What Do Fountain Pen Owners Do For A Living?

[Yaakova]

Part-time clerk in a five and dime (before inflation made them dollar stores), part-time cashier in a drug store, part-time clerk in a book store, 22 years as a secretary (before they were administrative assistants), and the last 16 years as a QA Analyst (software tester).

[Bill]

I did stuff for a living long enough so that now I don't have to do anything for a living ;-)

[domnortheast]

I.T....Learning Technologist in H.E.

 

Why FPs?

 

As an antidote to staring at a monitor and tapping keys all day and because I've come to appreciate that, despite the computer industry's best efforts, human beings are analogue at heart especially when it comes to learning stuff.

[Big Cheese]

I learnt to write using a fountain pen in elementary school, always kept a few (Parker) fountain pens around since then.

 

For the past 5 years I have been using FPs 90% of the time, after exclusively using a Lamy Tri-Pen for 10 years.

 

Started professional life as an export coordinator for a manufacturing company, now managing that team. Key activities: export logistics, trade finance and accounting.

 

Zero artistic talent; I could not draw anything to save my life.

[Martinsroom]

I'm an anaesthetist.

[sandy101]

Fountain pen owners - work?

 

No, we don't do anything quite as vulgar as that.

 

Anyone for tennis?

[vondauster]

Photographer and video producer. Been using fountain pens since I was 9 years old, which was more than 50 years ago.

 

Never stopped.

 

Will

[VivienR]

I'm on IT working as a software developer.

[pen2paper]

unlettered and ordinary

 

but along the way...

never a trained butcher, but briefly a baker,

definitely once a very bad candlestick maker, but trained by the best in carves, weddings, and sculptures

 

licensed to drive with less certs than the past - Wish I Could drive a forklift!

 

once able to carve nice commercial cuts in big building ceiling tiles (joyful volunteer project)

 

infrequent history based lectures in period or repro garments

 

primary school required use of fountain pens which started my interest, becoming useful writing daily reports as skills/job coach

[canibanoglu]

Another software developer here, working on designing and implementing large governmental enterprise systems. I write code on paper using my pens if I am to tackle something especially complicated. Also use my pens a lot to take notes while writing code.

[Maurizio]

I guess I'm the stereotypical fountain pen using lawyer. I draft my legal work with my fountain pens. I then dictate the drafts for typing. I get a good deal of satisfaction in writing this way and can't imagine having to write with something other than a fountain pen. I also use my best flowing pens to take notes at rapid pace during depositions and when I'm on trial.

 

I first fell in love with pens when I bought a Parker Big Red plastic ballpoint when I was in grade school. It was red with black trim. I just loved the size, color & design of that pen.

 

I have about 10 fountain pens (or is it 15? the group seems to be metastasizing). I don't consider myself a collector, I just like to use fountain pens which, to my mind, are more aesthetically pleasing to see, hold, and use than any other writing tool.

Edited March 6, 2015 by Maurizio

[mtmowl]

Started using FPs in grade school with a 30 cent Wearever. (I have graduated in both areas.)

 

Now a retired physician who teaches HS science.

[bitterwonder]

College professor teaching painting and drawing, sideshow banner painter. Fp user since 1963.

[prighello]

Swineherd here.

[tmenyc]

what a wonderful mixture...why fp people are so interesting. I run things, nowadays COO of a boutique graduate school and exhibition gallery.

[Ecriveur]

I'm a lawyer, one of those professional types stereotypically associated with the use of fountain pens, to the extent that any group still is these days.

 

If I had to guess why fountain pens are relatively popular among IT people, I can think of a few reasons:

 

1) fascination with things that look overtly mechanical - the piston filler of a Pilot Custom 823, for example, just looks cool, beyond anything any ballpoint ever will;

2) a need to write things that aren't purely text (e.g. symbols, diagrams, flowcharts etc.) and thus aren't easily produced on a keyboard; and

3) disposable income.

[Freddy]

Chief cook and bottle washer in a one man bird watchers society.......

Sailor Jack and his dog Bingo {some kids never grow up..Jack Gilford}.......

Practising Autonomous Argonaut..............

 

Fred

[Arkanabar]

I was studying chemical engineering at university when I bought my first FPs. They got lost over the moves that came after dropping out, and I went back to mostly using mechanical pencils for writing. I was waiting tables when I rediscovered fountain pens, and also running a table top, pen and paper fantasy RPG, which took a lot of writing, especially since when I was playing instead of running, I was always the one who took the notes. Eventually, I went to work in a sock factory, but as that declined, I went back to school, got my RHIT, and now I'm the medical records coordinator for a critical access behavioral health agency, which is to say, I'm a file clerk.

[PaperDarts]

Public policy analyst, nearing retirement. Writer, likely won't ever retire from that. I've used FPs for most of my life, starting in primary school.

 

Work: the curse of the "inking" class.

[prime.lens]

I teach and write about early modern literature.