Emergency/Crit care doctor.

I initially studied physics/maths with a goal to go into aerospace engineering. I was binge watching scrubs and I thought medicine might be cool so I did that, then I thought emergency medicine sounded cool so I did that, then I thought critical care sounded cool so I did that.

Basically I’m a child that makes poor life choices because things sound cool.

I’m one of those useless management types. Basically got really good at managing processes and people and kept getting promoted. I landed my current job because of someone I used to work with. They needed a great operations manager for a new acquisition and gave me an offer he knew I couldn’t refuse. I LOVE the job and the field it’s in (the trades).

Manufacturing quality assurance. I don’t have a ton of mech engineering in my area, so I broadened my search by just using “engineer”. I had to sift through a lot of software/dev/etc engineering listings. I noticed there was a consistent stream of quality engineer, quality system type roles. Applied, and now it’s my career trajectory.

It’s a bit niche, the “real” engineers want nothing to do with it, and I get to dabble at various levels into all the products and processes. It comes with a good amount of documentation, auditing, pondering the true intent of accreditation requirements, and other mundane tasks, which is why so many people hate it. But maintaining the quality system maintains the business, so I have a job.

It’s not ISO 9001, but it’s similar. It has a ton added that’s specific to the industry, so it’s tangibly useful. Personally, I think ISO:9001 is a pyramid scheme. Under 9k1, you have to vet your vendors… Unless they’re also 9k1 certified! Regardless, I’m surrounded by 9k1, so I have some local mobility as well as national mobility for the specific industry.

Mine was all over the place to be honest.

Couldn’t afford college, so I joined the military as a weather forecaster - which is what I’d wanted to go to college for anyway.

After my contract, I tried to get into a college for meteorology, but because of the way some “classes” are graded for the military associates you can get, my GPA was technically too low for that program to accept me. I didn’t really have another choice for a college at the time, so I did a ton of research on bls.gov and decided to get a degree in geology.

Gosh I loved that program. But unfortunately I got really sick midway through and spent a lot of time in the hospital. What I was diagnosed with basically meant that I would never be able to be a geologist, so I had to swap gears again.

Instead I found GIS and got my degree in technical geography. Took a ton of internships that landed me with a good resume.

Now I work for a utilities company, making maps that are used internally. Since it’s utility work, we’re union and we have great benefits and flexibility. It’s really worked out for me

IT professional for 20 years. C/C++ developer for 10 years prior to that.

My first job out of college was mostly luck. I took a job doing tech support but after a couple of years was able to transition into development work.

Virtually every job since that first one has been thanks to connections I made among coworkers. I got my current job because I knew two employees here. One of them was a co-founder of the company, and somebody I’ve known since the 1990’s and worked with at 3 other companies prior to this.

Did a few jobs while still in school, since then I was basically handed over to new jobs by reference. Never had to write a CV or ask for a job, always “when you are done here, I’ve found you someone who needs your skills”.

IT.

Injured out of infantry and poored out of college but landed a shitty little ISP job. Started one to beat that one, because they were sleazy like used-car salesmen. Left embezzling biz-partner to do coding-adjacent job in NJ and stop being startup-poor. Kept working. Fast forward.

I only regret I was unable to use my skills to relo for new jobs farther away like some of my peers.

My career found me to be honest. My university study was a dead end (AI) and I needed money. My then-girlfriend had japplied for two jobs, one entry-level programming job and another one, not programming related. She had just been hired by the other company when the programming company contacted her for a second talk. Of course she declined, but they asked whether she knew anybody with a bit of programming experience who was looking for a job. The talk went well and within days I had an actual income.

Luck. Nobody dreams about being an auditor( unless you are an accountant) but I had just graduated and was looking for a job like crazy and saw and add for a trainee program in a big4 company. Manage to go in and that’s it. trainee programs in big comlanies can teach you a lot. 10/10 would recomend

My previous boss showed me the job listing and said that it was better than anything he could offer, and told me to apply for it out else he’d lose respect for me.

I chose from a list of vocational schools that the GI bill would pay for.

Imagine my dismay after I graduated the schools, Veterans Affairs told me I have to pay all that money back. So I’ve spent the last 15 years working those jobs to repay the government all that college money they said I earned for serving in the army. Thanks for all these years of empty promises & torture, GI bill.

Analytical chemist.

Educated in Marine biology, started work on the dock that developed my ability to handle bizarre hours and self motivation, used the bizarre hours to get a harvest gig in wine making cellar work where I learned to grind, used my grind and bizarre hours to do some commercial electrical installation, then did some electric meter reading where I learned the importance of attention to detail, used all of the above skills to become a winery lab technician where I got experience working with high functioning lab equipment, wanted to get away from wine so now I’m a chemist.

Life is good. I’ve been more underpaid at every step of the way, but I feel that’s allowed me to function with less stress at every step of the path.

I was stuck working in restaurants in my late 20s recovering from alcoholism. Managed to get set up at trade school with a friend who gave me rides till I got my license back. Studied industrial electricity and got a job as a helper shortly after, I’ve been a licensed electrician for a few years now and work for myself.

I love my trade. It kicks my ass some days but most of the time its not bad, I make good money, and I can feel good about the work. I do a lot of residential service calls these days, I love fixing homes.

Basically because of video games.

It first started with doing some admin work for a very early online StarCraft tournament. Keeping the roster/grid up-to-date and posting results … by literally editing the html file. Started out helping out more and eventually got into PHP code of this early tournament software and helped with that.

Then later it turned into writing scripts and addons for World of Warcraft, as well as just hosting the general infrastructure like forums, dkp systems and voice chat servers you need for a large guild. Even later external online tools for EvE Online (D-scan parsing, wormhole mapping).

Then I just got lucky and while telling someone all of these “qualifications” they basically just hired me. Even funnier, over a decade later an old WoW guildmate approached me with a programming issue … and after solving it he offered me a much better job. That’s were I work now.

Built my own CMS while trying to put together my art and design portfolio website. Applied for a graphic design job. In the first interview it came up in conversation that I designed and built the website from scratch. 2nd interview they were very interested to hear how I built the site. Got hired. Showed up on my first day and was introduced to the development team. I was very confused because I thought I was going to be doing design work. Became the lead web developer of their marketing department. Zero experience. Been a web developer for 15+ years now. I keep accidentally doing well at this and can’t get out now. I just wanted to draw.