What do you do for a living?

[kboman]

Optometrist, so you need to add an "other" category

Optometrist isn't a doctor?

Nope - well at least not in my country and I dearly hope it stays that way. I intensely dislike the slant towards medical stuff the business is taking, I don't want anything to do with any doctoring.

 

[MikeW]

Software engineer currently working for a biotech developing instruments that do DNA/RNA tests for infectious diseases. I get to work with EEs, MEs, Chemists and bioinformatics. Pretty cool stuff all things considered.

 

[AutoBat]

I'm in the non-doctor medical field. (Respiratory Therapy)

 

[SixString]

I guess I'm in the "other" category.
I'm in environmental consulting (hydrocarbon remediation). 
However, I'm desperately trying to shift my career into the solar energy industry  :glasses9:

 

[greywolf]

I'm a senior technical consultant for Unix software , specializing in system performance optimization .

 

[kboman]

Ah damnit, I didn't see Optometrist and voted Other - and now I can't change my vote. Don't worry, I facepalmed myself thoroughly...

 

[jackthehack]

Curious, I wouldn't have guessed that the largest segment would be "Engineer"...  BTW, you should make "Architect" a separate category from "Engineer".

 

[Cagey]

Curious, I wouldn't have guessed that the largest segment would be "Engineer".

Doesn't surprise me at all. Music is structured, mathematical and defined, as well as creative. I would be surprised if the spread were the other way around. You hear bands that are too creative, like "Death From Above 1979", and you're hearing a group of guys who've never had a cohesive thought once in their confusing, addle-headed lives. You need planning and discipline to make music that someone might want to hear more than once, or even the first time to completion.

I've administered and/or moderated a number of technical forums over the last 10-12 years or so, and they're always full of musicians. Engineers are disciplined and logical as well as creative, so music comes naturally. Most of them don't pursue it like your typical rockstar wannabe because engineering pays like crime, relatively speaking. So, they're basement/bedroom heroes. They learn to to do a bunch of cover tunes to perfection and call it a love story. Every once in a while you'll come across an oddball like Mayfly, who's not only an engineer but can create and execute successfully, but they're the exceptions. Also, look at some of the really successful bands like Rush or Queen. Those guys are all highly educated. Hell, Brian May has a doctorate, and it's not some "honorary" thing they awarded because the students all liked the band or the Queen Mum appreciated the ridiculous amount of taxes he paid. He earned it.

 

[MikeW]

Curious, I wouldn't have guessed that the largest segment would be "Engineer".

Doesn't surprise me at all.

It actually doesn't surprise me either. Consider that there is a lot of engineering that goes into building a guitar. Specification, design, construction, testing phases all leading to a finished product. The development cycles are very similar.

Now if you posted that poll in a songwriting forum, I would expect very different results.

 

[Johnfv]

Hm... no "computer nerd" category???

 

[Jcurl02]

All,

Thanks for participating....  I thought it might be interesting.

Also thought it was interesting that no one mentioned Tom Scholz from Boston as a great engineer and guitar player.  Probably one of the best examples out there.

As for engineering paying great, not bad but not as good as you would think.  Can't complain so I won't.  Sad  thing is in the US the job market for us engineers is getting smaller and smaller as most of it is going to low cost countries.  Can buy more than 4 Chinese Engineers for the price of one US.  Believe me I know.  I work for a Chinese owned company!  Slowly outsourcing all of us!

I'll have to agree on the engineers being the basement / bedroom players.  I'm one of them.  I learned the start of a bunch of covers that I play for myself.  Don't get past the first verse.  But what I like to do most is create my own tunes and experiment but no one will ever hear them.  Been that way all my life.  Makes it hard to justify the 9 guitars I have and plan on the 10th I'm specing in my mind right now!  The recent purchase of a Roland Synth is helping me get some pretty cool sounds.

 

[DocNrock]

General Surgeon here.  But I find it funny how many people think our pillows are stuffed with cash.  While I do make a comfortable living, I'm clearly in the "middle class."  I didn't start making any money at all until I was 35, so I missed out on all those years of compounded interest for retirement savings.  Add on to that over $150k in student loan debt that I had to start paying after age 35 and you might get the idea.

They heyday of Medicine was in the '70s, when docs did make boatloads of cash.  Its no longer like that.  My wife is a nurse.  She works too, if that says anything.

 

[Cagey]

...I find it funny how many people think our pillows are stuffed with cash.

I suspect it has to do with how much people get charged for your services, which is substantially more than what you make. You might get $5K for an operation, but the hospital charges $50K because of the peripheral services/personnel/environment/facilities/etc. But, somebody looks at the bill and says "Holy moley, Andy! 50K? For a few hour's work? I'm in the wrong damn business!" thinking the surgeon is getting all that money. Then, you've got all your own expenses to pay out of that amount such as insurances and other professional fees.

Of course, people do have a choice. They could just die. That'd show you <grin>

 

[mgaut051]

Or move to Canada.

 

[Cagey]

Or move to Canada.

LOL! No, not unless you wanna die quicker. Canadians come here so they can get critical tests before they die, because as attractive as "free" medical treatment sounds, it ruins the dynamic. There's less incentive to do anything or do it on a timely basis, and there's less money to buy the equipment and facilities to do the things that need to be done before it's too late. It also reduces the number of people who enter the medical field due to lack of proper compensation, so you have a critical shortage of talent available.

All the countries with socialized medicine suffer the same maladies, but you don't hear about that so much for obvious reasons (the MSM's traditional bias being the most glaring). You also don't hear about how much "free" medical care costs those citizens - they pay dramatically higher taxes than we do. 50% isn't unheard of in some countries, and that's not for the rich - that's for everybody. Add on VAT taxes and so forth, and it's no wonder nobody in Europe wants to work. There's no money in it. A $60K salary only lets you bring home $25-$30 annually, and you aren't done paying taxes at that point. Everything you buy has monster taxes added to the purchase as well.

So, be careful what you wish for.

 

[DocNrock]

^^^Cagey, you are correct on many fronts here, like Canadian healthcare and also the entire hospital bill.  Also, my overhead has to come out of my collections before I can even give myself a paycheck.  I know it was just a random number, but just to clarify, there is no operation that I do that pays $5000.  Just for point of reference, most insurance companies pay the Surgeon about $400 for a hernia repair.  If I do a Whipple (pancreaticoduodenectomy), which is about a 6  to 7 hour MAJOR operation, I get reimbursed about $2800.  Further, all post-operative care for 90 days is included in the reimbursement for the operation itself.  Remember, these reimbursements are just office collections, out of which overhead has to be paid before I can even pay myself.  Currently, my overhead averages just over 60% of collections.  Overhead includes office rent, utilities, employee pay, health insurance, malpractice insurance, medical supplies, equipment repairs or new equipment, etc.  Some months my collections barely meet my overhead and I can't even give myself a paycheck.  Fortunately, that is only one or two months a year.

 

[mgaut051]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

Nuff said.

Or move to Canada.

LOL! No, not unless you wanna die quicker. Canadians come here so they can get critical tests before they die, because as attractive as "free" medical treatment sounds, it ruins the dynamic. There's less incentive to do anything or do it on a timely basis, and there's less money to buy the equipment and facilities to do the things that need to be done before it's too late. It also reduces the number of people who enter the medical field due to lack of proper compensation, so you have a critical shortage of talent available.

All the countries with socialized medicine suffer the same maladies, but you don't hear about that so much for obvious reasons (the MSM's traditional bias being the most glaring). You also don't hear about how much "free" medical care costs those citizens - they pay dramatically higher taxes than we do. 50% isn't unheard of in some countries, and that's not for the rich - that's for everybody. Add on VAT taxes and so forth, and it's no wonder nobody in Europe wants to work. There's no money in it. A $60K salary only lets you bring home $25-$30 annually, and you aren't done paying taxes at that point. Everything you buy has monster taxes added to the purchase as well.

So, be careful what you wish for.

 

[DocNrock]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

Nuff said.

Life expectancy really doesn't tell the whole story.  Culture plays a huge role.  The US arguably has the most unhealthy lifestyles of the industrialized world, with obesity far more common here than in other places like Canada or the EU.  Our culture is also one that we the public can make all the unhealthy choices we want and then demand the healthcare system "fix" us, and for the most part, we do a pretty good job of it, but we can't reverse years of self-abuse.  Many of the countries with socialized medicine are born into, and accept, a different culture.  They know that the healthcare system is not going to bail them out with any immediacy, so they take better care of themselves. 

Also note the difference between #1 Japan and #36 US is only 4 years (82 to 78).  How rampant is obesity in Japan?  4 years is not as big of a disparity as one might think with 34 other countries in between.  And I know this also to be true:  Canadians who have money do come to the US for treatment because of delays at home.  And even though the UK is technically a socailized system, it is a two-tier system.  The bottom tier waits their turn for care, which is often a long wait  The upper tier, with private insurance, gets care with an immediacy approaching that of the US.  Let us also not forget that others with $$$, like Saudi shieks, come to the US for surgical and other complex medical care.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I'm a journeyman electrician that works in construction.  No, I can't fix your T.V., microwave, or build an amp from scratch, and I don't want to come over on the weekend and put in a celing fan, or garage door opener.

On my end of things, wire size according to distance, load, and pipe fill has already been determined, in other words, all of the real electrical thinking.  It's my job to install it according to the prints and electrical code and coordinate the gray areas with the other trades so we don't paint each other in corners.  99% percent of my job is done before electricity is even on.  I spend more time building the mechanical structure(s) that support or strap what will feed a device or piece of equipment than actually calculating anything to do with electricity.

I also have a bachelor's degree and gave the white collar world a go for a while but the cubicle and computer world added to the stress to income ratio didn't suit me.

 

[AutoBat]

Can I assume none of these are pictures of your worksites?