New Career Direction

[MonsterZero]

I graduated from college in 1999 with one of those new Bachelor of Arts degrees in Interactive Multimedia. Spent about 3 years as a webmaster for a media duplication company building and administering their website as well as those of their corporate partners. In college I did whatever jobs fit my schedule

Lost my job in February 2002 and eventually gave up on the IT industry (the industry was pathological and plagued by very serious problems even back in 1999) and then spent a couple of years directionless, doing sales (fraudulent, unethical scum-that firm) and home improvement services contracting (actually a decent job although dirty and dangerous).

Today was my second day of a Certified Nurse Assistant class and so far so good. As soon as I'm done with this course (March) I get a job at a hospital and push on with my education (B.S. degree in nursing).

Both of my older sisters are in health care so the transition to health care wasn't exactly a decision that came out of nowhere. As professionals my sisters are happy, confident and highly successful on all levels and this has come not unnoticed to me. My mom works in a hospital too (housekeeping) and can't stop praising that industry.

I'm not exactly excited about clearing fecal impactions by inserting my finger into somebody's anus but if I have the choice between regular feces (health care) and feces that wears an expensive suit, walks on two legs and talks to me (private sector, general business), I chose the former. Ordinary feces I can deal with.

I'm too honest (and thus vulnerable) to work in general business.

Wish me all the good luck I can get because it's a big change in life.

 

[Priest]

Good luck !!!! I once knew a nurse that couldn't stand to be around sick people.....strange woman.

 

[jlbetin]

In French we say, " There is no stupid work, only stupid people"

I wish you the best in your new job. Taking care of others is a nice thing. Even cleaning feces helps those who are unable to do it on their own.

Best thoughts

Der WanderRingingTheNiceNightNurse Not you !!! the girl in pink

 

[JAMiAM]

Good luck.

 

[SoccerDJ]

Good luck and hope you found a job that suits you well.:cheeky:


My mom's a lab tech so I always get to hear about all kinds of strange sicknesses and disease. She gets to work alot analysing body fluids and such so she has some interesting storys, but they make me sick some times.

 

[MonsterZero]

Good luck and hope you found a job that suits you well.:cheeky:

My mom's a lab tech

So is my sister

 

[screamer]

Good luck monster,

My mom is a nurse btw.

 

[Goblin]

My sister is going to school for nursing right now. Good luck!!

Goblin

 

[Brevet]

My daughter is doing a 1 year internship at a hospital in clinical lab science. She's much smarter than I am; a living challenge to Darwin's theory. Her mom's pretty smart so I guess Darwin may still be in the running :TRUCE:

 

[Airborne]

Best of luck to you. My brother-in-law retired from the US Navy as a X-ray repairman (official job as he had many others) in Jacksonville, NC. He went to nursing school afterwards and is working in the field.

I am a Field Engineer for a Johnson & Johnson company. I install and repair Clinical Chemistry analyzers in Hospital labs.

Hope you find happiness in your new pursuit.

 

[Tim McBride]

I geuss I am just one of those fools happy and still working in the IT industry.........

Good luck!

 

[MonsterZero]

I geuss I am just one of those fools happy and still working in the IT industry.........

Good luck!

Well, if you do hardcore programming there is elbow room there but as I said, I was one of them multimedia people involved in Flash animations, interactive CDROMs, video editing, sound edititing and related issues. This particular segment of the industry, after a brief period of enthusiasm in the 1990s, has become like oil painting, sculpture and graphic design. This means a hundred million people do it, but only a handful do it professionally and of those professionals most are very unhappy about the quality of their lives and pessimistic about their future. I'm sick and tired of listening to their whining.

It is unfortunate I was a late starter in creative computer stuff, maybe I could have kept it going for a few more years before the industry went down the sewer pipe.

But I'm 31 years old now and don't see myself as a 40 year old multimedia designer, I really don't.

Website design and multimedia are such...such juvenile professions with juvenile pay and juvenile career advancement opportunities. Programmers (and ralated computer science graduates) are somewhat different. My best friend's huby is a brilliant database programmer and that dude's career is unstoppable no matter what happens in the world. But even he's seeing very disgusting management attitudes and complaining about it.

Once outsourcing became available management has become to think it's is doing you a favor by maintaining your job on the payroll and for me that's unacceptable power balance. No SOB will ever have the satisfaction of "doing me a favor by keeping me on the payroll". NEVER. Every freaking day I open my eyes in the morning I will have the satisfaction of knowing I'm important and special and my work is needed and makes others happy and makes a difference in peoples' lives.

 

[laszlo.nemedi]

Good luck Monster (my ex-girlfriend works in the health sector, too).
Helping people is a good way of life.

 

[Priest]

I have a cousin that works as a nurse and she says that it is a very satisfying job.

 

[Tim McBride]

Well, if you do hardcore programming there is elbow room there but as I said, I was one of them multimedia people involved in Flash animations, interactive CDROMs, video editing, sound edititing and related issues. This particular segment of the industry, after a brief period of enthusiasm in the 1990s, has become like oil painting, sculpture and graphic design. This means a hundred million people do it, but only a handful do it professionally and of those professionals most are very unhappy about the quality of their lives and pessimistic about their future. I'm sick and tired of listening to their whining.

It is unfortunate I was a late starter in creative computer stuff, maybe I could have kept it going for a few more years before the industry went down the sewer pipe.

But I'm 31 years old now and don't see myself as a 40 year old multimedia designer, I really don't.

Website design and multimedia are such...such juvenile professions with juvenile pay and juvenile career advancement opportunities. Programmers (and ralated computer science graduates) are somewhat different. My best friend's huby is a brilliant database programmer and that dude's career is unstoppable no matter what happens in the world. But even he's seeing very disgusting management attitudes and complaining about it.

Once outsourcing became available management has become to think it's is doing you a favor by maintaining your job on the payroll and for me that's unacceptable power balance. No SOB will ever have the satisfaction of "doing me a favor by keeping me on the payroll". NEVER. Every freaking day I open my eyes in the morning I will have the satisfaction of knowing I'm important and special and my work is needed and makes others happy and makes a difference in peoples' lives.

Actually I work the support side of the industry. I fix things which is something that is hard to outsource! :cheeky:

 

[Cheetah772]

Actually I work the support side of the industry. I fix things which is something that is hard to outsource! :cheeky:

Why don't the industry outsource the support side to Steven Urkel? You know the nerd guy on the black family sitcom TV show, Family Matters? He always got into weird accidents.

Yup, you really need to be Urkelized!

Dan

 

[Deltapooh]

Monsterzero, you sound like a motivated person who is not afraid to meet new challenges. Abandoning one path to pursue another requires self-confidence and determination. Many people focus on the negatives, which often are miniscule compared to the positives further down the road.

I'm confident you will do fine. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

 

[rasmus]

Wish me all the good luck I can get because it's a big change in life.

Here is a quote about dealing with patients, that I was given when I entered Med School.

Always comfort
Often ease (their suffering)
Sometimes cure

Good luck.

 

[rw527]

Out of curiosity, what is the pay like for people who do the kind of multimedia and website work that MonsterZero was talking about?

 

[MonsterZero]

Out of curiosity, what is the pay like for people who do the kind of multimedia and website work that MonsterZero was talking about?

The average for Chicago area (poorer states such us Florida obviously pay less) is $33-35K per year provided that you have a full time job (highly unlikely) plus standard benefits if you work full time.

For somebody like me this is nowhere near enough considering how much time, energy and health you have to sacrifice for the endless hours in front of the computer (full time work + study of new tech theory after hours + hands on practice and portfolio development after hours).

I started making $33K during the peak of the Web boom in 1999, ended the career at $40K. I hear the most somebody has ever gotten right out of the program was $38K. But again that was 1999. A couple years later most of the multimedia experts of my college program were lined up in front of the program director's office looking for a teaching job because everybody had gotten laid off.

if you plan to get into the industry starting from nothing high pay or low pay is not going to be your problem; it will be the serious unemployment in your career group (5 or 6 times greater than the national unemployment rate of 5.7%).

If you are talented and hardworking you should be able to do freelancing even in a bad job market but again, freelancing is for youngsters. Do it while you're very young, don't do it if you're over 30 years old or you'll regret it terribly when it's time to start thinking about retirement (you'll wish you could turn the clock back). Forget freelancing if you have a family to support and real bills (mortage) to pay.