Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with working

Is a partially working fuel gauge on a 2000 VOLVO C70 serious?

gttommy — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:52:20 -0800

Is a partially working fuel gauge on a 2000 VOLVO C70 serious? I am interested in buying this car, but it's the weekend and I can't call up a car shop to ask about this.

The gauge apparently works from a full tank, pointing to 100% till about 60% remaining, then stops there. I was told this was an easy fix. How much would this cost to fix?

How do I get hired in the UK?

theraflu — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:51:58 -0800

My favorite site is hiring developers and I'm qualified. I'm American and they're in the UK. Possibly assuming they're willing to sponsor me for a work visa, what do I need to know? Information on differences in the application/hiring process, any business-related etiquette quirks an American might miss out on, and how to present myself as an employee worthy of sponsorship are all helpful.

A little background: I am young, married, no kids and have a very small amount (just enough for maintenance) in the bank. I've been professionally working in Web dev for about two years - the position I'm looking at is entry/associate level. The company has fewer than 100 employees but is an internationally-known site. I'd be going from a very rural to a very metropolitan style of living.

I'm pretty sure that getting what would be my dream job is a (very) long shot, but I'll be more disappointed if I didn't give it a go. I want to give it my best shot. Any advice and input is more than welcome and I'd like most to hear from Americans working abroad in the UK.

Hands on something other than a keyboard

sio42 — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:58:48 -0800

I am tired of staring at a computer screen all day. I think I want to work with my hands and definitely would like to be out of the office/cubicle most of the day. I have an BA in Useless, as I've seen it called as I've been searching on here for help.

But I'm having trouble finding answers to my ultimate question. I"m in IT right now (admin asst), I don't really like it. I enjoy technology and all, but as a hobby. I really HATE being an admin asst - yay, process invoices etc. And I really don't want to be in telecom. I hate managing our phone systems. It sucks.

I am taking some classes at local Community College in web design. I've always wanted to know more about it. But again - that's staring at a computer all day. I am making an appt to speak with a career counselor there soon, but I wanted the MeFi answers as well. The career counselor is bound to have their own biases.

I know all these questions get answers like "what do you LIKE to do?" or similar. The best I have ever felt, when I felt that what I had accomplished was indeed good, wonderful, and done to a level I felt confident in...it was when I was volunteering/working with a nonprofit that did creek clean ups. Spending all day in the sun or rain picking up trash and debris...not just candy wrappers, i mean serious put the waders and gloves on stuff - tires, cinder blocks, shopping carts, mattresses (yuck!!!!), etc. Then tossing all that stuff in the dumpster and seeing that huge pile of trash, muddy and stinking OUT of the creek.

I tried working for the nonprofit but the awful leadership and beauracracy of the whole thing ended up causing its downfall and my disillusionment with it.

I don't think I want to be a trash collector, tho (ha ha). The ability to physically SEE what I had done, not on a screen, not a paper report, but to SEE it, to FEEL physically like I had done a bunch work that resulted in something tangible - that was pretty awesome.

I am a strong NP (INFP, ENTP). I came out right in the middle on the I/E, F/T thing. When I take the career assessment though the community college, it comes back with electrician and diagnostic medical sonographer. I don't want to take care of people as far as helping them go to the bathroom etc, but otherwise like the idea of the medical stuff. It never really occurred to me before.

I don't necessarily want to leave technology behind (hence sonographer of any kind seeming interesting), but I'm kinda tired of sitting all the time and updating spreadsheets and databases and telling people how to work the damn lcd projector. I've been doing customer service and now admin asst work since, let's see, I was 20? ugh.

I'm 30 years old, female, with liberal arts degree. I'm willing and able to take classes online or evenings/weekends. I don't really dread going to work everyday, but want to take steps towards a fulfilling career/life path.

Anyways, ask questions, I'll answer and maybe I'll get my current brain soup to congeal into something more solid.

DVD/CD drive feeling unwell - suggestions?

AllieTessKipp — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:50:54 -0800

My DVD/CD and CD drives only work a little bit. I apologize in advance as this is very long and tedious. I am trying to be thorough so that maybe someone can read this and have a suggestion or ask a question to get more information that might prompt a suggestion for me.

I have Windows XP Home and I bought a Dell. I've been very happy with this machine. I am still happy with it, just puzzled by this issue. The computer is perhaps 5-6 years old.

My computer used to happily read, rip, and burn CDs and DVDs with no problem. A few months ago, I started getting errors occasionally when burning a CD. The last couple of months it has gotten worse and now when I put a CD, over half the time it will not burn. I was using Easy CD Creator that came with my machine, and then I got DeepBurner, which is free. They both work about the same amount of the time.

Now the DVD/CD drive that reads and writes will not automatically bring up the disk I put in like it used to do. I like for that drive, when I put in an audio CD, to just start ripping the tracks. I do this mainly for audio books I get from the library. I rip them to play on my little player while I walk, and then I delete them when I'm done listening. Sometimes if I buy an audio book on 10 CDs, I prefer to rip all the CDs and then burn all those tracks, after sticking them back together with Windows Movie Maker, to ONE CD instead of 10. This makes it easier when I want to listen to my book again. This works well for me. But now I am having all this trouble with the drives.

If I open Windows Media Player (I have 11), and click on "rip" it will let me choose from the two drives and then I can rip the CD. So on some level, Windows knows the CD is there. But if I double click on the CD drive listed under "My Computer" it just opens a blank empty window. If I right click and select "autoplay" it will ask me if I want to burn a CD (the answer is no, since the CD has stuff on it...).

My other drive, which is just one for reading CDs, still seems to work okay but it also is not showing up with the name of the CD in the My Computer list like it used to.

I started to have these problems about 6 weeks ago in earnest. Recently I started a new job and had to download some software, which mostly works fine except for some occasional glitch where the sound stops working on my entire computer. I don't know if these things are related. I did not have that issue come up today, where the last 3 days it happened multiple times each day. Last night I upgraded to Windows Media Player 11, and the software for work uses that program to play the sound files (I'm a medical transcriptionist).

I have done lots of looking around on Google and such and have followed many suggestions and none have offered a solution. There was some kind of upperfilters/lowerfilters thing to delete in the registry, which I did but that did not help. I have one of those disks with the little brushes on it for cleaning DVD drives and I used that but it did not seem to help. I did notice that the picture was a bit wobbly on that DVD, which did not happen before.

I am not a person who just takes the computer apart and looks inside. When it comes to the actual hardware I don't usually mess with that stuff. If I had specific directions, my husband can probably follow those and help me out. :) But he is at a loss here.

Thanks for any help or ideas you can provide.

Are there any programs for a 30yr old English guy to work in the USA for a year or so?

Not Supplied — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 04:24:32 -0800

Are there any programs for a 30yr old English guy to work in the USA for a year or so? I like the look of somewhere like Austen, but pretty open minded really.

Similarly with the type of work...I have a lot of interests and feel that I could turn my hand to most things. Would be nice if it was involving, but if it has to be bar work then it has to be!

Moms who work far away from home

sandra194 — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:01:38 -0800

Any married Moms out there took a job in another city or state because you need a job and there was nothing available in your profession locally? I am assuming that you come home on weekends. What are the ages of your kids? How does family life work? How is it working out financially--renting a house/apartment, paying for two households--is it worth it? How does the hubby deal with it? How do you deal with day to day family issues/problems/etc. if you are not there during the week? How are the kids handling the situation?

Is Hugo Boss?

namewithhe1d — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:46:29 -0800

As an expat moving to Venezuela, what am I getting myself into? Sometimes it's difficult to slog through the volumes of negative press and propaganda about Venezuela and Chavez. (more inside) I'll be living and working in a suburb of Caracas and making semi-frequent trips to the international airport. I'll have a furnished apartment and in part, I will be paid in Venezuelan Bolivars (fuertes). Besides my legal questions (how much of my income will be taxable -- by the US and Venezuela?), what do I need to know about living and working for our socialist neighbor to the South?

From dusk 'till dawn

puckish — Sat, 16 May 2009 17:41:51 -0800

I'm self-employed, work at home, and have a pile of work that needs to get done over the next three weeks. I want to switch to a night schedule. How do I do it? Right now I'm working on a 9-5 schedule (more like 10-ish to 7-ish) and it's just not working for me. I'm not a morning person, and even with coffee, I usually don't actually "wake up" until 11. I have a big test in three weeks, and I want to maximize my study time.

Things that have worked for me:

1) Paying attention to my sleep schedule instead of trying to manage it. If I'm tired at 6, taking a nap. If I feel awake at 10, getting up and re-starting work. I wake up at 3 and can't sleep, turn on a light and do some reading. Right now this is kind of ad hoc -- but invariably, the work I do late at night is better and more focused.

2) Grafting myself onto my partner's work schedule -- getting up when he gets up (6-7 a.m.) and coming home to collapse at 10 or eleven. Basically, a "work until you pass out" schedule. (Unfortunately, he's no longer working 10-12 hour days, so this is no longer an option)

Things that haven't worked: Getting up at 8 and "getting to the office" (usually a cafe or a library) -- I get out of the house just fine, but it takes me a long time to get started, and I'm never done by 7. Lunch breaks takes up a lot of time, as does getting to and from "the office" -- I feel like transit / break time takes up a large part of my day, and yet I still don't have time to really relax! Then at the end of the day I feel like crap, because I've finished only half of what I set out to do.

Option 2 (work till you drop) isn't really an option, since I'm not disciplined enough to do this on my own (and can't pull this off for three weeks anyway) -- and now that we're BOTH on a flexible schedule, it's that much harder to marshal daytime hours. Beyond that, I've found that the work I do at night is invariably better, more focused, and more productive. I have more energy, and I can focus more clearly on what I need to get done. When I'm working late, I don't need caffeine to stay awake -- I get really energized, and generally FEEL BETTER and more focused on what I'm doing. Plus, everyone else is asleep, so no distractions.

So: a night schedule. How do I do it? I'd like to systematize this, if possible, to avoid wasting so much time during the day.

The not-so-bad problem of what to do with new money.

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:00:32 -0800

I'm about to see a huge increase in my income. What should I know? I've just landed a dream job, and as a result I'm going to see my household salary approximately quintuple (from around $50,000/year to starting at around $250,000/year) and with more large increases possible in the future. I've never had large amounts of money before and want to be aware of what changes I'm about to experience (besides the obvious: now I can buy more things).

I'm not looking for specific investing advice. I'm more interested in general advice and insights, particularly from anyone who has ever experienced something like this. What did you wish you knew when the money started to roll in? What did you do wrong? What did you do right?

But what about the children?

Quizicalcoatl — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:50:52 -0800

What do people do when they have kids and both parents work? Bonus points if you have answers specific to Concord, NH! I'm going to graduate school next fall after 5 years of being our family's primary caregiver. We've never had to deal with day care before. My wife and I are relatively competent people, but this seems overwhelming. We can't seem to find the convergence of available openings, knowledge that our kids will be safe and happy, and a cost we can afford. The answers must be out there because I see families with 2 working parents all the time and I'm sure that they don't all just toss the kids into the first random nursery they come across.

Possibly relevant: We have no family in the area. The miniature quizicalcoatls will be 5 and 3 next fall. The 5 year old will be attending our fair city's half-day kindergarten, and so will need after school care 5 days a week. We need coverage for three afternoons and 2 full days each week for the 3yo. I'd love a place that will be educational in some way...

Great ladies running clothes and gear?

mintchip — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:06:25 -0800

Great ladies running clothes and gear? Amateur running looking to get out there 3-4 times a week (for 3-5 miles each time). I'm looking to get some more gear but don't really know much about what I should be looking for. My challenge is adjusting to weather that is often cold/wet/windy when I start out and then feels warm pretty quickly once I get moving.

I really don't know what I should be looking for in "good" running gear, since I've always just used old sweats or discount off-label workout clothes like those you can get at TJ Maxx. I'd like to get your recommendations here and then look for them at online discounters. Basically, I'm looking for favorite brands and advice features to look for in:

1. tops
2. pants
3. outer layers
4. workout bag
5. accessories (fanny pack, etc.)

Bonus if you can recommend a great padded sports bra (size A here). Thanks!

Ways to insulate oneself from the economic downturn?

mintchip — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:38:21 -0800

Ways to make extra cash during the economic downturn? The thing about this economic downturn is that it's harder to do the usual things people used to do when they were worried about finances. In the past, maybe you'd get a part-time job in addition to your regular job...but many of these are in short supply. Maybe you'd sell things on Ebay...but who's buying nowadays?

I'm wondering if you guys would be willing to share all of your money-making ideas for the economic downturn--creative way to make extra cash on a part-time basis. Things that people may not have thought of.

Travel Insurance + Canada

ryanbryan — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:40:26 -0800

Planning a working holiday to Canada, and need advice on travel insurance... Planning a working holiday to Canada, with possible side travel through the US and Europe. Looking into travel insurance and have been warned about being wary of those policies with limits on dental. Is this really something I ought to be concerned with? Never really had dental problems, already had wisdom teeth out etc. What are typical prices for dental procedures in Canada?

Also, does anyone know of a website/company to get cheap travel insurance for an Australian? Best I've seen for a comprehensive policy is about $870 AUD for 12 months.

Posting for a friend on this one.

How can two Seattle residents best go about looking for jobs in London?

Anonymous — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 13:46:37 -0800

How can two Seattle residents best go about looking for jobs in London? My wife and I have been talking about moving to London for a while. Ideally, we'd like to both find jobs in London, live there for 2-3 years, then move back to the U.S.

We would like to have jobs and be living in London 1 year from today. We love Seattle... we just want an adventure before we have a baby.

- What has been your experience with finding (or not finding) a job in London?
- What should we expect with regard to potential time lines, snags, red tape, and pitfalls?
- What tools to job searching/networking have you found useful?
- What government agencies/government connections did you use in your quest? (i.e. if your Senator/Congressman was a good friend, could he/she help speed things along, side-step hang-up, and/or
- We want to live in London... not a 1-hour Tube ride from Central London.
- What have I not asked that I need to know?

Our employment backgrounds:
She is 26, I am 28. My background is business (primarily sales & marketing) and I've been fairly successful, despite my age. Her background is architecture, though she's looking to switch her focus to humanitarian efforts. Potentially working with organizations as a project manager for different efforts.

Our current combined income: $105,000/year (pre-tax)

American working in Canada

kestralwing — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:47:09 -0800

What does an American who wants to look for work in Vancouver, Canada need to know? What steps are necessary and what's the best order to do them in? If you get a job, what is the usual way to handle questions like health care, American Social Security payments, currency you're paid in? Other questions I can't even imagine. (details below) My son-in-law is an architect with extraordinary computer skills. He has been working for a software company, sent around the country as a consultant to companies who purchase complex architectural software. He's just been laid off. He lives in Bellingham, Washington which is a 20 minute drive from the border. He'd like to stay in his (newly purchased) home, and Vancouver seems the best bet for having jobs and being within commuting distance. There seem to be jobs that would fit his skills, he has a great work history and excellent credit. But he knows nothing about the process of cross-border employment, and would rather not learn the hard way.

Any suggestions to make the process easier will be appreciated!

Moving from Canada to England and Finding Work?

Anonymous — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:47:08 -0800

Moving from Canada to England: how easy (or hard) is it, and what does it involve? I currently live in Canada and would like to move to somewhere in England with my girlfriend (who is also Canadian).

I was born in Canada and have a Canadian citizenship. Either one or both of my grandparents on my father's side were born in the UK. My father's adopted parents were from Ireland. So I believe this would smooth over the process for me somewhat. But what about my girlfriend?

The other issue would be finding work. I currently work as a software designer and I have a bachelor's in software engineering. I'm also fully bilingual in English and French, spoken, and written. How hard would it be to find a job, and which cities should I be looking at?

Thanks!

What else can I do with a BA in English?

SansPoint — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 10:22:31 -0800

I recently got a job in a pre-sales position, and I'm a bit worried that it isn't going to work out. What else can I do with my English degree and skills, especially in this economy that does *not* involve going back to school? Okay, about a month ago I started a new job with a company that does B2B technology pre-sales. It's not going well. The job isn't bad, the pay is good, but I'm floundering and having trouble meeting my goals.¹

So, I've decided to ride it out here for a while, hoping the other shoe doesn't drop, and look for something to take this job's place. Thing is, unlike while I was actively looking, the economy has taken a serious turn for the worse. Also, I'm worried that having a BA in English (no "Avenue Q" please) is going to be a problem in finding anything that pays decently enough to live on. (I just signed a lease for a 1 bedroom apartment at $750/mo, and I have student loans to deal with.)

What I want a job that's intellecutally stimulating, something creative. At the very least, I have experience in fundraising for non-profits, but my attempts at finding a development position over the summer amounted to nil. I almost got a part-time position with a temp agency with a medical college to do editing, but this company contacted me first, with a full-time position. I couldn't find any entry-level editing positions anywhere. I really, really, REALLY don't want to take an internship. I'm not up for teaching. I'm $50,000+ in debt, so going back to school isn't an option. I already have a second, part-time job. I don't drive.

What the hell can I do? Someone, point me in the right direction. I've read a few of the similar questions, and none really have helped--even the last one of these I posted! My resume is here. I'm getting a bit worried and desperate.

¹ What my biggest problem is at my current job is that I have trouble making contacts. It's a telemarketing job, and while I can usually get a good conversation, and book an appointment when the prospect is bookable, I can't reach anyone. I make 200+ calls a day and end up speaking to receptionists and getting voicmail prompts rather than the IT folks I need. If someone wants to help me there, too, I'd appriciate it.

Too many workers, not enough work?

bulanjing — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:22:11 -0800

Why do companies keep hiring when they already don't have enough work to go around? When I was younger, I worked several retail jobs. I noticed that we were never given full-time schedules, and rarely given more than 20 hours. The stores seemed to just keep hiring more and more people, yet cutting the hours of those who already worked there. They seemed to have around 3 times more employees than they really needed and just gave them not so many hours. At the time my friends were also at this stage in their careers and reported the same thing.

Now it's 10 years later and I have moved on to other types of employment. But I have a friend who is just entering the (American) workforce at a retail store and informs me of the same thing. When she first signed up, she got 20-25 hours/week, but now that has been cut in half, while the store keeps hiring more and more people.

People aren't leaving, it's not a turnover issue - they just seem to want as many people on the payroll as they can get. And it's not what the employees want. True, some are students, and this fits their school schedule - but a lot of them are not, and they WANT more hours, but just aren't given them. And if the employees aren't available almost any time they are needed, they can be reduced down to as little as 8 hours for an entire week. So it's hard to get another part-time job as your hours are never consistant.

So basically they have to be available for full-time hours, but only get 1/3 to 1/4 of that schedule.

I used to think this was a way for companies to avoid paying benefits - if you could get people to work less than 40 hours, you didn't have to give them benefits. That's fine, but why not just give people 30 hours and be done with it, why cut them down to 10-15?

Is there a name for this phenomenon - hiring more people than you need and can provide hours for?

And what, other than to avoid paying benefits, is the purpose?

What is a good job for a teenager that is good with computers?

ptsampras14 — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 19:26:13 -0800

I'm a highschool kid, good with computers, looking for an online job regarding computers? Hi,
I am a junior in high school, let me describe my computer talents.
- Thorough with Windows, Microsoft Office
- Good with the Internet
- Can learn any program fast (GUI)
- Extremely good writing and how-to skills.
- Tech savvy with apps and electronics
- NOT A PROGRAMMER OF ANY SORT, which somewhat contradicts the one above this :)

I am looking for a job, perhaps in writing that would help me to utilize these skills. I'm not looking for a job that you do for a couple of cents (I know Amazon has something like that). I've hear about becoming a ChaCha guide, but what else. I know I'm a dime a dozen but any ideas are excepted.. Also, age is not a problem, I can always use my parents as"a pen name"..Also, I am not intrested in becoming a local tech support guy too.
Please help thanks!

How do I set up a Remote Working Hub?

SarahM — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 07:58:30 -0800

I have been asked to set up a “Remote Working Hub” to allow employees to work away from the office. Where can I go for more information? Does it work? I’m setting up a Wireless Remote Working Hub to encourage working parents to go back to work & help an area decrease the number of unemployed. Do you know anyone who has tried this? Who should contact? Have you tried this concept & does it work? Thank you in advance

Hello? Can you hear me now? YES, I CAN! THAT'S THE FRICKIN' PROBLEM!

HeyAllie — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:29:58 -0800

How do I tell my boss, whom I share a small office with, that her constant use of speaker phone is extremely distracting? Caveats: She IS the boss. She is partially deaf, so she uses a hearing aid. She is a lovely person, so I don't want to use a method that would potentially hurt her feelings. She uses the speaker phone so she can multi-task while on long conversations.

I have already told her repeatedly that her use of speaker phone is so distracting that it hurts my productivity.

We have offered to buy a headset, but she says that her hearing aid makes it awkward to use.

To make it worse, there are 3 of us that share this office, and all 3 of us have hearing problems anyway, so this kind of background noise is annoying, distracting, and driving my co-worker and I bonkers.

Please help with suggestions that won't hurt her feelings, but will help us survive our 10-hour office days!

Connecting to the Internet from Asia, via the UK?

uk_giffo — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:17:01 -0800

I have some Internet work that depends on me accessing the Internet from the UK as it involves location-specific search engine results. That's no problem whilst I'm here in London but shortly I'll be making a trip to Asia and would like to carry on working while there. What are my options? The obvious one is to use a proxy server specified in my Firefox settings, but the problem with this is that the web interface I need to use is quite jazzy, with Javascript and Ajax and so on, and I've had trouble getting these proxies to work with anything but the most basic HTML-only sites. That was just using those free proxies though, perhaps I'd be better off with a premium one?

Another alternative is to leave a computer here in the UK and connect in remotely to it with VNC or something like that. The problem with that is that I only have one computer, my laptop, and it'll be with me in Asia. Is it possible to rent a UK-based virtual (or real) machine of some kind that will allow me to VNC in and launch a browser window from there?

Anyone have any other ideas? Am I overlooking an obvious solution?

What the hell?

jumbotron08 — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:31:27 -0800

Why don't any drugs work for me? I'm on like my 800th muscle relaxant/sleeping pill and they (all of the pills I've tried etc) still no no noticeable effect on me.

I even took 3 cyclobenzaprine 10 mg tablets or flexedril tablets. That's 3 times the recommended fucking dosage and I don't even feel sleepy. What the hell?

Seriously. It seems like this problem is related to every pill I take too (for anything), more than half of them just don't work at all. Is it possible to have a resistance to a ton of drugs? Is this some kind of medical condition? What is going on?!

Telecommuting internationally?

inactivist — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 18:15:58 -0800

I want to keep my American job but live abroad (in Argentina)-- what does this mean for taxes and visas? I'm a graphic designer who works from home and my company has let me know they'd be OK with me telecommuting from abroad. I'd like to move to Buenos Aires for several months, or longer... I'll see as it goes, and might even move from city to city if I like it as much as I think I will.

What does this mean for taxation? Will I still have to pay the same amount of American taxes that I do now, and will I have to pay any taxes in Argentina?

And does anyone know what kind of visa I would need? I don't need work in Buenos Aires so I don't need a working visa, but I would like the chance to stay longer than the 90 days that tourist visas allow.

Looking for business books!

wordsmith — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:44:35 -0800

I've just accepted a full time (telecommuting, FWIW) position with a Fortune 50 company. What are some must-read business books? I'm looking for a whole swath of books ranging in topics from leadership and management to to dealing with office politics to humorous takes on working in a large corporation -- anything that I can learn from. What are the must-reads in this genre?