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Friday Five
Jan. 17th, 2003 09:20 am1. Where do you currently work?
Tech Support for the University of Washington
2. How many other jobs have you had and where?
My very first job was little secretarial stuff for my dad: data entry of business cards he'd collect at trade shows and the like.
The summer before college, I worked for a hotel/motel supply company: inventory, register and stocking. I hadn't really realized how many little tiny motels were in Lake Tahoe until I worked there.
My first summer at college, I stayed in town and got a job at a local Dairy Queen. My first and last job in food service.
My second summer I spent with Dad in Kansas City. (Mom was still in Nevada, getting my brother ready for college and trying to sell the house.) I got a job as a secretary/receptionist for a guy that Dad had met, and eventually my hours dropped to half-time. I ended up spending more time at the mall bookstore or the library than actually at work.
My junior year of college, I'd lost my full ride scholarship (hated Orgo Chem. Ick!) and had to find an on-campus job. Since I'd been spending way too much time in the computer labs anyway, and most of my friends worked there, too, it was a forgone conclusion that I'd get a job as a lab monitor.
Senior year, my first class of the year was an independant study at SunSoft, doing software testing, and they hired me for the rest of the project, coming in half-time. My grades tanked in my next class, which was a Life Drawing class. I adored it, and I got quite good, but I didn't have time to complete the at-home assignments. So I quit, and re-upped my hours in the computer labs.
My college was a little-bitty liberal arts college, so we had all of a dozen master's candidates, and no one to do the grunt work that traditionally falls to grad students. They solved that by hiring newly minted graduates to come back for a year or three (the Geology department especially, liked to keep people around) to help out. I became the Computer Paraprofessional for the Math department. I helped out in the labs for the Comp Sci classes, held office hours in the afternoons for students to come in for help on their homework, and helped out the IS department when they needed a little extra man-power. That was a fun job. best of all, when classes were out on the fourth Wednesday, I had the entire block break free. Three and a half weeks on, then a four day weekend. I have yet to enconter a better vacation scheme.
My next job was completely evil. I'd moved to Georgia with my fiance (now the ex-fiance). We lived in Athens, and I commuted to Atlanta to work for MediaOne, babysitting one of their Network Operations Centers for the new cable modem service. There was never anyone else around, so I had no human contact, and I had to sit in a large, echoing, cold, noisy room with air-conditioning units and servers running full blast. I started bringing earplugs and a blanket (even in midsummer in Georgia!) and the final straw was when I asked for the Friday after Thanksgiving off, and thought I had permission, only to be denied the Monday before. I quit in a huff and went running home to Mommy.
The next series of jobs sucked. Six months computer support for the finance department of Sprint PCS, then oops! merger - I was let go. Temp consulting jobs as a computer guru, punctuated by a stint as a clerk at CompUSA during the holiday season (Please, God - never again!) until I finally got work at NCS doing phone support for the FAFSA website. Ick. Phone support. Still, the people were nice, I was reknowned as the Mac Guru, and I got extra cash grading essays, but still. Ick.
I ran off to Seattle with the intention of getting a Master's degree, but ended up working for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation instead. No, I never met Bill, but his dad, Bill Sr. is a pretty nice guy. It was supposed to be a 3-month temp job, which I managed to stretch to 10 months before my position got re-orged out of existence.
Two months of panicky unemployment, and then, the U.
3. What do you like best about your job?
The University. If I had to narrow it down, I'd say the six free credit hours I can take each quarter. I haven't exactly used them yet, but it's a matter of time.
4. What do you like least about your job?
I have no windows. in winter the only time I see daylight is when I'm walking to work.
5. What is your dream job?
More windows. More vacation. Fewer phone calls.
I'm working on that still. With luck, I'll start in on that pesky Master's degree this summer, and maybe in three years I can take another look at the status quo. I've bounced around so much, it was quite the accomplishment to hit a year at a single establishment. I'm not quite being paid what I should be here, and the state budget looks like I won't get a raise for a couple of years at least, but the benefits at this point far outweigh the monetary cons.
Tech Support for the University of Washington
2. How many other jobs have you had and where?
My very first job was little secretarial stuff for my dad: data entry of business cards he'd collect at trade shows and the like.
The summer before college, I worked for a hotel/motel supply company: inventory, register and stocking. I hadn't really realized how many little tiny motels were in Lake Tahoe until I worked there.
My first summer at college, I stayed in town and got a job at a local Dairy Queen. My first and last job in food service.
My second summer I spent with Dad in Kansas City. (Mom was still in Nevada, getting my brother ready for college and trying to sell the house.) I got a job as a secretary/receptionist for a guy that Dad had met, and eventually my hours dropped to half-time. I ended up spending more time at the mall bookstore or the library than actually at work.
My junior year of college, I'd lost my full ride scholarship (hated Orgo Chem. Ick!) and had to find an on-campus job. Since I'd been spending way too much time in the computer labs anyway, and most of my friends worked there, too, it was a forgone conclusion that I'd get a job as a lab monitor.
Senior year, my first class of the year was an independant study at SunSoft, doing software testing, and they hired me for the rest of the project, coming in half-time. My grades tanked in my next class, which was a Life Drawing class. I adored it, and I got quite good, but I didn't have time to complete the at-home assignments. So I quit, and re-upped my hours in the computer labs.
My college was a little-bitty liberal arts college, so we had all of a dozen master's candidates, and no one to do the grunt work that traditionally falls to grad students. They solved that by hiring newly minted graduates to come back for a year or three (the Geology department especially, liked to keep people around) to help out. I became the Computer Paraprofessional for the Math department. I helped out in the labs for the Comp Sci classes, held office hours in the afternoons for students to come in for help on their homework, and helped out the IS department when they needed a little extra man-power. That was a fun job. best of all, when classes were out on the fourth Wednesday, I had the entire block break free. Three and a half weeks on, then a four day weekend. I have yet to enconter a better vacation scheme.
My next job was completely evil. I'd moved to Georgia with my fiance (now the ex-fiance). We lived in Athens, and I commuted to Atlanta to work for MediaOne, babysitting one of their Network Operations Centers for the new cable modem service. There was never anyone else around, so I had no human contact, and I had to sit in a large, echoing, cold, noisy room with air-conditioning units and servers running full blast. I started bringing earplugs and a blanket (even in midsummer in Georgia!) and the final straw was when I asked for the Friday after Thanksgiving off, and thought I had permission, only to be denied the Monday before. I quit in a huff and went running home to Mommy.
The next series of jobs sucked. Six months computer support for the finance department of Sprint PCS, then oops! merger - I was let go. Temp consulting jobs as a computer guru, punctuated by a stint as a clerk at CompUSA during the holiday season (Please, God - never again!) until I finally got work at NCS doing phone support for the FAFSA website. Ick. Phone support. Still, the people were nice, I was reknowned as the Mac Guru, and I got extra cash grading essays, but still. Ick.
I ran off to Seattle with the intention of getting a Master's degree, but ended up working for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation instead. No, I never met Bill, but his dad, Bill Sr. is a pretty nice guy. It was supposed to be a 3-month temp job, which I managed to stretch to 10 months before my position got re-orged out of existence.
Two months of panicky unemployment, and then, the U.
3. What do you like best about your job?
The University. If I had to narrow it down, I'd say the six free credit hours I can take each quarter. I haven't exactly used them yet, but it's a matter of time.
4. What do you like least about your job?
I have no windows. in winter the only time I see daylight is when I'm walking to work.
5. What is your dream job?
More windows. More vacation. Fewer phone calls.
I'm working on that still. With luck, I'll start in on that pesky Master's degree this summer, and maybe in three years I can take another look at the status quo. I've bounced around so much, it was quite the accomplishment to hit a year at a single establishment. I'm not quite being paid what I should be here, and the state budget looks like I won't get a raise for a couple of years at least, but the benefits at this point far outweigh the monetary cons.
