So we thought it would be nice just to tell you a little about our jobs! Here goes:
Jessica:
I work at an analytical chemistry company. I do GC analysis in the organic department. If that all sounds like mumbo jumbo to you, I test environmental samples (water, soil, etc.) for things like pesticides and herbicides. I used to do more hands-on chemical work but now I mostly work at a computer. I have an instrument that gives me readings and I interpret them to see how much of a pesticide etc, is in that sample. I enjoy the work! I have a flexible schedule so that is very nice. That’s about it for me! I’ll get Tanner to write about his job soon.
Tanner:
I’m currently employed in the R&D department of a medium-sized health food and nutritional supplement company. (Company name kept private to protect the innocent 
) My duties range from researching scientific journals for the latest-and-greatest nutritional studies to designing interactive health-education websites. I really enjoy the diversity my job offers, and it’s been great to learn so much about health and nutrition. The nature of this type of work has really changed with the advent of the internet - I mean, a search for “vitamin ” at PubMed (the primary search engine for biomedical research) pulls up over 250,000 articles. I also spend a lot of the day running a Q&A e-mail system where customers can e-mail us technical questions about our products. This is occasionally good for a laugh (questions like “do you offer a deodorant that cures breast cancer?” - that was a real question) and occasionally good for a headache, but all-in-all I’m fortunate to say that I actually enjoy my job.
Besides my 8-5 employment, I still spend some time managing my online music studio at www.tannerhelland.com, although I’ve slowly been migrating that site into an all-purpose blog for my many creative interests. Besides that, I recently placed as a semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novelist Award, and I’m hoping to have a revised novel manuscript ready to be sent out to publishers by the end of the year. If that works out, maybe I’ll be writing a new “Work, work, work” entry this time next year…
As you can see, there’s never a dull moment at the Helland home! 