Quote from: JongWK;232442Do you like teaching? Native English speakers are highly sought as language teachers. I have a British friend who quit his job yesterday at my company, because he got a much better deal with a language institute.

I do like teaching, actually! And, to be honest, Uruguay seems like a neat place. I was offered a position in South Korea I've considered taking, but I just moved to Seattle, which I like, so I'm not sure if I want to move again yet.

Really, any job here is a step up in pay and quality to what I had access to in St. Louis just at the moment. I live on just about nothing, and I don't like a lot of extra stuff cluttering my life up, so I don't need a high-paying job. Just something that pays the bills with a little extra to put away over time.

I don't mind second hand vehicles, and I only mind second hand clothing because it's hard to find pants in my size. My extra budget traditionally goes to friends in need of financial help or a little extra in restaurant/grocery. Basically, I feel weird saying this, but I don't really want much. It all seems extraneous to me.

But I totally look forward to being able to maybe write in the future. One of the most important things to me, my biggest goal, is to get a job I'm enthusiastic about, because we spend so much of our lives working. It doesn't have to be fun in the conventional sense, just something I can take pride in. Being a midnight operator in a room, alone, for ten hours with no break made me want to just cease being. I learned my lesson.

Kyle and J are spot on. Just as a comparison, in my country RPGs are a middle class hobby. I see more class diversity in foreign countries than my own. I think the gaming scene in my country is poorer because of it.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: John Morrow;232355I have an English degree.  My suggestion is to avoid limiting yourself to jobs that sound like an English degree qualifies you for them and think of your degree as a general Liberal Arts degree that qualifies you for any job that requires a college degree but not a specialized technical degree.  English-related jobs like publishing pay pretty badly.  Good interpersonal skills are key and if you don't naturally have them, learn them.  If you don't know how to interview, learn that, too, because there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.

This is excellent advice. I have an English degree, and I teach web applications for the government (Military/law-enforcement/"other"). It's a great job!

Quote from: JongWK;232442Do you like teaching? Native English speakers are highly sought as language teachers. I have a British friend who quit his job yesterday at my company, because he got a much better deal with a language institute.

It depends on the country you want to teach English in.  I know a few people who have gone to Japan to teach English -- so many people were doing it that  the last I had heard they're looking for teacher's certificates now.

Near Seattle? In Redmond they have contract work testing Xbox games. It pays better than burger flipping, and you play games all day!

(Ok, you do a bit more than that, but still)

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;232375For example, I have a friend who has a wife, a daughter and another on the way, and a huge mortgage. He's in a job where he earns a decent salary, but a salary which leaves them a bit tight financially - compared to their large debt and expenses. He works in IT, and could leave his current job and go to some start-up and earn 50-100% more - but the startup might be dead in 12 months, and he'd be looking again. He chooses long-term security over shorter-term income. To support one goal, he compromises on another.

Sounds familiar.

Except I use my vacation days to teach a couple of classes, and I'm frequently doing freelance work and teaching in the evenings as well.  

This is also why I don't have a weekly 6-8 hour D&D game on the go.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;232447So you're upper class? Sorry, but if you have time to post on internet messageboards about rpgs, you're not upper class. Upper class people spend all their time managing their money, networking and so on. The genuinely idle rich are very rare. Sure, Vin Diesel and Stephen Colbert are upper class now, and they used to game - but they don't game now, and they sure as shit have the time to come on forums and yabber about it.

I agree.  I could see someone who used to be in the working class getting to lower middle class and saying "almost there" and then when they get to middle middle class (or even upper middle class) thinking they're part of the elite now.  Not even close.

Quote from: David R;232475Kyle and J are spot on. Just as a comparison, in my country RPGs are a middle class hobby. I see more class diversity in foreign countries than my own. I think the gaming scene in my country is poorer because of it.

Regards,
David R

There's a variety here in Canada. Malcolm Sheppard was poor for much of his gaming career (Last I checked he's now lower middle), and has taught other poor folks to game. Meanwhile, I kept on trying to strike up games at Queen's University, which is a bastion of old upper-middle class alumni families and new money parvenus.

I do find that American gamers do seem to be poorer (though not less well-educated) than gamers from other countries.

I grew up starvation poor, as in we frequently went hungry. I'm well away from that now, though.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;232531I do find that American gamers do seem to be poorer (though not less well-educated) than gamers from other countries.

This has been my experience too.

Regards,
David R

Brother,  can you spare a d20?

It only means something if you have struggled for it....or so I'm told.

Regards,
David R

I grew up working class poor (<$20,000 household income).  I make well over the median US income these days, though I still own an older car and an older house because I like to live within my means.  I think that makes me strictly middle class, but who knows.

I think Spinachat has a slight point in that people tend to put the emphasis on luck playing a part over skill or determination.  Just because you can have skill and/or determination and still fail, doesn't mean it's only luck.  Frankly, luck played a very small part in getting me where I am today.  I don't feel bad at all about saying it was primarily my skills that got me where I am.

Quote from: jgants;232563I grew up working class poor (<$20,000 household income).  I make well over the median US income these days, though I still own an older car and an older house because I like to live within my means.  I think that makes me strictly middle class, but who knows.

I think Spinachat has a slight point in that people tend to put the emphasis on luck playing a part over skill or determination.  Just because you can have skill and/or determination and still fail, doesn't mean it's only luck.  Frankly, luck played a very small part in getting me where I am today.  I don't feel bad at all about saying it was primarily my skills that got me where I am.

I want to back this up here. Similar background combined with some even worse times after leaving home. As for luck, I repeatedly would get two left shoes for Christmas, no matter how much the giver would say they checked. I generally have "bad luck". Early in life, I made a distinction that helped me deal with this. There is truly luck. Things like flipping a coin. I would term this more as uninfluenced statistical result. So, not Good or Bad luck but luck like chance. The other distinction is not chance so much as risk analysis. Some would say going out and getting caught in the rain is bad luck. I would say you did not check the forecast, look outside or do your homework. Generally, these things, for me, have been reduced to the things that do not matter (like getting caught in the rain). So, for me, I have found that a lot of bad luck can be mitigated with a little forethought. Chance, not so much. If you rely on chance (I will be discovered as a star) to make your money or even just live your life, well, you may have a rough time.

Bill

Gamers who are short of cash and who want more than they can afford will naturally post stuff like "which of these should I get?" or "how will you save for GenCon?", as these are subjects of interest to them.

Gamers with cash in pocket will tend not to post about economic stuff.

Thus, you will only tend to see money related posts from them as hasn't got much.  What are the rest of us supposed to post?  "I can afford anything gaming related I want, what should I get?"  I think people could reasonably fel the first part of that sentence was not strictly speaking wholly necessary.