[Closed] What do you do for a living and do you enjoy it?

Criminal Barrister, good days and bad but never dull. Had many and wildly varied jobs before but after almost 15 years its only the massive cuts to the criminal justice system that make me think about moving on. Would love to retrain as an engineer but fear career propsects for newly qualified at 50 may be limited.

Access control facilitation technician

Is that a doorman?

Software development manager, used to be for an Ecommerce company that was UK based, now part of a Japanese giant. It's pretty crappy at the moment, could be worse and the pay is pretty good. I'm making applications to other places but they could be just as bad as this, so might stay. No Audi either, sorry!

Drugs.

Developing them. Well, not the chemistry, the biology, or the medicine. Rather, making the evidence available to decide how to design the clinical studies that determine whether a compound is a good enough drug or not.

I really enjoy it. I get to [s]play with[/s] evaluate technologies and products that might make gathering and using such evidence easier. I get to develop training, policies, systems, and ideas. I have access to whatever journals are needed to procure the evidence. I get to work with brilliant, world-class experts, geeks, nerds, scientists and physicians from around the world every day. And in nice accommodation, in beautiful surroundings, with a short commute.

Downsides are the burden of international travel, the need to always do even better than ever before, the difficulty of developing medicines, and the likelihood of redundancy before the decade is out.

Product Manager.

I quite like it. Get to use my brain to be creative and to solve problems. Liaising with other infrastructure areas like legal, compliance, tax, operations, front office, technology.

It pays the rent and allows me to live the life I want for me and my family.

Firefighter and urban search and rescue technician

14 years in and love both roles, especially the newer USAR role.

Hate how were being smashed by the government and very concerned about the future of the fire service and the service the public will receive when these fresh cuts have gone through.

Hi all been a good interesting thread, for my sins I'm a time served fitter still working on/with tools sheet metal,pipe fitting, machining, assembly and still like my job. Third stint at present company a good one as well, local edge of town, walking distance. Private company 75 years, same family owners. Under going big investment within company. Yes I like my job.

Loading Bay Equipment and Industrial Door rep, dull as dish water.
Boring job and products, don't like it but it pays the bills.

Would love to have gone into the forces, Royal marines Commando.(Too old for it now but probably fit enough)

Junior Scientist in a biotech firm working to GMP standards.

I enjoy it, however it can include lots of incredibly repetitive paperwork that gets tiresome quickly as does validating data ready for it to be sent to the FDA. It's all part of rigorous science and it's teaching me discipline, so that's good.

It's fun on the whole and the team is great, I feel very supported by them.

Director of an Architects Practice (RIBA). Not an Architect. (Stick with it Mikey74).

Enjoy it but it can be tough.

IT delivery manager owning a functional area of the business (or now this seasons "in" word is capability)

Working for a company which currently has very good work / life balance, which is great now I have a son. Job isn't going anywhere and I'm pretty busy but bored stupid most days.

Few links with others above, initially wanted to be an architect but was put off by family, then studied law and decided that was deadly dull and ended up falling into IT as I needed to earn money and it paid ok.

Been looking around for something I'd rather do, but keep drawing a blank. Keep toying with the idea of setting up my own software company. Plenty of people said they'd come work for me, just got to find some clients.....and the balls to give it a go.

I drive a 206 and ride a Scott scale...

Interesting thread.

@renton, still some time to think of what next. Health and Saftey Mgr seems to me the type of job where no one is happy to see you !

Portfolio manager. Yes I do although often too much of it. Absolutely detest my commute with a passion though, by far the most stressful part of it. Thanks, TfL.

Teacher working for a charity specialising in helping the unemployed.

Its interesting and varied but not lucrative. However it is way less stressful/demanding than "proper" teaching and I have no work at home [ nor long holidays]

Day job: Visitor Services Manager at a small museum in the lowest paid part of the country. Hard work, not great pay, but work with great people and love (almost) every minute.
Evening job: Meet-and-Greet at an open-air theatre. Fun work, beautiful place, makes up for sitting on my arse all day, and a reminder that 99.99% of people are just lovely.

Very lucky, and proof that money (and having any leisure time) isn't everything.

Maintenance Engineer (acting unit manager) for local authority. I look after all the woodwork and metalwork machinery in the local secondary, special schools and adult education centres.
I love problem solving and fixing stuff but the red tape and newly added additional paperwork is mind numbing. Loads of great people who do thankless jobs for local government who at times can be the only good thing until the weekend.

Pathologist

Bike Shop Owner,
Get to work on some nice bikes, meet like minded people, been a steep learning curve on the biz side, and long days.
Prob doing more hours a week than when I was a money grabbing Aircraft Engineer!
On the whole I really enjoy the job, be even better if there wasn't so much paper/office work!

Marine Engineer .... Jack of all trades, master of none .
Hate boats and engines ; other than that it's ok.

Curto80.

Yes I work at swanwick.

Interesting thread as most of the jobs I've never heard of or considered! Been a squaddie, ski instructor, sparkie and shop stock room boy but I've landed on my feet now.

Not surprised you like it - I've seen how you guys work! If you know Monkey tell him his bro says hi.

landed on my feet now.

Subsea Engineer for a big oil company.

I install the bits which sit on top of the well at the seabed and control the flow of oil/gas.

I love the job, but the time offshore away from family is tough, and the current trajectory of the oil industry means job security is becoming a big worry.

Part time teaching assistant in a nurture unit, so work with children with social, emotional and educational needs. It is full on, demanding and tiring. But the children, nursery reception and year 1 are brilliant. On certain days theirs tears before bedtime both children and staff. Good stuff in the main.

Self employed gardener, was an engineer for 25+ years got bored with it so started to do something else and really enjoy it. It's hard work but I choose the jobs and the hours and it beats lining someone else's pocket.

Solicitor in Brecon. It's ok most of the time, I like my client's, mostly knarly Welsh hill farmers. I used to be an agricultural mechanic/engineer however 16 years and not much more than min wage put paid to that.

industrial roofer.
love it

I don't know anyone at work who's on here tbh!

Jambalaya, I can't think of a witty response, sorry!

Firefighter. Works 5hite but lads are great. I should have stayed in the army though

I run a small design agency in Carlisle and on the side I take photos of mountain bikes. Most of the time neither one feels much like work which is ace

Clinical Pharmacologist. I get to mix Maths, Medicine and Biology in equal measure. It's not a job, it's a vocation and I feel privileged to be able to develop future medicines - when they work (which is seldom). Resilience, optimism and geekiness are the necessary three skills for career success.

In another life, I'd be a full-time cycle coach, but that doesn't keep me in the bikes to which I'd like to be accustomed, so experimenting on people keeps the wolf from the door instead 😉

Marine Engineer...
...Hate boats and engines

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Marine Engineer .... Jack of all trades, master of none .
Hate boats and engines ; other than that it's ok.

I loved boats and engines but hated the being at sea (eventually). Would do it again tomorrow if someone figured out teleportation.

Currently an operator technician in a nuclear power station. As an engineer in a previous life it can be frustrating being treated like a child day in day out. Doing a degree to get my stripes back and hopefully regain some job satisfaction.

Hydrographic surveyor, work offshore on large ROV survey vessels.

Love it, especially the time off (5 weeks on / 5 weeks off) and the reasonably good pay. Our lass less keen at my being away 5 weeks at a time though.

Oil price is causing concerns though...

For the moment - pretty content.

For a long time I moved pianos. Sold the business last year and walked away at the age of 68. I had no residual injuries, nothing hurt on my last day, and I never missed a day from injury.

The reason I sold the business is that not that I couldn't do it any more. [url= http://fattireflyer.com/ ]I wrote a book about my mountain biking adventures[/url], and the publicity efforts would not permit me to run the business effectively, so I sold it to my employees.

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I tinker with MR scanners. Sometimes it is a good job, sometimes a proper pain.
Get to buy lots of Titanium tools for use on my bikes. If nothing else I have the most niche spanner collection.

Northernerindevon are you freelance? Pending some R&D trials I am running over winter I may have some interesting hydro survey work coming up in the 2016 season that would be based from shore.

Peterfile - do you work for a law firm?

Teacher. Love the teaching bit, hate all the constant changes and trying to manage other teachers.

I'm a bike fitter for a well respected small chain of fitting studios. I also do a bit of physiological testing for cyclists as well.

I enjoy it on the whole, although it's not as much fun when the seasons change and the demand drops, because it means that I have to work in a bike shop- far more stress and disorganisation than I would ideally like. I also get to use all the best bits of my degree (sport and exercise science) so it doesn't seem like a complete waste of time.

Would love to do more of the physiology stuff, but even finding a way to gain experience is hard enough, never mind getting someone to pay me a wage to do it! May well end up just doing something completely different to avoid my current 45min car commute.

oceanographer - passes the time and pays the bills.

Consultant IT architect here.

Used to not enjoy it but now I'm with a small company it's tolerable as there are no internal company politics.

Pays too much and isn't that bad to justify jumping to do something more worthwhile and interesting. Ideally I'd get made redundant and forced to try something else for a year.

Clinical Pharmacologist. I get to mix Maths, Medicine and Biology in equal measure. It's not a job, it's a vocation and I feel privileged to be able to develop future medicines - when they work (which is seldom). Resilience, optimism and geekiness are the necessary three skills for career success.

In another life, I'd be a full-time cycle coach, but that doesn't keep me in the bikes to which I'd like to be accustomed, so experimenting on people keeps the wolf from the door instead

If only there were a way you could combine the two...

RAF Logistics type. I spend my days working with interesting kit and interesting people in interesting places. I love what i do, for the most part. However, lots of time away can really put a lot of stress on the family (i went to the middle east in January, and only got back a couple of weeks ago) as can moving around every couple of years (I've gone from Wiltshire, to North Lincolnshire, to Lincolnshire and to Cambridgeshire in the last 5 years).

I left school 12 years ago with no qualifications, no aspirstions and no prospects. The RAF took me in, and now i have a great work-life balance (when I'm in the UK), i earn much more than most of my contemporaries, I've got loads of transferrable skills and experience, and i get to go biking on work time (as a Joint Service Mountain Bike Leader).

I'm also soon to start a degree, which is very heavily subsidised by the Service; It'll cost me a couple of hundred quid at most.

I owe a lot to my job.

Supermarket trucker
Work/ life balance is not good & like a lot of people on this thread I could do with a career change..
Until my late 20's I was a spark,maybe I should retrain in something involving those skills.