Rate your job: the thread

1/10, do kot recommend.

Healthcare as a whole can not sustain much more before it crashes. I've watched the downward spiral firsthand since joining this circus 10yrs ago. Unless you have something cut off that should be attached, hasn't gone away in a few days, etc, come on in and be seen. There are plenty of other good options for getting care too! 

i've been a graphic designer my whole career, since i got my degree in '05.

Designer/Salesperson - 2/10.  first gig i could get when i moved to ATL immediately after college as a broke nobody.  was touted as a designer position, in reality it was high-end furtniture sales and i got to design flyers and some other nonsense maybe once a month.  got to deal with mega-entitled richy-rich boardroom a-hole customers on the regular.  held on for a year for the sake of my resume.

Senior Designer - 5/10.  corpo drone with a boring industrial company but i got hired on as a junior and left as a senior designer with a decent salary.  learned the ropes, had an annoying but helpful boss, and it got me through the '08 recession.  

Freelance Designer - 5/10.  moved to the Triangle area of NC and decided to jump off the cliff and try my hand at my own gig.  loved the responsibility, freedom, excitement and learning opportunities and the main thing was it let me stay home and raise my baby boy for the first 7 years.  got to do a ton of cool projects, especially with cars and motorsports.  over time i came to hate the responsibility, anxiety, dealing with cheapasses, all my competition moving offshore, and it was tough to make any real money.  i shut it down in 2022 with zero regrets and still do side jobs for fun, for my car buddies - some of which are even here on this board!

Senior Designer, Again - 8/10.  back in GA again, took a shot at a job opening with a huge corporate vehicle builder conglomerate and its been pretty awesome.  killer pay + bennies, love the products, i'm given a lot of autonomy and management is fine.  hate being in a stifling, boring office again, and the commute is garbage but at least its semi hybrid and we work a 9/80 schedule.  i get to turn off work at the end of the day and its taken my stress levels so far down its been worth every penny.  the design field is in rough shape, so i feel very fortunate and i'd be an idiot to leave unless some kind of wild dream job showed up. 

So I've been a auto tech most of my life 10/10 love it.  I left for a few years to go welding and it sounded awesome at first but got old quick and actually turned out to be a dead end.  If you stay local you make no money, if you are making money you live in a hotel working 7-14's six months at a time.  I couldn't get down with the travel because I have too many hobbies like sucking at ice hockey and being the world's okayest autoxer.  Back to wrenching and absolutely love it.  Obsolete cars for days lol

College Jobs: 

Pizza Delivery Driver - 8/10 - Pros: made an hourly rate plus tips, got to jam out to music all night, and always got free food (it was an Italian restaurant and pre-uber/doordash/etc). Cons: Always smelled like pizza, car smelled like pizza, lots of wear and tear on vehicles, crappy hours. 

Tech at various dealerships - 6.5/10 - Pros: Sense of accomplishment with every vehicle you successfully repaired, doing something I enjoyed, free access to a lift, always got to test drive new cars, not having to click clack on a mouse and keyboard all day. Cons: Crappy pay, dealing with the dealership model, long hours, weekends, constantly dealing with people whose intelligence was rivaled by a bag of bricks, constantly fighting against the other techs who just want the gravy jobs, always smelly, 

Big Boy Jobs:

Big Defense Firm: 

Pros: Great benefits, pays well, treated like an adult for the most part, flexibility, options to move laterally and up are abundant, stability, and job security.

Cons: Morality, probably don't make as much as I could outside of the defense sector (however job security aint there in other sectors), lack of sense of accomplishment at times, florescent light depression, and so on. 

Small Defense Firm:

Pros: Flexibility, feeling like you're part of the team, helping the company grow, sense of accomplishment, so on. 

Cons: Benefits can be a struggle, not a lot of resources to fall back on, ability to move up and over are dependent on the success of the leadership on winning more contracts. 

Well, this may take a while. 

1st job, mowing grass for a municipality under contract. Wrote my first bid at 13. Pay was bad, but it was 1988. All pay was bad.

1st "real job" Working overnights cleaning floors at walmart back before supercenters. Did that all summer after high school 6 days a week, then worked 4 days the first year of commuting to college. The job was a 2.5-3, it had its perks. No people, work on your schedule and pace etc. That transitioned into set up the following year for a super center in terre haute, then into toy dept manager during the christmas rush. Doing that 50 hours a week plus 14 credit hours of music ed craziness that job was a -1.5. Transitioned into pushing carts and herding a bunch of high school kidsfor the next year. That was about a 2.5 because the store manager and assistant left me alone to run it. 

2nd job was one summer while working the other overnight job, working at a McQuiks quick lube. That job was terrible. IT was all the things you think it would be and was run by the scuzziest people that would do anything for a buck. I was the first person to actually give and work my 2 weeks notice in years. 1 at best. Hours were long, it was hot and messy and the people sucked.

3rd job I left the walmart thing and loaded freight aircraft for a company called American International Airways run by a guy that drove fast, Kalitta. That was fun and the pay was good for 1996. But the hours were horrible and the company ended up shutting down the TH facility. probably a 3.

4th job was working in an automotive factory. 12 hour shifts 3 or 4 days a week running a huge injection molding press. The company sucked, the work was hard and the pay was mediocre. Hired a bunch of us before a union vote to sway it and then when they passed fired all the new hires. That lasted 72 days. rate it a 0

5th was going from being unemployed to having a job in 2 days. Started with Autozone in April 1997 as they were exploding onto the scene here. Worked multiple stores, progessed up the chain quickly. Made assistant manager in late 98. Had a great crew, then corporate came in and knocked it all apart. Had some anger issues that were being made worse dealing with the general public, got demoted and then quit after they pulled a crappy stunt with my pay. That was a 3.5 It wasn't all bad.

6th job was at a steel mill. First two weeks were the hardest I've ever worked. of the 30 that started, 4 were left after 2 weeks. From there they realized I wasn't quitting and moved me on to other things. That was a fun place. I ran the old locomototive to put cars on the stub track, ran overhead cranes that you rode in 4 stories above the ground, ran 32T fork lifts that we used to theirmax capacity. Company had some... financial issues and started laying people off in the fall. By December I was one of 30 left at the site and the week before christmas 5 people held a job clearing out the scrap. I'd rate that as a 6.5. The work was hard, hot and demanding but there were a lot of cool things going on and me making $24/hr with no skills in 2001 working 48-60 hour weeks was aweseome.

7th job was the first thing I could get. Gettign laid off the week before christmas is a rough time. Started working at a John Deere warehouse pulling the large freight that required forklifts and hazmat things. Job was a 4, pay was a 5. Met the wife, who lived across town and found something better suited to having a wife/family (even though we decided no kids).

8th job was parts slut at a Hyundai/Kia/Suzuki/Daewoo dealer in 2001 (to 2003). Found "my calling" but it wasn't with this company. Manager was terrible, owner was (still is) a sleeze. But the cars were cool and having access to all the things was awesome. LAsted 3 years and got a better offer.

9th job was my longest I've ever worked. Ended up being head parts slut for an acura dealer. Job was a 7. Problem was no raises unless begging, and no promotions. the latter I learned later was because my manager didn't wantto lose me. pay was good, perks were good. Dealing with people not good.

10th job is my fave. Oil/coolant/fuel analysis. Job was an 8 most days. First 3 years I progressed faster than anyone had ever done it in the company. Was a level 3 analyst with specialties in microscopy, coolant and automotive/diesel engines. year 4 management changes and the job went to a 4. Micromanaging does not work for me. after 5.5 years I left. 

11th back to dealer parts, company made many promises they did not keep. rate it a 2. Pay was great but the long days and hours, no time off and doing it all alone sucked.

leads me to now, #12. Parts for a body shop. Job is mindless, requires very little mental capacity but the pay is good, they treat me right most days and if I want/need time off I get it no questions asked. I rate it a 6, mostly because its mentally boring. But I got 10 years max to need to make this income level and this is easy. I'd go back to a #10 in a heartbeat with another company if I could, but there arent many out there and I am not going back to that company.

worst: summer 1983, cold-calling people for a timeshare. only did that 3 weeks.

best: chasing a walk-behind mower for my buddy Glenn, in and around Olney MD. i was so ripped, my abs had abs. good pay for that time in my life, working with good friends.

everything else is somewhere in between. i've been a brake engineer in the auto industry since 1993. i kinda lump it all together. i've been to customer and supplier plants all over the USA, as well as Canada, Mexico, Germany, Sweden, Czech Republic, Poland, and China. i've had one boss who stood out as remarkably bad, and one who stands out as remarkably good. I'll be 57 next month. i'm ready to retire, but my 401k isn't.

High School / summer jobs: summer day camp counselor for the town recreation program where I grew up, burger flipper at McDanks.  Day camp was with a bunch of friends, ran the kids ragged playing soccer, did crafts, commuted on our bikes. 6/10 mostly because of the meager pay.  Burger job taught me the value of an education and / or trade although I was grateful for the flexible hours during the school year.  Made enough money to keep my car going / take the girlfriend out on the weekends during the first couple of years of college.   I often did the 6:00 AM to 2:30 PM shift on weekends which involved set up / sanitizing all the equipment.  Got real good at working on the ice cream machine, more on that later.  8/10, the managers and co workers were almost all great people.  We worked hard but laughed a lot too.

First job I actually made real money/ best summer job:  I worked for the plant engineer for Zildjian Cymbals the summer between my junior and senior years of college.  My mom was the admin for one of the VPs in sales (Thanks Mom!)  I was playing drums at the time so it was like being a kid in a candy store.  Set up a PM system for the plant equipment, did a lot of odd jobs, ran errands and generally had a great time.  They had a huge company anniversary party (360 years at the time) later in the fall and I was invited back.  Met a bunch of drummers from various bands from some of the jazz / big band guys to rock groups.  9/10, only 4 months or so but it was fun.

First big boy job: General Dynamics EB Division in Groton CT.  Started in design engineering which was not super interesting / very little hands on.  I was able to transfer into the construction support group a month or two in and loved it.  We ended up getting re-absorbed into design after about two years but our group kept the hands on work.  Super interesting work, learned a lot about life, solving problems and project management.  Did a fair amount of company related travel (Scotland and Virginia were two memorable trips)   Spent 6 days onboard USS Pittsburgh riding her on Bravo sea trials from the Bahamas back up the east coast to Connecticut.  My job title at that point was "propulsion systems engineer" but the crew was more impressed when the ice cream machine broke on day 3 and I was able to pull it apart and fix the problem.  (Ice cream is really really big deal if you're on the boats, LOL)  I loved the job but at the time I was there the future looked pretty cloudy.  8/10 for the experiences.

My dad had been an HVAC service tech since before I was born and may have mentioned something along the lines of "hey that apprenticeship program is going from 4 to 5 years, you ought to think about it" sometime around Christmas in 1986.   After a few months of soul searching and observing the guys that had made a career there, I left EB on a Friday in May of 87 and started as a 1st year apprentice for 1/3 of the money the follwoing Monday.   Swallowed my pride, moved back in with the parents and got into the "family business".  I was a service tech in the van for 10 years for two different companies, worked on a lot of varied equipment including large chiller plants and boilers.  Sometime around the time our daughter arrived I was offered a shot at learning sales.  Next year will be 20 years at the present company (3rd contractor I've worked for) and 30 years in sales. 

It's been a good gig that combined my engineering degree with my hands on knowledge.  Definitely has paid the bills and we've enjoyed great benefits working for union contractors.  My current employer has been a great place to be, I had gone through the apprenticeship program with one of the original partners and ran into each other on a job walkthrough by chance.  I was at the end of my patience with the previous company which had gone through two corporate owners in 5 years and he was ready to grow his company and needed a salesman.  I'm the old man of the shop now, his son is the CEO and I've known him since he worked summers when he was in high school. 

They offered me 4 day work weeks back in 2018, we may be going to 3 at some point in the next year or so.  I've been mentoring the younger sales guys in return and have really enjoyed the teaching part.   I hope to stick around for another 4 years or so as I like being busy, seeing the customers and working with our field guys.  8/10, points off only for the stress the job can bring with it.

Teacher:  3.  Kids are great, work is rewarding, but the administration and parents are an instant no for me.  Pay sucked.  I have an interview next week for a college teaching position and I might consider it since the parents are less involved.

Fabricator at a hot rod shop:  10.  Pay was only fair, but I got to build dream cars for rich people.  I was respected, the three people I worked with were super talented and wickedly fun, and we all loved each other.  If the owner hadn't run into profit problems and took the business back to the east coast, I'd still be doing it.

Home Depot Rental and Pro Desk:  4.  HD gives you surprising levels of responsibility (good) but incredibly limited resources.  Every piece of software that they had made was a total fail, which meant you had to do everything some bass-ackwards way and it tripled your work.  Our rental department opened a repair department and we did warranty repairs on everything we sold except appliances.  It was mostly power tools and lawn mowers/snow blowers.  They put the repair department in a cleaning closet.  Not kidding.  The software they made didn't allow you to even open a repair order until the previous repair order was marked as completed.  So you'd go grab a drill, figure out that it needs a trigger, order the trigger, and then you couldn't work on anything else until the part came two weeks later.  There were no employee discounts, but we always hoarded the clearance items until they automatically get marked down to like $1.  I have a sweet Milwaukee SDS rotary hammer that was $400 originally and I got it for $5.  My current shop is filled with pallet racks that I swindled.  I was told that I couldn't buy or take them because employee/liability crap so I was told to call a licensed scrap guy.... which I did... and promptly gave him $50 to take it to my house.

Theater Technical Director (Current position): 11.  I simultaneously love and hate this job.  It's way too much work for way too little pay, but when that curtain goes up and the audience drops their jaws, I think sometimes I would do it for free.  I take 2D designs from an artist, turn them into 3D art, so other artists can practice their art on stage.  I spend two months building, bleeding, aching, and cursing, then two weeks of kudos from the audience and appreciation from the actors about the set I provided.