I'm taking classes at the local community college on a part-time basis in order to switch careers. I currently work in the I.T. field as a analyst. In a nutshell, I sit in front of the computer all day long and analyze data. Sounds fun, right? :-p

My second career choice is being a physical therapist. Anyone on the 3FC a physical therapist? I would love to hear from you. Anyway, I want to know how you feel about your career/job. Do you love what you do, hate what you do, or somewhere in the middle?

Part of the reason why I'm looking to become a physical therapist (PT) is so that I can get my body moving throughout the day. I have no doubt that the reason why I have a "tire" around my waist is partly due to having to sit in front of a computer for 8 to 9 hours each day at work. If I become a PT, then I believe it would help me take better control of my weight. Luckily, my personality (INFJ) type and sincere interest in helping people get better correlates with wanting to become a PT.

No job is perfect (or so I've been told), but please feel free to share your experiences. I'll go first:

Current occupation: I.T. Analyst

How do you feel about it?: I hate it most days.

Why do you feel this way?: I feel very isolated most days. I.T. is a male-dominated field, which has it's pros and cons like everything else in life. I'm never really "one of the guys" because I am not a guy. Also, I've been subject to mild sexual harassment (at my previous job) with over hearing "men's locker room" comments. If you get offended easily, then do not want in an I.T. department with mostly men (though I've never heart of an IT department consisting of mostly women). I need to go into a career that allows me to directly help people verses indirectly helping people. I wish I knew this about myself 10 years ago, but better late than never, right?

What would you advise to others about your occupation?: Being an I.T. Analyst is for someone who likes to work independantly most days. Depending on the project as well as industry you work in, the stress can be low to moederate. The occupation isn't for folks who want to be the center of attention.

Any final thoughts? It's never too late to go back to college and go for something you love rather than something that will make you live VERY comfortably (although it's a bonus if you can have both).

Hi FreeBird,

I'm in a similar position in that I'm looking at a career change that will actually cut my pay significantly but I think in the long run I will be more satisfied. I'm also in IT I'm in no real hurry and the current job market sucks all around so staying where I'm at while slowly going to college to fulfill some prereqs is my current goal.

Nice to meet you Nelie! It looks like we live in the same geographic area too. I wouldn't be surprised if we work in the same industry much less the same company. LOL Yes, I have several people at work that are itching to leave the company and go else where, but staying put due to the poor economy. It is definitely rough out there! Just like you, I know that becoming a PT means that I will be making much less than what I am today as an analyst. However, I know I will have satisfication being a PT. Good luck to you!

I would just like to add that it is never too late to go back to school. I got my second associate degree when I was 40 and I just applied to go back to school this fall to receive my bachelor's degree and I am turning 49 this year.

Current occupation: Corporate trainer. Specifically, I manage content creation for online training for retail floor sales associates. For example, if you go into a Best Buy and you ask questions about a specific manufacturer's TVs, those employees might have taken my online training courses.

How do you feel about it? I love it.

Why do you feel this way? I work for a great company with good benefits and I like my coworkers. I have a lot of creative control and get to be creative on a daily basis. I also get to do fun stuff like manage promotions, pick out prizes, manage our cool website, push the envelope of things to do (launch RSS feeds, message boards, social media).

What would you advise to others about your occupation? Be a good writer and copy editor (attention to detail). Our work is seen by up to 60K people a year and represents the company I work for, typos are a no no. When you send a resume, proof read it!!! My job isn't rocket science, but I'm always surprised how few people have the right skillset to do it.

Any final thoughts? I'm always amazed how lucky I am to have stumbled into this line of work. I majored in FRENCH. I got my teaching degree, I hated teaching. I bummed around through my 20s, waiting tables and working at the mall. I got my first "real job" almost by accident. Then, I went to Microsoft for 10 years (which I also LOVED) and now have this great job making great money.

Thanks for sharing Glory! I hope to some day be in a career where I love it just as much as you do. Do you think your weight loss contributed to loving you job? Or is there no correlation?

I believe part of my weight gain is due to hating my job. Going day in and day out to a place where I don't even enjoy the work...it triggers me to seek something that gives me joy. Of course the easiest fix to enjoyment is food for me.

I lost the weight while I was at Microsoft (in a similar training job - call center training). I loved that job, too, even while heavy.

I was heavy because I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and didn't want to know about calories. It wasn't job related. I was unhappy with myself for being heavy, but it wasn't being unhappy that caused me to be heavy (if that makes any sense).

Current occupation: Claims customer service rep at a managed care call center

How do you feel about it?: I like it when I get to help people (both providers and patients) but kind of hate it when I have to tell people something denied because they didn't get a referral or it wasn't covered by their contract.

Why do you feel this way?: Hah, well mostly for what I said above. I like it enough but I really don't want to do this for a life-long career - I'd eventually like to move up into provider relations or case management - I feel like I'd make more of a difference along with the obvious pay grade increase.

What would you advise to others about your occupation?: Customer service/call center reps at your insurance company actually DO care and they DO feel bad when your claim isn't being paid. I will try everything in my limited amount of power (checking w/ supervisor, having the claim sent back for review, trying to call the doctor to see if they can do a retro-referral) to get a claim paid for a member so they don't have to do it out of pocket. Calling me the C word or a word that rhymes with witch or threatening to sue me and "everyone else at the company" when I'm going above and beyond the job description to help doesn't aid the situation in the slightest.

Any final thoughts? Once my divorce is final and I'm financially back on my feet, I plan on going back to school. Like I said, I'd like to go into case management if I was to stay within the company but I've always wanted to do criminal justice/police academy - I guess we'll see in a few months.

About call center jobs - when I was at MS - I did call center training. If you are smart and show up every day, you can go pretty far pretty fast at a call center. The turn over rate is astounding. I would visit once a year or so. I was always pleasantly surprised to see bright people from new hire classes as supervisors a year later.

I guess working at a big corp like I do is pretty insulating (nearly all my coworkers show up every day, on time! it's default behavior not above average). But, in a call center job, if you don't make a habit of calling in, if you are punctual, if you can write a paragraph and are pleasant, you're like the cream of the crop. Stay put 1-2 years and you can advance easily.

(in my experience as a frequent observer at call centers)

Current occupation: Research scientist

How do you feel about it?: On the whole, I love it

Why do you feel this way?: In my job I've always been permitted a lot of independence, but have always had the experience/knowlege of other more experienced scientists to depend on. I love being able to explore my own capabilities and continuously develop as a scientist, while at the same time having a wealth of knowledge at my disposal. I have worked with and for some amazing scientists, and have learned so much from them. My job these days is different than when I started (I'm seldom in the lab anymore), but I still love the feeling of having worked through a challenging protocol or development project for months or years (or having led a more junior scientist through the same) and seeing it finally, FINALLY come out in the end. My boss and I were talking recently about what we feel were our biggest accomplishments career-wise - and both of us picked ones that involved months of frustration and crying when we couldn't get techniques and assays to produce the desired results. Persisting through the biggest challenges is what brings the greatest emotional and intellectual rewards.

What would you advise to others about your occupation?: Be careful in the lab, stay organized, pay attention to the details, and respect the work of the scientists who have come before you. Most research projects go on for years (or at the very least build on previous research), and thus the intellectual contributions made to that research by other scientists is significant. Be self-motivating, persistent and analytical (think through your actions and the results you see), and ask for help when you need it. Develop your own ideas and suggestions for improvement, but be willing to take direction. Don't hide your screw-ups or try to fix them yourself; we all have them. Learn from those around you (you'll be glad you did), and take every opportunity you are offered to learn something new. Recognize that every scientist around you - even those more junior than you - has a different research background than yours, and don't let pride get in the way of using their offered suggestions and their experience to benefit your research.

Any final thoughts? A successful career in scientific research demands intellectual curiousity, but it frequently begins with tasks that require little intellectual input at all. When I first started out in the lab, I used to tell my husband, "a monkey could do what I'm doing." That was mostly true, lol, but during that time I was also learning a tremendous amount about scientific issues particular to my field and scientific research in general from all the seasoned scientists around me. More than I could have even recognized. "Putting in the time" on the more mundane tasks and doing them well and with enthusiasm was the proving ground, and opportunities to be involved in more stimulating work followed from that. All the levels of work, from pipetting reactions in the laboratory at someone else's direction, to project conception and management, are essential to successful scientific research, and it's important to do your work - at whichever level you're working - to the very best of your ability. The rewards (pride at seeing a project completed, presentation and publication of the results, the respect of your supervisors and colleagues, and your own advancement in your career) will certainly follow in time.

Current occupation: I'm a freelance writer (non-fiction). I create web content for Yahoo! and AOL. I ghost-write for everything from game review sites to fashion/beauty blogs. I sometimes write ad copy, too, though I'm not as well-paid as Don Draper.

How do you feel about it?: I love everything about it but the money.

Why do you feel this way?: I'm almost never bored with the task at hand, and if I am, it'll be over in a few minutes and I'll have moved on to the next topic. Writing gives me a chance to do the things I already want to do--learn new stuff, explain, teach, clarify, enlighten, amuse. It's the only job I've ever had in which I feel as though my strong points are actually useful; no one needs a retail clerk who types 120 words a minute, no one cares if an accountant can be eloquent, no one wants a chatty reservations agent. My thoughts and my voice have value, and that's a revelation to me. Work is finally part of my life, not the thing that interrupts my life out of dull necessity.

It's a slightly lonely job sometimes, but solitude seems like bliss when I think about some of the co-workers I've had in the past. I have no boss, just a series of clients, and any of them who tick me off too much, I can drop. I can dress for work or I can schlub around; I can even work naked if I want. It's awesome.

What would you advise to others about your occupation?: If you're going to be self-employed, you also need to be self-disciplined. You don't have a boss pressing you to improve your performance or shoo you away from reading boards or remind you of deadlines; you'll have to handle that yourself. Also, treat your work time as work time; if you're writing, you're on the clock and your family needs to respect that.

Always, always do your best work no matter how small the job or how low the pay. The client who wants you to write a five-dollar article about organic cat food today may just want to pay you twenty bucks per hundred-word post on his pet-care blog next month. If you can't crank out a hundred-word blog post in under fifteen minutes, you're in the wrong line of work.

Any final thoughts? I can't imagine going back to a "real" job now. I might have to, thanks to the feast-or-famine nature of freelance work, but I will never give this up even if I have to do it alongside a nine-to-five grind.

Current occupation: Emergency Department Clerk

How do you feel about it?: It's a well paid, fast paced job. I enjoy going to work: sometime I can get a bit nervous because I am new but so far so good.

Why do you feel this way?: The job itself is interesting; I meet alot of new interesting people so barely a dull moment, but I'm still new to it so I can have performance anxiety.

What would you advise to others about your occupation?: If you want the job I have, you'd have to go to a technical college for 6-9 months. It doesn't advance to anything else though, so I'd focus on more education.

Any final thoughts? Im blessed to have this job

Current occupation: self employed property inspector-i work for my husband!

How do you feel about it?: i love it.i am blessed to work at home.

What would you advise to others about your occupation?: If you have a dream of working from home, don't give up. While we aren't rich, we do make a decent living.

Any final thoughts? From a diet point of view, working at home has its own unique challenges-i think generally speaking it's easier, because i really am limited to what i bring into the house-the only downside is when i have to be out and about (we have a few very busy days each month)i am doomed to fast food. i have made it work so far though.

-fm

Current occupation: Assistant Language Teacher of English at a Japanese high school

How do you feel about it?: Neutral/positive neutral. It's easy money requiring little to no effort. I spend most of my workdays surfing the Internet. I teach 4 classes a week, so that's about 36 hours of "free time." I have gotten a lot of blogging done.

Why do you feel this way?: Work causes me almost no stress at all and the pay and benefits are great so I can't complain. It's a little lonely considering I am the only Westerner/foreigner at work, but I really enjoy just being able to live quietly inside my own head all day.

What would you advise to others about your occupation?: I STRONGLY recommend this sort of gig to anyone who just wants a "break" from life in their home country. If you're passionate about teaching and education there is a lot of lesson planning and working with kids, and if you just want easy money it's virtually impossible to get fired. Also a great way to experience a new culture and the vacation time/paid holidays allow for lots and lots of travel.