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REMEMBER SPONGE MONKEYS posted:Nope, ~8. I chose...poorly. Should’ve spun the wheel again, I guess. Yeah, bummer. Hopefully things are better now though.
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Jul 22, 2019 20:14
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REMEMBER SPONGE MONKEYS posted:Nope, ~8. I chose...poorly. Should’ve spun the wheel again, I guess. I'd have to double check, but I'm pretty sure that my wife's organization still hires masters level mental health employees at roughly that rate in a high cost of living area (Seattle). That's a union job too.
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Jul 22, 2019 20:30
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BeastOfExmoor posted:I'd have to double check, but I'm pretty sure that my wife's organization still hires masters level mental health employees at roughly that rate in a high cost of living area (Seattle). That's a union job too. Ouch. I did come out of grad school in ‘09 so that was an extra bummer (I appreciate the kindness there) but I know it’s a lot on me too, I got caught in the overqualified on education/underqualified on experience trap, and I can be confident if I play my cards wrong(er) I will be right back competing for those jobs. I was foolish enough to think I had 2-3 prospects recently and they all ghosted me (including one that called me!) Before I basically took my old job back, I had a single offer on a night job across town at $15/hr. Now all I have to do is commute 5 hours each way.
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Jul 22, 2019 20:45
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All I can say is keep at it and hope. The only reply I've gotten in the last....maybe 8 months that wasn't an automated rejection email was a job recruiter asking me to help them find someone with more hospital experience ~for them~ for a job they were trying to fill. No you can go figure that one out for yourself, drat.
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Jul 22, 2019 21:01
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Haha that is super lovely. I’m lucky that I’m not stuck badly for a job right now but being home would be nice. Living away for prolonged periods in tiny dwellings is not as rosy as it might seem.
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Jul 22, 2019 22:31
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Yeah man. At this point I'm half-fantasizing about trying to just bug out and work on a wasabi farm in the mountains somewhere; I've had plenty of free time to try and learn languages and it would be like the study/travel abroad stuff I never got a chance to do. But for now I just have to take shifts when I get asked in stores 2+ hours away when they run out of local floaters to help.
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Jul 22, 2019 22:52
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I’ve been trying to get into information security but I’ve had bad luck getting even and interview for an entry level job. I have one tomorrow that seems promising. I’ll get $16/hr rather than my current 10, the current job is dead-end, and I’ll have an actual computer-related job on my resume. But I’d be trading a permanent job with insurance for a 6-month contract, double the commute to an hour, and I might screw over the family vacation next month that my Dad already rented a lakehouse for. I still think it’s better than staying.
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Jul 23, 2019 03:27
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$10 an hour is poverty wage and no way to live. It might be worth it to have that experience on your resume if it looks like it can segue into another job.
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Jul 23, 2019 04:30
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Dr. Red Ranger posted:$10 an hour is poverty wage and no way to live. It might be worth it to have that experience on your resume if it looks like it can segue into another job. If you think $10 is bad try making it on $8.60 hourly
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Jul 23, 2019 22:30
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Well they really wanted this interview to move past. I found out about this job through a 3rd party recruiter, and I met him outside. He said I was one of two people and they were helping both of us in. Interview was okay, I guess, but I found out only a few hours later I didn’t get it, and they went with people with more experience. For a job that was pitched as a way to get experience. gently caress this poo poo. Dr Christmas fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Jul 23, 2019 |
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Jul 23, 2019 23:27
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On the bright side, you won't miss the family vacation.
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Jul 24, 2019 02:44
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Parrotine posted:If you think $10 is bad try making it on $8.60 hourly Man don't I know it. I had a 9 month period between graduation from undergrad but starting pharmacy school where I couldn't get hired for anything at all, not even loving Chili's, and my girlfriend's mother called in a favor with a local doctor/restauranteur/landowner oligarch she knew to get me minimum wage work at his barbecue place. It was another service job in a long line of service jobs that made sure I never, ever wanted to work in retail under any circumstances again, especially for $7.25. So completing pharmacy school just to find out I would be doing the same thing but with higher stakes and the same standard of living due to monthly loan minimums for the foreseeable future was an enlightening experience. I tried to tell my best tech that it never gets any better, there's just more and worse bullshit for as far as we can see but she worked hard and got into pharmacy school anyway. Her first experience was getting scheduled for a drug test during her mandatory pharmacy school on-boarding but Walmart refused to change anything, so she "failed" a drug test and was kicked from her tech job. Which could have ruined her before she started because if she had gotten her intern license early and "failed" a drug test with that she could be kicked out of school. Anyway, I just came back from a mandatory customer service/positive attitude training session that Walmart learned through a partnership with Disney. The retiring PIC who only had 3 months left was made to drive 100 miles to get told that smiling and displaying a positive attitude was going to be mandatory. This was a room full of people who knew full well that just a scant few weeks before this very same company had purged people just because. The soul crushing cyberpunk dystopia ruled by multinational megacorps with more power than entire governments is here, and we don't even get any cyber shark-ninjas with laser shurikens or neon webspace battles between hackers wearing tape decks on their chests vs half-dragon gladiator mutants. Edit: It started with a loving internal propaganda Disney film of happy workers smiling at each other and the takeaway was that we were supposed to see that everyone enjoyed their job because they kept a positive attitude. I wanted to scream.
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Jul 29, 2019 00:36
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moana posted:Teaching is one of those things that everybody likes to think they would enjoy. You think back to the teachers who inspired you, the great teachers who taught what they loved and whose students admired them. It sounds like you’re speaking from experience. Are you still teaching? If not, what did you end up doing instead? I still have some questions to answer about this, but I definitely get how teaching may not be the most sensible choice. I guess I’m curious about anyone who’s made a relatively major career change. Where did you end up? What would you do differently if you could?
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Aug 2, 2019 02:25
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nitsuga posted:It sounds like you’re speaking from experience. Are you still teaching? If not, what did you end up doing instead? What I say to anyone who asks is that if you want to teach, it needs to be your absolute passion, and even then it's not enough most of the time. You won't get paid poo poo, will have zero prestige ("those who can't, teach") and you'll be working in the most broken lovely system possible. After tutoring I made another big career change into self publishing romance novels and made a crapton of money. Taught myself photoshop and did some graphic design work. Now I'm switching careers again into financial planning. Just keep trying out new things, keep learning new skills, and you'll find something that works for you. Don't hesitate to jump at new opportunities if you have a good net to fall back on, and keep learning things so your net gets stronger. Hang out with people who are smarter and older and better than you and ask for their advice all the time.
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Aug 4, 2019 02:11
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moana posted:I taught for one year in public school. Then tutored for a private prep company making twice as much handling 1/30th as many students. Teaching math had been my dream since forever, like when I was five I lined up my stuffed animals and taught them addition,. I had been tutoring since I was 13. That first year teaching was the worst year of my life. I spiraled into depression and weighed 95 pounds by the end of the year. I had kids who loved me - not enough. Top performances in student testing- not enough. So much of the job is classroom management and that sucks so much rear end. This post was an absolute roller-coaster from start to finish.
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Aug 4, 2019 04:07
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I thought it was great personally. Surprised it only took a year to find out it wasn’t what you wanted, but even before that, did you not student teach during college?
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Aug 4, 2019 12:58
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For the last 4 years I've been teaching. For the last two I've been running a middle school classroom. The first year was hell, and the second wasn't a whole lot better. If my SO wasn't a teacher I don't think I would have made it through, and probably would have gone back to school for something else. Once I got my own class and figured out how to manage the little hormone monsters it became kind of fun. Most of the time though you'll be living for the next stretch of vacation time. I actually came to this thread to seek a bit of advice. I think my career is over due to a brain injury, and I'm wondering what the hell I should do. I have a stutter now, can't concentrate longer than 30min, and am a little deaf in one ear. I'd go back to school for something less demanding but I don't know if I can actually do the school thing. Am I gonna have to start a farm and live off the fat of the land?
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Aug 4, 2019 18:36
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moana posted:like when I was five I lined up my stuffed animals and taught them addition 
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Aug 4, 2019 19:07
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Jedi Knight Luigi posted:I thought it was great personally. Surprised it only took a year to find out it wasn’t what you wanted, but even before that, did you not student teach during college? Bi-la kaifa posted:For the last 4 years I've been teaching. For the last two I've been running a middle school classroom. The first year was hell, and the second wasn't a whole lot better. If my SO wasn't a teacher I don't think I would have made it through, and probably would have gone back to school for something else. Once I got my own class and figured out how to manage the little hormone monsters it became kind of fun. Most of the time though you'll be living for the next stretch of vacation time. What skills do you have? I was making decent money making book covers for self publishers. If you can learn about Facebook ads/ SEO/ other internet marketing skills, you won't have to go back to school to switch fields. What do you want to do?
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Aug 4, 2019 20:25
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moana posted:My SO lasted exactly one DAY teaching middle school. Godspeed to anyone teaching those ages. The recent changes to the BC curriculum has made teaching a lot easier, unless you're super old school. You get to choose how they're evaluated and standardized testing is only really used as a metric to see how the province is doing as a whole. The amount of freedom I had was pretty baffling. Before I was a teacher I worked as a greens keeper, so I have some knowledge base in horticulture and golf. Since the injury I've gotten pretty good at fixing my motorcycle and making hard cider. I really like gardening, making things, fixing things, and growing things, but there isn't a whole lot of careers I can make out of those without a considerable amount of capital in either land or start-up funds. Kind of considering growing pot, but the market is a little saturated here.
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Aug 4, 2019 20:45
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if you're mechanically inclined and in reasonably good physical shape you could get a job as a tech. not sure how much your brain injury would interfere with your ability to follow repair procedures and the like but tech is pretty stable, portable, and in demand. the downside is that shops are run like feudal counties on the bad side, a significant number of your colleagues may be far right jagoffs, and you'll be really dirty all the time.
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Aug 4, 2019 20:51
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:if you're mechanically inclined and in reasonably good physical shape you could get a job as a tech. not sure how much your brain injury would interfere with your ability to follow repair procedures and the like but tech is pretty stable, portable, and in demand. the downside is that shops are run like feudal counties on the bad side, a significant number of your colleagues may be far right jagoffs, and you'll be really dirty all the time. I think you’re allowed to ask about jagoff numbers during the interview. Encouraged, even!
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Aug 4, 2019 21:02
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REMEMBER SPONGE MONKEYS posted:I think you’re allowed to ask about jagoff numbers during the interview. Encouraged, even! the good news is that since your toolbox is on wheels you can roll it right outta there
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Aug 4, 2019 21:10
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:if you're mechanically inclined and in reasonably good physical shape you could get a job as a tech. not sure how much your brain injury would interfere with your ability to follow repair procedures and the like but tech is pretty stable, portable, and in demand. the downside is that shops are run like feudal counties on the bad side, a significant number of your colleagues may be far right jagoffs, and you'll be really dirty all the time. I like that idea. There'd be a couple hurdles, like getting my red seal and being able to drive again. But it pays very well here and comes with extended benefits and job security. The local tech school has apprenticeships available so I'm going to check that out. I should have mentioned the not being able to drive thing. The doc says my brain starts to shut down when it's overstimulated, and driving can be a trigger for that. But I don't know if that's going to go away or not.
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Aug 4, 2019 21:16
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Bi-la kaifa posted:I like that idea. There'd be a couple hurdles, like getting my red seal and being able to drive again. But it pays very well here and comes with extended benefits and job security. The local tech school has apprenticeships available so I'm going to check that out. I should have mentioned the not being able to drive thing. The doc says my brain starts to shut down when it's overstimulated, and driving can be a trigger for that. But I don't know if that's going to go away or not. Maybe you could carpool to a job and/or not be the road tester. Just a thought. Mechanics are in demand everywhere, as far as I know.
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Aug 4, 2019 21:56
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I've gotten a couple PMs about the romance novel thing, so here's my quick and dirty rundown: 1. Read the self-publishing thread OP: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3639693 Sundae also made a crapton of that sweet sweet not-at-all-sweet-romance money, so listen to what he says. 2. Understand that romance in particular has gotten pretty well saturated. I wrote from 2012-2016 or so, beginnings of the Kindle era. Now it's much harder to break into the market. If you're not tied specifically to romance, consider targeting other less served niches: cozy mysteries was an underserved niche as of a couple years ago, not sure what else is out there now. 3. It's easier to make decent stable income from microniches: historical gay romance novels, polyamorous rom-com, serial killer dark romance, Quaker sweet inspirational... just to name some niche examples from the romance genre. You won't have the breakout potential of a general billionaire romance, but you also won't be competing against as many authors. Your fans will be more loyal. 4. Do your research before you start writing. 5. This isn't an easy way to make money. I made a crapton of money, but I also wrote 25 novels over the course of 3 years and handled all the coverwork, formatting, marketing, newsletter, book bombs, etc. That's a lot of work, and most people aren't cut out for it. I liked writing but even I burned out pretty quickly. Don't know if I should have to say this, but: if you don't like writing, don't become a writer! 6. Nonfiction can be pretty lucrative if you have specialist knowledge, especially tech stuff. Those books also tend to have more longevity than novels. 7. Plenty of networking opportunities online for every genre under the sun. Join writer groups and bounce questions to indie authors who are successful. Make sure you have done the work (written a couple of books) before approaching successful indies to ask for advice. Don't ask them to read your books, they will not want to. Ask them if there are online groups you should know about, because that's what's going to help you. 8. Can't be said enough: pick indie authors whose books sell well in your chosen subgenre. Read them, study their marketing and covers and blurbs, emulate style without plagiarizing. Study the heck out of what works, and then do it again but with your own twist. Most of my money was made with kinky billionaires in the wake of 50 Shades. 9. Your super original novel that's completely unlike any other book out there? Nobody wants to read that poo poo, that's why it's not out there. There's nothing new under the sun, but if I told all of you to write a romance between a firefighter and an arsonist, each one of you would write completely different novels in completely different styles - that's part of why writing and storytelling is so awesome. Don't try to reinvent the wheel, just make your wheel the sexiest wheel possible and people will buy it.
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Aug 5, 2019 02:50
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moana posted:just make the sexiest wheel possible This will be someone’s epitaph now. Good info. Is fantasy still a poo poo show to try and get into?
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Aug 5, 2019 04:16
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REMEMBER SPONGE MONKEYS posted:Good info. Is fantasy still a poo poo show to try and get into?
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Aug 5, 2019 05:44
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moana posted:You talking about wizards and orcs or about sexy dragonkin who sex each other up? Because I know someone making a million a year and you can guess what kind she writes. The former. As to the latter, I’d rather not even guess.
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Aug 5, 2019 15:05
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A million a year? gently caress, smut pays.
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Aug 5, 2019 16:10
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KillHour posted:A million a year? gently caress, smut pays. SmutFuckers Incorporated
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Aug 5, 2019 18:13
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moana posted:Taught myself photoshop and did some graphic design work. Now I'm switching careers again into financial planning. Just keep trying out new things, keep learning new skills, and you'll find something that works for you. Don't hesitate to jump at new opportunities if you have a good net to fall back on, and keep learning things so your net gets stronger. Hang out with people who are smarter and older and better than you and ask for their advice all the time. Do you have, like, infinite self control? I have an art degree and photoshop skills. I'm really struggling to find a non retail job - I worked for Office Depot as copy/print, but was so unsupported/stressed I quit for food service, which I've now also quit, because I had a freelance gig lined up (and really didn't like food service either) but I failed in the last test. So now I'm hoping the halloween store will fix their loving website so I can put in my W-4 to at least get some cash. Thread question: I want to use my art degree, but have at probably half a year of leveling up to do before I can hopefully get a job, and even then it's still 50% connections/luck 50% skill. Should I momentarily switch focuses to programming (JavaScript is still useful for my art) to just get a stable job and escape retail? Not too sure how much more costumer service I can take.
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Aug 5, 2019 19:35
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shrimpwhiskers posted:Do you have, like, infinite self control? I have an art degree and photoshop skills. If you have no dignity, people will pay top dollar for sexy art of themselves as their fursonas or bronies or whatever. I don't know if it will make you want to kill yourself less than retail. Sex sells in any form imaginable. KillHour posted:A million a year? gently caress, smut pays.
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Aug 6, 2019 01:20
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moana posted:Targeted the BBW market with curvy heroines and hunky shapeshifters. Her fan base is rabid.
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Aug 6, 2019 02:17
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They tend to be hungry just in general
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Aug 6, 2019 04:35
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moana posted:She pushed out two full length novels a month. So she's Chuck Tingle for curvy goonettes instead of gay guys. Got it.
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Aug 6, 2019 06:55
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moana posted:I started out using GIMP which, in fact, does require infinite self control. What I did was start out charging $10/cover for book covers from desperate self publishers and built up a portfolio. Got more clients, charged more, got better, charged more, got more clients. After a year or so I was asking $200/cover, extra for the createspace version. Same with any entrepreneur thing, just keep getting clients until you have to turn them away, then raise prices. 
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Aug 8, 2019 18:02
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I've worked in tech for a couple of years now as a developer, and I've realised that I hate being a professional developer - it's a job where you're judged purely by output, where your skills need updating constantly, and where the pay is nowhere near commensurate with the stress and level of ongoing learning (at least where I'm based). I also kind of don't like sitting in front of a computer most days and would prefer a mix of office and out-of-office work. I'm also getting somewhat established in freelancing, but again as a frickin developer. Thinking about doing a sideways jump into software sales, probably looking at a sales engineering type role at first. That would align better with stuff I like to do, like talking to people, traveling, and making a lot of money. Other areas I find interesting are business analysis and financial planning. But I'm also thinking about taking a year or two out to teach English in Asia, which would let me do some of the travel I always said I wanted to do as a student and also help me pick up Mandarin. (I also like teaching) Given teaching schedules, it might also give me time to work on building passive income streams. Curious whether taking this kind of break is likely to impact my future prospects in software or whether anyone else has made a similar move before.
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Aug 11, 2019 08:30
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You sounds like you're approaching burnout, so figuring out how to deal with it is a really good idea. Taking a break like you say won't hurt future prospects, but it will probably pause things and getting back up to speed is going to be a lot harder. But lots of people do it. Sales engineering is one route, you may want to look into DevOps roles too as those are still problem solving and working with different teams but usually less programming and still good money. Also if you think developer pay is not in line with the stress you're going to probably have a really ride awakening teaching. But everyone is wired differently I guess.
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Aug 11, 2019 14:58
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Purple Prince posted:I hate being a professional developer - it's a job where you're judged purely by output, where your skills need updating constantly, and where the pay is nowhere near commensurate with the stress and level of ongoing learning (at least where I'm based). Purple Prince posted:Thinking about doing a sideways jump into software sales, probably looking at a sales engineering type role at first. Purple Prince posted:Curious whether taking this kind of break is likely to impact my future prospects in software or whether anyone else has made a similar move before. Not the exact move, but I went from pure copy/content writing to software sales/business development because I wanted to get really good at talking to people. Mission accomplished, but not without battle scars. A sales engineer role could probably be really cushy (haven't done it myself), but just one word of caution based on what you said about being judged purely by output: there have been days in sales where I would have freaking LOVED to be judged by output as opposed to being judged by results. I don't know much about real software development outside of tinkering as a hobby, but I see at least one big advantage: you actually get a lot of control in delivering that output compared to sales. In sales you have to hit quota. Depending on your personality this can be a blessing or a curse. The boss doesn't really care how you put up your numbers... but you have to put those numbers up. And pushing something to production vs. getting another human being to sign a contract (and then getting 10, 20, 30, etc. other humans to also sign contracts, and then starting from scratch again in Q4) is very different. You have so so much more control over the final deliverable in the first scenario than the latter. That said, if it's your cup of tea and if you have high chaos tolerance then definitely go for it. Even if you decide to go back to being a developer after, I'm convinced the sales skills will put you miles ahead of everyone else.
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Aug 13, 2019 04:19
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