with kids. I also observed guidance counseling and think it takes a certain kind of person to work in that role and I don’t think I am that person.

I switched majors, went to a different school and finished my degree in business administration/management. I reached out to the White Sox about jobs in sports and spoke to Boyer about opportunities and interned with the St. Louis Rams, but nothing ended up coming from those opportunities. I tried my hand at PR, worked at a start up and interned at a PR agency and didn’t like pitching to reporters. I needed a job with a salary to support myself as the other jobs didn’t pay anything. So I did FMLA administration for a few years, but it was call center work and I hated the pay that I got even after being promoted and felt I would be a better fit elsewhere since I didn’t like the company or work. 

So I have been working at an insurance carrier, where I work with underwriters and sales representatives to get proposals out to brokers. The pay got better and the work had been okay, but I felt that I could do more, but I didn’t know what to do. So I heard about Data Science being a good field and the my company’s tuition reimbursement program and thought I would try that, since the program was online, I could also take electives in MBA or Health Care Administration courses and I wouldn’t hurt financially as long as I passed.

Fast forward to today, where I have three more courses until I graduate with the master’s degree, but I need to take one that is an elective this fall and two more next year so my employer can pay for the two remaining courses. The problem I have is that after doing some of the work with actuaries and analysts at my company, there appears to be a learning curve with learning from them remotely, since our main offices aren’t in Chicago and I am no where near where they are at with their analytical abilities. (We have a small office in Chicago but nobody is really on the same team and we all work from home a few days each week.) I am not a math person, but I work hard to try and learn things. I am not big on being in a small office and learning a new role remotely.

 I have to stay until the end of July so that I don’t owe my company anything, but I also don’t know if I want an analyst position, to try to work in health care on the business side (something in either purchasing or with data, for instance) and use my data science training to solve business problems at a hospital or insurer and if I should get a job at a Chicago based organization so I can be around people more often, learn from others in an office, earn more so I can support a family (my wife and I bought a house last year), see if the next company will pay for the two remaining courses and hopefully have more job satisfaction.

 There are times where I wish I figured things out earlier in life and that I wish I could be on my feet for a living or help people doing something like nursing, counseling or physical therapy, but I don’t know how I would make a living to support our responsibilities if I retrained (my wife will also be doing a graduate program to boost her earnings and she wants kids soon) and if I would even be good at those things (I was a C+/B- student at best in those courses in high school). These are also jobs people that I know have and have enjoyed success in terms of job satisfaction and financially, but these are just recent thoughts in the past year or so and weren’t things I really considered until then.

 Long story short, I guess I am wondering if I should make the job change soon and if I am going about things in a good way by reaching out to people in different industries in health care, am working on data science projects and am trying to learn coding on my own, even if I will never be a data scientist and would use the skills I have in a different role. I would love to have job satisfaction, make more money and keep my options open in case I decide to do a career change in the future. I have also done several informational interviews with the industries I am interested in and will continue to do so. I’m also open to suggestions if anyone has any.

You sound like a sharp guy, congrats. I would say finish your courses then talk to whoever is closest to the top at your current company to see if your new degrees qualify you for a better job with your current company. It's kind of disconcerting your wife is ready to start a family u said and you are not quite set on what you want to do for a living in the long haul. Your wife is a teacher so I'd assume her school will let her take up to six weeks off once she has the first child. Or maybe 3 months?

From reading your post, it unfortunately sounds like you are not thrilled with your current job/company and are sort of seekign something else. From your telling us about your earlier interest in journalism and broadcasting, it sounds as if you are not in a good place in knowing what job you truly are called for. 

My gut feeling is you should finish your courses and speak to your company higher ups then get another job either with your company or another using the new degrees you have. There's really nothing else you can do unless you want to go full bore back into broadcasting or try to be the school counselor you might want to be.

Keep us posted! Sorry if my advice was bad.

[Brian]

On 7/11/2019 at 1:59 AM, BackDoorBreach said:

I fractured my right thumb, tore some tendons in it, and ripped the UCL in my left thumb off the bone at work.

So I'm professionally drunk the next 3 months.

Stop masturbating at work.

[BackDoorBreach]

2 hours ago, greg775 said:

Sorry about that. Must be so painful. How did this happen? Best wishes.

Fighting.

[greg775]

44 minutes ago, BackDoorBreach said:

Fighting.

Damn. Did anybody get arrested? Did you hurt your hand cause of fist to the other guy's body or face? Or did u fall? Don't answer if I'm out of line. Hope u are not in great pain. Did u have to go to hospital or just get some heavy duty excedrin for the pain?

[The Beast]

23 hours ago, greg775 said:

You sound like a sharp guy, congrats. I would say finish your courses then talk to whoever is closest to the top at your current company to see if your new degrees qualify you for a better job with your current company. It's kind of disconcerting your wife is ready to start a family u said and you are not quite set on what you want to do for a living in the long haul. Your wife is a teacher so I'd assume her school will let her take up to six weeks off once she has the first child. Or maybe 3 months?

From reading your post, it unfortunately sounds like you are not thrilled with your current job/company and are sort of seekign something else. From your telling us about your earlier interest in journalism and broadcasting, it sounds as if you are not in a good place in knowing what job you truly are called for. 

My gut feeling is you should finish your courses and speak to your company higher ups then get another job either with your company or another using the new degrees you have. There's really nothing else you can do unless you want to go full bore back into broadcasting or try to be the school counselor you might want to be.

Keep us posted! Sorry if my advice was bad.

Thanks Greg. I think I can let journalism go because I I don’t want to be a reporter and writing for a living is just “okay” to me. I’m not seeing a good future in broadcasting either. As for a school counseling position, I think I’d rather do mental health counseling as opposed to working with kids and even then I’m not sure about pursuing that. But I think what I’m going to do is leave my company, work in an office that has a main office in Illinois and work for a health care organization. I am aiming for one that will pick up the tab of the remainder of my degree next year. 

From there, I’ll probably work in the corporate world, have a family and if I need to, retrain later on for something in healthcare where I could work with patients. We will see what cool opportunities happen as a result of my efforts, I’m kind of excited about the health care administration course I’m taking this fall since it should give me the lay of the land in hospitals and health insurance.

I definitely will welcome other ideas, commentary and suggestions from other posters here.

Edited July 13, 2019 by The Beast

[greg775]

On 7/13/2019 at 5:12 PM, The Beast said:

I’m kind of excited about the health care administration course I’m taking this fall since it should give me the lay of the land in hospitals and health insurance.

Sounds good to me. Having the lay of the land is good in the business world. Sounds like a fine deal.

[greg775]

Many people on here think I'm out of touch and clueless Sox fan which is fine.  I just read this and did not know this existed so I thought I'd ask the current generation a question about work. Do you know anybody who has "ghosted?" Is this a true phenomenon?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/people-ghosting-work-its-driving-companies-crazy-chip-cutter?trk=d_public_post_promoted_post

[bigruss]

2 hours ago, greg775 said:

Many people on here think I'm out of touch and clueless Sox fan which is fine.  I just read this and did not know this existed so I thought I'd ask the current generation a question about work. Do you know anybody who has "ghosted?" Is this a true phenomenon?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/people-ghosting-work-its-driving-companies-crazy-chip-cutter?trk=d_public_post_promoted_post

This has been going on for years, but typically someone would accept a job and then just never show up at the office to start.  It's why my team would never have an account go active until the manager did a day 1 activity saying someone showed up.  By the way, that rule was in place before I started worked in 2010, for reference.

[greg775]

3 hours ago, bigruss said:

This has been going on for years, but typically someone would accept a job and then just never show up at the office to start.  It's why my team would never have an account go active until the manager did a day 1 activity saying someone showed up.  By the way, that rule was in place before I started worked in 2010, for reference.

I guess I am out of touch. I did not know about ghosting.

[Bob Sacamano]

12 hours ago, bigruss said:

This has been going on for years, but typically someone would accept a job and then just never show up at the office to start.  It's why my team would never have an account go active until the manager did a day 1 activity saying someone showed up.  By the way, that rule was in place before I started worked in 2010, for reference.

One of my friends works for a company where someone had started, worked about a week, and then stopped showing up and they didn't hear from him. About 2 weeks go by and this guy sends the boss an email saying he thought he had another opportunity come up and was begging for his job back

Edited August 1, 2019 by soxfan2014

[bigruss]

12 hours ago, soxfan2014 said:

One of my friends works for a company where someone had started, worked about a week, and then stopped showing up and they didn't hear from him. About 2 weeks go by and this guy sends the boss an email saying he thought he had another opportunity come up and was begging for his job back

I just had a guy 3 months ago show up for his start date (he was a contractor), he worked the first day.  I go home, get a call from physical security at 6:30pm saying his bag and laptop are with them.  I'm confused as all hell, but I go in that next morning, pick his stuff up and he doesn't show up at all.  I call our contract staff office, they reach out to his vendor and this dude is claiming he lost his luggage on his flight in, so spent Tuesday getting it back.  Alright, odd, but I can deal with that.  He should have told us he was doing that but first day stuff, whatever.

Well, the dude doesn't show up Wednesday either.  We reach out to the vendor, turns out he flew back to Dallas (where he's from) without telling anyone, claiming he got fed up with the airline losing his bag.  Now, I have no problem with him taking that 2nd day to get things settled, go buy some clothes at Kohls or something, or shoot just tell me you want to start over next week with fresh clothes and everything, totally would be ok with that.  But instead that guy did quite possibly the weirdest thing he could do.

 

The joys of managing contractors....I just had to fire a guy for travelling and working from China without telling anyone.  I work in IT Security, you think we won't catch that or that it's ok to take company property into a country that will absolutely tinker with your machine?  

[dasox24]

12 hours ago, bigruss said:

I just had a guy 3 months ago show up for his start date (he was a contractor), he worked the first day.  I go home, get a call from physical security at 6:30pm saying his bag and laptop are with them.  I'm confused as all hell, but I go in that next morning, pick his stuff up and he doesn't show up at all.  I call our contract staff office, they reach out to his vendor and this dude is claiming he lost his luggage on his flight in, so spent Tuesday getting it back.  Alright, odd, but I can deal with that.  He should have told us he was doing that but first day stuff, whatever.

Well, the dude doesn't show up Wednesday either.  We reach out to the vendor, turns out he flew back to Dallas (where he's from) without telling anyone, claiming he got fed up with the airline losing his bag.  Now, I have no problem with him taking that 2nd day to get things settled, go buy some clothes at Kohls or something, or shoot just tell me you want to start over next week with fresh clothes and everything, totally would be ok with that.  But instead that guy did quite possibly the weirdest thing he could do.

 

The joys of managing contractors....I just had to fire a guy for travelling and working from China without telling anyone.  I work in IT Security, you think we won't catch that or that it's ok to take company property into a country that will absolutely tinker with your machine?  

Haha.  Good stuff.  Some people do strange things.

I once had an intern who did not show up to work on the Friday of her 1st week.  Around 11am, I was starting to get concerned.  No one at the company knew where she was.  About an hour later, her hiring manager gets her on the phone - she's fine.  It turns out she sent me a Facebook message at like 7:30am that morning and said she wasn't going to come into work because I hadn't assigned her any work... what??  Sure enough, I log into Facebook (which I never check) and I have a friend request from this girl, along with that message saying she won't be coming in to work.  I was floored.  Keep in mind she has a company laptop and email, as well as access to my phone # in the company directory.  But nah, she decided Facebook was the proper way to contact me.  We had a good discussion the next Monday about work etiquette and expectations.

[bigruss]

LOL now that is a millenial story right there.

 

Even though I'm only 29, I have to catch myself with some of the interns/new college grads that they are adapting to corporate culture for the first time.  But man, I sure wonder how some parents did their jobs at points....

 

I have a new college grad that started at the beginning of the year.  A guy on my team is also called Russ, so I nicknamed him Smarter Russ.  The new grad starts to say "so does that make you d..." I cut him off and said, "you finish that sentence and it's a career limiting move."  His mom is a VP at the company who is no nonsense, kind of expected him to not be so socially dumb.

[greg775]

On 8/2/2019 at 11:38 AM, dasox24 said:

Haha.  Good stuff.  Some people do strange things.

I once had an intern who did not show up to work on the Friday of her 1st week.  Around 11am, I was starting to get concerned.  No one at the company knew where she was.  About an hour later, her hiring manager gets her on the phone - she's fine.  It turns out she sent me a Facebook message at like 7:30am that morning and said she wasn't going to come into work because I hadn't assigned her any work... what??  Sure enough, I log into Facebook (which I never check) and I have a friend request from this girl, along with that message saying she won't be coming in to work.  I was floored.  Keep in mind she has a company laptop and email, as well as access to my phone # in the company directory.  But nah, she decided Facebook was the proper way to contact me.  We had a good discussion the next Monday about work etiquette and expectations.

How was she after that? Reliable or not?

[greg775]

On 8/2/2019 at 3:53 PM, bigruss said:

LOL now that is a millenial story right there.

 

Even though I'm only 29, I have to catch myself with some of the interns/new college grads that they are adapting to corporate culture for the first time.  But man, I sure wonder how some parents did their jobs at points....

 

I have a new college grad that started at the beginning of the year.  A guy on my team is also called Russ, so I nicknamed him Smarter Russ.  The new grad starts to say "so does that make you d..." I cut him off and said, "you finish that sentence and it's a career limiting move."  His mom is a VP at the company who is no nonsense, kind of expected him to not be so socially dumb.

Wow. That is awesome you cut him off. If you'd have disciplined him would his mommy have complained though, as VP?

[greg775]

On 8/1/2019 at 9:40 AM, soxfan2014 said:

One of my friends works for a company where someone had started, worked about a week, and then stopped showing up and they didn't hear from him. About 2 weeks go by and this guy sends the boss an email saying he thought he had another opportunity come up and was begging for his job back

One thing about companies ... I love (not really) the way when a new person is hired, HR has them a.) fill out a million forms. b.) make them watch dumb videos on various things. c.) give them all these passwords and ridiculous hurdles to climb just to log into systems. Etc. But ... when a person quits or is fired, as long as they turn in their company equipment, that's it. No contact with HR; just assume you'll get your W2 form sometime in January.

[Chicago White Sox]

8 hours ago, greg775 said:

One thing about companies ... I love (not really) the way when a new person is hired, HR has them a.) fill out a million forms. b.) make them watch dumb videos on various things. c.) give them all these passwords and ridiculous hurdles to climb just to log into systems. Etc. But ... when a person quits or is fired, as long as they turn in their company equipment, that's it. No contact with HR; just assume you'll get your W2 form sometime in January.

Almost every company does an exit interview with HR when somebody quits...

[bigruss]

17 hours ago, greg775 said:

Wow. That is awesome you cut him off. If you'd have disciplined him would his mommy have complained though, as VP?

No, his mom probably would have been very angry with him.

[dasox24]

23 hours ago, greg775 said:

How was she after that? Reliable or not?

Eh, she was definitely more reliable in that she didn't skip work anymore and didn't send me Facebook messages as a means of work communication.  Lol.  But she wasn't a very good worker.

[Jack Parkman]

On 8/4/2019 at 11:09 PM, dasox24 said:

Eh, she was definitely more reliable in that she didn't skip work anymore and didn't send me Facebook messages as a means of work communication.  Lol.  But she wasn't a very good worker.

I really think there's a complete cultural difference going on right now. You have to realize that most younger people don't take their jobs very seriously, because they believe themselves to be disposable parts. There's this idea that if a company is always looking to find someone to do your job, for less salary/wage than you, and if they find that person you're gone tomorrow. Young people feel zero loyalty to a company. A lot of this Corporate America brought upon themselves. You can't continue to treat your employees like machines and garbage and continue to expect them to behave professionally. Corporate America needs to take some responsibility for this by creating this type of workplace culture. Most younger people view their job as a paycheck now and nothing more. Anything that happens outside of work is more of "real life" now. 

There are a lot of unrealistic expectations by employers these days. Maybe if your company shows that they appreciate your time, energy and effort, they'll get some semblance of respect. The big thing is nobody expects anything from their job, and they're always looking to go take the next job that pays more, because they feel no loyalty from their company. For god sakes they're not even willing to invest in training a new employee anymore. You're just expected to "sink or swim" People are disconnected because of the physical and emotional toll that takes on your body. 

Any sense of loyalty to an organization has been culturally destroyed in the workplace. Corporate America only has themselves to blame. Maybe if they quit treating their employees like meat, they'd have what they're looking for. I actually think the bosses and corporate culture creators are in the wrong here. You want me to take you seriously? Take my career seriously. This shouldn't be a 1-way street. This is why people are pissed. There is zero dignity in work anymore. It's really hard to take pride in your work when you're constantly being abused by your employer. Every job I've ever had, except for the one with the QA company, I've felt like a person in an abusive relationship, who can't escape because you have nowhere to go. Maybe CA should think about that. 

Just my opinion. 

Holding a job should not feel like living in a totalitarian dictatorship. 

Edited August 7, 2019 by Jack Parkman