What's Your Day Job? (How do you balance work/life/art?)

[silverraven0]

I worked under my parent. Full time. Sometimes over time. By the price of hurting my whole upper body. And my precious hand. Q-Q

Never work or do business with your family.

That's hella painful and s*ck.

[Rodimus13]

Hubby is a full time graphic designer for a big company. I am a teacher for middle school. We carefully schedualnour parts and what we need to do. I try to write the scripts to a reasonable length. He paces himself to get certain number of panels done. Sorry for any bad grammar. My students gave me the plague.

[Nachi]

I have had an incredible luck and got an offer for basically my dream job right after I finished my studies. So I am a full-time artist for a company and spend my days drawing. I try to some sports and keep myself fit and in the evenings, if I am at home, I work for my comic I enjoy everything I do, the downside is that I work from home and don't interact with people as much as I'd like to.

[Shanny8]

Not at the liberty to discuss my day job...my work/life/art balance is a hot mess- I'm always struggling with them.

[vfinnigan]

I am a CNA, although due to chronic illness, I'm working very, very part time and am waiting to see if I'm approved to go on disability. I don't have a work/life balance. I have a work/life/illness that takes from both hot mess. But this mess affords me ample opportunity to write, so I take it.

My husband and kids are all as nerdy as I am and 100% supportive of my work, so I never have to choose between going to a convention and spending time with the fam. Going to a convention almost always involves spending time with family.

[echoeotto]

I've had a LOT of jobs since the age of 16 (I'm 25 now) from warehouse to call center to retail to food service. I've met the scum of the earth and the sweetest people in the world throughout my job experiences. I found a gem of a office data entry job that I'm currently working at and am very thankful for.

Hah I'm surprised how much this sounds like my experience
I've been a web developer at a private university since I was 22 (I'm 24 now), but before that I worked in retail, as a legal assistant, as a private tutor, and as that person that sells tickets and cleans up after sports games. I also had an internship doing video editing and motion graphics for an agency, which was interesting and fun, but it took a lot of time and they didn't really pay me, so unfortunately I couldn't do that for long.

I worked under my parent. Full time. Sometimes over time.

Never work or do business with your family.

Did this too. Never again.

[simplykit]

used to work for AT&T as a call agent

boring job but pays the bills so

[Rhonder]

I work as a draftsman in a small architecture office full time~

Prior to this I was a full time grade school student, then full time university student, then worked part time retail while looking for my current job.

In grade school, balancing school/life/art was ez pz. I had tons of time to draw and also get good grades, hang out with friends, etc.

In college my drawing for fun pretty much halted to a stop. I did very little non-architecture related drawing between senior year of highschool and senior year of college. Even considering I didn't have to work summers, I just didn't feel motivated to do a lot of drawing I guess. And school was so jam packed with homework and trying to relax/socialize a little bit, it just didn't happen.

After graduating Uni there was a period where I wasn't working before I started that part time job. I started to get back into drawing during this period, but after starting that retail job I was always feeling drained after work and didn't feel like drarwing, so it got put on the back burner again.

Finally I started this job. It took me several months to adjust to the working full time and still feeling like doing something afterwards thing though. I started in Feb last year and decided to tackle Inktober 2017 as a challenge to get myself drawing again. That did the trick, started working on my comic projects thereafter~

[mappypaint]

I'm a custom painter during the day. My canvas is anything paint will stick to. One day I might be painting a bike frame, the next day it might be a cellphone case. With the stuff I did for years, I probably painted it or painted on it. I love playing with paint but since i'm working with clients then it can be stressful at times. And that's where comics come in - I draw them to destress myself since i'm in my own world. No clients to deal with, I can work on it at my own pace, no money involved, no pressure.

[ForLackOfStars]

I work as a programmer by day, and I'm a writer by night. It can be tough to balance, since I come home exhausted enough that I can't write sometimes, but I make it work.

[Carossmo]

I used to be an animator as a profession (I still am by heart lol) then I switched to illustration :'D As an animator it was hard to balance making comics plus since we were only under the freelance status we got no benefits.

Rigjt now at least the new job is nearer my home.

[NickRowler]

I do video/photo archive and editing. I work 30 hr/wk and I do sometimes draw after work. However I feel like I don't balance it well, a lot of the time I like to come home and do nothing/sleep. So right now I am just doing my best and I hope I can get a doctor in 2019 who knows what is wrong with me.

[feuersichel]

I've finally found a very nice place in a cooperation company that deals with farming stuff and retail. I'm basicly the chick for everything. Be it filling up shelfs because people from the store are sick, selling food for cattle, ordering oil for the gas-station, or administrative tasks. It's pretty fullfilling and well paid but the price for it is my freetime and nerves xD Sometimes customers are just very.... gnaaah!...

But yes, freetime is a thing... I wish I could spend more time drawing and working on my own story. So far I only have 2-3 hours I can spend on drawing... and I usually use every minute every day.

[charliesackett]

I'm a graphic designer, printer, and html email coder for a marketing company that deals pretty much exclusively with big pharma. It's my first serious full time job and between it and my mental health issues I've almost entirely given up my art and my dreams. I feel like I'm slowly dying from the inside out.

But you know, eating and living indoors are also big hobbies of mine.

[lil-sea-salt]

My main hustle is obviously healthcare. I've been working at it for about ten years. It's a full time thing that's minimum about 40-60 hours a week. I think that's full or a little more than full.

This is my second love. I have a lot of interests and a wide variety of things that I do. I try to do things by project. I have goals to also make stop motion and animations. So I am trying to build up a body of work so my storytelling ability improves. I'm not really striving for a big sub count as this is my heart. I have found that I create more for my own personal growth rather than what I know will sell well.

I manage time by building up as much content as I can during my holiday breaks and then releasing it slowly over 3-4 months. I haven't mastered this as you can see I do have gaps in content.

[solhawthorne]

I do programming! But lately I've been doing a lot more research than coding. It's very cognitively demanding and I'm often too tired to think after I come home. Despite my job having amazing work-life balance, I just don't really have a lot of energy in the evening to do anything besides reading comics, vidya game, or TV.

I'm told if I exercised more I'd stop being so tired

[PennieWagner]

I work in the bakery/deli (started out in bakery for the first near 3 years and then at the end of July this year they mashed the two separate departments together into "one") at my local Wal-Mart.
In my personal opinion, it is the worst job in my work experience. Not because of the job itself, but because of the work environment and the management I have to work under.

It's a pretty open fact that my store is considered the worst in the district to work in because it's where the district sends the management and employees that screw up as punishment. Apparently, our store (being the biggest one in said district) is so well off that it doesn't matter if people who have no idea how to run a company are put in charge.

I have personally been ten feet away and overheard the district manager tell my store manager to his face that the only reason he got the job he has is because no one else wanted the job and he was the only applicant.

So my days at work are being treated like every day I should work as if someone has a gun to the back of my head and be grateful that I'm allowed to work there. To make matters worse, the job I work at pays better than 95% of the jobs in the area that don't require a Bachelor or higher in education to even be considered.

The time I get to spend on writing has to be balanced out with my sanity-sustaining other hobbies to relax. Even so, I love when I'm very inspired. It's during those times it's easier to manage the chaos that is my life...I'm glad to see I'm not the only one struggling in this world. Though I suppose that's a bit morbid to say.

[ratique]

I'm a Production Manager for a medium sized consumer products company. It's full time and I enjoy it very much. I've had the chance to work my way up, am given a lot of trust and autonomy - sometimes so much that I'm concerned of the consequences if I mess up. Luckily, my managers know full well that mess ups can happen and that it's part of the learning experience.

I was a designer and illustrator before moving into my current position and I don't miss it too much. My comic requires me to draw so much, so it's a relief to be forced to use my brain for other things at work.

Overall, I'm having a lot of fun with both my comic and my day job.

[phen]

Tiny, hum-drum receptionist by morning, very lucky freelance artist by afternoon to late-night. I take care of my sister and work as much time as I can on art from home. Balancing all depends on how much work a morning has in store (ie, if I get called in later to cover) or if my sister has a particularly rough day. Fortunately, it hasn't been too difficult and it's been a massively cool journey so far. So grateful for the opportunities present online! Would soooo not be here without this kind of connectivity~

[Maps]

I work 8-5 as an admin assistant and when I come home I cook dinner and then start drawing. My BF plays video games or works on other hobbies so it works for us. But man, if I could do this all day I would.