What do you do for a job?

Real Estate investor. It was my background growing up. For a few years I added an equipment/party rental company and then redi-mix concrete company.  Sold that stuff about 17 years ago when I got tired of "working a half day" all the time. It meant 12hrs.

wearymicrobe said:

cmcgregor (Forum Supporter) said:

wearymicrobe said:

Adapt automation to scientific discovery problems and take that data and adapt it for AI to crunch. 

This, except I'm currently funemployed.

Want to come to California. We have a job openning. You would have to work with me though. 

If I'm moving again, it's gonna be back to the East Coast. But thanks!

RacetruckRon said:

I'm a design engineer in the cordless tool market.  I used to work on the red tools with the lightning bolts now I design lime green lawn mowers.  

So, can you answer a question.  While I think the hand tools tend to be different, I'm convinced these days that most of the larger tools, especially those with whirling grass decapitating blades powered by electrons not dinosaurs, are all essentially the same from brand to brand under the skin.  Care to dish the dirt?

I make imposible things possible.  It's my superpower.

I'm a theater technical director.  I build the sets, oversee lights and sound, and contract any sub-people for designs or carpentry.  Basically, I take someone's 2D design, turn it into a 3D reality, then actors play on it in 2D while avoiding breaking the 4th wall.  Pretty much everything that isn't covered by artistic production staff (director, choreographer, music director, etc) falls in my lap and I have to make pretty things happen.

Or as I like to say, I put screws in wood.

I do web-design. I don't have as much fun as you do.

Software development manager for a hosting company.  I have almost zero coding knowledge (which can hurt when searching for a new gig), but am great at managing developers.  They're a unique bunch to work with and I've learned how they tick over the years.  My day to day is sitting in meetings to plan and removing barriers for my devs to get their work done.  Basically, telling people to leave them the hell alone.  I also have a deep QA background, so the entire QA staff reports to me and I've been able to get our testing in much better shape with standards and automation while also raising the value of the team as more than 2nd rate citizens in the development world. 

It's funny, I tried to be more of an individual contributor over the years and every job I've started in doing that, I end up being the manager within six months.  Still haven't figured out if it's because I'm really good at being a manager or if it's because I'm stupid and they don't want me touching anything.....

-Rob

My day job is working for a small division of Kuka Robotics in Toledo, where we are an on-site supplier at the Jeep complex.  We assemble the BIW for the Gladiator pickup.

During race season, I crew for a couple of teams in SCCA.  In the off-season, I "intern" at my buddy's shop, learning about roll-cage and tube chassis fab.  This winter I will be trying to learn how to produce fiberglass body parts.

I'm a union crane operator. I drive a semi with loads of counterweight, tell everybody on site what to do and pull on levers. I enjoy it. 

I'm also the outside sales rep for our crane company. I hate sales but I'm good at it. Kind of a necessary evil at this time. 

I'm a low rate automotive journalist and an amateur novelist. 

Jgrewe, offering any mentorship options on the investing side? 

I'm a geotechnical engineer. What does that mean? Well, I'm a civil engineer who isn't a true civil engineer. I'm the dirt guy. We drill a lot of test borings to tell you if if your soil and rock are suitable to build on and if so, what you need to do to make it last. 

I get to also design retaining walls and remediate landslides which is enjoyable work. 

In reply to Scotty Con Queso :

I love you guys! How much clay and where are there sinkholes are my usual questions.

I'm a Project Manager for a very large (Top 3 global large) Engineering and Construction company.  Most of the last 15 years has been in the Life Sciences market, some gene therapy projects, but mostly bulk bio.  Currently managing the process buildings portion of a $2B greenfield life science project.  But in practicality I spend most of my day on conference calls managing the design team and interfacing with the client who are spread all over the world.  This will be my first large project getting built in almost  my back yard, so I get to live on the construction site after we ramp up the field work, and sleep in my own bed at night.  That's a rarity in my industry.   An industry that can be highly rewarding, but also stressful at times given the cost of the projects, and the size of the lost client revenue if projects are delivered late.

AAZCD (Forum Supporter) said:

thatsnowinnebago said:

I work in GIS (geographic information system) for a utility. I tell people I make maps, but I mostly deal in mobile data collection and mapping. I haven't really mapped anything myself in quite a long time. 

Somewhere along the way I got a Geography degree focusing in GIS. Never actually held a GIS job, but used all the tools in military planning and always loved playing with it.

My degree is in environmental science and I don't even go outside for work anymore. Funny where life takes us. 

I drive a fire truck.

I'm an architect too.

Post college, started out doing drafting for an Engineering firm. Then got into boutique (meaning: cost no object) residential and private club design - some small commercial. Since 2004 have been working on high rise condos and office buildings - except for an 18 month "walkabout" as a waterproofing consultant about five years back.

I'm not the flair pen guy. I won't tell you how much you're "going to love the space" and other such verbal masturbation. I do construction administration - aka the design completion phase. This means taking the "completed" (LOL) design and connecting the dots while the construction manager builds. I review submittals, un-tangle uncoordinated design documents, run pre-installation meetings with the build-team, and participate in a lot of project progress meetings. Answer RFI's - tuning up the drawings and specs along the way. Walk the job looking for problems, writing reports. Arm wrestle over change orders and try to keep the client's eye on the endgame instead of the bumps along the way.... most of this totally without a net, despite working for a firm of 1,500. 

It's berkeleying hard. I'd take a 20% pay cut for 20% less stress - in a heartbeat. If anyone thinks this sounds interesting please message me because we have a LOT of work in the Southeast and we need about four more of me right now. 

I’m in sales and project management for a commercial HVAC service company, it’s now just over 25 years that I’ve been doing this job.  I had 10 years in the service van before being brought in to give sales a try so yeah, 35 years in the business now.

I went to school to be a marine engineer but the shipping jobs dried up while I was still in school so I ended up in Connecticut building submarines.  Very cool job but an opportunity to get into the “family business” by going through the union apprenticeship program presented itself in 1986.  It was a tough decision at the time as I really enjoyed the work and the group I was in at EB but i didn’t want to pass up the chance and kick myself later.  

I was able to pick up service skills pretty quickly, it didn’t hurt that I’d grown up working with my dad as a “helper” on jobs and that I worked at a couple of great shops with plenty of variety job wise.   The combination of my engineering background combined with the field experience has been a huge asset in the sales / PM work.  

I’m the old guy in the shop now and have been doing 4 day weeks for about 3 years now.  Part of my work now is mentoring the younger guys and I’m really enjoying teaching.   I’m hoping to continue for a few more years with the mentoring becoming more of the focus so I have a little more flexibility while passing on as much as I can for the next generation.  

In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :

How do I do this without getting long winded or breaching an NDA...

Basically a lot of the cheaper ones are pretty much made in the same factory in China and it shows when you see the same steel deck and grass door on them side by side.  The lime green ones are ground up designs and the 21" flavor is assembled in the US with a good bit of US made parts.  The other green and grey mowers at the Blue Box Store are their own player, not owned by Yellow or Red or Green, and are about the only other DC mower worth the money.  The biggest thing to remember is it's all about the battery platform. You aren't buying a singular tool you are buying into a cordless platform.  That's the number one thing I tell people when they ask me about competitor products or who makes the best blah blah blah?

I'm a traveling ER nurse.

I fix people within my scope of practice and call doctors idiots, for your safety.

Lead tech at a general indie shop with a long history of being Honda specific but becoming more generalist a little before I was hired on.

I get all the Euro cars and Mazdas.  I actually LIKE working on Euro cars, so everyone's happy.  My job is more playing with scan tools and scopes and looking at Somedata while checking out Ididn'tfix and I Ain't Testing Nothin' for pattern failures before going on a goose chase.  I occasionally get to turn wrenches, too!

Definitely lower stress than my previous long-time gig in an indie shop that did a lot of performance work.  Plus, I don't hate working on my own stuff anymore.

ddavidv said:

Instead of a job where I never talk to customers I now have a job where I ONLY talk to customers. Imagine my joy.

berkeley dude, imagine *theirs*! 
I keed, I keed.

I develop systems that convert kinetic energy to thermal energy. I definitely do not develop systems that stop cars.

I'm two weeks away from having been retired for 13 years........I forget what I used to do.

Data analyst, thrilling E36 M3 for sure. 

Work for an automation company.  Have been a CNC programmer and machinist for many years but our company is moving rapidly away from making parts in house, so I'm still figuring out what my responsibilities and title truly are now...

Used to do field service on computers and printers and such.

When computers became disposable I switched to working on airplanes.

For about 10 years I owned a 15 unit apartment building... wish I'd never done that!

After that ended up as the national service manager for a company that made electric vans and shuttle busses... until COVID.

Now, I collect Social Security and wrench on karts at a local indoor track.  I have a short window yet where I could "un-retire" but no prospects.

Civil enginerd.  Primarily transportation structures. 

Spent 20 years designing things you drive over, under, or beside without thinking about unless you have a specific phobia.  My dental hygienist for most of that time had that phobia... 

Now I'm more in the construction admin arena (like OHSCrifle), for the same types of structures described above, and currently describe my job as "filler".   Meaning if there is a gap in responsibility, I'm the filler:  I review plans and specifications to try and predict/prevent construction issues so they can be revised prior to bidding; produce plans and specifications when everyone else goes "that's not my job," so we can get a project under contract; provide guidance, mentoring, and training to junior staff although I have no supervisory duties and no direct reports; review and approve/reject contractor designs for support systems that do not become part of the final structure; review and accept/reject installed foundation elements; review and accept/reject materials when the contract says "material shall be approved by the engineer" or the contractor wants to substitute materials that are not preapproved; review and accept/reject materials or installations that do not meet specification; review and accept/reject contractor repair procedures; review and approve/reject demolition plans; review and approve/reject change order requests exceeding a specified $ amount or that include a time extension; perform acceptance inspections; review and respond to contractor claims or requests for equitable adjustments; present to arbitration boards in defense against contractor claims; testify as an expert witness; and the number one item is - provide answers when our field guys call and say "I've never seen this before, what do we do now?"