In February 2009 I started working a temp position with CT Corp in downtown Dallas. It paid the bills and allowed me and my wife to transfer back home but I knew it wasn't what I wanted long term. I managed to land an interview and a job at Raytheon though, in finance. Now this was where I was meant to be! (Or so I thought). I spent a year and a half working in the billing (accounts receivable) area, I essentially prepared bills that were sent to the government, nice right? After I became ludicrously bored doing that I managed to get a promotion (which at Raytheon, there's like a million levels of positions, so I went from an A01 to an A02, out of like A99, but it was a raise.) I worked now with project finance, which was much more interesting. I had a Department Of Defense secret level clearance and saw some pretty cool projects, none of which I can talk about... Anyways, I grew tired of that as well, the redundant systems, the bureaucracy, the deadlines, the false panic all the time. Honestly, it was just people looking to stress out over being stressed out. It wasn't where I was meant to be for sure.
I left there and went to my absolute least favorite job at Union Standard Insurance Company in Irving, Texas. While the company itself was fine, I just wasn't cut out for it. Within two months of starting, I was already looking to leave and interviewing. My manager had a CMA, Certified Management Accounting designation and suggested that if I wanted to study for it, the company would pay for it. Well, that was enough motivation that if I could achieve this, I would be out the door, which I promptly started on. After 13 months of loathing the people, commute and the job, I managed to get the CMA and within a week of telling my manager I passed, I handed him my 2 weeks notice. His response was "I knew I should have trusted my gut and not hired you." - yeah that made my decision to leave feel realllllllyyyyy good....
I landed at Catalyst Corporate Federal Credit Union. Anyways, I have the exact opposite situation here as I did at Union Standard, I like the people and the work is good for 9 weeks of the quarter. The other 3 weeks are pure, nose to the grindstone, no talking, no breathing, we have so much work to do misery, but they're so short lived that it's worth the other 9 weeks. They allow me to work autonomously and I have developed a stellar reputation for my work ethic and quality that I'm not really bothered much. Just get the work done and we are all happy. I review balance sheets of around 40 credit unions each quarter. I assess their risk profile and tolerance for interest rate risk changes. When I try to explain that to people I just say, "I do math for a living."