Category Archives: Who do you want to be today?

What do you do everyday when you go to work? Does an engineer sit and do math problems from 8-5? What on earth does a diplomat, or a nutritionist, or a store owner do all day long? Here’s where I will try to get to the bottom of it.

Who do you want to be? Pat, middle school science teacher

Posted on February 20, 2013 | 1 Comment

What is your actual title?

Well, I guess my official title is just teacher. Licensed teacher.

Tell me a little bit about your job. What do you do in a typical day?

My job is multi-faceted in many ways.  Typically, I teach five classes. Three middle – 7th grade general science. It’s mostly life science. And then I teach one advanced math class and one marine biology class. 

Most of my day is spent in actual instruction time, with the kids and in the classroom. I have my math class first – first class of the day. Then I have three science classes in a row. And then my marine biology class at the end of the day. Then I have one class period of planning time. What goes on during the class, there’s all kinds of different things. I mean there’s what you would consider instruction time, where the science class – we’re generally doing some kind of hands-on activity and analyzing that activity and getting results from that activity, and going over some of the vocabulary we learned in that activity. And maybe setting up what we’re going to be doing the next day, to build on it.

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Who do you want to be? Lucy, nurse

Posted on February 6, 2013 | Leave a comment
May to June 2012 041

Puvirnituq from the air. Photo by Lucy Shum

What is your actual title?

I’m a nurse.

Okay.

I’m a nurse at Puvirnituq.  That is a small village of about 2000 people. And it’s located above the 55th parallel. It’s part of Nunavik, which is a Native First Nation Territory, but it hasn’t started having its own government – governing body, so we’re still under the Quebec Province of Canada.

Tell me a little about what you do there – your day-to-day work.

Well, there are three types of nursing in Puvirnituq. I actually started off in the hospital. There’s also the clinic – dispensary, which I’ve also just started.  I will focus more on the hospital nursing job, because I’ve been doing it for over a year and a half.

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Who do you want to be today? Desiree, Owner, Spark Wellness

Posted on December 12, 2012 | Leave a comment

What is your title?

I am a classical homeopath.

How would you describe what it is that you do?

My practice is homeopathy.  What I do is recommend homeopathic remedies to heal people.  It’s kind of a weird role, because a lot of times people that come to see me just haven’t gotten any help from the medical world.  So they don’t need a diagnosis, they just need somebody to listen to them.  Or they have weird symptoms and nobody believes them.  And that’s right where I come in.  Weird symptoms are great for me.

Business-wise, I am a small business owner, so I do all the marketing, I do all the hiring, I do staff management, bookkeeping (I have a bookkeeper who helps, but…), all the nitty-gritty small business stuff.   Continue reading →

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Who do you want to be today? Doug, STEM Education Consultant

Posted on November 21, 2012 | Leave a comment

What is your title?

It is STEM Education Consultant.

Tell me a little bit about it. How would you describe what you do?

I work with a variety of institutions, either for profit, government, or non-profit, designing, developing, and evaluating education products that are specifically geared towards K-12 students or their teachers.

What do you do in a typical day?

Oh goodness. That depends on the projects. It depends on my clients. Obviously as a consultant, the best way to get a job is to do whatever your client wants you to do. And do it more creatively, faster, and obviously as a result for less cost than other people. I specialize in niche market products and programs. On a typical day I could be talking with a client to figure out their vision for their product or their program, developing or managing the process of developing the product.

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Who do you want to be today? Heather, Distillery Owner

Posted on November 7, 2012 | 1 Comment

Heather is the owner of Syntax Spirits, a craft distillery in Colorado.  she made the transition from engineer to distillery owner over the past few years, and sat down with me to talk about her journey and what inspired her to pursue this career.

What is your job title?

You know, that’s funny. That’s changed a lot. Over the last couple years, when we first started I wasn’t actually comfortable saying that I own the company, or I run the company, but now that I’m kind of settled into the role, I usually say owner. And that’s how I feel about it these days. But it’s kind of funny to me though that I wouldn’t have thought that was much of a thing, but it was in my head at the time.

That takes a lot of responsibility.

Exactly. It was a kind of a like,  okay, I really do do this for a living. Continue reading →

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Who do you want to be today? Eric, Recording Studio Producer

Posted on October 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

guitar

Describe your job – what does a producer do?

One of the things that I love about it is that there’s no such thing as a typical day. Every day is completely different. So I’ll work on – well, today is probably as good of example as anything else. So I started the day working on finalizing an album project for a band – the final stages of mixing the last couple songs, and getting that all together before that goes out for mastering.

Then I jumped into a music search for a documentary film.  They are looking for music from both independent artists as well as needle drop library music.  We do a lot of licensing of both of those kinds of music.   Music supervision is the job role [there]. And that’s one of my favorite things to do. It’s really fun. I do it more often for ads than for films, but it’s really fun to get to do it on films.  I got to supervise the music for this full feature that we are going to finish tomorrow, and it’s just – it’s really fun to get to sort of just have that much creative control over a film, ‘cause it really – the music totally steers your emotions. And especially this was a really emotional topic. It was about school teachers who go travel to Africa to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, and they go visit orphanage, and all sorts of other things.  It’s one of the most creative parts about the job, and I just love being able to do it. And we’ve done probably 7 or 8 features already this year, which has been great.

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Who do you want to be today? Janelle, Director of Communications

Posted on October 10, 2012 | Leave a comment

Janelle has worked for a number of non-profit organizations in many roles.  Her most recent job has taken her to Queensland, Australia.

What is your title?

I work for Family Planning, Queensland, and my title is Director of Communications.

Tell me a little bit about your job – what is it that you do?

We are a total reproductive health organization.  One of the central functions is communication, and we manage all aspects – internal communications, external communications, media, which consists of both proactive and reactive communications.  I will respond to articles or interviews with people that we think are presenting misinformation, or provide another side of an issue that we want to have an opportunity to communicate about; or, something we want to specifically communicate about.

We are currently launching the publication of a book around understanding and responding to sexual behaviors in children, and so we are lining up a bunch of interviews nationally and locally to talk about what’s normal, what’s not, how to protect kids from childhood sexual abuse, and inform parents about normal sexual development and that sexuality is a normal part of growing up.

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Who do you want to be today? Christie, Freelance Science Writer

Posted on September 26, 2012 | Leave a comment

Christie is someone I’ve known since Middle School, and it’s been fascinating watching her career since we left college.  She’s written for many publications, including the BBC, Health, Smithsonian, and Slate.  

What do you do?
I’m a freelance science writer.  I’m a journalist, but I also do storywriting that is less journalism and more personal.

On a basic level, I’m a storyteller.  For some of the stuff I write, I take research and translate it into something that a lay audience can understand.  That can be a news story about a new piece of science that has come up, or a new piece of the puzzle, and I describe that new piece, kind of putting it together with the existing stuff.

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Who do you want to be today? Jenevieve, Birth Doula

Posted on September 19, 2012 | Leave a comment

Jenevieve was our doula when our daughter was born a year ago, and even though I ended up having a c-section, she was tremendously helpful (perhaps especially because of the c-section – she took a lot of the fear out of that process for us).  While working with her on our own impending birth, I became interested in what, exactly, the job description for a birth doula was.

How would you describe your job?

A doula provides physical comfort and emotional support during birthing.

What do you do in a typical day?

It’s very flexible, but also unpredictable.  Labor is very situation-dependent. Continue reading →

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Who do you want to be today? Ken, Director of Live Events

Posted on September 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

Ken directing at Lollapalooza – photo by Lollapalooza

Ken directs live music for such events as Coachella and Lollapalooza.  His interview is one of the first that I did, and it incorporates both the Who Do You Want To Be Today and How Did I Get Here information.  That’s handy, because I will be on vacation for the Sept. 12 post.  I will return with a new post on Sept. 19.

How would you describe what you do?

I would describe it like I’m a painter.  The cameras are my palette and the music is my inspiration, and I’m painting.  Because I don’t shoot stuff with the idea that …I direct it based on the band and the music and the moment.  So much concert video you see out there looks the same.  To be honest with you, it looks like sports coverage.  (Most people directing concert videos) don’t understand song structure.  They have to have an assistant director sitting next to them saying, “okay, the chorus is coming up…there’s a guitar solo coming up.”  I take pride in the fact that each of the shows I’ve directed doesn’t look like anything else.

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