Never

Amie,
Yes, for the most part I do enjoy it. It tends to be hectic and you have to be able to multitask though. If you can eat lunch with the left hand, type with the right one and talk on the phone, you're good to go. It took 5 years of college when I did it but now it's a 6 year degree. How long it would take you with a teaching degree depends on how much math and science you had. Might cut off up to 2 years.
Can't complain about the job market at all. There's been a high demand and salary has been increasing steadily in the last few years.

kwigibo

how do you get into proofreading, i've always fancied myself in that area

kwigibo

As for me, i'm a volunteer seat-filler, but i attend university so i can collect my social security check

MzNeko

This is going to sound weird, but I don't really know!

The company that I work at, well, it used to be that typesetting was only a small part of what they did and the typesetting department just kind of did jobs and sent them out, either not proofing stuff or with the typesetters proofing them - never mind the fact that just because someone can type doesn't mean they can spell!

I think the idea was that the customers would look at the work and send it back if there were any problems - but the fact that sometimes there were really stupid errors was not making them look good.

Anyway, some bright fellow in management decided "Maybe we need dedicated Quality Control staff, as opposed to just whoever is around the office..." I knew someone that worked there, and he recommended me. Anyone that knows me for very long knows that I'm a fiend for spelling and very nit-picky about it.

So I came in for an interview and they gave me a proofing test - a paper with all kinds of errors put in on purpose. I passed - and found a punctuation error on the instructions , so they gave me the job.

So far as I know, most proofreading jobs will require some kind of degree or another in English. I don't have one - I'm just a spelling freak that got lucky. At least now if I wanted a job somewhere else, I think the fact that I have practical experience might help.

voltaire321

I am currently work as consultant in the IT field. My background is Unix System Administration so that's what I consult on. Since I'm in Houston all of my clients (every last one of them) are oil and gas companies, so I've learned a bit more than I evern intended about oil and gas exploration (I work exclusively with people looking for oil, not people that have already found it.)

I also work as a doorman in an exclusive night club 1 night a week (mainly to meet women, I don't need the money.)

Previously I've been (in chronological order starting with most recent):

Computer and network consultant to the FBI
IT Manager
Unix System Administrator
Unix Phone Support Guy
Live Music Venue Manager
Bar Manager
Bartender
Bouncer
French Pastry Chef
Breakfast Cook
Videographer
Dishwasher
and waaaay back when...... newspaper boy.

Shake

I'm an engineering technician with a company that makes radios under government contracts. We do about equal business inside and out of the US. I recently moved into this position from being a test technician where I tested and repaired the circuit boards that go into the radios. This new position is much more interesting, not to mention better pay.

I've got a BS in Mathematics from RPI. Why math? It was something I was good at, and I was enrolled in the AFROTC program there, before having to drop that due to spreading myself too thin and grades suffering because of it. I ended up enlisting in the USAF several months after graduation as a means to eventually get to OTS, and then to pilot school, 'cause I really wanted to be a pilot! Then I got too old for pilot training, and so never went through with the OTS thing, and got out after my 2nd enlistment. In the AF, I was an avionics technician, so this job is similar work, but more challenging. I had been promoted up to E-5, which is the lowest official supervisory position in the AF, and I really missed doing the actual work. I was an OK supervisor, but I didn't enjoy it that much. Although it afforded me a lot of time to come here and post.

I also got involved with Amway's cyber-sister, Quixtar, but haven't really put much time into developing that, although I can see the enormous potential of it. Most of the people I met through it were nice enough, but were a bit too Xian for me. The guy who sponsored me into the business is now in seminary training, but he was really cool, and never even asked me about my religious beliefs. He kept business mostly business, which I really respect. If and when I ever end up making some real money with this system, I'll put some back to groups like AU, FFRF, etc.

I'm considering a Masters' program, but not sure what field to go into. I've got some good computer skills, other than programming, but I'm not sure what to do. I'm also thinking maybe EE or optics (always loved physics, but wasn't terrificly good at it). With the math background, I know I've got a decent base to get into cryptography, but where do I go now? MS in Applied Mathematics?

By the way, I do like the company I'm at now, but am wise enough to realize that companies nowadays aren't (typically) as loyal back to their employees. At least in the military if they eliminated your job, they'd train you for something else. I would've liked to cross-trained into an IT-type field in the military. That would have kept me in for another term!

Any suggestions? 33 and still wondering what I'm going to be when I grow up.

karthik

I am a software engineer programming in Java & ilk. I have been in USA for past 6 years on a work visa (American Programmer Infidels, please dont hate me! ) I also recently graduated from Johns Hopkins with my Masters (after 2 years of massochistic work/study ritual). In the weekends I teach at Byteback a volunteer computer education center in DC).

fuct_okc

Before I got laid off, I was a internet tech for the cable company for about a year. Lots and lots of fun... plus I'm up for rehire in 5 months!

But before that, I ran my own credit card directory websites. It was a lot of fun and a great experience coming out of high school... I started with about $50 and built it up ... in my heyday my sites got around 100,000 unique visitors per month. Consistantly at the top of the Yahoo! most popular search results.. But when my dad died and the affiliate market crashed, I had to shut them down and sell the domains... I did that for 3 years and miss it every single day... especially the $$$. I also ran a successful web development firm at the same time...

Other jobs...
Pest Control Guy (that was a sicko job!)
Dishwasher
Customer Service Representative (with the lowest talk time in the call center)
Telemarketer
Data Entry for a bank..
FedEx office bitch.. (i.e. - "Hey you! Can you fix this for me ??")

....Maybe someday I'll finish college...

Ab_Normal

*gets out business card* Hmmm, it says Application Developer. In essence, I create all the desktop data applications for our branch of the company - from soup (interrogating the end users for their requirements) to nuts (telling the end users anything that breaks is their own damn fault naah I wish).

My job has nothing to do with my college degree, which was in Criminal Justice. That's another story entirely...

pz

Associate Professor of Biology.

I've been a biologist almost always, so I don't quite have the breadth of experience I'm seeing most people talk about. I worked my way through the last 2/3 of my college years as a histologist and neurosurgical assistant in a physiology lab (much less glamorous or intellectual than it sounds, it mainly involved applying dental drills and bone saws to small animals, and cleaning up the mess afterwards. Especially cleaning up the mess.) Before that, I worked through high school in a nursery/greenhouse. I have to go all the way back to eighth grade, when I started my first job as a manual laborer shoveling rocks, to find a job where I wasn't working full time with living or recently living organisms.

Oh, and I did write some laboratory automation/image processing software in my spare time a while back, so I've at least dabbled in the software field.