What do you do?

Working my way through the positions of various high-end/high-volume restaurants. About to start being a bar back for the bar/restaurant I currently work at, with intention to be tending bar within a few months.

Kind of frustrating that jobs don't follow clear paths likes tech trees in RPGs. Anyway, found my goal job on a search engine. It fits nearly exactly what I've been looking for (and what I got my awkward degree in). The catch is it is leagues above my current position. "But you got a degree" rustles my jimmies, but I digress. The position is shy over 100k what I'm doing now.
Now to dig in and connect the dots and work my way to it. I don't plan to just apply. I feel that will expend my only chance. I'd rather have my shit together.
Currently a Manager 3 at Arby's.
This job is Director Of City Economic Development

You're probably going to have to pull some frank underwood shit

Good for you. I just told my boss I'd be looking for a new job after I am done with this huge project on Friday. She was not really surprised and is actually being pretty supportive, which is odd but not of out character for her. We are a small department (me and her, she is a VP and I am a Director) and she knows we just get shit on by everyone. Only reason she is still here is because she is 2 years from retirement and is just holding out until she retires.

I start student teaching next semester at a middle school. Pretty excited but working for 4 months for free doesnt make me too happy.

Jx3_sl said:

I start student teaching next semester at a middle school. Pretty excited but working for 4 months for free doesnt make me too happy.

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Oh man, student teaching. I did 2 semesters of it, one at a middle school (7th gradae) and second semester at a HS (10th grade civics, and AP Comparative Government and Politics). I was waiting tables 3 nights a week, and working doubles on Saturdays. Plus a full course load. Sunday was an 8+ hour marathon to get all my planning and course work done.

It was a great year.

Jx3_sl said:

I start student teaching next semester at a middle school. Pretty excited but working for 4 months for free doesnt make me too happy.

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Just think of the next 35 years where you get to work for 2 months less per year than almost anyone else.

No I don't have another gig lined up yet. Going to be on the hunt, which will be weird since this job was from an internship so I've never really had to look for a job.

Tarrant_sl said:

You must be pretty confident to leave a job with no other one lined up. Not knocking it, just seems a scary decision to me.

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I'll knock it. Why not get a new job lined up first, especially considering that you don't have experience looking for new jobs?

40 year old student here. I've got 8 hrs in the fall to wrap up my B.S. in Biology, then I start my PhD in the Spring. My concentration is freshwater ecology and towards that end have been doing undergrad research on aquatic invasive species for the past two years.

Last summer I was awarded an NSF REU (research experience for undergrads) through the University of Montana and spent 9 weeks at the Flathead Lake Biostation conducting research on the efficacy of qPCR (quantitative polymerase chain reaction) to detect eDNA of aquatic invasives and am going back again this summer to continue that line of research. Back home in Texas my research is looking at the overall ecology of zebra mussels as they begin their invasion of the Trinity River Watershed. I'm mostly just getting preliminary data and working out my methods for when I start my PhD next spring. My advisor/mentor recently received a huge grant through the executive branch to collaborate with the University of Magalanes in Chile to do research at our field station in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve and Antarctica. So hopefully I can get a piece of that action and do part of my PhD in the southern tip of Chile and possibly Antarctica studying the effects of climate change on community composition of aquatic insects. Fun fact: there are only two species of insects indigenous to Antarctica, both aquatic Chironomids (midges).

Living the life of a full-time student/researcher at the ripe old age of 40 is actually pretty awesome. I'm way more focused and capable than I would have been in my twenties and there are a lot more opportunities available. A lot of these projects I'm involved with require a certain level of autonomy that the PI wouldn't want to pass off to some random 20 year old undergrad.

Sounds like a lot of fun. What did you do prior to working in biology/ecology? Also, what led you there in the first place?

Onoes_sl said:

I'll knock it. Why not get a new job lined up first, especially considering that you don't have experience looking for new jobs?

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I'm not leaving my job until I get another job. Sorry for the confusion.

You guys are free to knock me for telling my boss I'll be looking for another job, because I did do that.

Before I got back into school I had a pool service route in Dallas. Maintained about 40 pools a week, it payed the bills and payed for my first 3 years of college but wasn't exactly intellectually stimulating work. Last year we sold my route and I got a decent severance to get me through another semester. I also got paid last summer in Montana; it was $500 a week, plus travel expenses, plus lodging and a meal plan, so I came back to Texas with a decent amount of money. To top it off I get $2500 a semester from a Pell grant, another $2000 a semester towards tuition in the form of a STEM scholarship, and I started taking out subsidized loans last semester as well for another $5kish. I'll graduate with probably about $15k in debt, which is not that bad. Grad school I will be TA'ing to pay the bills and hopefully I will get some more grant money since aquatic invasive work is a hot topic these days and gets lots of money thrown at it.

I thought it was the right thing to do. She knows they can't offer me any more money and there is no where to go except her position, if it even exists any more once she retires. She has been my boss the entirety I've been with this company so she's going to get a reference call anyways so I'd rather not surprise her.

Most people probably wouldn't do what I did but I know it was the right thing to do rather then catch her off guard.