Careers ...

[smorg]

My career hasn't been extensive; I'm one of those people who hate "job shopping," so I stay put until I start to fossilize!

From administrative assistant with the MBA Program at UCLA, to medical transcriber for a Beverly Hills orthopaedic surgeon, and now a typesetter for a large printer in another city. I got the job as typesetter 'cause my former employer was looking for someone with CorelDRAW experience (no flames, please, I use it exclusively for work), even though I had no formal training. He's now the web master for www.live365.com, and I do my job from home for a former client.

It's crazy doing work in a "hurry up and wait, I want it yesterday" mode, but I love it anyway. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

[John F Dye]

Born anf raised in Lansing Michigan. Got my degree in Industrial Design at Michigan State University. Spent 36 years doing mostly Medical Device Design, mostly for the Kendall Company, with some time off in the middle to work for a small appliance company (Hankscraft, Div of Gerber) and Ball Corp. In the case of Ball, ran a plastics laboratory developing lunatic fringe plastics processing to make shelf stable plastic food packaging. (it acually was a lot of fun with a good deal of freedom to explore new technologies)
Went back to Kendall in '83 and worked there through an LBO and many owners. Left to go with my old boss at a startup company for 3 years and finally decided to retire January of 2000. At that time, I started out volunteering at Plimoth Plantaion in the Marine shop (I had done this once before in the early '90s) was part of the crew of Mayflower II last summer and last May started volunteering at Battleship Cove doing Graphic Arts for desplays maps etc.
All during my career I have done technical illustration for assembly manuals, techical displays and had started using Xara 1.5 at Kendall to do traning aids for the sales training and for hospeital engineerings staffs. (I traveled around the country giving talks). I have always like doing technical illustration and doing it for the Cove has been great fun. I get to learn about 60-70 year old technology and try to relate it to modern technology I have learned alot about where our gagets came from.
In many way I am just learning techniques and find this forum a great place to lurk. I am not sure you would call what I do "Art" as it tends to be repedative and drawing 106 railing posts is probably more like model building than painting.
John [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[Truroneil]

Retired literature teacher/professor, 40+ years.
Now I give cartoon workshops in the schools. I'm still teaching but it's more fun. Also doing desktop publishing in retirement. Have used Corel for some time, but recently started using Corel Xara and now Xara X. Forum has solved some problems and got me going. I'd rather have a postcard from some exotic place, Ross, or do you live in Ecum Secum or Meat Cove ? Cheers.

[Ross Macintosh]

Ecum Secum - I can only wish! Neil, I live in Dartmouth and work at Historic Properties. We should hook up with David King and "do lunch" sometime.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[joroho]

Graduated in 1989 from St. Cloud State in central Minnesota with a degree in accounting. Moved to Guam in 1992 and began working as a financial analyst for Continental Airlines. Moved to Houston in 1997 to continue working as a financial analyst, which is what I do today. I've taken and failed the CPA exam and since decided that any further professional development will have to be the pursuit of MCSD.

Use Xara exclusively as a hobbyist, while dreaming of someday being associated with some of y'all.

.joroho.

P.S. Thanks to all of you who fly Continental, daggers to the rest of you who choose to fly with anyone else. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[wildscribe]

Ok. I've been lurking here for a few months. Here's my story:

Graduated from college with a degree in English/Journalism. Spent the next eight years
as a business/personal finance reporter for a daily newspaper. Then in 1994 I started getting antsy and started looking for another occupation. I wanted to get away from intense pressure, screaming editors, and daily deadlines. My hair was turning prematurely gray.

I started seeing stories on the newswires about the Internet and decided that I would go into the Internet website business. I had no previous experience aside from being very into art class
when I was in elementary and middle school. I had used AOL and Prodigy for a few years so at least I knew how to use a PC and had taken an online course in QBasic programming at AOL University so
I knew a little about code.

Like many early web designers, I went to CompUSA and bought a copy of CorelDraw 3, and a copy of Laura Lemay's Learn HTML. My next stop was the printer where I order several hundred business cards with the name and website address of my new
website development business. I rented some server space from a local ISP and put up a very basic three page website using Note
Pad on my trusty 486DX66 IBM Aptiva PC with 8 RAM, Windows 3.1, and a 14.4 modem. I set up shop in a corner of my tiny apartment. And I was in business!

I didn't have any trouble getting work because I was one of the few people in my area developing websites. But I did have trouble using CorelDraw 3. I couldn't seem to get the letters to anti-alias properly. People said the images looked blurry. I eventually got a copy of Photoshop 3 when I bought a scanner, but I found it just as difficult to use. Then I spotted an ad for Corel Xara in PC Graphics & Video (a great magazine that taught me a lot. Unfortunately, now defunct.) and it looked simple to use. I ran down to CompUSA and purchased a shrink-wrapped
copy of Corel Xara 1.0, and I have been using it ever since. I found it easy to use, the clip art was great, and everyone thought I was a graphics genius. Corel Xara saved my web design business.

I worked as a freelance web developer for four years. It was crazy. I was working seven days and 80 plus hours per week doing everything from marketing, graphic design, html and Perl coding, but I loved it. Then at the end of 1998, I got an offer to join an Internet start-up for twice the amount of money that I was making on my own and I
would work fewer hours (60 rather than 80). I joined and worked there for almost three years. The venture capital ran out on April 2. Now I am back to freelance web design. I am lucky because I have been able to go back to my old clients and redesign many of the sites that I created three and four years ago.

But I wouldn't mind going back to work for another company. I got accustom to benefits like health insurance, a 401K plan, and a Christmas bonus check. So I am keeping my yes open for another corporate web design job. If I had to name the one software program that made the biggest impact on my career, it would be Xara.

[This message was edited by wildscribe on May 31, 2001 at 20:42.]

[bcdeb]

I was a lawyer. Mostly residential conveyancing. When my father died in March, 1998, I took over his carer role in relation to mom, who has Alzheimers. I envisioned a couple of years out of the profession, then mom would be nursing home level, and I would go back to work.

Didn't work out that way...

Mom has been in the early dementia stage for as long as I've been involved. Not nursing home level. And it turned into a real trap for me. Now I've run out of time to reinstate myself in the profession - I would have to rewrite the Bar Exam, and God knows what else to get back in. I won't do it.

And that is why I am trying to retrain in another profession that I can do from home, while the situation with mom continues. I thought web design was a good possibility. I'm not sure I am right about that, but I'm working on it.

[Erik Heyninck]

People who care for someone else always have a place in the Heart of humanity. I wish you all the luck you deserve, and the strenght to achieve your goal.
On the positive side: you do know the law, what's possible and what not, and you might advise people with contracts. So many artists are rather naive when it comes to this, and so many business sharks are sooo shrewd... the Web still is (luckily in most ways) an anarchy, but e-commerce attracts lots of people who want to earn money the easy way.

friendship from ERIK

If you don't work against time, time often works for you.

[james_frost]

Cardiff,UK based 24-yr-old bespoke software/database/web applications developer with a penchant for playing with web design in Xara when I get a free minute.

Wanted to be a car designer, then an architect and finally plumped for something sensible ;-)

James

[Delta Moon]

Well, I guess since Jean-Guy and I started this, it's time I tell my story.

I got a degree in Business and Management from the University of Maryland (Asian Division) after plowing my way through school on the 20 year plan. During this period I traveled the world as an Air Force wife, raised 3 kids, worked only when absolutely necessary, convenient, or fun, and, in general, had a gay old time.

Received my CPA in 1994 (gosh, didn't think it was that long ago), and ran my own business for 5 years. I had a problem, and that is I consistently got took in by people who were simply unable to run thier businesses properly, I would spend hours and hours of unpaid time with them, which led the the doom of my business.

After going though six secretaries and about much debt, I realized if I wasn't going to make any money, I should just go home and not make money.

But, one person found me and made me a proposition I couldn't refuse. Now I work mostly for him, in my home, without a secretary, and am getting all those bills paid.

Besides a few mundane tasks I perform for him, we are looking for that "million dollar a year" business. My client is an accomplished computer programmer and feels that whatever we find, it will be connected with computers in one way or the other.

When we come across an idea we both like, I run a cursory feasiblity study on it to see if it's worth putting time into it.

We realize that this idea may come out of nowhere, and it may come in the form of something somebody has already started and not been able to finish because of lack of skills or money. If we hear of something like this that is promising, we may buy into it rather than develop our own system from bottom up.

So much for our projects, I tell you this because it is possible that one of you have a pending project and are looking for a partner.

http://www.deltamoon.addr.com/ashley.jpg