What's Your Profession - 2024 (Or, How Do You Afford Your Yoyo's?)

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Hi all, this question has always intrigued me, I wanted to see if there are any other similarities among us other than yoyo’s. I saw another thread similar to this but it was started and ended in 2014, so I thought I’d make a new thread.

Anyway, I have a long past of entry level jobs, the longest one I held, which paid pretty well for the time was, a rural carrier for the post office. I’ve also worked in constructions, restaurants, logistics, warehouses, furniture restoration, etc etc.

I’m a high-school dropout and a college dropout… it’s not that I didn’t like to learn, I love to learn, I just didn’t like school, so I am mainly an autodidact (funny word).

It wasn’t until I was 37 when my wife got pregnant that I really thought to myself that I have to learn a skill so that I could better provide for my daughter. As I’ve said in other forums, I am a slow learner but having a baby really put the fire under my arse. I was also being laid off and getting substantial severance pay plus another large sum of money if I agreed to stay until they closed the department I was working in… which I did. I used this money to go to a full stack software immersive school (similar to code camps but longer). This was a scary time for me because it was a lot of money and I couldn’t work during this time… oh and I happened to be going through a divorce (my daughter was 1 year old at the time). So anyway, long story short, I wouldn’t recommend code camps or at least the one I went to. I learned in spite of going to this immersive. The teachers were uninspiring and more worried about their own apps than the students. The school also just acquired another company, so they were changing everything, we were the last class to be going through the 6 month immersive and they just kept pushing us to the side until we were literally kicked out of our classroom and just given chairs so that they could make room for the new cohorts that would make them a lot more money. So I used that time to teach myself and graduation time came and went. I didn’t get a job in software right away but in 2022 I landed my first software role at a company that I love. I work remotely and I absolutely love my position now… there is just nothing like working from home and I live close enough to the office that I can go in from time to time if I’m in the mood.

So, yeah, if any of you would like to share your story or simply just share what you do now, that would be fun to read. I know most of you are a lot younger than I am so you may just be starting out. I’m a late bloomer and it took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to do for a living. As they say and I know it’s cliché, it’s never too late to change the path you’re on.

Cheers!

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Well, I graduated both high school and 5 years of college :rofl: and I didn’t know this word so…. Thanks for educating me.

I’m in my early 50’s and started out as an Engineer. Now I do technical sales in the Metrology world. Metrology is the science of measurement. If you guys need something measured, hit me up!!

These roles provide for a fairly nice yoyo budget!

I’m interested in learning everyone’s story! Good topic.

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I’m 19 fresh out of high school I’m a heavy equipment operator and currently work in ag farming rice. I do everything from driving big tractors, mechanic work, welding, and manual labor stuff like weed eating.

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21, in college but I push around shoes to pay for necessities and sometimes yoyos.

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After communications in the Army I was a telephone repair tech for Bell Atlantic/ Verizon until 2010. Took a buyout and went into splicing fiber optic cables for many more years. 2016 cardiac arrest, brain damage, tried splicing again for a while until it got too hard to keep up with. Fighting to get disability these days. I do odd jobs very occasionally but living off of wife’s income at present and that’s a tough place for a man to be. I don’t know…some people seem to thrive at being a sponge but it kills me. Anyways. Trying to get a neurologist to give me an actual diagnosis is a joke. That’s my love story. :rofl:

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Having many skills will serve you well in life. Make sure to be good at them. :smiley::+1:

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River restoration

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Work from home, call center gig for a pharmacy that deals with serious diseases like HIV, cancer, etc…

Help patients find programs to pay for the ridiculously over priced drugs. Feels good to help since my last job was ironically a cancer to society (was in charge of a bunch of loan shark stores)

Wife works at home for same company, a much better quality of life, doesn’t pay as much but we got food in the table. Use the BST a lot since budget for yoyos is limited. Got a small collection but super happy. Have made so many trades/sales to buy other stuff that it’s kinda like I have rented tons of yoyos to try out for the cost of shipping. Quite enjoyable as I have been blessed to not get emotionally attached to metal (except for the general yos.)

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Well. Sure. I started hustling and making money when I was a kid mowing yard and junk, When I was 14, I started working at a small mom and pop convenience store. That place went out of business, so I moved on to pushing carts at a Giant Food. Worked there for 6 years going from cart pusher to porter, to cashier, to customer service, to assistance manager.

Finished high school went to college and flunked out twice while working at the grocery store. failed a few IT certs. Went back to college a third time and that time took. before I got my associates, I worked a second job initially pulling cables as a contractor for a while. then as helpdesk at capital one and switched from customer service assistance manager to night shift stocking shelfs.

after I finished my associates, I started at IBM worked there for a while. Started on my bachelor’s and during that moved down to Florida and started as head of IT for a trucking company.

That company started having some rough financials and reporting to the board quarterly I saw the writing on the wall, so I left Florida moved back up to DC and did various contract work for a while.

Then I met my now wife and got a job at a hedge fund as a senior network engineer. Moved up to director of IT infrastructure worked there for a good while till that place kind of fell apart and once I was laid off I did more contracting and now I work as a cyber security engineer for a large government contractor.

There were a bunch of small contract jobs at Microsoft, apple, and various financial services through the years along with doing consulting on the side and even for a short term I was a radio DJ.

My LinkedIn is about as public as the rest of my online presence which is mostly available at least since I moved on from the hedge fund space. it’s amazing how many restrictions I had in finance vs what I deal with in the government side. (6) Brandon Rogers | LinkedIn

As for how I have money for yoyos. man idk. with 2 kids and another on the way I sometimes feel like I’m always behind even with my mild career success.

Also, wife is a stay-at-home mom. she was a preschool teacher before we had kids, but daycare is more than she made so that made that decision.

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I cat sit my nieghbors cat. Shes crazy rich and treats me like her grandson. I got around 200 dollars for 2 weeks. The cat has an automatic feeder and a water fountain, so that makes my job easier too. Also the houes is right next to mine, so i take about 20 steps to get there

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at the moment i work an office job at my university. the office is centered around helping students who’ve experienced interpersonal violence get connected to proper resources while also serving as a counseling center and a free provider of hygiene supplies. very good feeling job

i’m very lucky to still have bills mostly paid for by my parents, so money goes to personal items like clothes, takeout food, and yo-yos :smiling_face:

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I’ve been working from home since 2019 and it’s been fantastic. I’ve got to see my kids grow up which has been great. I regret missing my sons’ early years.

when I would go to an office my commute for a long while was minimum an hour and a half to 2 hours one way. I don’t miss that time suck from my life at all. I don’t think I could keep that going today. I would burn out too quick.

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Man, so sorry to hear that. I feel like yoyoing has to be good for building neural pathways in the brain but I could just be day dreaming.

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:laughing: My pleasure, I honestly just came across it myself not too long ago. I really liked it so I put it in the ol’ memory bank.

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Oh wow, that’s really interesting. I guess I never really thought about this. Sounds like a good gig!

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Sorry, I’m bad at abbreviations, what is BST? You sure you ain’t Breaking Bad on the side? Kidding (I had to, just based off your avatar). :laughing:

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BST = buy sell trade

Keeps the prices down as its second hand

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Mild career success? lol, I’d say this is a huge success! I hear that’s where the money is at right now, well that and AI.

I did this in college for a little bit, it was so much fun!

And a big THANK YOU to everyone that has shared their stories so far!

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Same here. I worked 12 hour shifts for 3 years before I landed the gig I have now (same company, just moved up and into a different dept). I had to have my aging dog live with my parents (broke my heart, she lived with me for 16 years at that point but it was best for her) and I missed a lot of early days with my daughter, though I did get long weekends with her, so that was cool. But, now that I work from home, my schedule is much more flexible, I get to take her to ballet classes or pick her up from school if she’s not feeling well, I make all the events that parents should be able to make but often can’t because they are stuck at the office. I never dreamt that I’d be able to work from home, once it became a reality, I vowed to never take it for granted.

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That makes all the difference in the world. It’s very hard to wake up every morning to go to a thankless job. Glad to hear it, you are giving back to the world and helping people! Good for you! :blush:

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