The last time we were all together it seems half of us were in college. So what do you do for a living? I’ll start!
I am the General Manager, Digital and Chief Digital Officer of Fender Musical Instruments Corp. We make a lot of guitars. I’ve been at Fender six years now.
What do I do? I run the product, engineering, design and studio teams responsible for Fender Play (a learning app), Fender Tune and Fender.com. I also just do all the tech stuff within the company including working right now on PreSonus, which we just acquired.
When I shut Murmurs, I was at Live Nation, running their labs division. Before that, at Warner Bros. Records running digital, a job I got in no small part to this here website.
Due to the pandemic, I work mostly from home, but we’re starting to come back to the office a few days a week. My studio team has been in office the whole time, as our Fender Play studios are there. Picture attached.
My wall of guitars. Note: Collapse Into Now art Acoustasonic that I designed (I got permission) and the accordion is actually something I bought from Jenny Connely in the Decemberists on a whim, much to my wife’s dismay.
I’m using my journalism degree for a job that didn’t exist when I graduated - a lead social media specialist. Still working from home, which means full access to my record collection and blaring music in the background while working.
When I joined Murmurs.com in 1999, I was just starting work with the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, after having previously worked as a restaurant health inspector for State government (hence my “inspectorjason” username). All through my Murmurs days, I worked in the Air Protection Branch of EPD in a unit that oversaw the vehicle emissions testing program.
In 2014, I made a lateral move from the Atlanta EPD office to a north Georgia EPD office. I now inspect landfills all around the north part of the state. This may not seem fun to the average person, but it actually is quite interesting, with nary a dull moment. I also pursue enforcement against illegal landfills, and I investigate various other environmental complaints with regard to erosion control and such.
I spend a lot of time outdoors for my job, occasionally hiking miles through woods to investigate illegally dumped metal barrels or other odd infractions, and occasionally encountering less-than-courteous locals. I also drive a lot…all over northwest Georgia…as I go from one site to another. This allows for plenty of time to listen to my favorite CDs on the road.
I hit the 25 year mark with State government this past July, and am less than 4.5 years from my 30-year full retirement mark. I will not be able to stop working then. In fact, I am pretty sure that I will continue to work right up until lunch hour on the day of my funeral. Still, it is a good milestone.
I’m an Apple representative at a PX at Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base in Jacksonville, NC. Even though I’ve been using Apple products since the mid 90’s when I was in graphic design, I honestly don’t know what much about the various products. Thankfully, my co worker knows them inside and out so I learn from him.
When I joined I was a high school student. Now I lead the partner marketing and events team for a shipping SaaS company. If you bought something from an online store, there’s a high likelihood the label was printed with our software.
After college in Chicago, I started out in public relations for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Amazing experience as a first real job out of college and witnessed some beautiful music. Met some of the greatest musicians of our time (sadly no members of R.E.M. though).
After that worked at the University of Chicago and the Austin Opera before going more corporate. That first corporate/start-up experience was… Interesting… I left when the owner started sending me podcasts about how autism could be cured by removing aluminum from the blood. Yikes.
But all is well now. Ecommerce shipping is way more interesting then you’d think!
When I last posted frequently I was probably still a student. Might have been waiting tables or working retail. In 2011 I went to nursing school, and started working in a hospital in Flint, Mi in 2014. I started in Oncology, and moved to critical care. Then I moved on to float team, helping people all over the hospital. I was the only one on our float team who could run some of the life saving machines, and I really loved it. Then COVID hit and healthcare became the hellscape it is. I’ve suffered from depression and anxiety for years, but it was majorly amplified. I quit in December. For the time being I’m a stay at home parent.
One of the things I’m most proud of, though, is right after I quit I became pretty vocal about how bad conditions were are the hospital I worked for. It might seem like small potatoes, but I had a post shared over 1k times and was the impetus for some changes at the hospital after MANY news stories and public stories about how the conditions were.
I love nursing, and might go back some day. I’ll be far choosier about the employer though
I’ve been a licensed pharmacist since 1994, but haven’t practiced since 2012, a decision for which I’ve had 100% support from colleagues. In 2010, I was fired under quite likely unethical circumstances from a job I thought I’d retire from, although in retrospect I should have quit when the writing started to appear on the wall, and the job I took later was literally killing me.
I moved back to the city I consider my hometown, and in time started a home-based book resale business, on Amazon, Alibris, and in an antique mall booth, and am quite happy.
Retiring at 47 was not something I ever expected to do, that’s for sure, but I realized that I could, so I did.
I was just out of law school when I started on murmurs (2002 or 2003?) and grinding at a firm. Now I’m a partner at a downtown SLC law firm where I practice employment discrimination/Title VII Civil Rights Act law. I’m also an adjunct professor at the University of Utah where I teach and write on those subjects. I do a lot of training and teaching, and litigate cases in Federal court. I sue the bad guys. Only bad guys.
CPA by trade, but I have been on the financial systems side for nearly 25 years at IBM. 8 years in a client facing role as a consultant and 17 years internally in corporate. It’s not as boring as it sounds, as I work with some great people. I’ve traveled to China, Malaysia, Germany, Slovakia, and Hungary for work. How many of you have friends who say, “Yeah, but all I did was work. I didn’t really see anything,” regarding their own work travel? My response is “Did you go to the office every day? Did you work with locals? Did you laugh? Did you debate? Did you collaborate? Did you go out for dinner and / or drinks with them?” The answer to each question (or most) is always “Yes,” to which I say, something along the lines of “Then you’re missing the point. There’s nothing wrong with site seeing and ‘touristy’ experiences, but your experience was more authentic. You saw everything.”
Aside from making great friends, learning to navigate the rare nasty human (worthwhile and unavoidable), helping people (really), and being helped by others, the highlight was a month long trip to India with 9 other IBMers from other parts of the world, where we provided pro-bono consulting services to very small NGO’s working in the women’s empowerment and livelihood spaces. That’s a story for another day.
When I joined Murmurs, I was an editor at a hobby publisher in Wisconsin. I edited books about toys. Then I went to grad school (On Wisconsin) and earned an MA in LIS. That was almost 19 years ago (FUCK I just did that math). I’ve been an academic librarian since at two different universities. I started and still am a business librarian but I’ve branched out into coordinating instruction efforts and supporting students from marginalized populations and identities. I’m tenured where I am now, and I’ve been here for almost 14 years. Right now, I’ve got one foot in management/admin and one still doing librarian stuff.
I’ve taken fender play classes. I think I still have an account I don’t pay attention to. Several years ago, I bought a fender bass a friend was going to teach me to play. Then I messed up my left wrist, wore a brace for too long and eventually had surgery. The brace came off about two weeks before everything shut down in March 2020. And my friend had moved. So of course I bought a fender amp and a pretty (non-fender) guitar. Like the accordion, I can’t play either of them. But I started fender anyway.
I was in college, studying Classics and Anthropology during Original Murmurs. I am only good at two things - talking pedantically about the value of a liberal arts education and walking backwards - so I combined the two and got a student job as a tour guide. Somehow I have hoodwinked enough well meaning people to work my way up at a couple different universities so I am now Director of Admissions for a small, private college, where I’ve been for the last 6 years. I’ve been in Higher Education for 17 years as of New Improved Murmurs. No one does this for the money, but it’s work I’m super proud of and I like to be a part of such a meaningful choice for people. I’ve even been able to recruit someone as a student, advise them as an undergrad, then hire them for their first professional job a couple times.
If anyone has kids going through the (US) college search or FAFSA process, let me know. I’m always happy to assist with questions.
The Massachusetts unit’s Senior Examiner at GEICO, auto claims. Highest non-management gig in the company, and I’m good with that because I already raised a child once (Julia’s almost 14). If you are insured with us, have a big policy, and cause a serious injury accident in Massachusetts you’ll likely become another Murmursian I’ve spoken to! Especially if you get sued. In fact I might actually be in Boston next week for a big trial at the Superior Court downtown - one perk of my gig is I get to - or got to, before everything went to shit - travel a fair bit and build up those points.
In 2010, I was fired under quite likely unethical circumstances from a job I thought I’d retire from, although in retrospect I should have quit when the writing started to appear on the wall, and the job I took later was literally killing me.