How did you get where you are? - Poll

How did you get where you are? - Poll

  • Choice

    Votes: 12 46.2%
  • Chance

    Votes: 14 53.8%

  • Total voters
    26

otherthoughts

Well-known member
Most of the folks I have asked in person have responded that it was by accident or by chance that they arrived at the job they have now rather than a conscious choice. Perhaps things have changed since I stopped asking several years ago?

Personally, I wanted to be a Restaurant owner or an Automobile tune-up and repair shop owner. Towards that direction I had earned a Class-A SMOG license and a Class A-Brake license. I never used either license, if I had only known that I would wind up in printing, I really could have been something!:D

Regards
otherthoughts
 
I started off by getting a 2 year degree in accounting. When I was done, I thought "I really don't like accounting. I can do it and am good at it, but it's boring as hell". So I transferred to a 4 year college and switched to marketing. The second quarter there I took a class called "Media Production Methods" which was half television production and half print production/advertising. I really liked the print production part so I went back to the community college, enrolled in their Graphic Communications program and got a second Associate Degree. So basically, I went to college for 4 and a half years to become a prepress monkey. The rest is history.....
 
I went to college to get a computer science degree. could not find a job went to work for mom and dad. I really just want to be a Philanthropist, but I haven't hit the lottery yet.
 
Went to college....majoring in the sciences.
Switched to TV-Radio-Advertising major in 2nd year.

Worked in a retail furniture store in advertising for a few years after graduating.
Mom & Dad opened a quick print franchise shop in mid 1979.
I moved back home and began working with them in 1980.

And that's how I got here... owning a small quick print shop...
in the worst economy since the Great Dep.
Hang in there everyone!

Love the creativity of this business...
______________________________ :( hate the book-work part.

Sue
 
I was working in Audio-Visual production when I moved to Seattle in 1991. I didn't want to go back to freelancing, so I ended up unemployed for nine months. By that time I had learned to be less picky and started looking at any number of different fields. A prepress company had an ad in the paper for someone who knew how to use a Macintosh. (They had just got burned by an employee who knew pre-press but couldn't master that newfangled technology.) I applied, showed a bit of competence with the Mac and got the job. And since I still don't want to go back to freelancing in A/V, I'm still doing pre-press.
 
Went to College in the 60's (who knew the draft was coming?), and majored in "Business", which in those days pretty much meant accounting. Hated Accounting, didn't believe in "Classic Economic Theory, and it was the '60's after all.
Was editor of the college newspaper, worked my way thru college taking photos for the PR dept, spend endless days in the darkroom. When I graduated, I knew I wasn't going into accounting and found a job at a daily paper, which paid next to nothing. The guys in the 'back shop' made twice as much, like $3.50/hr. (remember it was the 60's). I knew all about film, cameras, chemistry, so I moved back there, and over the years followed all the changes from letterpress to offset to flexo to gravure.
It used to be a really great career and industry.
 
Father owned a print shop for about 30 years, was just raised in the industry. Instead of getting grounded I had to go de-strip film flats so the film could be recycled :)

In the industry by choice and chance I guess you could say. It can have its frustrations at times but overall the great mix of technology, craftsmanship and precision is what keeps me in it.
 

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