Poll: What do you do for a living

[KickTheBobo]

I'm the utility player for a small Art Gallery & Frame Shop in Warwick, Rhode Island. It's the kind of place that will frame your kid's HS diploma or provide interior decorators with stuff for their client's homes. My duties include, but are not limited to:

-designing/ maintaining the gallery's website www.complementsartgallery.com
-Implementing a PHP/ MySQL database to keep track of moulding inventory and job tickets
-Driving a van between the frame shop and the gallery and loading it up
-Cutting moulding with a chop saw and underpinning to create frames
-Unpacking gigantic crates
-jumping up and down in a dumpster to fit more garbage into it
-Cleaning the computers of viruses/ malware left by coworkers who insist on surfing for porn at work
-answering the phone/ taking messages
-teaching my boss how to use powerpoint
-Selling old inventory through an Ebay store
-Trying in vain to get a 57 yo coworker laid by gifting him a 6-month match.com account (He did actually meet a woman! In the flesh!)
-Teaching another coworker fundamental computer repair

On the side, I'll do computer repair/ tutoring for a few extra bucks. I just did a photo commission for someone as well. I think I got roped into designing my uncle's website for his law firm. Didn't want to take the gig, due to my dislike for said uncle, but it's some much needed cash in my pocket.

[Rainer]

XHTML & CSS guru for a large media concern.  Infrequent vector illustrator for Presstime Magazine (Trade Pub of the National Association of Newspapers).

[Sarah]

Trying in vain to get a 57 yo coworker laid by gifting him a 6-month match.com account (He did actually meet a woman! In the flesh!)

Hey, you can put "pimp" on your resume!  (Apologies for the absence of accents; entity tags aren't working today for some reason.)

[Richard_From_CHI]

I would totally hire someone with pimp listed on their resume.

[Dorvid Barnas]

I'm a freelance videographer and video editor, recently fired for flagrant mediocrity.
I'm getting better at it though, and it brings me occasional satisfaction, so...
My goal is to work with more comedians/bands and fewer journalists/actors.

[Susannah]

I work for a graphic design firm in Philadelphia.  It's my first job ever--I graduated from college last May--and I'm hoping that next September I'll be an English teacher in San Francisco instead.  If I never saw a Macintosh computer again, I'd be thrilled.

[Tim K in DC]

I'm close to Jason's status. I quit a temp gig at the end of last month and have no plans of going back to it. Right now, I'm working on a part-time basis doing hospitality setups for bands at a rock club in Cambridge. Also trying to revive my freelance writing efforts for a RI-based arts/entertainment publication. And I'm in the middle of finishing a quickie software contract for Wellesley College's communications department (still waiting for those checks, of course). The rock club feeds me, at least.

Ah, how some things change after a couple of months. The whole software contract thing, which had promise of turning into a regular gig with the above-mentioned school, turned out to be a bust. Since then, I've done a bit more freelance writing, but that's probably going by the wayside if it hasn't already. A few doors slammed shut, but a few others opened. Still doing the rock club stuff, and getting other tasks at the same outfit (like working as a doorman for an affiliated restaurant/club for their awesome Saturday night soul deejay dance thing, and working as a security goon at the other club's gigs... if I ever needed to secure one of those Gorch T-shirts, this would be the time). In January, I was hired to manage one of my favorite local bands, which seems to be snowballing into some positive new territory. Negotiations with others are imminent. It took me too many years to realize it, but I am beginning to see more and more that there is something to be said for following your heart first and foremost. Hopefully I'll end up clearing more than $15 K this year...

[erika]

Web stuff:

I did marketing and project management for a web-based medical education company for 7 years. It gave me premature gray hair and put me on prilosec.

Now I'm a web/email manager for a "natural health" marketing/publishing company. I love my job. I just found out today we're having a company outing which involves floating on an inner tube down a river for 3 hours. Life is good.

[Gore Marie]

I'm a production assistant for a book publishing company.  I work on cheesy erotic-vampire books and "paranormal chick lit."  It is silly.

[kenkwan]

Web stuff:

I did marketing and project management for a web-based medical education company for 7 years. It gave me premature gray hair and put me on prilosec.

Now I'm a web/email manager for a "natural health" marketing/publishing company. I love my job. I just found out today we're having a company outing which involves floating on an inner tube down a river for 3 hours. Life is good.

Drinking some B'ohs, talking about dem O's...  on an inner tube, hon. Oh, and maybe reminiscing about the old Ottobar.

[buffcoat]

I recently completed my second completist/obsessive rewatching of all the episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street, and I watched Tin Men last year, so I am an expert on Bawlmer/Ballmer/Ballimer.

Baltimore: I once walked 25 blocks from an O's game back to my hotel.  We passed a total of seven people on the way - EVERY SINGLE ONE was talking to him/herself, a record which stands up even to Cal Jr's.

[Sarah]

Surely, you should add The Corner and The Wire to your menu of Bulmer-related fare?

[erika]

Baltimore: I once walked 25 blocks from an O's game back to my hotel.  We passed a total of seven people on the way - EVERY SINGLE ONE was talking to him/herself, a record which stands up even to Cal Jr's.

yeah... that's a horrible idea. the way baltimore is set up, you probably don't want to walk more than 5 or 6 blocks without getting to a bad area of town. at least at night.

growing up going to o's games, i got pretty used to panhandlers and the unfortunate drug addicts that litter the streets.

taking a cab is always a good idea around here. i work in mt vernon which isn't too bad, but even late at night it's better to stick to the main streets. i don't even walk down alleys during the day because of the occasional mugging.

wow. I just made my home town sound really appealing... haha. (i promise it really is a nice place to live!)

[Laurie]

wow. I just made my home town sound really appealing... haha. (i promise it really is a nice place to live!)

Suuuuuuuuuuure it is.

Miami's "Downtown" area has some pretty aggressive panhandlers. They get pissy if you don't have small bills or change on you to give them, and then they'll bitch and moan about today's youth and debit cards or something like that.

[kenkwan]

I played a show at this club in Druid Hill one time. Eww boy, was that scary.