What do YOU do for a living?

Topic: What do YOU do for a living? (Read 6844 times) previous topic - next topic

What do YOU do for a living?

March 05, 2007, 11:32:42 AM

Just wondering what y'all do to pay the bills and stuff, lol.
I ain't askin' how much ya make, just what ya actually do day-to-day...

I farm a couple small farms, one is 160 acres, the other is 190, mainly soybeans, wheat, and the 190 acre place is hay, and some of the pasture there is also in a Conservation Reserve Program, which at first was started to help control erosion, but now is geared more toward wildlife assistance, mainly quail, pheasant, and to a lesser degree, whitetail deer.

All that aside, I'm going to be moving soon, to work for a Ford dealership. Pretty excited about that, and I'll be on the transportation/delivery side of things.
I've also worked at a plastic bottle manufacturer, a food processing outfit, a pharmaceutical factory, and my last job other than the off-and-on farming was working at the junkyard, where I started as a parts-puller, ending up as the main mechanic after their first guy left.

SO...Lets hear what YOUR job(s) are....lol

What do YOU do for a living?

Reply #1 – March 05, 2007, 11:43:03 AM

I served 5 years in the USAF,got out as a Staff Sergeant after the Persian Gulf War in '91 (signed up for 4 years,spent 14 months over in the Gulf,ended up doing 5 years).I then was a city patrolman (2 years),now I work for the Veteran's center here in town (13 1/2 years now),where I'll retire from.My military time adds to that,so,18 1/2 years towards the good life.

What do YOU do for a living?

Reply #2 – March 05, 2007, 11:43:46 AM

My whole work history has been restrant/food oriented. I've worked at a hometown pizza shop, A small town restrant, and right now I'm a part time cook/waiter for an itillian restrant. Pay sucks, beraly enough to pay bills ( and thats only my cell bill and DSL and to fund the car) but there is really nothing in this town.

What do YOU do for a living?

Reply #3 – March 05, 2007, 11:52:44 AM

Hey Fila,start hitting the yards and gathering parts and sell them on E-bay.That's what helps fund project Pheonix.

What do YOU do for a living?

Reply #4 – March 05, 2007, 12:01:42 PM

I'm an engineer in the HVAC group at Caterpillar tractor company.

What do YOU do for a living?

Reply #5 – March 05, 2007, 12:17:50 PM

Currently doing drafting for a small industrial process engineering firm (lots of fabricated steel drawings) that is a sales rep for Metso slurry pumps, so we mostly do work for coal mines & prep plants, and occasionally sand & gravel quarries. Pay sucks, but I'm hoping to get some experience here and move on to bigger and better things as I don't think I'll ever make any real money here.

I do like the casual environment though, I can wear jeans, a t-shirt, and a hat to work if I want.

What do YOU do for a living?

Reply #6 – March 05, 2007, 12:25:38 PM

I am in research and development for Bridgestone Firestone. I get to play with rubber all day.

What do YOU do for a living?

Reply #7 – March 05, 2007, 12:28:54 PM

I think we already did this... but I've changed jobs since then anyways.... i think.

Anyhoos, my first job I was working in a local grocery store. Worked for two more chain grocery stores before I realized I hated the consumer goods industry. Got a job working for the local utility company doing basic manual labor up until I graduated high school. That was probably the second best job I ever had. Just riding around in a truck all day fixing stuff. Good times. Afterwards I joined the Navy as an Electronics Technician. Got court martialed and discharged two years later. Starting working for a small family owned Engineering Services company soon afterwards doing building surveys, GIS, and eventually CAD. Working for a small family owned business sucks! They treat you like family. A dysfunctional one. Did that bit for about 4-5 years... was laid off for about a year and a half of that. It just so happened that when I moved to Detroit they had an office up here.

Just recently started working for an International Environmental Company about 5 months ago and is hands down the best job I have ever had. After seeing what ends up in our groundwater, I'm starting to get a little conservative myself. It's kinda funny how things come full circle as when I was a kid I wanted to be a scientist. Well I ain't a scientist but working for them is close enough for me. :)

What do YOU do for a living?

Reply #8 – March 05, 2007, 12:31:49 PM

Quote from: Ether947;132632

Afterwards I joined the Navy as an Electronics Technician. Got court martialed and discharged two years later.

Dude, what'd you do?

What do YOU do for a living?

Reply #9 – March 05, 2007, 12:38:45 PM

^He got caught wiring up a honkin' big stereo in his quarters on-board! lol j/k

(ok kick my ass now

) lmao

What do YOU do for a living?

Reply #10 – March 05, 2007, 01:05:40 PM

I am a Research Assistant in the field of Child Development and Enrichment.
It's the best job I've ever had, even though I don't get paid for it.

Oh and my husband is a truck driver. He delivers locally to restaurants, bars and other food service places. (he gets paid)

What do YOU do for a living?

Reply #11 – March 05, 2007, 01:26:38 PM

My first job was a parts guy at Canadian Tire. HATED IT. I hated the store, the employees and the customers. I hated people calling and asking for a part for their car without knowing anything about it ("yeah, I need a distributor cap for my Sunbird. Don't know the year or engine. Ya got one?").Then they get pissed off when they get the wrong part.

I lasted about three months, then quit to go to trade school.

After trade school I put my resume in at every dealership and shop in the city, and only got a call back from a small radiator/gas tank shop. Nice people to work for, but the work itself sucked - the rads weren't so bad, but the gas tanks were a pain. That and the fact that I was the new guy, meaning lowest on the totem pole, meaning I got all the shiznit jobs AND I had to make all the deliveries. After a few months I was pretty disgusted and depressed. Then, one day, four dealerships that I had dropped my resume off at called. It was a few months after I dropped them off, but all four called on the same day. The dealerships were Saturn, Chevy, Chrysler, and Ford. I chose the Saturn dealership thinking hat working on new Saturns had to be better than working on old Cavaliers, K-Cars and Tempos. Little did I realize that the Saturn dealership also included Saab and Isuzu (both way, WAY worse than working on any Chevy, Dodge or Ford), as well as the occasional Daewoo (Optima, or Pontiac LeMans to you Americans). That job lasted four years, then I got rear-ended and injured my back/neck. I tried several times to go back to work but it was never successful, and in the meantime the Saturn dealership cut my hours back to part time because of the injuries. I don't begrudge them that - after all, they only had four bays and needed a capable mechanic in each, and the shop manager knew I was done for in that trade, even if I didn't.

Unfortunately part time work doesn't pay full time bills. I left Saturn and did a six month stint at a Chevy dealership that involved a 1.5 hour commute EACH WAY. I was getting deeply depressed, as the more I worked the more it became obvious that I could not do this work anymore. I had three doctors telling me to quit, but I couldn't because of bills. It was in returning home from this job that I wrecked my Cougar one Friday evening in April 99. I quit the following Monday. I had had enough, and the Cougar crash opened my eyes - I could've died, and I would've died unhappy.

Thankfully, with all the doctors agreeing that it was due to the original crash that I could not work (I had been seeing them before the Cougar crash) so insurance restarted my meagre benefits. They also recommended I see a career specialist to talk retraining. We all agreed that I should be in an automotive environment. I tried a stint as a service advisor - the only job I hated more than that Canadian Tire job. One day I had to leave work with a kidney stone. I went to the hospital, they gave me painkillers and sent me home. While lying on the bed in absolute agony (those of you who have not experienced a kidney stone do not even know what pain is) my boss called and gave me shiznit for leaving. This was it. I told him what I thought of him and about four generations of his family and hung up.

The next day I went in at about noon to get my walking papers. The boss asked me into his office and had the nerve to say "I know you were under the influence of painkillers yesterday, so I know you didn't mean what you said. Just apologize and we'll forget about it". I reiterated my hatred for his entire family and left.

I went from there to my current job, which I've had since 2000. Building cop cars. It's kind of a light-duty mechanic job, mainly running wires but occasionally building and installing steel cages. I was doing this full time up until a few years ago, when my shop lost the RCMP contract and I was laid off. During my layoff I started Thundercat Electronixx (actually I had started it a bit before the layoff but could never devote much attention to it). My shop then got the contract back, but I was doing too well with TC Electronixx so I only agreed to go back part time.

That leaves me where I am now: Three days a week I build cop cars. The other four I do TC Electronixx stuff and post on message boards :D

What do YOU do for a living?

Reply #12 – March 05, 2007, 01:30:32 PM

Quote from: Red_LX;132633

Dude, what'd you do?

Oh, lol... nothing bad. Well I was 18-19 and I although I really liked the Navy (almost signed back up a couple years later... I still miss it to this day) I was still a kid who didn't really like to be told when and where I could go. I got in trouble a lot. Mainly with the Chief Petty Officers because they were old school. One day I just said the hell with it and when AWOL... until my uncle found me (Ex-Military and super old school. Did I mention huge?)... went back without getting caught. I had to lie to get off base. Apparently it worked very well. lol.

About a year later I got orders to my carrier (USS Harry S Truman) and I loved the ship, but I had way too much idle time on my hands. Went AWOL again. This time I was just screwing around with some friends on various bases in the area. In Norfolk, there's a million of them. Got caught by the base police... my buddy turned himself in earlier... I think he tipped them off. Jerk. lol. Anyhoos, got a minor court martial hearing, I told them I didn't want to be there anymore... they actually tried to change my mind, but I was done. They dropped me a rank (which pissed me off because I was due to gain a rank), docked my pay, sent me to the brig and sent me home on the worst bus ride ever. I got an Administrative Separation which is pretty much middle of the road discharge. You have to do something pretty f-ed up to get a dishonorable discharge.

What do YOU do for a living?

Reply #13 – March 05, 2007, 02:07:23 PM

Good old Carmen. Always good for writing a book.

I'm a Concrete Reinforcement Detailer for the local Construction Steel supplier. I work on outsorced detailing jobs from New England (mostly). Just another way to say Drafter.

Right now I'm cleaning up the muddled mess of a structural drawing my neighbour (next desk over) made. She couldn't have even been trying. If she hadn't gotten busy with fixes to old projects (seeing something here) I never would have gotten this job to clean up (they call it finish). I can't imagine if this had actually made it to the client. Only about 50% of the steel would have worked.

I was new to the industry once too, but this lesson should have been learned by now. They put dimensions on drawings for a reason, now drop the scale.

What do YOU do for a living?

Reply #14 – March 05, 2007, 02:08:39 PM

I am a production line welder. I build Freight cars for the railroads, for National Steel Car. Great Job, Great pay, Full benifits. Nothing to complain about, except that I just got laid off last week, after 3.5years. oh well, now I finally have time to work on the coug.