What is your occupation?

I'm a baller

@alwaysbebombing: Also a shot-caller? Free-faller?

@dave_tacitus: How is being a farmer like? Do you really have to be "big fish" to live good or can smaller farms survive as well?

I am a student myself.

Veterinary Technician in an ER. It's not what I thought I'd be doing but it's honestly not bad. Sometimes I feel like a legalized drug dealer...for animals. Nothing like watching a cat after it got some kitty magic (Ketamine/Valium).

@etos: I mostly rent out my fields then raise a few cattle and sheep to sell on later in the year. Health problems mean I'll never be able to farm the whole thing myself but the income keeps things ticking over.

A casino Security officer. It's super fun some days, dull on others and kinda terrible sometimes.

30 isn't too old to go back to university. I'd highly recommend doing that. Now that you've seen what life without a degree is like and now that you have a little one it'll probably be a bit easier to motivate yourself to see it through.

You sound like you might be highly gifted, like myself (it's not as cool as it sounds)... ever been tested for that?

Of all the people I know who went into video game development, about 80% regret it. Not because of abuse by the public but because of abuse by their employers. Ridiculously long hours with little pay and benefits takes a toll quick. Most of the people that went into gaming came back to business development. You generally get paid far far better and don't have to work the crazy hours.

I am a parenting advisor. I love babies and guide new parents about parenting. I have communicated to the parents online also and give them advice when they need. I have read many blogs and articles regarding parenting but I liked one of the articles on http://www.babynology.com/parenting-advice/ which I always refer to new parents.

Systems Administrator. Mostly Linux, some Windows. I work for a small company, so do everything from racking and maintaining servers to configuring network hardware to writing automation scripts.

I wouldn't call it my passion, but it's a good living. Mostly I just fell into the job years ago. My degree is not even remotely related to IT or DevOps.

I'm a Service Desk Analyst for a major IT / Enterprise company. I answer phone calls and emails from internal customers (i.e. employees / contractors who work at the same company. I rarely talk to anybody external, and if I do it's usually because somebody else reached out to me, not vice versa). I work in cybersecurity, so it is interesting work. The pay and benefits are the best I've had, although I've only been in the job market post-undergrad for about 5 years, so the only real things I have to compare it to are initial jobs out of college.

I am a teacher, in my third year now, I teach electronics/robotics and engineering (metal shop to you Americans). I work with students from the ages of 12 to 18 and just moved to Dubai for my new job. I love it

I'm a computer engineer, I design and validate CPUs and SOCs. It's fun and pays quite well.

I'm a CNC Machinist. Been doing it for 2 years now. It's a fairly good company to work for and the pay is fairly good for my area.

I run a machine pretty much exactly like this one.

@raisu: nice! we're running almost exclusively okuma machines (6 cnc lathes, 4 cnc milling centers (3 and 4 axes). one mazak machining center tho.

@mortal_sb: Cool. We have a couple lathes. I've never ran one of those yet. Just vertical Haas mills and the horizontal Cincinnattis.

I am also an Engineering Manager with a mechanical engineering background. I don't manage software engineers though; manufacturing team building parts for the elctrorefining industry. I do get to work with explosives though.

I own and manage a senior care business. I have little free time. :(

On the plus side, being my own boss has it's moments. I followed a pretty strange path to get to where I am today, if you could call it a path. I don't really enjoy it, I'll probably sell the business soon once I get it to where I want it to be, then figure out what to do after that.

Firefighter and a paramedic here. Doing it for 13 years. Its a fun job but you can get burned out after awhile (no pun intended).

I am a platform developer for a large US tech company.

I absolutely love it. I went into Computer Science in HS thinking I was going to get heavily into game development. In college I took a few graphics dev. focused classes , again loved it. When I got out into the world (full of piss and vinegar) I noticed 2 things.

1. getting into the game industry is HARD

2. It is a highly stressful field!

I realized I'd rather find a better paying sector in development that would fund my obsession. I also discovered an area where I loved the work itself and it let me do front end dev for users as well as major data analysis.

I work in surveillance at a casino. It's boring mostly (I'm working right now) but it pays the bills. I usually tell people I work in the adult entertainment industry. I'm also a musician but there's no sustainable income from that racket.

I'm technically a salesman for a local office supplier. However since they figured out I know about computers I've become the company's IT slave. Building an online portal, repairing network issues, etc.

I'm a quality analyst for an insurance broker. Basically I listen to recordings of insurance sales/renewals and make sure that our salespeople followed all the right processes and gave good advice. The nice part of my job is I provide feedback to sales people and some of them are great so I get to write really positive encouraging things. Sometimes I protect our customers by identifying genuinely shifty sellers. Mostly of our guys are ok but some of them are terrible. The major downside is that if I "fail" a call because the salesperson fucked up then they lose part of their bonus and that's no fun for anyone! I'd like to work for the regulator at some point. Top tip - if in doubt, just tell your broker about that thing whatever it is. It's better to pay more for a policy that covers you than save money on premiums for less cover.

I run a local ISP (from the technical perspective) providing symmetrical gigabit bandwidth to the masses. I work on everything from TV middle ware systems, satelites, fiber optics, phone PBX systems, routers, switches, servers, etc. Its been an interesting ride

Graphic Designer for a local university. Its a very fun and interesting job since I get to spend most of my day creating things and due to the nature of how my department operates as the creative / production arm of the university, I get to jump from project to project doing vastly different things from week to week.

Software engineering - I maintain the DAS-es.

@zorban_zorban: dude, that's cool. Im a field techie myself, fixing the stuff manually when you f*ck up )))

@trinketnpinker: guess what? I pay your bills then, mate.

I do high-level database design. I talk to people who want databases, and people who make databases, then sit between then and get in trouble from all sides. My role is to translate dreams into a to-do list of sorts. Part of this is standard UI and UX tasks as well (what's it look like? how's it work?). It's a small company, so a many-hats situation.

Support lead for an indie mobile game studio.

I absolutely love this job and feel like I just sorta lucked into it after roughly 15 years of hopping between cookie cutter support positions for everything from grocery, to retail, to various web startups. Now I'm on my way (fingers crossed) to the design end and couldn't be happier.

Welding instructor at my local community college

Store manager at a car service place. I had a burnout for two months but Ï've just started again today. My job is very varied and the pay is ok. The thing I had to learn the hard way though is that there are more important things in life then monthly targets and customer satisfaction numbers.

6th Grade Teacher - It has it's ups and downs, but the ups are amazing.

I'm a VFX artist, making films all over the world. You've probably seen some of them.

Enlisted artillery soldier. I kinda hate my job, work environment, and the very real hearing loss but it's literally the only thing I'm qualified to do

I just got hired on for a six-month data entry position at a company in Ohio. It has potential to become something more permanent, but I'm just happy to have anything right now. I'm excited to get back to work and save some money.

@giantstalker: I mean, there are a few other things before artillery soldier but if you're good at it, all the power to you.

@sweep: Which film are you most proud of?

I'm a truck driver for a furniture company. I just take trailers from the DC and drop them at stores. No home delivery stuff.

@giantstalker Also was a 13B outta Ft. Sill, never crossed the ocean though. Got med-boarded out when I was still in training.

Aviation Electrician in the US Navy here. Almost 15 years in. Currently stationed in Japan, just outside Tokyo.

I work shitty temp jobs handed to me by a few employment agencies such as helping to load/unload trucks and setting up/breaking down event equipment, emptying bags of food into trays in an industrial kitchen, folding cardboard boxes, making sure people throw away their trash in the right trash container at a garbage dump, etc.

Product tester at a video game company. I like the job and don't mind monotony and such. So far my commute is the worst part of it all.

I don't expect to be working here forever though. Half nature of the beast (qa life), half you always gotta look to improve yourself.

I work at a management company overseeing operations of 6 McDonald's around town. My official job title is Advanced Analytics and Computer Programming Specialist. The first half of my title means that I develop algorithms for optimizing restaurant efficiency as well as marketing strategies. The second half of my title pertains to developing/updating our own mobile app that is tied to the Bluetooth beacons in each restaurant, which broadcast new promotions, coupon QR codes, etc.

Up until recently I was a system analyst for a benefits administration company. Paid decent enough salary and got to work from home.

Now I'm in school briefly to learn HVAC.

I'm stuck working retail right now. Half the time I want to throw myself into a wood chipper, and half the time I want to throw everybody else into one. As far as jobs go, it's hell on earth.

Clinical Pharmacist and an occasional ramp rat.

Internal IT Support for a larger IT Company.

I don't talk to customers. Not in the "customer" sense anyway. My customers are end users in our company. Do I love it? Not sure, but I definitely enjoy it. I work with awesome people. The people I have to help are nice 98% of the time. I get to play with awesome new technology all the time since I work for an IT company that has no problem spending money on the newest and greatest. Sometimes I feel I stare at a screen too much but its good overall.