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Jan 14, 2008 20:46:31 GMT -5
Post by niff on Jan 14, 2008 20:46:31 GMT -5
having a tiny bit of a think about what i want to do.
99% sure, if i was to really enjoy life, i'd want to get a job with something to do with audio, whether it be live sound, mixing, recording, mastering, producing, or even the acoustic sciences branch of physics. that would be really ideal as, it's one of the things i really really do enjoy in life, wonder if i'd get enough money to live comfortably off it, though.
my dream is to be ridiculously rich so i can relax, be secure, and do the things i love. which i guess is almost everyone's goal, they just forget to reach it. i've been looking into other courses i already have the qualifications for such as psychology, english, business, etc. but i have no idea if i want to work my ass off to get enough money to do what i love and live comfortably or just do what i love straight off the bat.
tricky business. i don't even know why i'm posting. guess i'm just, consolidating all my thoughts together.
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Jan 14, 2008 23:48:56 GMT -5
Post by Notesurfer on Jan 14, 2008 23:48:56 GMT -5
"Intellectual success is often hidden behind a veil of economic failure."
I can totally relate to your ideal of being rich enough not to have to worry about money. I've written extensively on the subject recently, both publicly and privately, and, to summarize, it bothers the heck out of me that I have to be more worried about making money than doing the things that I'm naturally good at or that I enjoy. *insert novel-length discourse here*
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Jan 15, 2008 3:17:03 GMT -5
Post by niff on Jan 15, 2008 3:17:03 GMT -5
it annoys the hell out of me too. thing is i'll have like, a cool girlfriend and [CENSORED] that i'll want to support as well, and that doesn't lend well to a guy trying to make it by doing something he loves. not in the bum musician doing session work sense but, working my way up the food chain doing audio engineering and working at venues and whatnot. i'd rather be financially secure enough to do all that in my own time.. which means some kind of [CENSORED]ty boring high paying stressful job.. blah. the world sucks. why can't i just have my own way *pout*
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Jan 17, 2008 3:36:32 GMT -5
Post by Altl on Jan 17, 2008 3:36:32 GMT -5
I'm a little shocked that Nick hasn't posted in here considering we've argued the money vs. career vs. passion thing several times. I'm not sure if we've ever reached a conclusion. I know mine is usually money, I'll do what I want and hopefully the money will follow. Overall though, I'd rather be poor doing something I like doing than rich and doing something I hate. Like you said the people that put things on hold to climb the corporate ladder and get rich tend to lose sight of their goal. Of course it can be done, but aside from losing sight it seems like a lot of time to put into something you don't enjoy doing. (bookmark this post so that I can potentially eat my words later) From conversations between Neb and I one thing always seems to come up in the end: society's ridiculous notion that "hey, you're 18 whatever you want to be in life go work on being it on the double."
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Jan 17, 2008 16:40:28 GMT -5
Post by Notesurfer on Jan 17, 2008 16:40:28 GMT -5
*echoes previous statement regarding age*
"What's it like being 18?"
"Like being 17, but OLDER, dipstick!"
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Jan 17, 2008 22:18:58 GMT -5
Post by Draxas on Jan 17, 2008 22:18:58 GMT -5
I'll seriously depress myself if I start to discuss this subject at all. It's still only on the horizon for you guys. I'm LIVING it. 8/
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Jan 18, 2008 5:17:50 GMT -5
Post by Altl on Jan 18, 2008 5:17:50 GMT -5
Living the dream I'll bet. But, seriously it'd be interesting to hear your take on it since your *ahem* a few years into a career. If its not too horribly depressing/much trouble.
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Jan 18, 2008 19:25:37 GMT -5
Post by niff on Jan 18, 2008 19:25:37 GMT -5
yeah i'd be interested too.
and society has an odd concept of age. i know 18+ year olds who are the most immature lost [CENSORED]heads in the world yet i know some 16 year olds who know what they want to do in life, have drive and goals and whatnot. it's hardly a defining rule but, it does make a bit of sense.
i just wanna be able to buy alcohol and do [CENSORED] without my parents permission. already got the legally [CENSORED]ing part down. yesss.
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Jan 19, 2008 0:29:49 GMT -5
Post by N3B on Jan 19, 2008 0:29:49 GMT -5
I'll get around to this tomorrow mayhaps.
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Jan 24, 2008 0:20:37 GMT -5
Post by Draxas on Jan 24, 2008 0:20:37 GMT -5
Living the dream I'll bet. Oh yeah. The dream. Sure. *cough* I wasn't one of the charmed few who managed to secure a job before I graduated from college. I left school with my bachelor's and basically went straight to Monster (and every other job site under the sun). Job hunting was a miserable experience, filled with tons of fruitless searches, crap positions, and hiring managers who never bothered to call back. At least it was reasonably short; I landed my first job through a temp agency at a large chemical company that was about 15 minutes away from my parent's house. I was going to be working in a microbiology lab, testing samples of personal care products for sterility. It sounded pretty good, and it only took me around 3-4 months to find gainful employment. A month later I was out of a job again. A vicious series of personality conflicts that were already well established had thrust me into the middle of what was essentially a lab-based turf war. They chewed me up and spit me out, and I was too naive to see what was going on until the temp agency rep called me in to her office and asked me to hand over my badge. Which was fine (well, not really at the time, but in hindsight), because that job sucked ass. In the month I was there, I had never done any testing at all. Instead, they sent me into the autoclave room to to the dreg jobs for the lab: Make culture media, clean glassware, autoclave reusable vessels, etc. Second worst job I ever had (let me just say: never work in fast food, ever), and by far the most miserable, nasty people I've ever had the displeasure of interacting with on a daily basis (though most of them hid it at least somewhat well at the time; I didn't completely figure out what kind of conniving, backstabbing turds they were until after I was canned). To this day, I still speak of them with disgust. Fortunately, I managed to luck out and land another job about a month later, once again through a temp agency. This time it was at a major pharma company about an hour away, working with DNA synthesis. I was really hopeful going into the interview; THIS was exactly what I had gone to school for. When they called me back later that same day to offer me the position, I was thrilled. Fast forward six years, and here I am typing out this post right now. It took me 2.5 years to finally get a permanent position, and during that span they forced all temps to switch agencies (of course, just as I was about to finally qualify for health insurance, which basically reset my benefits clock for another year); this is pretty remarkable, when most temp-to-perm contacts last 3 or 6 months. When I did finally get a permanent employment offer, the pay was lousy (though a significant raise over my temp pay, even if it was a salaried position with no overtime pay), but I took it for the very nice benefits package, which included an excellent health and dental insurance package, 100% tuition reimbursement, merit bonuses, etc. Not to mention, I really liked the people I worked with and the work I was doing, and had no desire to try to go searching for a new job again. Nearly 3 months to the day after I accepted the offer, the health insurance program was almost entirely slashed. We went from having a half dozen health insurance potions, including an excellent PPO program I had signed up for, to having ONE choice, take it or leave it. The new health plan sucked, but what could I do? I gritted my teeth and signed up, even though it was the same cost per month with significantly reduced benefits. What could I do, go without? No way. About a year later, the company started building a new facility that they were going to eventually transfer our entire division into. Considering we were working in a somewhat dilapidated building that dated back to the 1920s, nobody could really blame them, but the consequence of this was that the company decided to tighten the belt in order to help mitigate the cost of building this brand new facility. The bonus program was cut, at least for everyone at our level. Nobody was happy about that, but what could you do? It's not like it was the '90s anymore; the Bush war economy had killed off all the jobs. I made do with what I had, thankful that I didn't have a family to support or rent to pay like many of my coworkers. When the new building was put up, many of us were transferred there right away to help get it up and operational. This was not optional for those chosen to move offices; you either transferred, or resigned. And because the new building was *only* 45 miles away from the old one, the company was able to circumvent the obligation to provide relocation or travel reimbursement; that only was mandated by law for moves of 50+ miles. I was lucky; I had roughly the same commute to either building. Several of my coworkers were not so lucky, and a number of them left to find better positions elsewhere. The rest of us toughed it out, and had to carry the increased workload; the company had no desire to further strain its budgets. The new building was already running way ahead of the estimated cost, and so they decided that nobody would be replaced. Anyway, here I am now. I moved out of my parent's house close to 2 years ago, so I could get closer to work to try to reduce my commute. Currently, my salary just barely keeps pace with my cost of living; if I have an expensive month (like, say, December), I'll actually come away losing money. Thank goodness I had some years to build up a decent sized cushion in my savings account. Most of the great benefits package that I was looking forward to taking advantage of when I was hired has either been shaved down or cut entirely, but it's not like the pay has gotten any better. This is to say nothing of the long ass hours I regularly put in, nor the mandatory Saturdays that we were pulling for a while about 6 months ago (and which are rumored to be on the schedule again a few months from now), none of which I get paid for because I'm salaried and don't get overtime pay. When my rent goes up this year, I might start having a serious problem... That, my young friends, is the sad reality of the World of Work. I got my degree in a field I thought was great, and got a job doing exactly what I imagined. There's just one problem, and that is the fact that they pay sucks. From what I understand, a lot of jobs are like that; the only way to really get ahead is to switch jobs every couple of years (or less!) and hope that you don't get caught in a desperate situation. That said, I wish you all the best of luck once you get out there into the world. Hopefully, you guys will have picked more lucrative fields than mine, but even then, watch out; more lucrative generally also means more volatile, which means you have to watch over your shoulder more often. Most importantly, though, is not to get caught up in office politics if you can help it; getting dragged around and played for a sucker as someone else's pawn can be a pretty soul crushing experience. Scared yet? Good luck...
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Jan 24, 2008 3:33:19 GMT -5
Post by niff on Jan 24, 2008 3:33:19 GMT -5
wowee. that is quite the story.
i am sooooo getting shafted. i don't think audio/recording engineering/live sound is super lucrative.
could always go do acoustic sciences and pray for a job at NASA analysing sound samples taken from other planets for an exorbitant amount of money per year. that'd be nice.
or do honours in recording arts and masters in creative media practice and hope i get to work on movies or something. oh, the possibilities.
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Jan 24, 2008 12:16:51 GMT -5
Post by Notesurfer on Jan 24, 2008 12:16:51 GMT -5
In my experience, jobs/money/careers/etc are all luck and, to a lesser extent, people skills. A friend of mine (20 years old) makes 50k per year working at a military blood bank - they also house her and feed her for free. Conversely, my dad went to school and got several degrees (music education, general education, and administration) and still can't get a job that will let him live comfortably. I've written on this several times, but money sucks, the economy sucks, etc. and the American middle class, at least on the East Coast, is disappearing rapidly.
Niff, you should try and find out how much the top audio engineers are making (Tom Lord-Alge and his brother for example), because that's basically the roof. Most occupations have an economic "roof," and it's usually 10 times the amount you'll ever make in that job d-:
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Jan 24, 2008 15:34:37 GMT -5
Post by niff on Jan 24, 2008 15:34:37 GMT -5
it's tricky to work out people's salaries in that kind of work because generally it's not even a static thing, it just depends on how many jobs they wanna take per year. hrm, have to give this some research.
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Jan 25, 2008 5:35:58 GMT -5
Post by Altl on Jan 25, 2008 5:35:58 GMT -5
That completely blows. Do you enjoy the work to any extent any more or is it just all horrible? It seems like from your post the latter.
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Jan 25, 2008 16:40:14 GMT -5
Post by N3B on Jan 25, 2008 16:40:14 GMT -5
What I dislike most about this whole thing is the pressure of having to succeed and living up to everyone else's standards and being judged based on how financially successful or prestegious you are.
Like I recall as far back as elementary school having Career Day every couple of months and there'd always be a speaker there (someone hired to speak, not one of the kids' parents) who'd go on about how great college is and how there's no excuse to not get into college and you'll lead a life living in the streets if you don't.
In terms of actually getting into college and being in college I have to say that I'm not fond of the aspect of meeting "the man's" standards. I'm done with this aspect of being given standardized tests that determine my value as a student (or human being for that matter), because while it may seem a little cliched, I'm more than a percentage or a GPA, and it frustrates me that that seems to be all that matters at this stage.
Meanwhile I'd like to be able to get by doing something that I enjoy even if the pay isn't that great (though it wouldn't be conducive to having a family, which would be nice). Of course I'd like to have enough money to not need to worry about it, but I can only see that happening by either being extremely lucky or absolutely working my ass off in a field that I utterly wouldn't enjoy (and due to my personality I wouldn't make it far enough in that field to make the $$ anyway, because as I see it, if you're not passionate about something you shouldn't be doing it).
I've had thoughts of doing something creative, sort of in the vein of the fine arts (music, movies, writing) because this seems to be what I'm good at and I enjoy spending time indulging in it, but these fields tend to strike me as not being lucrative enough to get by on unless you get a lucky break and make it big (in the more likely case I'd be stuck teaching somewhere or working as a waiter and doing the writing/music stuff on the side). Furthermore, these areas you can't just send out job applications; you're sort of dependent on a talent agent coming by your way and liking you (unless you happen to know someone who knows someone who knows someone in the business).
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