*favorite season and why
* if you never had to work again what would you do
* animal you relate to
* morning person, night owl, or neither
* fave book or film
side story: we did first jobs as an inclusive icebreaker. Someone in the group pulled themselves up by their bootstraps as the individual tasked with running the contracts paperwork to buyers of their dad’s million dollar horses. Lollll. We tried.
Related Recs
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Was your major something you knew you wanted to do since you were a child?
i would say it’s adjacent. looking back on it now my first want was to be an astronaut. so where i am as a software engineer, where my work can potentially help the astronauts in space seems fair. fun fact my brother who is also in the same field worked on chips used in the recent Hubbard satellite.
If not, how did your interests change and how did you settle on one?
while my first career plan was being an astronaut, the one that stuck the most for me was to be in the art field in some way. i wanted to be a graphic designer for the longest time. but i ended up doing computer science in college because i was scared to be a starving artist living in gloomy nyc (not all of it is gloomy but when i toured schools it felt like all the kids needed to be doped up or drinking copious amounts of coffee to get by). i thought with this i could still be creative in some way, or get enough money and time to be creative outside of work.
Did job outlook sway or decide for you in any way? Did you change majors because of it?
when i went to school my career was still in steady motion. i never switched majors for something else.
Do you regret changing or NOT changing majors?
i don’t regret it. i feel with my choice i am able to live the life i am now; where i work to live and not live to work. i am able to balance my work for the 8 hours i am obliged to and fool off the rest of the time. that’s something i realized how much i truly valued creative time or rest.
How did you balance your passions vs. projected job security?
currently, i am in an okay spot with job security. the job market for tech people is not the best, but it’s also not the worst. i think my company also wants me to have that good work life balance because 1) it saves them money not to have to give overtime and 2) you‘ll get burned out if you don’t.
Do you currently have a job inside/outside your field of study?
currently my job is inside my field. i feel like it would be very unwise to move into a career outside of it with my degree 😂
Mar 9, 2025
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I can’t really share any specific details but I’m gasping and scandalized on a regular basis. I will say that once I got to overhear an outlandishly wealthy person talking about geopolitics and investment outlooks several years before things relating to what they talked about popped off and it kind of broke my brain a little bit and made me feel skeptical of media narratives. If I told you more I’d have to kill you 😔
Once I was pretty sure I uncovered an international sex trafficking ring related to a flop beauty pageant I had never heard of and fell down a Google search rabbit hole about it but I didn’t really do anything about it.
In the course and scope of my employment I’ve heard about a lot of people being killed or grievously injured by motorcycle wrecks even with the proper protective equipment and precautions and defensive driving. had their scalps ripped off and their leg bones rip through their skin etc so I would say don’t ride a motorcycle.
In another life I worked as a hostess at a restaurant which was a job my (niche famous post-punk musician) boss made up for me because he was a client of my dad and liked the way I dressed/thought I was cool. Because there was only one hostess people would often ask me if I was his wife or the wife of the chef and I always had to laugh. My coworkers always asked me if I had OCD because I would regularly wash my hands according to food safety guidelines. One of my coworkers (who had a tattoo in honor of our boss) had a nosebleed and left a long trail of blood all through the restaurant which I noticed and cleaned up. He was so grateful that I did it like I did it as a personal favor to him but I was just mortified at the idea of customers seeing it.
I worked at a farmers market and after I left it was discovered that the farmers market manager had been embezzling money and she died not too long after because it turned out she had cancer… so maybe that’s why she did that.
This is another silly workplace story I shared on here recently about my job at a vintage costume rental shop combination antique bookstore combination dance studio.
Apr 18, 2024
Been doing a bunch of these as part of my career rebrand (Sandy 2.0) and it’s been really fun! I get to chat with people who have jobs I’m curious about, learn about their paths, how they spend their time, and what challenges they face. Truly wish I’d done this before committing to working in the arts for fourteen years—ya live, ya learn.
Hoping one of these connections might lead to another, but for now, it’s been fun to ride the curiosity wave and activate my listening muscles. 10/10 would recommend.
On the flip, if anyone is curious about working in the arts / museums / curating, I’d be happy to share what I know! Comment or DM me, I’d love to pay it forward.
Mar 24, 2025
Top Recs from @normcorp
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So cooling, so grassy, so awake, but not jittery. Is it the switch from a second coffee to matcha, these new vitamins, or the the impending spring that has me feeling slightly more alert? Who knows. I’ll credit the matcha and continue to enjoy my little treat.
Mar 7, 2024
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my hyper fixation meal, my last meal. Comforting, yet novel bc of the rotating veg. Rich on rich - that, plus the acid of the prik for brightness.
Mar 19, 2025
Grilled, cold smoked, pickled, hot smoked, canned, in sushi, on rye, in rice bowls, on salad - I love mackerel in all its forms. It’s large enough to satisfy like tuna or swordfish, yet small enough to have less mercury. My usually low-key neurons feel like they’re positively dancing when the omega 3s hit.
PS The Fishwife canned smoked mackerel in chili oil is a real treat
Feb 26, 2025