What do you do, and how did you end up there?

I'm curious what everybody does and how they ended up in that job. I'm currently searching for jobs and an odd one that I had never considered popped up that I am seriously considering; I never saw myself ever even applying for a job like this.

Oops, this was supposed to be in Off Topic.

I work behind-the-scenes customer service, probably close to a business analyst at this point.

I got the job because i needed a job almost 5 years ago, so i just got my foot in the door, and rapidly moved to something i didn't hate and was good at.

Now i hate it, i'm underpaid, and only here because it pays the bills.

I am a stage electrician. I started out in college going for a degree in Marine Bio... but due to poor grades in chem.. switched to communications.. and the entire market changed just as I graduated and everything I learned was obsolete.

Thankfully I had worked in the theatre at College and was able to find a job in that field..

Swiss machinist. Was out of work when the economic decline started 4 years back or so, kids got hungry quick, wife's uncle owns a massive screw machine house, the rest is history.

Quickly found that this a neat industry utterly destroyed by the advent of computer technology and cheap labor in China. There's no money in this unless you own the place AND make medical parts, though at least there was huge overtime for a while. If you're smart enough to function in everyday life, you're too smart to be a screw machinist.

My college roommate took a Computer Science class which included an intro to web development. Way back then the internet was new and awesome, so I got him to show me what he was learning. After some practice I landed a series of jobs on campus managing departments' web sites, then found web development work off campus. Over time I became a senior web developer for a design firm and then the technology director for a PR firm, and now I'm an electronic communications manager for a large corporation.

16 years as a cop downunder, had enough of that and bailed, met my wife online and eventually moved to the USA (some details skipped), fell into starting up a small town taxi company and this led to doing medical transport. However I followed GRM right through the move.

Mechanical Engineer got tired of being a paid thug (rent to own manager) and always had a talent for things mechanical.

I want to go into management again, or politics.

Either way, I have a gift for the BS

I went to school to be a mechanical engineer (mainly looking at racing) but I enjoyed Huntsville and kinda wanted to stay and a part time job popped up on the local autocross board for someone who knew 3D modeling. I got an interview and eventually became a full time mechanical engineer at a company building proximity detection systems for mining equipment.

I manage a team of pre- and post- sales data storage & protection engineers. I started out in operations, and decided I didn't like to work so I moved to sales. After some time in sales I realized that I really didn't like to work so I moved to management.

Went to UW-Madison (Wisconsin) straight out of high school for Mechanical Engineering (the generic kind with no direction). Graduated. Looked for a job for 9 months back in 2005. Found a small architectural/engineering firm that wanted to teach me how to be a HVAC/Plumbing/Steam engineer. Now I have my Professional Engineering License in Wisconsin and in Ohio, have my own office, and started taking control of some small projects. I am happy and will turn 31 this year. I've owned my own house since march of 2006.

I'm a Middle/high school technology teacher, first year. I started working as a middle school teachers aide right out of high school, working 1:1 with students in special ed. I did it mostly because I needed a job. When I went with my students to their tech classes I thought "These teachers get paid to teach kids and work with tools and machines all day?! I'm in!"

Three years of that job, and then 5 years of school later, I just started my first year teaching this year. If you told me 8 years ago as I walked out of high school that I would ever set foot back in one, I probably would have laughed at you. But now I think I have one of the coolest jobs in the world.

Stay at home dad, so....nothing?
Schooling as a geological engineer/geophysicist. My wife is a geo eng as well. I worked collecting the data she used to drill oil wells. She got paid more, loved working behind a desk making important decisions. I loathed the same.
I quit two days before my first was born and I've been the main man since day one for all four of my kids. Kids are 4, 6, 8, and 10 now. Not every day is a bed of roses and there are things I've had to delay/give up, which is true of anyone idiotic enough to have four kids. I love my life, but you can't exactly plan for something like this, it just sort of happens.

I'm a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor (and soon to be a Certified Disability Management Specialist). Yeah, it's as boring as it sounds. I basically do case management for the State's worker's comp insurance which means I spend all day on the phone with medical offices or schools and type up reports.

I got here because one of my many Intern jobs during college (Part II) was at the local VFW as a VA liaison doing paperwork filing for Vet's benefits, which I was really good at after having to do all of mine on my own. So I decided I was good at helping people rehab and burning through red tape.

Went to college with no direction whatsoever. Was asked not to return after 2 years of mediocre grades. Got a job at a small tool and die shop where my dad was 1/3 partner. Broke my neck in a diving miscalc 2 years into learning the trade, with promise due to my love of all things mechanical. Came out of a 3 month hospital stay as a c6-7 quad in a wheelchair to become our 1st cad designer. 8 years later after my dad retired and his partners reniged on a partnership promise I quit. Did my own successful contract cad design business for a few years. And now own my own tool and die shop, ironically next door to my dad's old place, and more successful to boot.

Do what you love.

Javelin - now that's coincidental.

So I am in channel development. It's an off shoot of the typical sales job. I was a program manager for worldcom building reporting systems and being the general numbers guy for one of the VPs. Well, when the cards all tumbled on the glass house, they cut our whole division. I couldn't get another job in my field because I didn't have my degree.

I moved to Austin from Chicago and took the first job I could get and it was at Dell. I worked in the channel sales group there for 4 years and then went to be a field sales rep for APC. Traveled too much and was never home and I wanted to finish my degree so I quit and went back to Dell. Been back to a couple years. I got my degree in the mean time and now I'm working on getting my CAPM so I can get back to the program/project management world.

I went to university and got a geography degree because it was the courses I least hated. Then worked as a youth counsellor at a place my wife was working. I stayed there for 6 years but didn't love it. My brothe in law became a firefighter shortly after I started as a youth counsellor. I decided I wanted to do the same, so I went to school at night and eventually go my dream job of being a firefighter. I look forward to going in every day. I also only work 7 of every 28 days, so I get lots of time with my 3 year old daughter. I'm almost a stay at home dad.

Satellite installation/service. Installed for 3 years, service for 3 years. I come to your house and fix your satellite TV. Very little day to day supervision is perfect for me and the technology moves fast enough to keep me interested. I seem to have a knack for understand how things work and use it to my advantage. I moved from small town, MS to Pascagoula, MS in 05 and responded to a newspaper ad for satellite installers and here I am.

Software engineer - went to university to study computer science, started my own business on the side and never finished the degree. Been doing this professionally for close to a quarter century by now so I'm figuring I'm probably halfway decent at it. Better than I am at buying and fixing cars, at least.

I started working with system software, but eventually ended up in finance and worked for some Wall Street companies right through various bubbles. Met my wife while I was at a conference in the Bay Area and moved out to the US eventually. Now working for a small software company that helps people working for investment managers, pension funds and pension advisors analyse investment performance and as we say "tell the lucky investment managers from the smart ones".

University never agreed with me much, at least in Germany. I actually wanted to go to film school after a semester of computer science but my stepdad and his side of the family talked me out of it. I was big into acting while I was in high school - I knew I wasn't going to hack it as an actor, not talented enough and not good looking enough to make up for the lack of talent . Oddly enough at the ten year HS reunion one of my classmates mentioned that some of them were surprised that they didn't see my name pop up in some movie credits or other by then...

Either way I got lucky to get into the programming field when you didn't have to have a CS degree of some sort and it still works for me and is interesting enough most of the time for me to get out of bed in the morning.

Web dev, sysadmin and DB admin. Was always good with computers and programming since I was a kid, did most of an IT degree in college and now I work in the field. Considering doing something else now because the stuff you do in business (vs. messing around at home / in academia) is actually pretty boring, and around here the opportunities are slim and the pay even slimmer.

assembler in a factory ... making mostly small things for the aero-space industry .... actuators, resolvers, LVDT's RVDT's, tach, wiring harnesses, etc... + the LOS for the targeting gizmos for the M1A1 Abrams and the AAAV .....

I'm playing professional student. Again.

I'm a civil engineer. Next monday I start a new job, working in a big chemical plant. In high school I was good at math and science, so everyone said I should be an engineer. I actually liked the classes. Little did I know I hate actually doing typical engineering work. After 2 miserable years sitting in a cube and doing cad work, I was dang near a nutcase.

Since then I've mainly worked as a city engineer, where I don't do design, just manage projects and construction.

It's been an interesting ride, with stops in a nuclear bomb facility, and a year in Afghanistan.

Assistant buyer, buyer, marketing research analyst, purchasing agent - 9 years then I jumped the fence since I have always wanted to be in sales.

Inside sales, outside sales, sales manager - 18 years of industrial sales; Steel mills, chemical, refineries, and commercial construction. I sell hoses for a living and get to drive around a lot.