I looked back thru this post to see what I had replied over a year ago to see what might have changed since then, but found that this post must have gone up during my most supreme absenteeism from this board. Not only had I not posted to it, I hadn't even read it...

So, nice to see what a bunch of you are doing out there, I can relate to many of the jobs because I sure have done a lot of them myself.

Current Occupation (in impressive terms):
Manager of a Food Service Establishment grossing over $2 million annually, overseeing more than 50 direct reports with liability exclusively to the owner.

In laymans terms -- I manage an extraordinarily busy pizzeria with over 50 people under me and only the owner above me -- and he's not there very often. Just for kicks, do you have any idea just how much pizza a place has to sell to bring in that kind of cash? In terms of strictly pizza (no sandwiches or dinners), that would be over 200,000 pies a year, or over 550 pies a day. That's a whole lotta pizza -- most places would be happy with that many a MONTH.

Anyway, I digress... Here's some of the things I've done in the past, basically in order from about 14 years old to the current ripe old age of 28:

Video Game Arcade Cashier
Ice Cream Shop Server
Retail Sales Associate (Linens 'n Things)
Bus Boy (Steak n Ale)
Pizza Delivery Boy (Pizza46)
Jr. Programmer (National Reinsurance Corp.)
Programmer (AT&T)
Programmer/Analyst (Prudential Insurance)
Consultant (Reader's Digest)
Managing Editor (4x4Wire's Isuzu Section)
Sr. Programmer/Analyst (Chubb & Son)
Pizza Delivery Boy (Pizza46)
Construction/Demolition Worker
Short Order Cook (Pizza46)
Pizza Maker (Pizza46)

Hmmm... I think that about sums it up... Anyway, bottom line is, my advice to absolutely ANYONE is this: Be happy with whatever you're doing. You can make money at anything you do -- it's more important to be happy in the long run than to just make a lot of cash but be miserable. If you read thru that list of jobs, you'll notice there's a sharp spike in the middle of jobs with high pay for little work. Then I woke up and realized I wanted to be happy with what I was doing. If you look at my current job, I WORK MY ASS OFF for not all that much money. But I'm happy as a pig in sh!t going to work every day... And ya know what? There's a whole lotta money to be made in the pizza business if you do it right -- so don't base your job on what makes you a lot of money even if you hate it... Do what you like, if you're happy, the money will follow.

That's my little tidbit of advice to anyone who posted, "I'm doing this right now, but I'm hoping to do this someday instead..." or something along those lines. Follow your heart, not your wallet.

-Chris