Peggy McKee, owner of PHC Consulting, can be found at www.phcconsulting.com

What do you do for a living?

I connect sales, sales management, and marketing candidates with companies in the laboratory industry. The laboratory industry supports physicians by providing information about a patient. This information is utilized to determine next steps in the patient’s treatment. I do work with some companies that are research laboratories. Their products are the building blocks of information for pharmaceutical industry and medical device industry to use in product development.

How would you describe what you do?

I get to know my client companies – what they do, why they are unique, what their compensation packages, and specifically what jobs they need to fill and what type of experience, education, and attitude they desire for their successful hire.

If you like a team environment, this is not for you. No one is on your team. The candidate only wants the job. The client wants to fill the position and would rather not have to pay you a fee. So, if you need someone to care about you this is not for you.

I try to find the right person and convince them to interview with my client company. If all goes well, I make a placement.

What does your work entail?

Lots and lots of phone time. I probably spend 5 hours a day on the phone. A wireless headset is a must. I enter information about candidates and companies into a software system that tracks all of my calls and activities. I probably send 100 emails a day that are personal and then another 1000 emails a day to potential candidates. Because you are dealing with people, there are always emergencies and schedule changes. Continue Reading …

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What do you do for a living?

I’m the operations manager for a tower company, a company that builds broadcasts and communications towers, but I got my start climbing up and down them.

How would you describe what you do?

We do everything that’s involved with building and maintaining a tower.

What does your work entail as a tower climber?

We build the towers, we take them down, we put the lights on them, we change the lights, we paint them, we scrape them, we run the antennas and lines.

When you go up a tower and you’re climbing 400 feet, you’re not coming down to get a cup of coffee, you’re not coming down to warm your hands, you’re not coming down for a lunch break. When you go up the tower you’re going to be there all day, it’s kind of like being like a mountain climber.

One of the more interesting things for most tower climbers is when they do a really high re-lamp, because most of them they’re are at night, and the broadcast towers could be 1,000 or 1,500-foot tall. They take the station off the air at one or two a.m. and you’re climbing in the wee hours of the morning changing the bulbs. Continue Reading …

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What do you do for a living?

I practice general architecture.

How would you describe what you do?

Architects are responsible for anything to do with designing a building or structure.

What does your work entail as an architect?

What I do normally do is I start the design and the project from the very beginning to where I hand it off to one of the other architects in the office where they actually do the working drawings and specifications. I do a lot of preliminary design where I’ll meet with the client, determine what their program is, analyze the site, determine what can be built on site, how big of a building it is, and the preliminary budget.

The greatest thing that I like about it is simply walking into a building after you’ve designed it…and realize that this was a figment of your imagination…Then when you’re done, you’ve got a building standing there. The old saying is, “Doctors bury their mistakes, architects get to drive by them every day.”

I then I do some preliminary building arrangements, or floor plans and elevations and sections so that you can actually see what the building will look like, how big it will be and how it’s arranged and how well it suits their program. It’s mostly done in the office, but of course we’ll meet with clients and go out to sites and I’ll also sit in front of the computer a lot and draw. But, as you get higher up in the hierarchy of an office, you do more client contact and marketing for things outside the office, where a young architect will probably sit there most of the day and draw. Continue Reading …

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What do you do for a living?

I’m a neurosurgeon.

How would you describe what you do?

Neurosurgery is a specialty that involves the diagnosis and treatment of conditions affecting the brain, spinal cord, peripheral nerves, and their supporting and surrounding structures.

What does your work entail as a neurosurgeon?

Three days a week I operate on the brain, the spine, or peripheral nerves. Two days a week I’m in the office seeing patients. I also teach medical students and I give lectures to residents.

How did you get started?

I became interested in medicine because I had a brain tumor when I was nine months old, so I was around a lot of doctors. I also watched the Donna Reed Show where Donna Reed’s husband was a pediatrician and I thought he had a nice life. And that’s the truth. Continue Reading …

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