Jobs

[Yar]

A few weeks from now will be my first anniversary at the company where I am currently employed. I work as an in-house interpreter-translator.

Deep down, I enjoy it. But I'd be lying if I said that it isn't extremely fucking hard somedays.

I prefer document translation at my desk to simultaneous interpretation in highly intense meetings. But, they pay me to go both ways (ha)

Which is another thing. I think I am paid fairly nice, particularly for being just some little shit fresh out of college with no kids to take care of.

Some days I'm just really pissed off. Like when people use Google Translate for whatever stupid reason they have. Like the other day, some guy sent me a 12 page document that he had Google translated from Japanese to English, asking me to proofread. It was so painful that it literally gave me a headache, and it was much easier to just delete it all and translate it from scratch. Y U DO DIS?!??

So yeah

LET'S TALK ABOUT JOBS. Also, let's ask about jobs. :)

[Night Fury]

I don't have a job. I should have a job, but RULES. Urgh.

[I Took the Red Pill]

I think that he was a good businessman with a good sense of what the consumer craves, but the cult that sprang up around him, especially after his death, was absurd

[Shiny]

They are making a new Jobs movie with Christian Bale apparently because it seems we need another one.

[Fox]

I think the Jobs system was pretty cool, but it could be a bit restricting when characters were locked to it. The best variant was definitely X-2 where you could change mid-battle.

[Shlup]

I've worked at Disneyland for like two and a half years. I'm a floor or office manager (different shifts on different days) for some of the stores. It's a lot of responsibility with high expectations for a ridiculously small amount of pay. I'd get a lot more for the same job with another company... but I really like Disneyland. I took my daughter yesterday and we went on The Haunted Mansion. It's her favorite.


Like the other day, some guy sent me a 12 page document that he had Google translated from Japanese to English, asking me to proofread. It was so painful that it literally gave me a headache, and it was much easier to just delete it all and translate it from scratch. Y U DO DIS?!??

That's hilarious.

[Shorty]

The Haunted Mansion is the best.

My job is easy but mundane. I am a gopher, a fixer, a babysitter, a maid, a marketing analyst, a financial reporter, an office manager, a scapegoat, an IT expert and a jack of all trades wrapped up nicely with the shiny title of Administrative Assistant. I manage to get most of my work done quickly and spend much of my day screwing around online. While I am paid reasonably well for my position within this region, I'm not paid enough to care more than doing the bare minimum of what needs to get my by on acceptable job performance.

[Freya]

I'm holding an Accounts Payable position. But like Shorty, I also play IT, Bid Estimator, Receptionist, Legal intern, Admin assistant, and accounts receivables, and general fix crap for everyone else-er. All under the cruddy pay of just an accounts payable clerk paycheck. I do like 10 mins of work for every hour and play on the internet most the time. They think I'm magical because i'm "so smart with computers". I'm not. It's super easy stuff. I just made the mistake of offering to help people. Now my desk gets trashed with other people's work.

[escobert]

I don't have a "job" right now. I do stuff around the farm. I'm trying to find a somewhat decent production position so I can save some monies.

Going in to apply for a farmhand position on a cattle ranch on monday.

[Shoeberto]

I deal with the god-damn customer. I'm a people person.

[noxious.sunshine]

I don't job.

I need one. I haven't worked in well over a year. But I have a lot going on in the next few months in which I'll need time off .. So there's no point right now.

[Colonel Angus]

I'm holding an Accounts Payable position. But like Shorty, I also play IT, Bid Estimator, Receptionist, Legal intern, Admin assistant, and accounts receivables, and general fix crap for everyone else-er. All under the cruddy pay of just an accounts payable clerk paycheck. I do like 10 mins of work for every hour and play on the internet most the time. They think I'm magical because i'm "so smart with computers". I'm not. It's super easy stuff. I just made the mistake of offering to help people. Now my desk gets trashed with other people's work.
The lesson here, children, is to play ignorant.

Seriously, letting them know you know anything, even something small, is a bad idea. They will abuse the shit out of it. Then, when it comes time for recognition ($$$$$), they suddenly forget.

[Dark_Valentine]

I work about 12 hrs a day for a job that everyone was told would be a regular 8 hrs and don't get paid enough to put up with the headaches in the system. I type...that is all.

[Crop]

My job is easy, well paid, and very close to where I live. That said, it is very mundane and the Company sucks.

I'm starting to debate quitting, emptying my bank account, and going travelling.

[Shiny]

My day job so I can have a steady influx of money is at NBC. My everyday job is in the film and video production industry at which I am jack of all trades, but particularly passionate about producing and getting in to writing screenplays again.

[rubah]

I started at my company about a year and a half ago as an entry level tester (qa professional). now I manage the entry level testers :)

btw we're hiring if you're in LA and have any non-zero level of programming experience.

[Fox]

I'm a game designer and starting a new role at the company tomorrow. There's not a lot of job security at the moment, and I've been jumping around the business on temp contracts since 2011, but I'm trying to make the best of it. This new position should allow me much greater responsibility than I had in the past.

[escobert]

Starting Monday I will be taking over the Sheep operations at Royalton Farms. I'm a shepherd now :cool:

[Del Murder]

I'm an actuary and also a vice president in Corporate America, which means you all work for me one way or another.

[Iceglow]

I'm a Candidate Support Administrator for an education recruitment specialist. I've done it for a couple of months now, since the summer. Though my induction isn't officially over until October ends. What this career involves is checking people who wish to work in schools as Teaching Assistants, Teachers, Nursery Nurses, Learning Support, hell even Caretakers or Mealtime Supervisors in rare cases in schools across the UK through the company I work for.

In detail, I essentially make sure these people are fit to work with children. This is of course incredibly intense and I can't afford to make mistakes, my team is targeted to clear candidates at a rate of 20 per administrator per week, with a 99.5% perfect clear rate expected on us for this. The great news however, is that once I leave the office I cannot affect my job or my work. I can't contact references or schools, or fuck up in any way. As such whilst my days can be pretty intense on occasion, I'm never actually stressed about it out of work. It is the definition of "leave it at the door, pick it up in the morning" work.

The process candidates go through that I perform on them involves detailed background checks for the last 2 - 6 years depending on their desired roles, obtaining references and verifying qualifications. If a candidate cannot explain what they were doing for a period of time longer than 3 months in their past 2 years, they cannot register simple. As people often lie about dates of study and employment I've got to be careful and check these dates match up at least to a degree which allows me to register the candidate.

The candidates I deal with can come from all over the world which can present many different and awesome issues for me to explore. To give an idea of just how diverse the people I deal with are; It was only yesterday I was on the phone to the Western New England University in Springfield MA, followed by the National Student Clearing House and the Louisiana State Department for Education to check a teacher's qualifications out. Today I was on the phone to Australia, France, Spain and Denmark briefly to speak to referees. (I have to try and plan these call times in to my daily schedule to make sure that the timezones match which is a fun little mini-challenge all by itself)

Of course dealing with a lot of candidates from Europe; particularly Spanish, French, German, Romanian and Greek teachers and teaching assistants. It's a big part of my job to identify if these people need a police check from those (or other) countries and let them know that they need to provide them. After they've provided the necessary documentations I then have to translate the police check (and sometimes references) wherever possible with nothing more at my disposal than Google Translate. Of course if it's perfectly unreasonable for me to be expected to understand the language (I.E. Arabic, Thai) and so forth where identifying the letters can be very hard if you do not know what you are looking for then we can insist the candidate pays a professional translator to do this for us, though the added time and reluctance of candidates to do so means this is a huge pain in the ass. I can therefore totally understand Yar's pain at how bad the English generated by Google Translate is, though thankfully due to my native knowledge of what should appear on my screen and a basic understanding of the grammatical rules in most European based languages, I've so far been pretty good. Whilst my boss does not expect perfect translations from us, I have learned how to translate perfectly from Spanish, French and Greek and I'm getting incredibly better with German, Danish, Swedish and Romanian.

With Greek I'm actually now "designated" to do them for the entire company (there are like 15 people including the international team who do my job so I do them for all 15 of us) as I can not only read most of what is on the original document at a glance (in the original Greek, using the Greek alphabet) to identify any potential issues, but can perfectly translate the document with 0 errors in about 15 - 20 minutes. I actually don't mind doing them either, as it took me 2 hours of slowly painfully typing in my first one to get it translated to something even close to English. So as I can now pretty much touch type with 90% accuracy in Greek, I'm enjoying the exercise of my new skills. Strangely, perhaps I don't speak Greek at all, and presented with anything other than one of the regular documents we deal with I'd probably struggle to understand what information I'm seeing at first without translating at least some of whats there. My colleagues all, perhaps very rightly have suggested and regularly stress to me that I ought to learn to speak Greek and qualify in doing so as an official translator, as it's clear I have some crazy kind of aptitude for the language.

People often call my job "pretty thankless" because in a recruitment company (which you have to remember is about sales, not helping people that's a side effect) you're a burden to the firm, necessary yes but ultimately my wages cost them whilst even if I clear 600 candidates; if the consultants cannot find them work, I've not made the company money but I have cost it. However, I do enjoy my job because it allows me to help so many people every day. I'm not just helping the candidates find work, I'm helping hundreds, perhaps thousands of children across the UK get a better education. That feels pretty damn awesome to me.

I doubt I will do this particular job forever, I may decide in a year or two to migrate in to the realm of consultations myself, but that's a ways off yet. I've a lot to learn about the education sector and I'm yet to be bored or troubled by my job.

[Quindiana Jones]

Still in China. Been teaching now for about 2 years, and have another 6 months left on my contract. I will not be extending. :)

[Iceglow]

Where too next Toto?

[Quindiana Jones]

Canada. :D I'm very excited!

[Old Manus]

I'm a software engineer. I wrote (or helped write) a few national government data collection systems. I also fix them when they break. I must have mentioned in an appraisal once that I'd be interested in working on web platforms because I've recently started work on some Umbraco contracts (public sector are finally embracing open source in some very specific situations!). I don't get paid nearly enough but I do have a pay review this month.

[MoogleSky]

Don't currently have a job as I'm still a full-time student in systems analyst. Though since my program has co-op and the first one is next term, I have a 4-month placement as a junior web developer at the government ;D Excited!

[Bubba]

While I am paid reasonably well for my position within this region, I'm not paid enough to care more than doing the bare minimum of what needs to get my by on acceptable job performance.

You just described my exact working situation.


Still in China. Been teaching now for about 2 years, and have another 6 months left on my contract. I will not be extending. :)

Come back to Manchester, you sexy man! There's more pubs for me to embarrass you in.

[escobert]

Canada. :D I'm very excited!

What part of Canada??

[Quindiana Jones]

Still in China. Been teaching now for about 2 years, and have another 6 months left on my contract. I will not be extending. :)

Come back to Manchester, you sexy man! There's more pubs for me to embarrass you in.

NO. maybe...



Canada. :D I'm very excited!

What part of Canada??

Toronto! :D