Like Chris Rock said, there's 2 kinds of people in the working world. People with jobs, and people with careers. For people with careers, there's not enough time in the day, whereas for people with jobs there's too much fucking time!

I'm finally in a position to concentrate on my career after a litany of personal obstacles, errors of judgement, misinformation, and working in decent-paying but ultimately dead-end jobs.

Was wondering what you lads are doing with yourselves.

Are you happy with what you're doing?
Have you ever hit the wall and had to change your career path?
Do you have a big goal for where you're heading?
Would you consider yourself as successful?
Did you any of you have any specific "aha" moment when something clicked and you realised what you wanted to do?
Did you aim to be doing what you're currently doing, or "fall into" it for whatever reason?

Feel free not to answer some of the questions if you think it's too personal...

I'm a team leader for a software consultancy.

I'm reasonably happy with what I'm doing.

I've never hit the wall, I've hit a decent promotion every 18 months or so since I started out and that seems likely to continue. My company is currently talking to me about becoming the CTO-equivalent of a spinoff business.

I "fell into" this sort of job when I realised I really wasn't interested in a career in maths academia. But it's pretty decent as careers go.

Medium term my goal is to own and operate my own consultancy and grab a much bigger share of my fairly exorbitant consulting rates. The other alternative I'm considering is taking on an MBA at a good business school. That's basically trading off boredom now for leisure later so it's a rather dull option.

Overall I don't enjoy work much at all but I do feel the need for the status that a moderately successful career gives me among my peers.

And you fit that around one of the highest post per day rates on OMIT. Impressive! 😉

Out of curiosity, are you in the UK or US BW?

I know MBA's carry alot of prestige in the US, but here in Australia MBA's aren't seen as essential or very highly regarded for a high paying business career.

I'm in Australia - Perth in fact. Another parasite on the upper gear of the two-speed economy 😃

As for the post rate on OMT, I should undoubtedly post less but I'm going through a bit of a trough emotionally at the moment - thinking about football takes my mind off that. Hanging around this place keeps me sane and I remain surprisingingly productive in a work sense.

Yeah, I'd only look to do an MBA at either the ASB or Melbourne, since it seems to be more about networking and context than actually knowing anything to speak of.

The land of the cashed up bogan, as we call it on the east coast 😉

Cashed up convicts, as we call it on this side of the globe.

😆 Thats a bit rich, at least we pay for the stuff we take out of shops.

Tim wrote:

Cashed up convicts, as we call it on this side of the globe.

My ancestors were 'convicted' by the British crown ... I'd be more worried if it had been a legitimately constituted authority! 😉

@Gazza Plenty of CUBs in Perth that's a certainty. Steer clear of the unskilled FIFO workers on a Friday night.

Currently in third year of university, studying Finance and Accounting. Landed a job with Deloitte recently for after I graduate. Really stoked about it. 🙂

Last year of university, studying computer engineering.

Qualified chartered accountant who moved from
Practice into industry nearly 5 years ago.

Series of promotions, most recently a couple of months back, has kept me content. Fortunate to work for a big company close to home which is out of London, so work/social balance is great at the mo, which is important to me.

Getting old now so looking to save up where I can and pay off the mortagage

Management consultant. Do a variety of variety of work. Most recently did tech work for a large company's cloud strategy and another tech firm that wanted to monetize IP by licensing nextgen technology to another firm. Actually considering a change of scene, potentially back to an internal strategy job, but will see.

Would not have pictured either Ron or Dules as accountants... 😉

Currently, in my first job (9 months now) as a media planner, which is basically the strategy side of advertising. If you're still not sure what that is, then this is the type of thing I want to come up with in the future:

http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=GB#/watch?v=fGaVFRzTTP4

Amazing!

The caveat to that is that I don't know if I'll stay in my specific field. I'm in the agency in the country but I might make a sideways move to a related industry. I like advertising so I can see myself staying in the area despite it making me a hypocrite and the broader area is definitely a fit for me. My pipe dream is to work in music, perhaps even sell it through the medium of music videos but we'll see...

Enjoying the job so far. It's a sociable industry and I've already got to so some cool things like visit Facebook/Google. Downside is that the pay is not great, which although not too important for me at the moment while I'm quite young, it may act as an extra incentive to move - I certainly have no intention of standing still. Figure once I hit two years I'll make my next move assuming I've got all I want out of this job, then we'll see where I end up!

Out of work web/graphic designer. Lost my job a couple of years ago so I went back to college to get my MA, should finished in October when I intend on starting up my own business. I do enjoy my work but I hate the day to day of working for other people and thats why I want to work for myself. Want to try a few other more creative endeavours too so I think working for myself will allow me to balance that.

Heh for some reason I pictured qs as a finance type and JVG as the creative nutter type. 🙂

For those of you who are already established in a professional capacity, do you guys do anything extra to earn your promotions outside of job performance ie. post-graduate study, short courses, attending association events, making a concerted effort to tend to your network, or any other general learning activities?

Working as a project manager for a French perfume, cosmetic and skincare company and am quite happy in my job.
Originally qualified as a graphic designer but I was tempermentally unsuited because I could not bear having to compromise on my designs.
Following graduation I lasted just under a year in the professional design world 🙂
I chucked it all in, worked and travelled around Europe for a year or so before getting a job with the company that I work for now.
Just got promoted recently, and I still get to travel a lot with work so that restless part of me is kept quiet.

My guiding principle is never to stay in any job that makes me miserable or bored and that any major decisions regarding moving jobs or changing career should be based on a lot more than just financial considerations.

I plan to slow down and choose a pared down, simple life in the future -
become a full time artist and split my time between living here and in the south west of France, maybe even the Basque region of Spain.
At the moment though that looks more of a dream than an actual plan 🙂

I fight evil and tyranny when I can be arsed.

Captain, your abrupt, pointed posting style tells me you an authoritarian manager of some kind.

Or a sociopath 😉

Jesus christ we're a bunch of tech, finance and management drones. Ought to bite the bullet and replace ourselves with spambots.