I think that most of us have answered this one indirectly, at least, but it occurs to me that I have little idea how some of you bring home the bacon (or, in our case, the textured vegetable protein smoked breakfast product). I mean, I know that Alan is a numbers man, and that Alternadad plays cantankerous Uncle Charlie to all us scamps, but my info on the rest of you is largely lacking. So, here goes: I'm a special education teacher, with thirteen years' experience in elementary schools, about to bolster my high school experience. Oh, and I fight crime. Indirectly. Anyone else?

Well, I parent my two boys (4 and 17). I also just accepted a contract for one year as project manager to handle a software implementation. My background is in training and project management. I did it for about 8 years and left corporate America to adopt the 4 year old.

Ol' Man Munkes brings in more bacon then I do. I will let him chime in with what he does.

I am a Spa Director in Flagstaff, AZ. My degrees are in Psych and Environ. Bio with an emphasis on animal behavior. I have some law school under my belt. But I didn't take off in the direction that I am on until I went to massage school. I worked as a massage therapist for a while before taking off on the management route.

While I will always love school and routinely daydream about going back to school for teaching, or physics, or a masters in something, I hope that I find a sustainable career with what I've already got.

But, CPF, you already knew all of this. Or, at least, I hope you did.

Stay at home parent..former quality manager for a 3rd party logistics corporation, would-be Indonesian martial arts instructor (lack of money to open a kendang)

My education is in electronics and chemical physics, and I am a software developer/webmaster. I choose the wookie icon for the reason that I am emotionally wired like a wookie.

I am also somewhat dyslexic (actually I think technically it is a working memory something coupled with a symbolic processing problem, but the cumulative effect is quite similar), and my challenges in my own education have left me very sensitive to my kids educations :-P

I'm a speech-language pathologist working with clients birth-three years of age in early intervention. Services are home (or day-care) based. My clients include kids with mental retardation, autism, cleft palate, significant medical problems including swallowing disorders and feeding tubes, and garden-variety "late talkers."

Currently I work for the City of Denver at DIA. I am a Contract Compliance Coordinator. There are local, state and federal regulations that require all construction and design projects that are funded by government agencies to have a certain % of the work completed by disadvantaged, minority and/or women owned firms.

My job involves monitoring projects for compliance and certifying the minority, etc firms in their status as such. Also, since I'm at the airport, we monitor the concessions for compliance in the airport related version of these regulations.

I'm a former accountant, adminstrative assistant and retail manager (remember - I'm old). I'm nearly finished with my bachelors in business administration and will probably only use that to meet degree requirements for positions within the City as I intend to retire from there.

USCG Licensed Master of Steam and Motor Vessels Upon Oceans, Unlimited Tonnage.

Currently working to ensure that all the floating vessels that are owned, chartered or borrowed by one of the big oil oil companies are the best ones that are available, and are operated as safely as they can be.

art student. mom. i bring home no bacon. currently frustrated about that situation.

I've been home with my kids since 1999. I used to be an elementary school French teacher but I had to "retire" when we moved to Texas and I didn't have a work visa. Before teaching I was an actress/waitress.

I've just recently earned my Real Estate License and I plan to pursue that when #3 starts kindergarten in the fall.

I do HIV prevention and STD education through the local health department.

I am a SAHM with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Prior to having himself, I worked for a consumer research company organizing their intake of surveys and processing. I also worked with the computer software to input the new surveys and pushed out the data points on the other end.

I don't bring home any bacon. I just cook it.

Prior to that I worked as a massage therapist at a fancy, chic chic day spa in Seattle. I had some random thoughts about becoming a personal trainer and nutritionist, but that is currently on hold, has been on hold and will be, pending further notice.

AlphaGeek on the other hand, is the Global Network Manager for a large company. He doesn't want to tell me exactly what that entails because for one, he is paranoid. Two, it would be really long and boring.

When I can't get to sleep at night, I ask him to tell me about any wide area network problems he dealt with.

Sole bacon bringer here. I work for Wells Fargo Insurance Services. I'm the (take a big breath!) - Southeastern Regional Practice Leader for the Professional Risk Group and the National Manager for the Strategic Executive Risk Team. Oh and and a Sr. VP. My mom was so excited when I took this job because you can google me and see the press release. Ah, who am I kidding? I thought that was pretty cool too. :)

What the hell does that all mean? I handle corporate insurance for companies from tiny to very big and recognizable. Directors & Officers Liability, Employment Practices Liability, Kidnap/Ransom, Fiduciary Liability and Crime coverage with a dash of Errors & Omissions Liability thrown in.

I actually quite love my job, and I make a lot of money, not that you'd know it since we are so terrifically bad at managing it.

But I wish I was a midwife.q11

I found it really interesting how many of you work in fields that contribute to the health and well being of others in very personal ways - teacher, massage therapist/spa, therapist etc.

Sometimes I feel like a complete corporate whore.

I bring home 1/3 less bacon than my husband, but all of our health insurance.

My current job is very sexy: personnel/HR work for a large UT department. I've been an admin assistant, a babysitter/child caregiver, and a florist.

Currently, I'm working on working on getting a Master's in HR and a PHR certification (those plans were temporarily put on hold when I got pregnant, and now I'm crawling toward them at a snail's pace, but at least I'm moving in that direction). I'm just at the beginning of my HR career, but I want to specialize in recruitment/retention and front-line HR.

I'm a PhD student in Canadian Literature, so fellowships bring home about 30% of my bacon, with a bit more added in university teaching contracts. Otherwise I work for a standardized test prep company, teaching classes to help students ace annoying things like MCATs and GREs. I also am a teacher trainer and textbook content writer and editor.

In addition, I do freelance editing and French-English translation work.

I'm on blissful Canadian maternity leave for the time being but am making gradual moves back into work and school.

I've talked too much about my job here, so everyone knows what I do.

Next year is brand new. New grade (7th). New material (English and American History 1877-Present). Add in teaching programming, robotics, and heading up student government.

My original degree was in Greek/Latin and Compute Science. Unfortunately, jobs for the former are hard to come by.

I am a biostatistician for a contract research organization (CRO) primarily for the NIH. I mostly work on phase I/II malaria vaccine trials, although I'm also working on Group B Strep and Group A Strep vaccine studies. My job description includes writing stat sections of protocols, programming in SAS and R, and doing some actual statistics.

My BS is in astrophysics and I have an MS in statistics. I have my eye on the PhD still, for personal fulfillment and to have more independence in my work. Sometimes I yearn to go back into astronomy, and actually, there are a few astrostatistics programs in the country, including one at Penn State, which really isn't that far away from me...

Earl Grey has a PhD in physics and works at the Naval Research Lab. He does optics.

I have been a SAHM since the birth of Boy3, but my last job was an an Education Supervisor for Head Start. I was basically on-site supervisor/director overseeing several sites. While in college I taught at a CSU Lab School as a preschool teacher. The in grad school I was a parent educator, and university student instructor.

I have an A.A. in Childcare Administration, a B.A. in Child & Adolescent Development, and an M.S. in Family & Consumer Sciences with an emphasis in Family Studies.

DaddyMartini has his own business where they do high-end home automation and screening rooms.

I am a special education teacher for 15-21 year olds who have severe/ profound disabilities. I am (thankfully) working in a public high school. My students have disabilities that significantly impair their functioning in most in not all areas. I have students with Autism, Downs Syndrome, CP, dual sensory impairment (deaf-blindness) etc.. I would desribe my work as trying to ensure that my students leave high school with the same core experiences that their peers leave high school with such as: belonging to teams, being with friends at lunch, going to dances, attending classes and accessing the general curriculum, graduating with their class etc.. I work with therapists, agencies and families to ensure they have what they need to leave school and become adults. I have to work in the summer which as I see it is one of the very few downfalls to my job- but as the main bacon bringer, the money is a good thing.

I have degrees in Music Education and Chamber Music Performance.

I THOUGHT I was going to be a band teacher again when I move back here, but the program had cutbacks and wasn't taking any new positions this year. So I'm still looking.

When I'm not teaching, I've been administrative assistants for a varity of businesses, most recently for a small urban school district. I've work for a well-drilling company, I've worked for Starbucks and Borders Cafe, I've been a music librarian.

Overall I'm very flexible. As long as my next job has benefits, I really don't care how much bacon I bring home.

I'm a teacher. Elementary school. Just finished up my first year, and am moving up from second to third/fourth grade, as well as moving to a better, less crazy school.

In college I got my education degree, but I also majored in comparative religious studies and minored in gender and women's studies, because I love that stuff. Bizarrely, whenever people would hear what I was majoring in, they would ask, "Oh, so you're going to teach at Catholic school?" (note: I am not Catholic.).

In the past I have been a camp counselor, a nanny, a special education inclusion aide, and a reading aide.

MamaNeedsMartini - "high-end home automation": is that robots? If so, awesome.

Sigh. Hello. My name is GG...and I'm a corporate whore. "HI! GG"

Last 2 yrs have been a shift away from HR Training & Development to HRIS systems. I just wrapped a major integration project. I've designed and implemented training...my specialties are systems & tool training. This last 2 yrs though have been more technical in systems implementation for PeopleSoft based tools. It’s been soul sucking but similar to Hippy Mom I can now be a consultant (possibly or if desired) with the skill set I have….

Or gulp – go back to HR.

I’m the primary bread winner.

My husband is from Brazil and has worked nearly a decade in tourist related industries around the world. Currently he is the GM at surf school. He has already increased their profit by 15% in 2 months. I’m very proud of him and all his accomplishments.

I got my MS in physics (technically astronomy--my thesis was "Seasonal variation of water ice clouds in the Tharsis region of Mars", but the actual certificate says physics) and now I teach. The original plan was to get a PhD in physics and work for NASA or in the space program in some capacity, but I found that I don't particularly enjoy the actual doing of research (the data crunching and end result are sort of fun, but the actual data gathering kind of sucks), but I really enjoyed my teaching duties, so I didn't finish.

So for now I'm a substitute teacher for TPS full time and I teach introductory physics and astronomy at the University of Toledo part time. Eventually I plan to go back to school and get an Ed.D. in science education and teach high school physics/astronomy/higher math, but that has at least two more years when A starts kindergarten.

Mr. S is an electrical engineer in the physics department at UT. He pretty much designs, builds, etc., all the electrical equipment for the research labs in the department. They don't pay nearly what he's worth, but he has flexible hours, great benefits, and pretty good job security.

And even with my two jobs working way more hours than he does, Mr. S still brings in twice as much bacon as I do.

I was trained as an actuary, but I don't do that anymore. However, I do pay $$$ to the various actuarial societies so that I can maintain my credential - just in case. I currently do work similar to Lady G in that I analyze clinical trial data.

I also use SAS and R. More SAS, but I try to keep my R current since it is semantically very close to Scheme.

I'm the capital campaign manager at a regional art museum in the struggling downtown of a smallish city in eastern Pennsylvania. We are working on raising about $30M and have $20M raised so far, which sounds great except that the last ten are the really hard ten to raise!

I've been in non-profit fundraising, mainly in the arts/culture, for about 12 years now.

Depending on your point of view, I am either helping to entertain you and your kids or destroying their childhood and your sanity. I work to develop and produce movies for a major kids network.

I have a degree in Hospitality Management. I've worked in various hotel positions, restaurants (hot line chef), and as a buyer for a food distribution company. My passion (other than culinary arts) is meeting and event management.

Currently, I am a government meeting professional and I work for one of the University of TX graduate schools. My companion (Whackbar) is a stay at home dad.

Hey CJRW we work for the same insanely large University system!

KS--sounds like we have a lot in common!

I'm the design manager for a consumer automotive network. My time is split between helping to run a team of five technophilic design nerds, and designing user experiences for our websites. But I fantasize about going back to school to study anthropology and/or writing the Great American Novel.

Mr. Atomic is a sound designer and I'm very proud to say will be a SAHD starting next month.

No life of a corporate drone for me - I'm in the civil service where my life is wild and free! Well, actually, it's not too bad being on the dark side. The pay is decent and we recently got vision and dental added to the health insurance. Woo hoo! Mow I just need to find the time to get to the dentist.

For the most part my job is to plan and manage science and technology projects for future Navy sonar systems. My particular focus area is sonar automation. My work can at times be extremely interesting and I'm constantly learning new things from my coworkers and the researchers that I manage. I get out to sea for experiments a few times a year, so I get to see things from the sailors' point of view as well. Balancing the cool stuff I have a rough travel schedule sometimes and when I'm in the office it usually means I'm behind on my paperwork. Your government in action! I'm trying to get caught up, really.

uh, my degrees are in Computing and Management. I write software for a living, since I think it is hella fun.

I also teach some martial arts classes here in town.

My job doesn't involve bacon or any kind of pig-product.

I would hasten to point out, Mommy Monster, that my job will only "contribute to the health and well being of others" if I do it *well.* I may well be undermining the health and well being of others.

I WISH I could be a corporate type and actually enjoy it, like many of you do. I just am not an office type. Even within my field, speech pathology, I'm avoiding working in a school like the plague. I guess I just don't play well with others.

You guys are all so smart!

I am currently a SAHM, but in a previous life, I was a Product Manager/Lead Agent for a National bank. I oversaw service requests for Online Banking, developed productivity metrics, backend account coding (basically I directed the squirrels running in cages that keep your bank account ticking along smoothly) and managed one of our DDA products, which meant I did everything, from green-lighting advertising to booting the kiters. I also served as translator for several departments, which was a giant pain in the butt.

Later, I worked in 401k and retirement products as a liaison between the third-party providers and plan sponsors. Once again, I was the translator, which meant that I spent hours and hours and HOURS translating participant documents.

I actually kind of loathe working in finance, and I'd really and truly like to write for a living instead. I'll stick to kid-rearing for now, though. It's hard enough. At least I'm not staring at a Spanish-to-English dictionary for hours on end.

Well, those of you who've visited my new blog (currently the Ausculator, but I need a new name. Any ideas?) know that I'm a midwife. Homebirths only. So either crazy, dedicated or brave, you pick.

In my previous life, I worked as a production coordinator for various television series. So, Mommy Monster, I've been a corporate whore too :)

You know, life is definitely more interesting as a midwife...

At least when you get called at 2am it really is urgent.

I have a bachelors degree in social work. It took me forever to actually get my degree and was pregnant with our 3rd child when I finally graduated. But now, I am a mostly SAHM but I also a volunteer childbirth educator and doula. I have private doula clients, on good months 3-4 clients a month. I also volunteer doula services about 4 shifts a month at local hospital/birthing center. I am a La Leche League leader...so I do breastfeeding support and run meetings a couple of times a month as well.

I am planning on entering into a midwifery apprenticeship within the next 2 years and hopefully I will be a certified home birth midwife within the next 5 years. Thats the plan anyways. None of these career choices will ever make us a ton of money...I sure am glad that Jimbo is bring home the bacon for this family, cuz we would probably starve if it were up to me.

I’m the interim executive director for a state wide nonprofit association that works to help other nonprofits. When people get into or start nonprofits they have good ideas and big hearts. Then they come across the regulations, federal and state compliance, funder reporting, HR and administrative work. Our goal is to help with all the boring shit, and advocate on their behalf at the state level.

Before I moved into the interim slot I was the finance director (and still am, really) and ran our financial education program – teaching others and consulting with other organizations about the vagaries and differences in tax-exempt accounting and how they could set up their financial systems. Want to know about the new federal tax exempt reporting form? The new auditing risk management standards? Come to my class! Read my blog!!

I was in nonprofit fundraising, marketing and management for 10 years, including a few years on my own as a consultant. Oddly enough, I found it a little soul-sucking in its own right.

For the last few years of that career, I worked on (and finally received) a Master's degree in counseling psychology and worked on (and continue to work on) a diploma in astrological psychology.

So this past February, I quit to become an astrological counselor. I'm self-employed because there is no such thing as an astrology firm.

I am a chimney-sweep.

Due to some birth defect that led to me being an expert in math, science and awkward, stilted conversations I naturally became an engineer (civil). Actually, I'm happy with the job, as now I get to design bridges for the state of California. Sounds pretty fancy and I gotta say, the bacon ain't half bad. Not that I'd know, 'cause after the bills are all paid, I'm just left with that grease-filled paper towel on the plate.

It's so neat to see what everyone's up to, what they used to do, and what they're aspiring to.

Hi Kiwi! I've contemplated working elsewhere, but the health insurance just keeps pulling me back in.

Kathy: "I'm self-employed because there is no such thing as an astrology firm." It would be awesome if there was one.

I do software testing and am 6 classes away from my BS in Economics. I'm not sure at this point when that's going to be done, because of the new baby.

CPF, I highly doubt that!

Martini, my husband used to do what your husband does...he managed a high end theater and home automation company. His clients were the likes of Latrelle Sprewelll (of coach-choking fame) and Joe Morgan (5 time golden glove winning baseball player and now network sportscaster). He's a complete audiophile, too.

I'm a SAHM and a painter. When the boys aren't looking I disappear into my studio. So far I bring in a tiny, tiny percentage of the bacon but it's getting bigger as I do some freelance work and sell some work at shows and my online store.

I hope to go to grad school for my MFA in the fall of 09.

We've got a pretty cool mix going on here. I still find it amazing the number of people I meet that have backgrounds in physics/engineering/math who ended up doing either something statistical or computers.

Currently, I am a thrid-class petty officer in the USN, taking the exam for 2nd class in Sept. I work on the AEGIS radar system. You may have seen the commercials. Yes, it is that cool.

Before that, I worked in live theatre as a propsmaster, and a draftsman.

I've been a math/science/education teacher in one form or another for almost 20 years (cripes! Don't feel bad PBM, I'm right there with you in the social security line!).

PF and I met in Physics class as undergraduates, I have a masters in Science Education and am one tiny little dissertation from a PhD in Ed Psych. I'm working my way to younger kids...I spent years teaching Reactor Physics to the Navy guys who work on nuclear reactors, years teaching intro Physics to Navy guys who want to go to the Naval Academy, years teaching undergrads how to be teachers and have just signed up to teach Algebra in school the boys attend.

I've brought home very little bacon in the last couple of years (part time teaching and full-time parenting, bleh), but once I figure out how to make on-line parties pay I'll be rolling in BLT's!

"(part time teaching and full time parenting, bleh)"

bleh - only because of the money, the rest has been good.

Gawrsh, Alternadad, I had you pegged as a bootblack!

I'm a full time mom of 2. One day I'll figure out what I want to be when I grow up, but that day hasn't arrived yet. I plan on being a full time volunteer for a few months when the kids go back to school. I plan on doing everything I can to get Merkley and Obama the big wins in Oregon. We also have some pretty heinous ballot measures to defeat.

I, too, am a corporate whore...

I work in marketing and sales for a mid sized software company. We make software automation for other companies marketing departments.

I'm a pediatric occupational therapist. I currently work for a small private clinic doing home, school and clinic-based tratment w/ kids and young adults w/ disabilities and developmental delays (such as feeding disorders, autism, Down Syndrome, learning disabilities, Sensory Integration Dysfunction, etc).

Prior to that, I did my time in Early Intervention with infants and children in a family-based service model (holla to Ruth!). I was gearing up to pursue Lactation Consultant certification stuff had I stayed in EI longer. I still feel drawn to helping babies with special needs be successful breastfeeders, I'm just not sure how my current job supports that since I don't treat nearly as many babies these days.

I'm about to start a sweet new gig with a suburban school district. Very excited for the teacher schedule and more face time with some collegaues/friends from past jobs who already work there.

I'm a PhD student finishing up her dissertation and hunting for a job. I'm on the market now and really really hope to defy the odds and get a job as a professor. If not I'll have to explore other options. I work seasonally at admissions (same place as CJRW) scoring undergraduate application essays.

Um, strangely, my spouse Technophile spent a while writing software that was used to automate people's homes. He had clients that would pay a quarter of a million dollars to rearrange and glue down the rocks in their back yards, build a 35,000 house with one bedroom, and other insane rich people things.

This is so cool. I feel so undereducated here. I'm a geologist who used to do environmental clean up work, but being there as much of that anymore, my company is moving towards helping build wind farms. So now, I can almost help someone build one. And I still do some of the environmental clean up work.

There are financial and mental benefits to not going to school forever and a day to do something like teach theatre. :)

Also, I should clarify that I work at the same university as CJRW, not the same department.

Trust me, you are glad of that. My department is kind of depressing, but I love my job. Isn't it ironic?

MCG and CJRW... I was SO glad to get the benefit newsletter stating premiums weren't going up again this year. Now if they could just continue for the next few years without any that would be nice.

I'm seasonal part time. I get no benefits, just an hourly wage. Bleergh.

Diggy - you aren't the most undereducated one here. That would be me.

I have two quarters of college under my belt, and hated it so much that I dropped out and only now and then feel a twinge to go back.

Luckily my job doesn't require a college degree, although I'd like to one day get my shit together enough to go back and get a degree in a related field. But being able to crack my knuckles over a fresh back and make people cry for mercy is fun.

Okay, I'm just kidding about the crying for mercy part. Sort of.

Kiwi, I share your joy. It's insane how much I have to pay out-of-pocket to cover the husband and child. Of coure, it's much better than them not being covered. I'm lucky to have the option of insurance at all.

People always ask me why I work here, and it's not for the money and fame, that's for sure.

MNM - Right about now I would actually love to have you make me cry for mercy. It has been so long since I got a massage that I don't even remember it.

Right now I only cover the kids. The Companion is uninsured because the State of TX won't allow you to cover domestic partners. That was the one decent thing about working for the Hotel Company from Hell... they had domestic partner coverage.

I've only had one massage ever. A friend of ours had just returned from masseuse school we made an afternoon of massage, booze, and gaming.

Mine didn't go so well. It tickled to no end. I couldn't stop laughing. Eventually he gave up and started laughing too. I hadn't been drinking either.

Our friend (who looks like a biker but is a teddy bear) gives amazing should and scalp rubs. I miss him :(

MNM - You and I will have to share the title of Least Edumacated Offsprunger. I have no degree either. I have 1, 2 or 2 and a half years left depending on what degree I would be trying to finish: English, Psychology/Statistics, Music Theory and Performance (voice), respectively. I have never figured out what I want to be when I grow up.

For the next four weeks, I work in the Fund Development office at the College of Law. I am a secretary who is damn handy with databases and number crunching. I'll be a SAHM after that, probably working part time in the dancewear store at the studio where I take dance so I can continue to afford to take dance. Pointe shoes, anyone? Leotard?

Guys, I didn't finish college either. I had three years, the last of which I completely tanked because I got pregnant and freaked the hell out and stopped going to class. Ah, pregnant at 20.

I would like to go back someday. The thought of going back into finance gives me hives.