What do you do for a living?

My title is Animal Services Superintendent.

How would you describe what you do?

Basically, I’m the director or manager of the animal shelter, and/or animal services, which also encompasses animal control. We have a vet clinic also.

What does your work entail?

I work for a municipal shelter animal shelter. I’m responsible for planning the budget; making sure that we’ve got the money, and where to spend it, and where to put it. I buy vet supplies for the veterinarian too and make sure the officers are going to complaints and calls that people have out there on the street. I have to make sure we have animals up on the floor that have been temperament tested and they’re behaviorally sound. I have to make sure the animals are properly cleaned, and properly fed, and if they’re sick they get treatment. I talk to people when they bring in animals.

…that’s the satisfying thing—when you see the animals find a home, and you saw what they looked like when they came in—infested with fleas, infested with tics; and we’ve had to shave them down to their skin because of an irresponsible owner. And then you find it a great home, and that just makes it all worthwhile.

A lot of my duties are trying to educate people: publicity-type stuff—press releases, and educational materials and literature—and trying to make people aware of what is responsible pet ownership and how can you make pet overpopulation go away. Spay-neuter; we preach spay and neuter, spay and neuter. We try to come up with programs that will help people. When people bring in a stray there is no charge. When they bring in their own animal to surrender, for whatever reason, there’s no charge. That’s kind of a myth—that we charge folks. The adoption includes spay and neuter. We instituted micro-chipping about four or five years ago, so it’s helped us to get animals back to their owners. It’s a permanent form of identification, even if pets lose their tags, and collars, and all that.

I belong to a group called S.A.W.A., which is Society of Animal Welfare Administrators. We all try to work together and figure out what we can do to make pet ownership easier for people, but then, also look at, what people are doing wrong, and what crimes are being committed against animals. So, that’s part of my job, too, is to look at animal cruelty and people that are breaking ordinances. Continue Reading …

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What do you do for a living?

Business Dean and Professor of Business.

How would you describe what you do?

I basically manage the college.

What does your work entail?

It ranges considerably. I’m on the road a whole lot. I work a lot of nights, a lot of weekends. It’s definitely more than a full time job. It entails a blend of both internal and external activities. Internal to the college, internal to the university, and then external dealing with alums and friends of the college, donors to be specific.

How did you get started?

There was a lot of serendipity to it. When I was an undergraduate, I never had any clue that I would get a Ph.D., much less, go down this particular trail. Careers have life cycles, and it was just when I came to various forks in the road that I took those particular forks and I ended up at this node, if you will. I think I was a fairly typical of undergraduate students at the time, and this goes back to the Vietnam War. After I got my undergraduate degree, I was a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army for a while in the Medical Service Corp. When I got out, I pursued a Master’s degree and that’s when I really began to think that this might be for me. Prior to my military service, I really hadn’t thought about that much. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I was pretty young but I enjoyed the Master’s program and I had some professors that encouraged me to continue my education and then one thing led to another.

Continue Reading …

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What do you do for a living?

Police Detective

How would you describe what you do?

Investigate crimes against people and/or property (Burglary, Homocide, Forgery, Rape, Criminal Mischief)

What does your work entail?

Typing reports in office/speaking to victim’s via phone/attempt to locate/arrest suspects

What do you like about what you do?

Arresting suspects and bringing them to justice. Defending people that need help. Great feeling when you get a confession about a crime that you did not have a lot of evidence on, and you ended up arresting suspect.

What do you dislike?

I don’t like when the suspect/perp/thug gets away. Whether that is winning in court or slipping away during a chase…Or knowing that suspect/perp/thug committed a crime, but can not prove it.

What skills and education would someone need to follow this career path?

Highschool education and passion for defending people and catching criminals. Action packed job at times. Continue Reading …

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What do you do for a living?

I fly 53-echoes in the Marines, they’re a helicopter.

How would you describe what you do?

You go to work, fly for a while, do a lot of paperwork bullshit and then you go home.

What does your work entail?

The last three years I’ve been in training and I’m just now complete with that, so up till now it’s been studying a whole lot. You have to study and get ready for briefs and while I’ve been in flight school that’s what you do basically; get ready, study systems, emergency procedures, aerodynamics, and stuff like that and then you go brief with an instructor. Kind of a one-on-one with someone that’s typically about 5 years older than you that’s been to Iraq a couple of times. Then you go fly for a few hours, land, de-brief and go home and that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing. While I was in flight school down at Pensacola I was probably working maybe 15 hours a week of actual real work and it wasn’t even real work. We didn’t have any kind of job except for flying, that was it. I was with the Navy and I trained with the Air Force too. Now I’m back with the Marines. In the Marines you have a ground job too and my job is operations, I write the schedule. The first month I was there it was about 14 hours a day, 5 days a week so it sucked.

it gets boring flying(jets) when you never see the ground, you’re not going to get shot at, you’re not going to drop that many bombs anymore so…I wanted to fly helicopters, and that’s why I got into helicopters

And it was all paperwork and there was 270 people in the squadron, like half a billion dollars worth of aircraft, writing the schedule for that kind of gets stressful.  When I get out(of training) and get to what we call the “fleet” the “fleet range force” I’ll check in and I’ll get some job. I don’t know what kind of job it will be but probably a few hours a day on a ground job, a few hours a day flying, and a few hours working out or something. It’s not a typical 9 to 5 job. Continue Reading …

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