what are you long-term career aspirations

You have to tell us before we tell you

Even when I had a career, I had no long-term career aspirations. I just wanted to do a good job on the tasks assigned me and collect my paycheck. The only direction to rise in my profession (tech writing) was into management and I figured fuck that noise - I never wanted to be anyone's manager or to make budgets or do any of those managerial-type tasks. I might even have been good at it, but I just never cared enough to try it.

Now I have no career and it is fine with me. I have a job instead.

Want to study parasites ultimately & in my dream of dreams, the human blood fluke.

trying not to lose my boring £15,000 office clerk job. i have nightmares about working in subway or handing vouchers for a shoe shop.

so yeah, i'm a real go getter.

not starving, not being bored.

i wish i knew. i'd love to find the thing i really want to do every day that pays money but i'm nowhere closer to knowing what that is than i was 10 years ago. puts me in stasis, especially education-wise. I like to think when i find out, everything will fall in place. I've been reading a lot of Warren Buffett blowjobs, i wouldn't mind putting money in the market and watching it go!!!! working sucks afaik.

The only direction to rise in my profession (tech writing) was into management and I figured fuck that noise - I never wanted to be anyone's manager or to make budgets or do any of those managerial-type tasks. I might even have been good at it, but I just never cared enough to try it.

^
this, so so much.

I'm going to law school next year, most likely, and I have a couple of possible plans:

1) Become an entertainment attorney serving small and independent artists, make up for the lack of big money involved with volume.

2) Find any old boring predictable branch of law to practice (real estate? probate?) where I can eventually make enough money in few enough hours that I can live decently still have time to be some kind of eccentric musician/composer on the side

3) Practice a lucrative form of law for some years, and make enough money to buy and renovate a building in a cheap urban area and turn it into some kind of live/work artist and musician center with a built-in performance and gallery space.

#3 is probably the least realistic

have a ninja dog

http://www.bestweekever.tv/bwe/images/2007/10/7%20NINJA%20DOG.JPG

I would like a large warehouse with a bank of north-facing windows, where I could spend my days fucking around with building furniture and sculpture and learning to weld, get some kilns and refinish ceramic plates with my own designs, build myself a darkroom in one section.

In the middle of a real city would be my first choice, but on a large amount of rural land is also acceptable.

Basically, John Justen OTM.

I guess that's not so much a career aspiration as an aspiration to not have a 'career' while avoiding homelessness.

I want to work in a museum with big old ships. Preferably ones I could do sailing trials or demonstrations on, but that's not a requirement. I have to learn to sail first, though, and get a master's degree if I want to be involved in putting together educational programs or exhibits (which I do), so I'm not quite directly on the path for that...might learn to sail next year, though.

maria, have you been here:
http://www.mainemaritimemuseum.org/

play records for four figure fees

i wish i had career aspirations, but i think i will just grow bored with any job after a couple years. at least i haven't wasted money on grad school yet.

getting a little old to pilot the giant robot so I think I am going to go ahead and settle for federal project manager

finish novel
sell novel
teach

at least i haven't wasted money on grad school yet.

-- bell_labs, Monday, October 29, 2007 9:36 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

lol

well, i mean, for me it would have been a waste. i am jealous of people who care about a profession enough to passionately pursue it and commit to working really really hard at it for the next however many years, but i know that i am a lazy ass.

TOMBOT, TOU CAN NEVER BE TOO OLD TO PILOT THE GIANT ROBOT.

i wish i had career aspirations, but i think i will just grow bored with any job after a couple years. at least i haven't wasted money on grad school yet.

-- bell_labs, Monday, October 29, 2007 4:36 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yeah this is me

I don't really have any that I haven't already achieved, ie having a decent-paying office job that I don't mind and that I can leave behind at the end of the day. Basically I aim low and it's all downhill from here. Any aspirations I have are in music/other stuff.

I just went to grad school because my company paid for it and I figured that was the ideal opportunity to make it easier on myself later whenever I got sick and tired of being a technician. hopefully it works out and I can remember to start tucking my shirt in and care enough to show up on time.

Really for me jumping from shift work monkey to management is as much about me needing to grow up as it is an aspiration. if I stay at this level I'm going to stunt my development.

i've never had even the slightest idea what i wanted to be when i grow up. i completely fucked out of uni the first time round (straight out of highschool), dicked around for a few years waitressing fulltime then went back to school to get an english lit degree. not because i had any idea what i wanted, but because i figured a degree could come in useful, and i like reading... and it was the only thing that really interested me.

people kept asking me what i was going to do when i finished, and since i had a vague interest in book publishing, i started telling everyone that's where i was headed. but my heart has never been completely into the idea, and it's only now that i'm realising it. i love the idea of being involved with a small press producing art/lit zines/chapbooks, but that's not a career (not one that pays money, anyway).

all i really want is my own bookstore. it's not exactly some high-minded ambition like searching for the cure to cancer, but i think i would be extremely happy doing it - and that's my only real aspiration.

Got six months of articles to do next year before admission to the bar. Got a spot at a boutique litigation firm to do that, hoping that will lead on to interesting career in niche area of litigation, potentially insolvency and equity law which are my current faves.

Earn enough money to date someone earning over 40k a year.

my starting wage next year is going to be several thousand more than I make from both the jobs I currently work put together. I never thought I cared about money before... now I realise that it is definitely tied up in my career aspirations. The old me would probably despise the new me... but I figure if I get myself financially secure and well respected professionally by age 45 (in 14 years), then I can go back to doing socially conscious work that pays a pittance and do a better job at it, with no bitterness about feeling poor... and I will have 20 years to do something ace until I retire. This is an actual goal that I have set myself.

THEN at age 65 I want to buy a bookshop by the sea. This is another actual goal! Wow I better get cracking on my savings hey...

i am going to run an opera company.

i want to become a manager type person.

basically you don't ever do anything and then get paid more for people who actually do stuff.

one day I'd like to be in a position to have a student clerk flunky to send downstairs to buy me a coffee. I would treat my flunky exceedingly well and become their career mentor.

totally!

except in reality i'd totally abuse this flunkyh

yeah sometimes I'd be a bit mean to mine too, but only when stressed mind you. Also I'd make them do really drawn out tedious tasks such as I've had to do as a clerk, that's par for the course. BUT I would make sure to get them really pissed on free booze at Friday night drinks and I would always give them enough $$ to get themself a coffee when they're getting mine. I can afford it of course, being as how I'll be a stuffy senior associate by then.

i wish i'm a senior associate

I figure I'll have a flunky within 5 years. Onwards and upwards! It'll take me that long to pay off my HECS debt anyway.

Career aspirations? Eh?

Earn enough money to date someone earning over 40k a year.

As Dom muttered in his recent Stylus podcast, "Fuck the rich".

It's a damn good podcast, that.

Will there be bookshops by the sea in 34 years time? (And the coast line will probably be in a completely different place from where you currently envision it)

Retire at 55 whilst I still have some life left.

to get out of journalism. despite being overpaid and overpromoted.

as i've mentioned elsewhere, i've gone back to university part-time to study psychology, with the aim of doing a fast-track MSc in the next year or two. why psychology? because it's what i'm interested in. which is more than good enough for me right now :)

i'm busier than i've been in a long time, but a damn sight happier.

I figure I will keep doing what I'm doing (managing ed of med Web)until I am good and sick of it, then become police officer.

I wonder what the cut-off age is for becoming popo?

Become an MD at my bank. Dull, but true.

grimly can i have your job?

i want to do something where i actually GET to make a difference and not just be a bean-counter and/or face the sisyphean smackdown of the world's ugly realities every day. i keep saying i'd like to do something with environmental/sustainability consulting, which of course isn't depressing work AT ALL.

grimly can i have your job?

sadly, i imagine that if/when i go, my job will cease to exist. that seems to be what happens with everyone else, anyway.

that said: you're about my height, and we have similar coats. so maybe we could work out some kind of job-share :)

i'd actually like a job where i can be proactive instead of reactive -- it would be nice to create things that work rather than fix things that don't.

quincie if you become police detective can we be partners? It would be just like teevee except I don't think well-to-do white people actually get killed once a week in real life

i'd actually like a job where i can be proactive instead of reactive -- it would be nice to create things that work rather than fix things that don't.

otm!

comfortable job as a librarian, preferably a music librarian, at a decent-to-good university in a cool town/city in the northeast. not too intangible, i don't think.

rrobyn it's spelled "how quaint" not "otm"

anyway it turns out my eyesight is not good enough for the police force. goddamn eyes.

TOMBOTO CAREER ASPIRATIONS CRUSHED BY OPTOMETRIC SHORTCOMINGS, A LIST:

1. astronaut
2. bomb squad
3. air traffic controller
4. helicopter pilot
5. detective/special investigator

it has recently been made clear to me that i'm not advancing in my current career unless i go back to school or move away from NFP work and work 90 hour weeks and hate my life. i just have no drive or desire to do either and i don't know how i'm ever going to get beyond that point.

i need to stay away from this thread today :(

like made clear as in other people moving ahead by doing those things while you get left behind? that sucks, been there.

srsly, sounds like time for a NEW CAREER.

made clear by not being hired for a logical promotion in my department because i "don't look good on paper" (my boss' exact words). they brought in someone with an mba instead.

Tom didn't they just revise the astronaut regs? Can't you get lasik

ALSO U R NEVER TOO OLD TO PILOT GIANT ROBOT
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/ca/Bruno-J-Global.jpg

I shaved the moustache (and the beard)

super scruff was not compatible with my current long-term career opportunities

Are you too tall to fly?

No, that has never been a problem.

Dude seriously even when I went to Space Camp I had to be part of the ground crew. Fuck NASA, fuck the USAF, fuck the Army, fuck 'em.

I really want to have a farm or a gas station out in the middle of nowhere. Really bad!

Space camp sucked. :/

Dude seriously even when I went to Space Camp I had to be part of the ground crew

I would be pissed if this happened to my kid!

oh I kind of earned it, I was like the third worst space camper ever at everything except building the model rocket.

what else do you do at space camp

all you can eat astronaut ice cream

You sleep in vaguely sci-fi looking bunks. They have a museum kind of thing. I don't think we even got to do the flight simulation.

tombot did you win your trip to spacecamp after participating in a nickelodeon gameshow?

do you do the stuff where they throw u into nets?

no they throw you into a filthy swimming pool

I won my trip to space camp in a 5th grade essay contest

to play on sesame street

YSI? (the 5th grade essay I mean) xpost

our bunks weren't even sci-fi looking
the whole thing was basically lame as balls
especially since I grew up in Huntsville, I could go to the museum and the gift shop and ride the rides basically anytime I wanted

see, we (by we I mean my 300+ person eighth grade) at least drove 16 hours to get there, that was kind of novel. I remember tho, we bitched about the food a lot and they gave us this activity book that my friend Ava wrote "HELP US WE ARE TRAPPED IN SPACE PRISON" all over.

space camp/prison sounds fun

I bet I still have the pictures from it at my parents house!

isnt there an older kid space camp with parachutes?

yeah space academy
that's where the action happens

college uber geeks trying to tell high school uber geeks not to get their bone on in a big star trek dorm

Advanced Space Academy

Advanced Space Academy is designed for young adults aged 15-18 years. There are three tracks offered: Pilot track, Payload Specialist, and Mission Specialist.

The program was originally known as Space Academy Level II and was started in Fall of 1987.

"payload specialist"

The vector star wars arcade game is pretty boss

i still don't know what i want to be when i grow up, which is proving a challenge now that i'm jobhunting. i've discovered in the last 3 weeks that i *don't* want a job where there is literally nothing to do. but other than that...?

i don't regret going to grad school at all because it was an excuse to move to england that was pretty cool and all.

I'm in a job now at a university which will pay for grad school. I've never been a "career" kind of guy, for better or worse, and always sort of fell into things that somehow feel lacking - in money, respect, fun, whatever.

So I'm thinking about architecture right now, pretty seriously. On paper it's a perfect combination of the half of me that wants to make art and the other half that wants to be an engineer. I don't know how it'll be in practice, so I'm going to take a class next semester to see how it goes.

milo z's dream gig above sounds pretty much like my plan if I ever strike it rich.

Long-term: family practitioner. Assuming I can suck up the idea of going into debt AGAIN for graduate school someday... and also assuming I don't hate the nursing field.

I want to be a college professor someday, but I've seen Indiana Jones too many times to have realistic expectations of how cool it might be. Also rock star would be nice.

aspie rations

This may seem like a funny subject for an article but the fact is that children with Asperger's Syndrome seem to have great difficulty with food. I thought my son was the only "picky eater" but in talking with other parents, I have found that I am not alone in my frustration with my child's diet.

When my son was a baby, he had definite likes and dislikes depending upon the texture of the food. To this day, he will not eat anything that has the consistency of baby food, like cream of mushroom soup. The thickest thing that he will eat is a banana milkshake, flavoured with vanilla and honey.
The appearance of the food on the plate is a big issue at our house. Food mixed together, like stew, shepherds pie, steak and kidney pie or spaghetti sauce are all inedible to my son. I suspect it's because he cannot really see exactly what he is eating.

Part of the problem with food is the sensory issue. Some children do not like the texture, taste or smell of the food in front of them. This makes it rather difficult to feed them a healthy diet. When my son was around 4 years old, I used to make cookies with bits of green beans, chopped up carrots and peas in them. He ate them until someone (not me!) introduced him to chocolate chip cookies. I tried juicing vegetables and pouring them down his throat but he really hated the taste! One year I tried those tins of supplemental liquid foods and he couldn't even get through the first tin, let alone the rest of the dozen I had purchased.

Food jags are a big issue as well. My son will want to eat the same thing for days at a time and then he won't eat that item again for a long time. Xmas, Easter and Thanksgiving are big turkey meals for our family and since my son loves turkey, that's the only thing he will eat long after the supply of turkey has run out! A food jag is not hard to accomodate when the favoured item is a plate of crackers, cheese and apple but when it's constantly chocolate cake you have to find a way to switch the food jag off.

Other parents have told me that I am not alone in my struggle with my son and this is all part and parcel of Asperger's Syndrome. I have heard about children who will only eat pink food - making it necessary for the parent to use food colouring, or children who will eat only fruit, no vegetables. It's a wonder that some of these children ever grow up!

I dated an aspie. That there^^? OTM.

Open deli/restaurant, get it successful and running smoothly; open second one, again, wait until it's ticking over under its own steam; repeat process a couple more times. Sell whole chain and sit back on a big pile of money. Drink lots of tea, get very good at cryptic crosswords, go to lots of test matches.

xpost - I meant NURSE practitioner. I'm NOT going to medical school. Jeez.

being a college professor is pretty much just like Indiana Jones except for the girl with "I love you" written on her eyelids (nowadays it would read "I am hungover")

I've had archaeology professors who start out their intro classes with "Real archaeology isn't like Indiana Jones." My best friend had one who started out his with a whip.

1. push fat whips
2. live comfably

3. only wear cashmere

I made a list of, uh, this things? Like 14 months ago when I was starving and depressed:

"Personal List"

Places to visit:

1. Castle in Lebanon
2. Moonbow in Kentucky
3. Toronto
4. Japan
5. Prague
6. Transylvania
7. Berlin & Germany
8. Pasteur Institute

Coveted items:

1. Fresh fruit every day
2. Queen or king size bed & bed frame

Escuela:

1. Bachelor's degree
2. Master's degree (1 or more)
3. Ph.D.
4. Fluency in German

Helping other people:

1. Start interesting after school-type program for weird kids about science or art or comics or language, ie like 'young astronauts'
2. Give nice Xmas/bday/graduation gifts to nieces & nephews or kids
3. Pro bono work if I end up in applicable field
4. Give money to charity after finding reputable charity

Foods to try:
1. Falafel
2. Chambord?
3. Turducken
4. Creme brulee
5. Durian
6. Real maple syrup
7. Baklava
8. Unusual new cheeses
9. Mole (Mexican)
10. New kinds of ginger ale

I bet making that food list was alternately terrible and delightful for you in that state.