<p>concerneddad,
I thought you were going to change careers?</p>
<p>liz, its a slow process.</p>
<p>In summers while in college I worked as a camp counselor and day camp supervisor. My last summer at the day camp I got to drive the 72 passenger school bus (w/ standard transmission) all over our semi rural western PA area to pick up kids for the program and take them home afterward. After learning how to start a bus with a standard, full of kids, on a steep hill, I feel like I could learn to drive anything!</p>
<p>Majored in environmental science in college. Also spent 2 years working as an RA in the dorm which got me more interested in human services. Got married right after graduation. I spent 6 weeks working in a shoe store and realized I was NOT cut out for retail. I then got a job as a residential living assistant at a large comunity based facility for chronically mentally ill adults. We had 120 folks - mostly bipolar and schizophrenic. I worked there full time for awhile, then went to part time when I went to grad school for an MS in counseling. </p>
<p>During grad school, I taught study skills, was a program assistant for a research group for gifted and talented, and worked as a tutor and academic advisor for the university athletic department. After the MS, I wanted to stay home with kids, but continued with tutoring in the evenings. I eventually went back to school to get my public school certification and currently work as a middle school counselor. I imagine I will be doing this until I retire.</p>
<ol>
<li>Investigator, New Jersey Division on Civil Rights</li>
<li>Equal Opportunity Specialist, US Department of Health Education and Welfare, Officer for Civil Rights, Philadelphia Office</li>
<li>Equal Opportunity Specialist, Civil Rights Program Specialist, Acting Supervisor, US Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, monitoring Federal grant agency civil rights enforcement</li>
<li>Program Manager, Executive Office for US Attorneys, working on criminal coordination matters with US Attorneys, state and local law enforcement agencies</li>
<li>Federal Program Manager, Office for Victims for Crime, US Department of Justice working with US Attorneys offices on issues involving victims of crime committed on Federal property (Indian Country, military bases, Federal parks, Federal buildings)</li>
<li>US Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, Headquarters, Special Assistant, Program Analyst, Investigator, Acting Branch Chief.</li>
<li>US Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, DC Enforcement Office (DC, VA, NC, SC) Team Leader, Senior Investigator
Retirement.</li>
<li>Assistant Director/Complaint Investigator, Equity and Diversity Resource Center, UW-Madison.</li>
</ol>
<p>Commercial real estate finance for about 25 years with two companies both NY based. Have been involved in transactions for all types of properties from vacant defunct dept stores in old mill towns to major downtown malls and office buidlings in major cities. For example recent deals run from a $500 million condo project in Las Vegas to a $5,000,000 strip center in small town Alaska. BTW don’t buy any LV highrise condos–a massive glut is coming soon.</p>
<p>Seriously considering residential brokerage some day soon for semi-retirement.</p>
<p>Majored in journalism pre-Watergate, before it was “hot.” Got married right after graduation and spent a year in the Chicago area working in sales promotion and as a catalog copywriter for a photography studio. Moved when H graduated med school and freelanced for four years until a move to SoCal. Started as a technical writer for a large bank in LA, promoted to publications coordinator and eventually quit because we were going through the adoption process, and we thought we’d be more likely to get a baby if I wasn’t working full-time. Stayed home after we got S#1 and then moved to DC area for H’s new government job. Got S#2 and six months later moved to Africa. I did not work for money the entire time we were overseas, as I had D#1 and S#3 and a household of servants to manage. By the time we came back to the States, I had been out of the workforce for so long, the computer revolution had passed me by.
When anyone asks me if I work, I say, “Yes, but not for money.”</p>
<p>My father used to pound the dinner table and shout, “Get a job!” He had six kids under the age of eight at the time…</p>
<p>1. Sold seeds and greeting cards door to door. Age 8 to 10
2. Babysitting for 50 cents an hour. Ages 10 to 16
3. Dairy Queen (in the wrong part of town) $1.10 hour Age 15
4. Movie Theatre Usher/Popcorn seller $1.15 hour Ages 16 to 17
5. Factory Assembly/Inspection $2.00 hour Age 17 to 18
6. Architecture Intern Summer (I shoudda paid them) $3.00 per hour Age 19
7. Architecture Intern Year $3.50 hour with a $100 Xmas bonus Age 20
8. Architect post grad with famous architect $8.50 hour Age 23
9. Posted overseas with another famous architect $15.00 hour plus house, car and travel money Age 26
10. Opened practice in NYC charging $35 per hour Age 28
11. Opened branch office in another city $100 per hour Age 32
12. Opened branch office in another country $175-$200 per hour Age 44</p>
<p>The best way to have fun and make money in architecture is to own a good practice. </p>
<p>IMHO, the best way to launch yourself into a good practice is to work for a very famous architect in LA or NYC. We still get jobs all over the world from the jobs we had when we were 24 in NYC. Those ‘brand’ names hold their value, plus the experience of working alongside the most talented archtiects of your generation will sharpen skills way beyond MArch.</p>
<p>It’s interesting how we sometimes feel we haven’t done much with our lives (cured cancer, etc.). Reading each vitae, I find you all have fascinating and accomplished backgrounds. Paling in comparison, here goes:</p>
<ol>
<li> First job I ever had was being a DJ and recording commercials for my dad’s radio station.</li>
<li> Best job I had during college was as a student loan officer for BofA in Westwood. I processed those memorable FISL loans for students from UCLA and other school. I found the students who borrowed money to attend special tech schools, to be living in a dream world - borrowing the ridiculous amount these schools charged for a few terms with very little prospects for employment upon completion.</li>
<li> Started teaching math in a middle school in Encinitas (north of San Diego) 2 years prior to Prop 13. The district pink-slipped all of us just before the proposition was voted on (scare tactic for publicity). Since I was getting married, I moved back to LA (where H-to-be was) and claimed unemployment for a summer while looking for another job. Taught in a Westwood, LA Unified, middle school. Taught in a parochial high school. Moved again.</li>
<li> Taught in private day/boarding school in Portland, OR - the one where some of my former students and colleagues were caught in a whiteout during a climb of Mt. Hood a few years later with tragic consequences. Had S. Moved again.</li>
<li> Taught high school in Fresno. Moved again.</li>
<li> Now in Pacific NW for 20 years. Had D. Husband has been in cable TV business for 25 years (momsdream - do we know you?) . We started our own cable biz on the side by building, buying, and managing cable systems in small CA towns, while H kept his day jobs with bigger cable companies. I was the CFO, COO, accountant, human resource director, receptionist, envelope stuffer, glorified gopher, etc. for our two person holding company. Corporate Office was the spare bedroom next to the kids’ rooms. Served on the board of school foundation and volunteered in kids’ schools during this time.</li>
<li> When H folded our biz into his broadband/cable TV partnership 8 years ago, I went back to teaching. S and D tolerated my unofficial job as “spy” at their high school. Now that they are gone, I miss running into them, even though they usually turned and ran the other way.</li>
<li> Next project: Will probably read AP exams next year. A week’s vacation at UofN in Lincoln, NE sounds appealing…</li>
</ol>
<p>Maize&Blue–Your mention of your S and D running the other way reminded me of my H who sometimes caught a ride to HS with his dad who was asst. supt. of the school system. Fortunately, his office was in a different building on the campus.</p>
<p>[ol]
[<em>] Babysitting $.35/hour (had to show that I am older than cheers)
[</em>] Usher at National Theatre in Washington DC ($1.25/night!)- but saw Ethel Merman in person 10x.
[<em>] Sales clerk at Super Giant boring ($1.34/hour).
[</em>]Summer vacation-sub in large ofc building. Great job! Why? Because I relieved the Operator in the days when you plugged cords in to a switchboard for each call and pulled them out when each call ended and could eavesdrop on the calls.
[<em>]Economist/program evaluator in Berkely, Ca. consulting firm.
[</em>] VP, Operations for said firm.
[<em>] Real Estate Dept., The Gap.
[</em>] VP Real Estate and Marketing, FAO Schwarz.
[li] Real Estate Broker, couple years in Bay Area, Ca. Now in northern NE.[/li][/ol]</p>
<p>SBmom and theDAD second all you say about real estate career. Top, top top agent in my area has NO COLLEGE EDUCATION! And I have a Stanford MBA! But not only is it well-compensated, if you do it well, but it can, indeed, be a great post-career career, fit around family and, as I am enjoying now in my late 50s, be scaled down to whatever level you want and still be a good income producer. And, YES, I do use what I learned at Stanford, particularly wrt negotiations.</p>
<p>Note: I have lately seen several recent college grads (Villanova ) go into real estate. Starting to be seen more as a business. Maybe they will get the respect that we dont get.</p>
<p>One more thing: volunteer jobs have been some of my most fulfilling
[list=a]
[<em>]teach Life Skills at state youth correctional facility
[</em>] Board of Literacy Volunteers
[li] and, of course, numerous school-related activities[/li][/list]
But maybe thats another thread.</p>
<p>jmmom,</p>
<p>Wow, you got to work with THOSE phones too! I also subbed for the operator at BofA during college and just loved pulling and plugging those cords. It took great skill to balance all those calls. What were those systems called??? When Lily Tomlin used to do her phone bit, I could relate. It was 1974-76, and looking back, I don’t understand why a large bank still had those kind of systems around.</p>
<p>The system was known as a “switchboard.” (I’m imagining choruses of people slapping their heads, and saying, “Of course!”)</p>
<p>The last one at Pacific Bell went out of service, I believe, in 1994, on Catalina island.</p>
<p>Can a mostly-lurker throw in her history?</p>
<p>College summer job: Girl Scout counselor
College school-year jobs: Worked in the School cafeteria, waitress at various places
Quit school six weeks before graduation: Wasn’t passing my Student Teaching
Went back to school next quarter: Graduated from BGSU with a non-certifiable degree in Special Ed
Married my sweetheart of four years and moved to Iowa
Secretary for the Cedar Rapids School District. Moved to Denver
Secretary for Manville Insulation until D was born.
Started a family Licensed Day Care in my home
Moved to Baltimore, had a S, and started my day care again
Moved to Jackson, Mich, and am still doing licensed day care. Discovered it was more fun once my kids went to school.</p>
<p>I have a daughter at Millikin Univ, majoring in Musical Theater, and a Son in high school, looking at Engineering. Both are wonderful with kids, both love to play with them and can take care of them. And NEITHER one wants to do day care, work with toddlers, or have their own kids for many, many years!</p>
<p>Peg</p>
<p>Maize& - I couldn’t remember the name of that phone board either, but I am going to google away until I figure it out. Ernestine is my idol!
Greybeard - I thought it had a more specific name than switchboard, because I remember when they were “updated” from my beloved to “Centrex” which was also called a switchboard. But I haven’t started googling yet.</p>
<p>I left out my real job history, before I got on the straight and narrow. All of these were part-time or summer jobs.</p>
<p>1–Babysitting 50 cents per hour, 75 cents after midnight (age 12-15)
2–Gardener’s helper, $1.25/hr, age 16
3–Deck hand on shore boat, Malibu pier, age 16 (2 days…).
4–Grocery bagboy, $1.30/hr (good union wage) age 16
5–Grocery stock/clerk, 2.30/hr, age 17
6–Repair/delivery of car generators/starters (Hollywood Generator), age 19, $1.60/hr
7–Driver in motor pool, Paramount Pictures (drove people, equipment, Winnebagos, things), age 19, $3.415/hr (good union wage)
8–TA/RA jobs while in grad school ($1,800-$2,000/year) (worked with Dick Cheney as RA–we were both RA’s for a faculty researcher)
9–Asst. Prof, starting at Florida State ($11,500/yr) . . . .</p>
<p>Big side-payoff from my career line is international travel for research (at somebody else’s expense): Russia, Ukraine, Baltic countries, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Hungary, Romania, China, India, Turkey, and an assortment of Scandinavian and other West European countries (Germany, France, Finland, Sweden, Italy, etc.).</p>
<p>barrons - was going to send you a pm re real estate brokerage as “semi-retirement” but you don’t have private email enabled. Anyway,
worked great for me. PM me if you have any qx.</p>
<p>1) Shoveling snow for peanuts … ages 7-14
2) Clerk at convenience store … HS
3) US Navy (ROTC guy) … summer after college freshman year
4) Cook at beach resort reastaurant … summer after sohomore year
5) Kitchen help at college … junior and senior years
6) Grunt at loan company … summer after senior year
7) Analyst at consulting firm to the Navy … summer after senior year
(need operations research degree … modeled US versus Russian submarine tactics)
(cool stuff … but I get thrown in jail if I tell you more)
8) Part-time work for same firm … during first Master’s year
9) Operations research analyst … ages 23- 27
(mathematical modeling of business problems … operations research needed)
(design logistics networks … model service group staffing requirements …)
(model phone network … forecast demand for a public utility company … etc)
10) General operations consulting … ages 28-29
11) Supply chain modeling … age 30 (summer of B-School)
12) Supply chain modeling and strategy … ages 31-33
(operations research, B-school, and logistics training needed)
13) Continous Improvement manager … ages 34-35
(industrial engineering and logistics experience)
14) Supply chain consulting … ages 36-37
(need to be OK never seeing your family)
15) Supply chain management … ages 38-45
16) Process improvement consulting … ages 38-45
(15 & 16 involve getting old and having done a bunch over the last 20 years)</p>
<ol>
<li> Newspaper delivery boy (lost money 'cause we had to pay for the papers but the distributor was slow to take non-paying customers off the list)</li>
<li>Worked during college breaks for hat manufacturer - sweeping floor, making deliveries & pickups, etc. salary forgettable (OK; I forgot what it was).</li>
<li>Two summers as counselor in day camp for underpriviledged children (talk about college prep vs. life prep!); $ 300 each summer.</li>
<li>A couple of jobs in publishing.</li>
<li> Worked as a law clerk/librarian in a patent law firm while going to law school.</li>
<li>Various positions as a a patent/intellectual property lawyer.</li>
</ol>
<p>Always thought I was going to be a scientist; found that while I liked science I was not very good at it. So I get to be around scientists and write about science, but don’t have to do any of it, and we all are better off.</p>
<p>dad of sam, I am curious -did you study science or major in science in undergrrad?</p>
<p>jmmom - I bet you’re thinking of PBX, which was replaced by Bell’s Centrex. </p>
<p>How fitting that we are haivng all of this telephone / Bell System talk today…when the Grande Dame is singing her swan song… :(</p>