Oof. Literally my life's story so far.

Get your library science degree now, there are only a few accredited programs. I thought about doing this earlier this year and was surprised at how complicated it actually was to become a librarian.

I wish factory jobs paid better. Many of them are chill and easy.

Except not that gross 24 corporate ladder thing. But I guess 18-2x I was studying web design and had aspirations of making the next big web 2.0 site, back when it was still popular to idolize Google.

But by 24 I was already drinking the foss kool-aid and becoming jaded toward the tech industry.

Me at 46: I want to dismantle the machinery that makes trillionaires.

I actually started climbing the ladder and to be honest, I fucking hate it and am looking for a way out. I have never dealt with so many people that are willing to sacrifice their own dignity to be a sycophant for the sake of money.

I work in a hospital in a lab where I look at small pieces of the human body through a microscope in a quiet office where people apologize for interrupting me. It’s heaven

Never wanted to climb the ladder, but it was the only way I could really get better pay.

The higher I go, the more I can't stand the conversations. Being straightforward is a career killer. Competing with folks that talk big without knowledge, knowing I need to carefully balance working with them while making sure my ass is documented and covered for any blame when they screw up and want to throw someone under the bus.

I have generally still loved talking to the "grunts" and customers. People who have real problems and doing real stuff without so much office politic crap going on. Not people trying to write blog posts to try to sound smart without actually doing anything or actually knowing the material.

Don't librarians in the US have to have masters degrees? I thought it was another underpaid very competitive career path where you had to wait for people to retire to find a job.

I never wanted the former, even as a kid.
All I've ever wanted is something that's unstressful and fulfilling by doing good to others and gives me enough, both time and money, to be comfortable (and my view of comfortable in the money part is a lot less than the vast majority of people want).

Every interview: "oh great! You have a lot of manager experience! We've been looking for somebody with those skills!"

Me: "I'm not really looking to be in charge of people. I find the generational differences too tiring. I can't relate and I'm tired of having to tell children to put away their phones."

And within a year I'm a manager again. Just can't seem to shake it. Which is why every damn job on my resume is manager. At least this time around I am managing things and not people. So a little better.

One of the best jobs I ever had was night shift stocker at a grocery store. I'd clock in as the store was closing and would clock out about an hour after it opened. I'd get stoned out of my mind, listen to music or audio books the whole time and restock cereal and stuff.

My job now is pretty cushy now, but I do reminisce when I didn't have to think about work during off hours.

The job you are looking for at 38 is Page but like every job within the library system. It pays worse than teaching for the no-exceptions required-education

I dunno I thought I wanted this and took a job at a datacenter

Some days I don't even interact with another human

5 years into this and it's completely killed my social skills and therefore social life, im thinking about moving on for this reason actually

Honestly, at 45 with a very patchy CV because I was forced to become a full time carer more than once (fuck cancer), I'm probably fucked.

Feel like I might as well flush my degrees down the toilet. Luckily I live in Europe, so I didn't have to go into a huge amount of debt for them.

That's life I suppose. Sticking around for the life ending asteroid Hollywood has promised us.

Bernard! Bernard! Bernard look! Look Bernard! Bernard!

me at 50 after the latest round of cutbacks and layoffs, "are there still jobs that will allow me to pay my bills?"

During my first "job," I was too young to be legally employed, so I volunteered at a library with my mom. Initially I worked in one of the back rooms, hidden from the public, helping to scan and sort books put in the return bins. (I discovered several great books by seeing them come back; among them were Dogsbody, Lovely Bones, and Me Talk Pretty One Day. Those are listed alphabetically by title and that wasn't even by design!)

After I volunteered long enough, I was deemed sufficiently experienced to put books on the shelves in the stacks. I was titled a "page" and proudly announced that while attending a LAN party. One of the other attendees of said party said "and if you do that long enough maybe you'll become a full book!" I laughed quite heartily.

If you've never read anything else I wrote here, the post above will probably tell you everything you could possibly want to know about me.