Career Advice
 

Hey everyone. I'm wearing out my brain trying to think of what to do... so I thought I'd post it here to get some 3rd party perspective. Basically, right now I'm working at a dental lab, (I've worked their since 1999, between school, and I also did a 1.5 year fulltime stint) starting full time (again) next week. My boss, whom I've known since I was about 8, is a japanese guy (not that it matters) who recognizes my skills with my hands (in art)... and he'd really like me to learn his trade, and eventually take over his business. It's not a bad job... it certainly pays well, he makes about 60 grand... PER MONTH. Granted, some of that $ has to pay the other employees, pay for equipment, supplies, etc. Anyway, yeah, the pay is nice. But I've always wanted to go to school for industrial design. One of my friends just got a degree in I.D. He's working a **** job getting paid crap. :\

But... still. I know I'm better than him (my friend) and that I'd probably be more successful... but would it be STUPID of me to turn down a good job right now?!

Ack. Basically, let your opinions, experiences, and ideas fly. I just want to read what everyone has to say and hopefully come to a conclusion sometime soon.

- Rob

good paying jobs are very hard to find these days. while you may get more enjoyment at an industrial design job, it may grow tedious over the years (as almost any job does). also, you may end up working with a bunch of a-holes, which would make the job suck even if you like the work.

i have a good paying job that i hate, but it pays the bills and the money allows me to have fun after work. ;) a fun job might be cool, but not if you are struggling to make ends meet.

just thought i'd offer the other perspective to the "dude - follow your dreams and do what you love!" posts that are sure to follow. :D

Rob-
Can't you do both? Work in the dental lab full time and do the industrial design stuff on the side. That way you can make money and do what you enjoy!!

I agree totally! I think it would be foolish to pass over such an opportunity that your current employer is offering you. Most of us would be standing in line for an opportunity like the one you have. If you go into I.D. you will just be one of an expendable corporate workforce and will hate it in time. Go with the job with a real future that will allow you to be the boss in time and do the stuff you truly love (design) on the side.

Just my 2 cents.

Rob, I saw a title of a book once (no, I didn't read it - are you kidding?) called, Do What you Love; The Money Will Follow. Or something like that.

Anyway, I wouldn't go into a job just for the money. Granted, money's always nice, but it'll seem like nothing in the face of a job you don't enjoy. I don't whether or not you'd enjoy dentistry. If you think you would, go for it. But my instinct is to go for what you know you want to do.

Another thing - whether or not you think you're better than your friend means very little. Right now I have a dozen or so friends, who I think are much more talented or experienced than I am, without a job since June. I got one right away. Does that mean I'm better? I don't think so. I'm in a pretty merit-based industry, but sometimes circumstances don't conspire to give the best people good jobs.

I've contradicted myself a little, but I hope I made a little sense. In my opinion, good money isn't worth doing a job you don't enjoy. You spend so much of your life working, you might as well do something you love.

Rob,

Do what you heart says.
In the beginning you will be the 'starving artist' , but if you're good enough, eventually, the money will come.


If you settle now, you will always wonder "what if".

He's probably gonna wonder 'what if' any way. I know I do. :D

Rob, I was in a sort of similar situation several years ago. Before I graduated from art school, I interviewed at an advertising agency in Pittsburgh for an IT position. I was working for the tech. department at the school, so I knew my way around networks and PCs. Anyway, the job would have paid very well, but I decided that it wasn't what I [i]wanted/[i]. I had to wait a few years for what I really wanted, but now I have it and the wait was worth it.

Side note: I met one of that ad agency's founders. I said, 'hello, Mr. Cox, it's nice to meet you.'

I **** you not, he said, 'please, call me Dick.'

The key is do you enjoy it. I know many people who would gladly take a large pay cut if they could find a job that they enjoy.

What does a dental lab do? Make false teeth? So you carve false teeth or what? If that is the case, I think it will be within your life time that this type of work is replaced by a computer with a coordinate measuring system and rapid prototyping. Why? Because it would be less costly, quicker, non-skilled labor (How many Rob's are there?) and profitable for the owner.

Since you are good with your hands and like art, have you tried sculpture? You seem to have the temperament for it.

after investing about nine years in my first "career choice", a business position i fell into, i made a decision (ok, it was a series of decisions) and left it to try something i really, really wanted to do. i knew there was no money, so i converted a bus to live in, took every class i could find and started showing up everywhere i thought there might be work. in the end, i got a job at the one place i really wanted to be and got to do everything i wanted to do and they loved me. after 4 yrs, life changed as it always does and i returned to my former business career path, but i will always be grateful that i took the opportunity to follow a dream.

(btw, small-market radio is a great hobby but no way to make a living)

No... dental technicians make the teeth. It's a LOT more complicated than you might think. Think your teeth are white? What shade? Did you know they're mostly translucent? Basically, here's the process, just so you know.

You go to the dentist, the dentist grinds away your tooth to a nub, takes an impression with some gooey stuff. The impression gets sent to a lab, where it is disinfected, then you make a model out of liquid stone, or some variation of plaster. The models are hinged and articulated so they can simulate all the movements of your mouth (up down, side to side, forward, backward, etc). The section with your 'nub' is removable... it's dipped in a special wax that's heated to a certain temperature so that when you dip the die into it, the wax is a consistent thickness. You then invest the wax copings (thin caps that go over your nubbed tooth), and cast them with a precious alloy (gold, or all sorts of crazy things). After that, you apply porcelain, BY hand to match the shade of your other teeth. How do you do that? By taking photos of your teeth with a really really nice digital camera, and running it through software that finds all the different shades in your tooth, so you can accurately recreate the same shades on the PFM (more later). Once you've applied all the porcelian, you fire it in a special oven that cures the porcelian, and fuses it to the metal coping (PFM= porcelain fused metal).

You said machines will replace it? Sorta. We're starting to use 'cadcam', which is where you basically take the die, put it on this spinning 'feeler' thing that basically converts it to a 3d file on the computer, and the coping is then milled out of titanium or another crazy alloy. However, the porcelain will pretty much ALWAYS be done by hand, as no machine has the ability to recreate the anatomy and colors of your natural tooth.

Anyway....uh...

yeah. I know a bit about the whole industry, and I certainly don't hate it... in fact, the more I learn, the more I like it.

However, it isn't what I've dreamed to do... but... the job outlook for industrial designers kinda blows. Plus... I couldn't really live having a bunch of cool ideas, while working for a company that just wants things done efficiently.

ARGH.

Any more ideas/thoughts/ comments?

- Rob

y'know what? your dental lab gig is somewhat technical, somewhat creative and it's probably not a skill that is going to be outsourced to a low-wage country, where so many IT and other desk jobs are going. you could do a lot worse.

After reading this I feel better about the five grand I dropped on a permanent bridge that lets me eat apples in peace.
Thanks, Rob.

Ron (I don' need no steenkin' Polydent)!

Rob,
Seems to me that a major question you're going to have to answer is "Do I see B.S. in my future with the dental gig?" :D
I agree with the other posts in this thread that you should be able to pursue your I.D. creative urges in parallel. Like a lot of design-based careers, I.D. jobs will work you to death early on, paying you next to nothing (on a per hour basis) with no real "light at the end of the tunnel" unless you're very, very, very good at it.
Finally, looks like you've got a mentor of sorts in the owner of the dental company - good ones that are really concerned about your future are hard to find - I'd suggest sitting down with him and talking more about your future and what you want to do - he might surprise you with what he comes back with.
-Bill

Re: Career Advice
 

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