The other day I was asked if I like my job. Answering honestly I replied, "I don't love it.”

My job is currently called a "Wireline Open Hole Field Operator". I am the strong back who assists an engineer in logging recently drilled wells for the Gas and Oil industry. My job is simply to hook up the sheaves, connect the tools to the wire line, and drive the logging truck to and from a well location.

As I stated; I do not love my job and in fact I find it to be lacking for me, like it is missing something I need for a job to be fulfilling. My past jobs were all in the call-center business taking technical support calls for various types of products.
I have done work for Gateway, Dell, and Intel just to name a few and I enjoyed the technical aspect of it for a while, but the customer element always wore me down to the point of not caring about my job any more. Finally I got to a breaking point and left the business.

I was then asked, “If you could choose any job at any company what would it be?” I found this a little difficult to answer. So I started with asking myself; what do I enjoy doing? The answer I came up with was; I enjoy working with my brain, I enjoy learning new and interesting things. I enjoy working with like-minded people, people who I can work with on the same intellectual level, tackling challenging problems and coming up with solutions together as a team. Call centers were a poor substitute for that.

As for the subject(s), I find that I have interests in many areas such as; Computers, Chemistry, Hydroponics, Electronics, and Physics. I am self-taught on all of the above to the point that I have some applicable working knowledge in each field, some more than others.

With the description of what I enjoy doing, what is a job like that called, and where do I start? I don’t want to work in the oil field for the rest of my life; even if the money is good I can’t say that I am happy doing it.

Thank you for reading.
I look forward to hearing the public’s thoughts.
Atrum.

 

Do you have a degree in anything?

 

I was then asked, “If you could choose any job at any company what would it be?” I found this a little difficult to answer. So I started with asking myself; what do I enjoy doing? The answer I came up with was; I enjoy working with my brain, I enjoy learning new and interesting things. I enjoy working with like-minded people, people who I can work with on the same intellectual level, tackling challenging problems and coming up with solutions together as a team.

I noticed this post yesterday and started to respond, but decided to wait and see what others had to say. So far, not much has been offered, so I'll go out on a limb.

In my experience, the title of the job you want is "impossible dream."

I have heard of people who said they loved their job, but I have never worked with anyone who said that about their current job without adding at least some complaints - usually a lot. Most of the people I worked with over the course of over 40 years were frustrated in some of the the same ways you describe. In the best cases, they found elements of satisfaction in their work, but such bright spots were far outweighed by frustration. In my opinion, that's the best one can expect; if it turns out better than that, consider it good luck.

And since I am this far out on the proverbial limb, I'll start sawing. You must be equipped for whatever your dream job turns out to be. That preparation can be in terms of formal education, prior experience, or some combination of the two. But barring nepotism, or extraordinary good luck, no one just falls into a job they want, much less occupational nirvana.

 

Do you have a degree in anything?

mcgyvr,

Unfortunately I have never been very good at school because I have a hard time learning something if I don't have a good amount of interest in the subject.

This is why I am able to self teach my self in many different areas with out the aid of a classroom.

As we all know going to college for a degree means having to take classes that you would just rather not. I do realize that with out a degree getting that ideal job will be that much more difficult if not impossible.

I noticed this post yesterday and started to respond, but decided to wait and see what others had to say. So far, not much has been offered, so I'll go out on a limb.

In my experience, the title of the job you want is "impossible dream."

I have heard of people who said they loved their job, but I have never worked with anyone who said that about their current job without adding at least some complaints - usually a lot. Most of the people I worked with over the course of over 40 years were frustrated in some of the the same ways you describe. In the best cases, they found elements of satisfaction in their work, but such bright spots were far outweighed by frustration. In my opinion, that's the best one can expect; if it turns out better than that, consider it good luck.

And since I am this far out on the proverbial limb, I'll start sawing. You must be equipped for whatever your dream job turns out to be. That preparation can be in terms of formal education, prior experience, or some combination of the two. But barring nepotism, or extraordinary good luck, no one just falls into a job they want, much less occupational nirvana.

tracecom,

I am definitely not expecting the impossible dream job. I know that unless just as the reasons you described; nepotism, or extraordinary good luck that I will still have those parts of my job that I just hate and parts that I love. I want something in the field of a "Technical Analyst" (I guess is what you would call it) with-out being stuck in some cube with a headset chaining me to a desk all day.

I can't go back to that; I was miserable.

I suppose I am just lost as to what I really want to do. There are so many roads I can take, but I have no map to tell me which is best for me.

I appreciate the dialog so far guys. It helps when I have someplace to discuss these things.

 

As for the subject(s), I find that I have interests in many areas such as; Computers, Chemistry, Hydroponics, Electronics, and Physics. I am self-taught on all of the above to the point that I have some applicable working knowledge in each field, some more than others.
Atrum.

Technician, Technical Specialist, Lab Technican, Geek of all trades...

 

I am a lab technician and I truly enjoy my work. The person who had the job before me and taught me so much may have been a high school drop out. I know others who have no degree and still enjoy similar technical jobs.

I don't know how you land such dream jobs but they are out there. Don't let lack of formal education take the shine off your particular technical ability.

If there is one advice I can give it is never stop learning.

 

If your unsure of what your qualified to do, visit your local armed forces recruiter and take their tests to see which schools you qualify to attend for an occupational rating.

In the U.S. that test is the ASVAB.

Whether or not you decide to join is your personal choice, at least in the U.S. Conscription ended in 1975 here.

 

Well, that's an idea. I took a test called, "Kuder Preference test" in high school. You have found a way to get the tests, and probably much better tests that were available 40 years ago.

 

I enjoy working with my brain, I enjoy learning new and interesting things. I enjoy working with like-minded people, people who I can work with on the same intellectual level, tackling challenging problems and coming up with solutions together as a team.

As for the subject(s), I find that I have interests in many areas such as; Computers, Chemistry, Hydroponics, Electronics, and Physics.

With the description of what I enjoy doing, what is a job like that called, and where do I start?

The job could be called engineer or engineering technician. I don't think this is impossible to achieve. Much of what you say is exactly the type of job, I've had all of my professional life. The only difference is that I added the term "research" early on into my description. For this reason I obtained a Ph.D. because many companies require that for the most interesting work.

Still, as pointed out by MrChips, don't let your official degrees be a limitation. He has pointed out that many achieve their goal without a degree. In another thread I used the examples of my father and brother who both had jobs like you describe without an engineering degree (my brother eventually got one later in life).

As far as where you start, you need to find a company that does interesting engineering/technical work and convince them that you are talented. Get in the door anyway you can. Take any low pay necessary to get in, learn all you can and then prove your worth in deeds. Eventually, you can ask them for pay suitable for what you do for them, and if they don't give it, then take your experience and go somewhere else to learn even more. Along with all this, study on your own, read books, do experiments, talk to other people, ask questions here etc. If you are able financially and motivationally, eventually you can go to school, whether it is technical training, associates degree or bachelors degree. If you don't like academic environments, take another path. One way or another, it can be done for sure.

Read the story of Faraday, and then note what he achieved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday

As said in the article, "Although Faraday received little formal education and knew little of higher mathematics such as calculus, he was one of the most influential scientists in history"

 

Thank you all. You have given me much to think about and have helped me a great deal in regards to deciding on which paths to begin searching for my ideal job.

MrChips,
I have always had a love of learning, and as long as I have the information at my finger tips; I shall continue to do so.
Thank you for the advice.

Steveb,
That is very encouraging to hear that there are people out there who can get such interesting and rewarding jobs. Even with out the degrees. I hope that someday I will be able to find that company whom I can prove my talent and skills.

Faraday is indeed an inspiration.

Thanks again.
Atrum

 

First off jobs are hard to get right now unless your in the military contractor or Healthcare fields. Stay away from call centers, those are just cemetaries they forgot to turn the lights off. Thats where IT guys go to die.Talk to you supieror and see if you can work something out to climb the latter. Tell him you want to move up what do you need to do. A gas and power company has a huge ceiling as opposed to most tech jobs here. If I had it to do over I would have gone into a different field. And not because I don't like working with programming circuits, pc's, networks ect... Theres just too many pretenders coming out of these pretend schools that are a joke.

 

Theres just too many pretenders coming out of these pretend schools that are a joke.

Don't you think the pretenders will be found out and their jobs decrease because of it?

 

Don't you think the pretenders will be found out and their jobs decrease because of it?

As I am looking for work now, I am faced with the fact that as it is often the HR department that sorts the resumes first (or the hiring agency or the computer), the pretenders get replaced with more pretenders, and there are many of them out there. The problem is they are excellent at getting through...

 

First off jobs are hard to get right now unless your in the military contractor or Healthcare fields. Stay away from call centers, those are just cemetaries they forgot to turn the lights off. Thats where IT guys go to die.Talk to you supieror and see if you can work something out to climb the latter. Tell him you want to move up what do you need to do. A gas and power company has a huge ceiling as opposed to most tech jobs here. If I had it to do over I would have gone into a different field. And not because I don't like working with programming circuits, pc's, networks ect... Theres just too many pretenders coming out of these pretend schools that are a joke.

Thanks maxpower, I am planning on speaking with them about that. The shop I work at has a tech lab where they diagnose and repair the tools we use in the field. These tools are very technical and very custom to the industry. So I would welcome the chance to move into that department.

The top of the ladder at this industry seems to be the Geologist. They call all the shots, and pretty much run the industry. With out them the oil and gas industry couldn't exist at all.

I consider my self lucky to have escaped the call center world. Though I had moved up a step on the ladder at my last job, I was not able to move past it. Others in my department had moved past it, but they had all proven them selves to be ass kissers and or Giants Fans. I have more respect for my self than that and so I stayed in that position for 3.5 years before I would quit to work in the job I have now.


You are right about the pretenders, as I stated about the ass kissers and Giants Fans; they are very good at getting in. I have had to watch frustratingly as they moved up into management positions and top tier technical positions. It is there that their true colors had shown them selves as they made mistake after mistake.

One example I can think of is back in November of 2011. It was cyber Monday and there was a scheduled upgrade to the servers of a popular product chain.
They did the upgrade and every single one of those servers were down for 72 hours after trying to fix the problem. It turns out those pretenders had decided to use antiquated hardware they had laying around the store rooms for the "upgrades" to the servers.

We had thousands of upset customers trying to run their businesses on line who had their customers screaming at them because they couldn't access their online store fronts. It was chaos, all thanks to the incompetence that had weaseled its way to the top.

Sorry for the long winded post.

Atrum.