It changed a lot over time, but the main thing was photographer. The one thing I knew, that I never wanted to do, was to be a teacher.

Guess what I do...

As a kid, I wanted to be a scientist of some sort. As an adult, I work in retail and live at home with my parents. I hate my life.

I want to be an inventor but i never though of it as a job, just what i wanted to do.

I am in IT now and tinkering on my homelab and customised linux feel close enough. The main essence i needed seem to be simple exercising a flow of creative ideas.

I wanted to be a concept artist for videogames! I got excited at the concept,but had a terrible teacher in computer animation cass that made me feel shitty about my art. Even though it killed my dream, I kept making art and have been a tattoo artist for the past 5 years, as well as a freelance illustrator for 10 I'm really glad I didn't give up on drawing, it took a different form but it's so lovely to have gotten to walk the artists path.

I wanted to be neuroscientist. Instead, I am job hunting in a shitty job market and planning a startup when AI is gobbling up all the funding. At least, my mental health has gotten better.

So many things...

Racecar driver
Veterinarian
Astronaut
..with a new plan every month or so.

When I got older and my interests started taking shape, I just said "IT" because I liked computery stuff, and while I didn't have anything specific in mind, I knew it would probably involve tech. I remember an ad for this tech university, running around this time saying something along the lines of "I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. But I know that the occupation doesn't exist yet", and I felt drawn to that idea.

Then I started doing software development, nothing big, but I liked it. So for a while in my early 20s that was my plan. I also did a lot of network stuff, but I saw networks mainly as a means to get other stuff up and running.

And then I stumbled into a career of offshore seismic survey. Computers stuff was a big part of it. And then I ended up in a supporting role that is mostly centered around offshore networking and storage clusters. And looking back, my current occupation didn't really exist 25 years ago.

I wanted to be a tram driver, became a programmer instead.

I wanted to be a race car driver. Literally had no other ambitions, that's all I wanted, and I grew up being told I could be anything I wanted to be. Well we grew up homeless and I didn't realise it was something only wealthy families could afford to support.

Turns out I couldn't be anything I wanted to be.

I work in I.T. now. It's fine, pays the bils. I built myself a pretty decent sim racing rig so although it's not the same thing, it somewhat scratches the itch.

i wanted to be rich when I was a kid, but it turns out you have to be a soulless monster that steps on people to get ahead in the corporate world and I'm not about that.

I also wanted to work in computers or making video games. I learned that making games is a soul crushing job, so I shied away from that and ended up working as a Software Engineer, so yeah, I nailed that dream. I'll just stick to playing games.

When I was a kid, about 4 or 5 years old, I was at the barbers getting my hair cut. The barber was making small talk with my mother and I. He asked me "what do you want to be when you grown up?". I panicked, nobody had ever asked me that before. I'd never even considered it. I didn't have an answer. I assumed I'd have more time to ponder that in the future, but he is asking me now. I was a very nerdy know-it-all kid who always had the correct answer ready for any question that someone would ask me, but not this, I didn't know what the correct answer was.

I wanted this barber to like me, he was a popular and well known barber in our town. I didn't want to make something up the he disapproved of. So I said the only logical thing. "I want to be a barber when I grow up". He was shocked. He said no kid has ever told him they want to be a barber before, and it's an odd choice, be he was still pleased, so I did a good job.

The only problem was, now I had said that, I thought it was locked in, and I couldn't change it anymore. So for a couple of years after that, whenever anyone asked me what I want to be when I grow up, I looked resigned, got sad and reluctantly said "a barber".

Then when I was 8 I finally worked out I could change my choice, so I changed it to Chef, because I loved food and enjoyed cooking.

Now I'm neither a barber nor a chef.

I wanted to design bridges and/or so something with history. So I went to school, took one year of civil engineering and realized that the last on earth I wanted to do was design bridges.

Switched to chemistry, got a PhD, realized the second-to-last thing I wanted to do was academia, followed closely by lab work.

Unfortunately I finished right in the middle of the housing crash, so I did QA for a factory for a bit (which combined a little policy stuff with a lot of labwork). Then went back to civil engineering, aiming for something chemistry ike asphalt or concrete.

That didn't really work out, but I did end up being vastly overqualified for my job there. Rolled into safety and compliance by virtue of being the least unqualified person there. They paid for another college level degree during office hours, and then fired me after restructuring (thanks for the free degree guys!) so now I'm self-employed in safety and compliance, I do audits and help people and the environment stay safe and clean.

I do historical reenactment as a hobby, because history is cool!

I wanted to drive a pickup truck with a snow plow. Now I drive a pickup truck loaded with tools. Close enough.

I wanted to be a paleontologist. Parents worked really hard to avoid that from happenning.

Now I work in OT (operation technologies) on a big company. I mostly tinker with automated proccesses and machines. It's not at all what I wanted to be but it's a really good alternative; machines are way easier than people to talk to.

Wanted to be a marine biologist as a kid. Then found out that people actually made video games. Now I make video games for a living. It's alright

Audio engineer as a kid, as an adult, audio engineer along with video editor, everything production and broadcast engineering work.

I wanted to design bridges. I design bridges.

I wanted to do IT and I'm doing IT.

Likely related to being neurodivergent. There are also a lot of things I was told I'd change my opinion on later like tastes for food or politics but nope, didn't change.

Wow bodyguard is already uncommon, for a rich kid it feels even more rare! I surely am amazed by people able to do such jobs, it feels stressful af.

I wanted to be a judge growing up, because i wasnt interested in what we were taught at school, and law seemed interesting. Then i got to actually study it and was revolted by both the inhumanity of it and how stupidly hard it was.

Now i do seasonnal and odd jobs and am really happy not to work anywhere close to a tribunal.

I wanted to be a palaeontologist. Ended up working in IT. It's okay and a comfortable job, but I sometimes wish I worked with animals (living ones, not fossilised) instead of computers.

As a kid: the usual stuff like a pilot or whatever.

Im an accountant now. Long enough that the money is good, but its destroying my soul.

I'm working on switching to something more fulfilling.

I had three potential career paths I wanted when I was a kid: Masseuse, Meteorologist, or IT

After reading about each career, I decided being a Masseuse would destroy my body and give me carpel tunnel and Meteorologist is too restrictive of a career due to the few number of openings.

I settled on IT and I'm a Network Engineer. I hate it. Pays OK, though.

Turns out a lot of things you enjoy that you have to then do as a job for 18 years, rather than a hobby, makes you grow to no longer enjoy it.

My wife appreciates my personal massage skills, though.

As a child, I wanted to be a zoologist.

Later during my teens I wanted to be an artist. And I did.

I pursued the arts for a very long time. Started as a silversmith while I was still in my teens, a career that lasted about 15 years give or take. Meanwhile I kept studying arts. I managed to get some illustrations published but it wasn't a lot. As my silversmith era was ending, I got into 3D design/VFX. I managed to work for a small studio for two years. Best job in my whole life, unfortunately it ended too roughly with a mix of industry collapse, burnout and personal relationship problems all entangled.

That was a couple years ago and in spite of my best efforts I couldn't get a job in 3D ever again. This in turn drove me into depression, of which I'm crawling out of, currently holding a job in retail ( I jumped from one retail place to another until I found a decent work environment) but unfortunately my creative side is not giving any signs of life. The current AI debacle adds insult to injury, discouraging sharing new work at all if I had anything substantial to produce.

It's shit. But it used to be great. I wonder if there's something of Phoenix in me or if I'm just a pile of ashes. Only time will tell but the years keep piling up and things don't improve.

I wanted to hotrod and play with cars. One silly magazine I read had an article about how automotive paint was a dark art few ventured into. So I started with that in my teens. I did about everything one can do with cars. I worked with heavy equipment for awhile just to get a bunch of welding experience, then went back to painting cars but doing bigger jobs and repairs. Eventually I did not like the state I was in so I started cycling to hotrod me. The cars started fighting back as more and more of me was lost without need to carry me around. One day commuting to work, two scrappy SUVs teamed up against me on a bike. I killed them both, but the broke my neck and back. I guess I wish I had not read that article... I have never really thought of work as a means to an end per say. I cannot imagine staying motivated by that. I am not the type to go along with bullshit or do what I'm told. Give me a responsibility and I'll do a far better job than anyone else and eventually I'll become the back office manager the owner trusts completely. I hate managing people. No task is beneath me. I do not care about narcissistic nonsense from myself or anyone else. I do what needs to be done and others are welcome to do the same around me. Those that do not are none of my concern. I am the employee I wished I could find when I ran my own business... or at least I was. Now, I am a shell of my former self, with 8 of my 9 cat lives spent.

Lawyer and/or video games coder.

Married a layer and I do devops adjacent.

Am I happy making 200k for 3 hours a week vs 120k for 60. Yeah, dodged a bullet.

something to do with animals, maybe vet, then realized vet school is far too competitive to get into, and then noticed i almost never interacted with most animals despite liking it, also having unpleasant experience with pets and thier owners before the pandemic. maybe bio-research but its so gatekeeped(experience wise, job hunting is lacking, not enough resources for university to have labs for the hordes of students that need it) to hell most graduates dont ever get into the field at all. and a community school that had thier courses at the equivalent to a University(ivy league level) which cause so many to suffer academically.

Train driver as a young child, then later game developer. I'm a software developer now, not making games, but pretty close as I mainly work with game engines. Due to various reasons I'm now considering quitting IT altogether at some point though.

As a kid i was obsessed with space, i remember sitting hours infront of the computer just watching space flights, i watched every apollo launch, mercury launch, every space shuttle launch (except the ones that blew up), so so much on hubble. I had books lining my shelves explaining the universe, about black holes and stars and how we would conquer them. I loved space. and still do, i wanted to do any job even remotely close to it. NASA was my dream workplace, neil armstrong was my hero.

Now i do programming and play ksp. Close enough.

I'm not sure I ever wanted to be anything in particular, but I used to say I wanted to be a scientist. Probably because I watched a lot of The Big Bang Theory.

I am a scientist actually, but more Wolowitz, less Sheldon.

I wanted to be a snowman. It did not work out. Now I am a lame ass CTO.

I know this will sound strange, but as a kid I saw the movie Brainstorm and I wanted to be a Tech guy working in a really cool tech building.

Between my childhold and becoming a tech guy working in really cool tech buildigs I tried my hand at bunch of different jobs.

The only thing my current tech job in a cool tech building is lacking from Brainstorm is being located in The Outer Banks.

As a kid I dead-pan told my mom that I'd like to be a "white-collar office worker. Because I wanted somewhat of a predictable routine without too much unexpected things happening

Considering that this is already my second postdoc (somewhat of a scientist training... intern... thing) "job" (no employment contract btw) within 2 years of my graduation, during which I have moved twice including once across a continent, and once getting work-related anxiety so bad I got sick for a month... I think young me's plan is preferable at this point

As a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut. I don’t like people and loved the idea to just have the entire space for myself lol.

I ended up being into Finance and Accounting sector though. I like Finance stuff.

I never dreamed of labor, but i always wanted to be a racecar driver.

Now i work for a Fortune 500 as a technician.
I kinda hate it.

I do, however, own a "racecar" (depending how far you can stretch the definition).

I wanted to be a firefighter, then a volcanologist, then a meteorologist, then an astronomer. I am a repair tech for mailing machines.

I'm not terribly upset about it. Trying to make my job something more than what I do to put food on the table has been an exercise in fast tracked burnout when I've attempted it previously. My passions can stay hobbies.

As a kid, I didn't know what I wanted to be. I'm a lawyer now and there are parts of it I like, but I'm burned out. 60+ hour weeks, not much vacation, and having to work when I'm sick. The deadlines don't care. I feel like it's time for something completely different. Maybe translation work, but I really don't know.

#1 choice: Pilot. Unfortunately I am legally blind in my right eye, so that precluded me from attaining an ATP license in the US. My parents absolutely forbid me to move to another country to become a pilot where the vision rules are more relaxed. I did go on to become a skydiver and attained USPA Licenses: A, C, D and Pro, along with BIC (yes I'm old and YES back in those days you did not have to attain each license in order, you could skip and I skipped getting a "B").

#2 choice: Engineer: Sort of attained this one. I made it to my senior year for ME when circumstances (mainly my own stupidity) took me in another direction. I've worked in IT since ~1995 in a variety of roles. Today I manage processes, which sounds boring and it is, but I don't have to carry a pager and I work 40hrs a week flat and that's it. I plan to stay in this position until I retire in about 9 years.

I wanted to be a writer or maybe an artist. I figured I had to do something creative and big, because I could never picture myself doing a normal 9-5 with a wife and kids or whatever. I was smart, but I was a bad student and couldn't force myself to put in the work.

Turns out it was just undiagnosed ADHD. Now I work as a systems analyst (Excel guy) with a wife and two kids. Later today or tomorrow it'll be three kids.

I'm lucky. My job is interesting sometimes, but mostly it's easy and I get to spend the important parts of my day being a dad, which it turns out I love.

Sometimes I draw for fun as a creative outlet. I've made a few webcomics. I'm working on a longer comic for my daughter featuring a character she made up called "Princess Super Speed Girl".

as I kid I wanted not to that existential crisis.

that question sent me spiraling with severe existential dread.