Parental Professions

Scott Hardie | July 16, 2010
What did your parents do for a living, and what did you learn as a result of having this insight into their profession?

Kelly Lee | July 16, 2010
My Mother was a Jr. High School bilingual counselor, as well as teaching ESL at community college, and a substitute teacher (when I was in high school, at that high school no less, Scott, Matt, did you ever has my Mom as a sub? I never asked.) And my Father a manager of a men's clothing store (Matt, do you remember Gunters?) and is a guard at a Juvenile Correction facility. Ironically, I kinda mixed my parent's professions when I first started working outside of college and became a teacher's aide, first for behavior/educabily mentally hanidcapped public school where my Mom worked, then at a private school for behavior kids, then at a residential/school for autistic and behavior kids.

My job at most of those places took on a role of teacher / counselor / human wall. And it mixed what they had done. To be honest I really miss those jobs, I wish that I could find another one like that here.

So yeah, I'd say they influenced me. Cause as my Dad says, "A mind is a horrible thing not to play with."

Steve Dunn | July 16, 2010
My father was a career Air Force officer, then taught at a community college after retiring.

My mother was an elementary school teacher, then raised us kids at home, then went to work in retail for a while, and eventually got back into the schools as a library assistant.

Both are now retired.

From them, the main thing I learned was not to go into the military.

Steve West | July 16, 2010
My father was an auto parts warehouse manager with an incredible work ethic. He also worked various part-time jobs (sometimes three at once) to support the houseful of kids my parents produced. He ingrained the philosophy that if you didn't come home from work tired, then you didn't work hard enough. Another of his favorite sayings was if your work schedule starts at 8:00 a.m. then you need to be at work at 7:45 so you can start work on time - not show up at 8:00. Some (most) of that has rubbed off on me. My mother was primarily a stay at home mom but worked hard raising us kids. She was generous in her displays of love and that shaped me as much as my Dad.

Lori Lancaster | July 17, 2010
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Scott Hardie | July 17, 2010
I asked out of curiosity about what family backgrounds you all came from. I'm still curious about others reading this. It got me thinking about my own parents and what I learned, something that came up in conversation recently.

My mother was a database administrator. She worked for a lot of companies over the years, including Nielsen, which was odd since she rarely watched television. She was their staunch defender, saying that they took measurement accuracy very seriously, and it pained them to be the industry scapegoats. Every time some network underperformed, they'd blame Nielsen for not measuring correctly. There was a controversy a few years ago in which activist groups railed against Nielsen claiming that they underrepresented Hispanic homes, but Nielsen worked very hard to include these households and the controversy was invented by a network that was trying to justify its low ratings to angry advertisers. I'm glad I don't work in that industry, but I guess every industry has some kind of frustrating political maneuvering.

When I was preschool-aged, my mother would take me to work with her on the weekends when she couldn't find a babysitter. I was probably a handful like every kid, but I got to play with a spare computer at the office. I learned very young how to type and use word processing programs, and it likely influenced the direction my life has taken. The other thing that I've been thinking about lately is Bradley University, where I became friends with Matthew Preston, Anna Gregoline, Kris Weberg, and other people on here. When I went away to college in 1996, the school had a "Residence Halls of the Future" program that put an Internet-connected computer in every dorm room in the building I chose to live in, and gave those residents email accounts and space on their Apache-enabled server. This was still pretty do-it-yourself; you had to learn Linux and hand-code the html in pico or vi. But it was enough for me to learn how to make websites, and it eventually blossomed into a career and more. I sometimes wonder if the people who dreamed up that program know how successful it was, at least for me. It probably gave many students nothing but fun diversions online and early access to email (it started in 1986), but it had a more profound effect on me than anything else in college, and probably some other students too.

I didn't ask about other family members, but I'm curious about that too. My work runs in my family: My brother was a database administrator, my cousin was a web developer and is now a web interface designer, another cousin is a web designer, and another cousin was a web project manager. I have a tiny family, so this is some coincidence.

Dave Stoppenhagen | July 19, 2010
My Dad worked for Navistar-International as a parts manager in their corporate center when we moved to IL, I spent the first 8 years of my life on a farm in Indiana where he worked for Navistar in a Union position, and he farmed at night and on the weekends. I got that strong work ethic from him, if I'm not 15 minutes early I'm already late.

My mom worked as a secretary at the High School we went to for about 4 years and then went to work on data entry at a paper products design company.. Also worked part time while i was in Jr. High at a real estate agent in the evenings. She taught us kids (2 older brothers) how to cook, clean and take care of ourselves and each other when neccessary.

Jackie Mason | July 27, 2010
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