If you don't work IT, retail, or food service what do you do for work?
Sometimes on Lemmy these seem like the only jobs that actually exist, but I'm sure there's a lot of people here with different and unusual lines of work.
Sometimes on Lemmy these seem like the only jobs that actually exist, but I'm sure there's a lot of people here with different and unusual lines of work.
Wastewater-based epidemiology. Basically we track infectious diseases in wastewater, and the results guide public health decisions.
As someone who is doing disaster response consulting for healthcare and public health: I fucking love you guys. You make my job sooo much easier.
Seriously.
The surveillance you folks do is pretty much indisputable and far more incorruptible compared to everything else we do, in healthcare especially.
Very often you are my "discussion ending gun" when decision makers endlessly want me to prove their (flawed) point of view. A "nope, here are validated wastewater based numbers, you are wrong" is extremely satisfying sometimes.
Thanks folks!
Love to hear it! 2 years ago I had no idea that I'd be working with wastewater but here I am now!
Anyone out here reading this, write to your senator about increasing funding to public health!
Thanks for helping make sure I don't shit myself to death. I assume you help with that.
Actually COVID is one of the most used tests they do, at least around here. But you can do things like drug use, cancer epidemiology (for some cancers), etc. as well - and that is incredibly helpful from a public health point of view.
Because it's just like with Covid - we can't get proper data from patient sided tests because we can't test everyone. And even if we could,not everyone would.
But everybody poops/pees. And guys like OP interpolate from that.
As Philpo said, we mainly do covid, but we can do Norovirus, which is a common GI virus that can give you the shits.
Thank you for your service! One of the best things to come out of the pandemic IMO.
I work in IT and I don’t like following rules
But do you use Linux?
I’m insulted that you would even ask me that. We are no longer internet friends.
Clearly not an arch user
You shall lie soulless in the wake of Debian’s righteous slaughter
Ahh, there it is. Linux user confirmed. :D
(?
Engineer (p.s. don't become an engineer, it's not as great as they sold it to us)
Ain't that how all professional service are nowadays.
Doctors is the last gig and it is getting gutted as we speak.
Facts. I was talking to my doctor who is moving to Denver for another job soon. He was telling me how bad it was getting.
The hospital+clinics are forcing them to spend less time with patients,overbooking their schedules, and ordering tests that aren’t medically necessary to get the most out of a patient.
He’s leaving for a private practice job that’ll allow him to have more say so, it’s sad those who have been with him for the last 10+ years won’t benefit from him being around anymore.
I disagree, I'm an engineer and I prefer it over not engineering positions. My only ragret is not keeping up with coding since it was my favorite subject in college
My husband is an engineer. He loves his job most days.
Do you feel like you could use coding in your daily business or is it just an interest you would like to pursue?
Not that guy, but also a (not-software) engineer. Coding is really great for a few things:
Unfortunately I cannot actually write code to save my life, but it'd be real useful if I could!
That’s why I went backwards from SE back to IT. I enjoy working with people directly and helping them. It’s also a hell of a lot easier in terms of hours and crunches (we have no crunches).
Basically, I had to decide whether I wanted the money and “glamour” of working on a well-known hot project or to be generally happy with my life. I’m a lot happier now.
I think it depends on your field of engineering and how much you enjoy the work. I find environmental engineering to be satisfying and a very dependable/lucrative income compared to many other non-engineering fields I might have been interested in.
Add to that most other fields that pay similarly or higher (doctor, lawyer, etc) require more/costlier schooling and it's a pretty sweet deal to be able to go into the job market with only a bachelor's or masters and making a decent wage right off the bat.
Of course the same enshittification/race to the bottom for prices affects us too but I don't know if there's any career that escapes that entirely.
I would also think maybe certain engineering fields are more stable than others. Mine is particularly recession-proof since we're driven by regulation (and bipartisan-supported regulation at that), not the economy. Massive layoffs are not that common in many of the other more "physical" engineering fields like structural, electrical, or mechanical either and even if you are laid off there is usually another company hiring. The skills are pretty portable as well so if you want to change careers you have a pretty good chance at being successful.
Is it a field of rainbows and butterflies? No, but it's a hell of a lot better than plenty of other jobs out there and it pays the bills.
I'm a Stonemason, and I work in conservation.
Nice! I’m a trim carpenter and I work in historic preservation. I’m a project manager now but I worked my way up from laborer.
OP clearly just wanted an excuse to show off their vast collection of response images....
Farmer!
Missed the opportunity to use Its not much but its honest work farmer. With the overalls, David Brandt.
When people work with hazardous materials, they hire me to make sure they do it safely or legally. I mostly work in waste handling, soil remediations and laboratories.
It's pretty fun and interesting, but it's been very bad for my enjoyment of homegrown food, swimming outdoors or going downwind of any industrial sites.
Safely OR legally? Shouldn't that be "and"?
Safely XOR Legally
"Either it's safe and it doesn't come up or it isn't and we have ourselves legally covered."
Thank you for what you do though, it's not glamorous work I'm sure but average person like me appreciates what you do
Welder. I make the sparky sparky hot and sticky with the metals.
I taught myself to weld (poorly, of course) but I love the satisfaction of joining two pieces of metal well, and getting in the zone and laying down a clean bead to be proud of.
I often wondered but don't know any welders to ask personally... Does doing it professionally take the fun out of it?
Nah. That's why I do it professionally. The only shit bit is that the longer you're in, the less you weld. When I started I had solid weeks of nothing but burning rod and shooting shit. Now it's all about fitup and tolerance and horseshit with me lucky to weld a couple hours one day a week. The actual satisfaction of putting down a nice bead and having the slag peel itself or oxidize just right never goes away.
Branch manager at a 3 trade business (HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical). Very much enjoy beating the competition and taking all of their great talent because they can’t treat them well. It’s not hard to actually give a damn about your people. Turns out, if you do that they like working for you and end up performing even more.
That is so true, thanks for being a good fellow tradesman!
I do cosplay erotica for a living. I make awesome costumes, I take them off, and just post to Patreon. I suppose it's kindof retail, as I'm giving the photos to people, as a reward for subscribing, but I set my own schedule and choose what goes out. The freedom is incredible
First, good on you. As a corpo wage slave who would not be good at either dressing up or removing said dressing, color me envious.
Second, any particular fandom pay the bills better than others?
Now that I'm asking I realize I probably don't actually want to know.
I specialize in powerful/domme energy characters, because unless you look like a little girl, you don't make money off the sweet/girl next door characters.
My most popular are Lady Dimitrescu (Resident Evil), Cammy (StreetFighter), Mad Moxxi (Borderlands), so video games, win!
Oh, and Velma... my most subscribers ever were for that set, but I shot with a porn star and it was my first girl on girl set. 😅
Where wobblers
Trusts and estates for high net worth clients.
Did anyone else notice that every single one of those business cards had "acquisitions" spelled incorrectly?
And it doesn't have a watermark, or most of the other stuff described. Bateman and everyone else at that table are a bunch of idiots who have no clue what they are talking about.
Lawyer. Wouldn’t really recommend.
I only practiced for about four years. Been orbiting around the contracting process flow at a giant tech company ever since, well over a decade.
My immediate bosses are better people, the hours are much better, and I don’t owe a special fiduciary duty to my employer. As boring day jobs go, it’s got its upside.
I run a business repairing consumer-grade 3D printers.
Hah! Did you paint that yourself? That's pretty cool.
No but I should add Scruffy to a Stargrave team.
Sick. I have so many issues with my 3d printer printing petg. Such a pain in the ass.
PETG just is a pain in the ass sometimes. Really sensitive to moisture, and it loves to stick to hot metal. So it has a tendency to overextrude because of the steam, and bunch up on the nozzle, causing all sorts of havok.
The key to printing it is just keeping it dry -- the latest batches I've held feel like they're way softer than I remember, so I suspect mfgs are putting more glycol in it than before.
Also, do a sanity check and go back and print PLA from time to time. Sometimes you won't realize something else is wrong and you'll blame it on the filament, but something like the idler arm on the extruder is broken, etc.
You can print it on Textured PEI, or Glass - but I suggest putting a little glue stick down to act as a release agent on the PEI - PETG and PEI bond together too well in some instances (ESPECIALLY on smooth PEI)
I used to work at a place that made envelopes and printed forms.
Fascinating seeing 12 foot tall stacks of rolls of paper.
Used to work at a newspaper, can confirm. Giant rolls of paper are pretty cool.
Me too, right when the digital age was taking over. I was young so they had me help design display ads in illustrator. We'd print out the ads with the articles on a laser printer. Cut them and arrange on a page that was then photographed. It was the future back then lol.
Nice try feds
I'm a therapist, and I train other therapists. And I supervise some therapists and I train other therapists to supervise other therapists. And I manage a team of therapists who train other therapists and who train other therapists to supervise other therapists.
Kind "in it" at this stage.
So, what do you do when you need therapy?
I find a therapist I don't know!
There's a few of them about!
Tower climbing grease monkey. Aka wind turbine technician.
Part plumber, part electrician, part IT, part jiffy lube, all crazy!
Im an electrician, it's pretty sweet if you ask me. Not necessarily the job itself, but the money you can earn doing side-jobs
Heh. I have an electrician friend who likes to say the biggest hazard in his line of work is other electricians' work.
It's my experience in technical professions that many people consider their improvised solutions to be clever and thoughtful, and other peoples' to be shoddy and dangerous.
Yeah, people are usually shocked when they find out how bad my electrical work actually is.
I have electrical issues. Any chance you're in North Texas?
I couldn't be further from you lol, I'm out in the Cincinnati area, Ohio
You could be .. In another country.
Audio engineer and composer. I do music for a lot of little indie games and short films, etc. and then I also mix music, and edit audio for corporate earnings calls.
The last one got my attention. Why exactly do earnings calls require audio editing?
So, your first thought might be for enhancing clarity using techniques like compression and limiting to give the calls a consistent volume and avoid spikes that might bust an ear drum.
This is partially true; I run all these calls through a compressor and limiter for that reason, though I am not encouraged by my employer to be obsessed with making the calls pristine...after all they are done on regular phone lines over regular phones (viz., not on nice microphone) and as such you can't exactly get Hollywood sound; you actually rarely useful data below 175 hrz and what is audible above 2500 us usually very useful when boosted (it becomes very essy, harsh, and hissy)
As a second consideration, many publicly traded companies, needing to carefully word their situations to their shareholders, will record two versions of their call and which one gets aired is dependent on news or other factors that come between the call and the airing of the call (could be a matter of hours, or a matter of days). This is also true to an extent and happens from time to time.
A third consideration you might have is, throat clearing, coughing, rummaging of papers. I'll tell you....the MFS have the driest mouths and lip smack louder than a firecracker. They also don't seem to realize if they shuffle papers next to the phone it will pick it up.
But no, even that is not the main reason.
The main reason they need to pre-record is because they can't read. They can't read simple sentences. I've picked a sentence out at random, and knowing nothing about their insane vernacular (we had fantastic EBITDA margins that gross outstanding for the coming tailwinds that outshine our core foundation pillars and drivers of growth) I was able to read them without messing up.
And yet they....will frequently have to read the same sentence 2-10 times. I'm not kidding. Most of these CEOs are fucking imbeciles and mean ones at that. They can barely read a sentence without fucking up. It sometimes takes me an hour to edit together a 15 min call.
On rare occasions it's because they care. I'm under NDA but I'll just say I have worked with a certain publicly traded meat-alternative company that has a lot of re-recording and edits but it's because their CEO (seems to me) very passionate about what he's doing and agonizes over the right word choices even up until the moment of recording. Props to him. He's taking pride in what he does and can actually read a full sentence.
Other people on the other side of the spectrum can't even be bothered to read their script before they show up and don't know how to pronounce their own product names.
TL;DR: I am mostly there to make sure I have a clear pronunciation of every line of the script, take notes on where there are errors, and edit the script together to make a coherent whole at the end without any gross factual error. I do a little bit of processing to get rid of throat clearing, make the volume consistent.
As an actor who once spent an entire 14 hour day saying only "¡Vamos!", it's not always a sign that you're bad if you have to do a lot of takes.
I'm a storyboard artist/3d generalist. Basically I draw all day, everyday for short films and TV shows. I find it pretty awesome because A) I love to draw and now I get paid to do it which is, from what I understand, very uncommon for artists. B) I'm helping shape a story from basically beginning to end. C) I also get to do silly voices sometimes when they need someone to fill in.
But, a big downside is that I'm sitting and staring at a screen around 6 to 7 hours a day which destroyed my eyes and I get leg strain sometimes from sitting. I want to get a stand up desk eventually.
If you work for a large-ish company you should look into getting ergonomic accomodations sooner than later. In the US anyway many companies want to avoid the workman's comp claims from repetitive stress injuries like carpal tunnel and whatever debilitating circulation issues sitting in a crap chair 8 hours daily causes.
I coordinate an academic makerspace at a college.
I did work in IT, but now I'm retired young. I could go back to work and make double my income, but I just don't wanna. I'd rather have less income with a stable, comfortable life and the freedom to do whatever I want every day, than spend all day stuck in a job just to have no free time to enjoy the extra money I'd be bringing home.
I'd too choose freedom over more money anyday.
How did you retire early and at what age? If you don't mind my asking
I served in the US military. I was in the Air Force, but my profession was IT, so I spent my whole service working as a sysadmin.
You can officially retire and collect a pension after only 20 years served. I joined at 18, so I retired at 38 years old. Normally, a 20-yr pension isn't enough to fully retire on, but I got a bit messed up during my service. The VA gave me a 100% disability rating, which includes a monthly pay bigger than my pension! Plus. My wife also served and was medically discharged with a 100% disability rating as well. So she gets the same medical benefits and pay as I do (minus a pension).
With all three sources of passive income, we can live without working. We're not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but we pull in enough to live comfortably and have all our basic needs met.
Like I said, I could go back into the IT field and double my current income (or more), but then I'd be stuck working all the time again, and I don't want to do that. The military was a 24/7 gig for 20 years. "Service Before Self" was one of our core values; we always had to prioritize the mission over our personal lives, and we could be recalled to work any time, day or night. So it's nice to actually have some "me time" now, where no one can make me go anywhere or do anything. Not looking to go back to work and give that up so soon.
Thanks for your service soldier. I wanted to retire too, but at 8 years my bop code expired and I got a nice little email congratulating me on becoming an mtl at Sheppard. I bop'd out of Texas and there was no way they were getting me to go back. It sucks because I did really like the air Force but the transition from e4 mafia to nco blew lol. No longer do your job and instead I was pushing paper and disciplining troops for ditching pt. And then do only that for 3 years for high schools kids in middle of nowhere Texas? 😂 Denied the retraining, cert'd up my last year, then got a job doing my same job with less work and for way more pay. The air Force classic lol.
Always glad to hear a good retirement story though. Most of the people I knew who retired were jaded as hell by the end of it. Hopefully the air Force didn't break your body too bad though... Have a cold one for me! Air power!
Yeah, I was pretty jaded by the end of my career. Couldn't wait to retire, which is why I left as soon as I qualified for retirement. I served exactly 20 years and 6 days.
I only made it to Technical Sergeant (E-6), but it was my ideal rank. I had enough rank and authority to manage personnel and resources, but I was also the technical expert and could get down on the ground level and do the work alongside my Airmen and NCOs. All career fields operate differently, but my IT field specifically didn't allow Senior NCOs to do the job. They were upper-management; they always got put behind a desk and made to do paperwork, pass down orders, and oversee projects.
I didn't want that for myself, so I stopped trying to promote once I made TSgt. I expected I'd have to keep working once I retired, so I wanted to stay technical and keep my IT certifications and experience strong, so I could transition into a high-paying gig on the outside.
Little did I know that I'd earn that coveted 100% Permanent & Total disability rating. Now my medical and dental costs are covered for life and my monthly VA check is bigger than my pension, so I'm essentially making a little bit more money than when I was serving, just to sit on my ass all day. So... yeah, I'm enjoying that hard-earned freedom right now.
After a long and lucrative IT career I got a certificate in Ecological Restoration. I now do land stewardship, monitoring and maintaining habitats. Literally outstanding in my field, or marsh, or scrubland...
I used to be a Janitor, and now I'm a web designer. I still go to trash businesses and make them all pretty.
Health care. The things I've seen!
Quite literally, and when you mix that with meth, a hemorrhoid, and a razor, it gets really real very fast.
Teach at a university
I did think that after I commented. Mais non, teaching English Linguistics in France.
I put $1000 in bitcoin in 2012
Then i wake up from my dream and calibrate temperature sensors on medical refrigerators
I fight with landlords.
Thank you for your service. 🫡
I'm glad to see there's a few of us in the 5 figure salary club here!
I'm scientific support for a major pharma company. I tell people my job is essentially to be Hank Hill, as I'm in charge of compressed and liquid gases. I keep everyone squared away with liquid nitrogen, liquid helium, liquid argon, and any number and size of gas cylinder.
It's not a bad job. Pay is ok for what I do, people are generally nice, and most days I'm done the bulk of my work in 2-3 hours, so the rest of the time is mine unless someone needs something.
The rest of the day I'll prep and respond to posts here, study music, read comics or books, and watch cartoons. Nobody seems to care as long as the work gets done.
It's low stress and a decent environment, so I got no complaints. It's not as good as my last job, doing data analysis of hazardous chemicals. The place was generally run really well and almost all my work was doing daily reports on inventory. I made macros to do everything, so my work was done in less than half an hour most days and I got to work at home.
Being a nobody in pharma is pretty great as long as your group is cool.
I'm a museum curator based in Europe (very different from the Americas). It's a wonderful job of travel, being close to history and bringing some goodness into the world, if you don't mind the salary of working for a charity.
Librarian at a PreK-5 school (3-11 years old). I teach 45 minute classes to everyone each week. 700 kids, 32 classes. Less stress than classroom teaching while still following the same schedule.
I'm an artist in animation ✏️
I'm in IT, but one of my lifelong friends is a radio tower climber. He drives up to the mountains, climbs these 500' radio towers, and repairs them. Another close friend is an audio engineer. Another close friend owns a taxi company in a small tourist town. Another friend is a building maintenance manager. Another friend is a regional bank manager. There are millions of jobs out there. Lemmy just attracts a specific kind of person.
I manage money and people.
Pimp?
Insurance claims investigation. In-house PI, essentially
Kinda like that but I'm fatter and swarthier
I’m a water engineer!
Sourcing, recycling, and transporting
You MAKE water!? How?
One part oxygen, two parts hydrogen and squeeze.
They must have to stamp on it really hard
I work with school kids who have disabilities.
Prosthetist. I work with patients to make and fit artificial limbs to them.
Sounds like you are pretty handy.
That’s awful. You don’t even have a leg to stand on
Well he had to get a foot in the door somehow.
I’m gonna have to put my foot down, this is completely inappropriate. You’d think his ears were burning but he nose what he did there, he’s gonna put his foot in his mouth if he’s not careful.
Environmental engineer. I clean up chemical messes like oil spills, and make sure that the resulting land is safe enough for people to live on it.
It's fun and challenging, if somewhat depressing at times. Some things take a LONG time to clean up. On the plus side, I have great job security.
I did this right out of college. I'm not sure if it was the LNAPL measurements or the asbestos abatements but I really needed to get out of that industry.
Yeah I feel you on that, the fieldwork stage of the job can get tiring really fast, especially with the more routine stuff like asbestos and LNAPL spills. Vapor intrusion work is less of a bear, we're doing a lot of that lately and it's nice because it's indoors in the winter. I work in a larger company with a variety of projects so I'm not always doing the same thing and that definitely helps. In my current company people do tend to graduate out of the field positions fairly quickly (like 5 years) and move on to a desk job or at least a partial desk job but those first few years when you're in the field a lot can be hard and maybe impossible if you have any dependents that keep you from traveling.
Sound and communications technician. I put cables in the walls, floors or ceilings for structured cabling projects.
Not glamorous work but, I get to be in large buildings and, most of the time I work in climate controlled occupied space.
Snack food manufacturing, running machines that put snacks into bags and then those bags into boxes.
No fork lift access unfortunately!
I'm a linehaul driver, pic from my first day at this job. I pull a set of double-trailers back and forth between two company terminals overnight. Same route each time, home every day. Pretty chill and easy work, I just listen to audiobooks and podcasts all night as I try not to slap anyone with my back trailer. any recommendations for something new to listen to I'd love to hear it
Darknet Diaries. Jack Rhysider explains the world of hacking and digital espionage fluently in ways your Grandmother would understand. Though his best episodes are the ones with guest appearances.
I highly recommend Science Vs, 99% Invisible, and Cautionary Tales. Pretty good if you're into nerdy stuff. I also recommend Endless Thread if you're interested in stories about the internet. What audiobooks have you enjoyed recently?
Musician / music teacher.
It's pretty cool
How many years did you prepare the image collection before asking this question, OP?
I work in IT, by the way. (Don't use Arch though, Tumbleweed crew represent!)
I work as a theatre tech (light and sound) at a college(theatre arts department). I do however use Linux and made some scripts in Python to control my ligtdesk and sound table. So a bit of IT related work. But also talk with students about the creative part of lights, sound and projection and how they can use it during and after there study in there shows.
I also do some shows for them in the small Theatre in the college and outside the college.
And give them a workshop teaching them the basics and how they can tell to a tech what they want and how they can do somethings themselves.
I teach middle school
Thank you for your service 🫡
Machine maintenance / Macgyver. We make air filters and I have to make sure the machines that make them are running.
I also do any other random jobs. Currently I'm creating a simple webpage to submit machine issues that get sent to a Google sheet and an email sent out.
I also machine metal replacement parts. Of course I make any personal projects I want to as well.
Construction electrician
me too. just started actually. well actually VDV
I'm a rope access industrial radiographer.
Edit: colloquially known as a "bomber"
Had to look this up. So you climb up stuff to get radio data or what does that entail? Why do they call you "bomber"?
I've never heard of this job, but with a search or two, it sounds kind of like he rappels to points on tall structures to check for structural issues and such using X-rays.
Software engineer, aka glorified code-monkey. Ook!
You might say that my job fits under the umbrella of IT, but no, it's totally a different thing! ;)
Me, without the title. Lol.
Yep, that's basically my job 😂
But do you like fritos?
How about Tab and Mountain Dew?
Code monkey very simple man
With big warm fuzzy secret heart
Electronics RF Engineer, working with legal compliance. Loads of calculations and paperwork. Occasionally, I'll get to test something with cool expensive equipment.
Production of commercial robots. Though, I just lost my job and the job I was going to pulled out last minute, so next week, I won’t be working on anything.
Best of luck, friend. Hope everything works out for you.
Thanks, I’m interviewing at a couple places soon, fingers crossed. Considering posting up my soldering skills on Facebook buy/sell/trade groups if I don’t find anything soon to hold me over. There’s always people who need their HDMI ports or such repaired and no one around here offers it, I just haven’t had the time since I’ve been working so much. That would require making a new Facebook though, since I deleted mine years ago.
Whilst I am doing a CS degree now, for the last 9 years I was a 5 axis CNC machinist for stone products. I still do It part time as they haven't found a replacement yet (after a year lmao).
Bridge Inspector for state DOT/DOH.
Mathematics Lecturer (just teaching foundation mind).
It's far more fun than people think, but with next to no real holidays (summer is actually quite busy). Also it sucked being on temporary contract, because you had no idea if you'd have work in 12 months no matter how good you were.
I drive a tugboat and transport clean oil on the East and Gulf Coasts.
What's clean oil?
It's refined petroleum products like gas, diesel, kerosene/jet fuel.
Manufacturing. Can't sell shit if you don't make it first.
Embedded Software Engineer. Like the software that would run on a coffee maker, medical equipment, bulldozer, etc.
Thats feckin dope!!
State government paper pusher
Your dedication to finding appropriate responses is appreciated.
I'm a wedding photographer. My dad was a wedding dj and I grew up around the wedding industry. I went to school for art and photography was my focus. Wedding photographer just made sense. I love what I do and I can't imagine anything else.
Soon to be qualified plumber, maybe a month to go or so.
I salute you, future turdherder.
Had a plumber friend joke that what he learned in plumbing school was, "Shit flows downhill and payday is Friday." As an adult I think plumbers really earn their money when the shit is flowing the wrong direction. Here's to a great career filled with... Interesting challenges.
I'm a professional Bastard
They said no IT.
Prep school teacher for international middle school kids hoping to go to an English-speaking high school.
Teach all the basic intro classes in an accelerated high school curriculum the semester before they attend high school so that when they get there the language barrier, new facts and different educational style doesn't crush them mercilessly.
Electrical Designer - HVAC switchboards & systems primarily
I'm an endlessly adjuncting philosophy professor. Going back to law school in the fall at age 38.
It's the correct move. I know a few Phd pro Ph who went this route in their 30s.
Instead of just listening to U1 students with the same bad takes/logic, they now help people with actual tangible problems in the real world.
They also went from "maybe I can afford name brand beans" to "maybe I shouldn't eat out every day this week".
Power ranger (erectrician)
Conference & Event Services for a local college.
(I didn't know what that meant until I started here, but essentially, we are the campus party planners)
I work 400 hours a month in order to feed people that think I'm trying to kill them.
I do customer service for a shipping company. Alot of my calls are just people complaining about how much this company sucks ( they are not wrong ) but work from home and put very little effort in my job and spend a lot of time gaming at work . I also have a morning job delivering news papers and amazon packages which I actually kind of like but does not have full time opportunities.
Law
Drive people to the hospital.
Is your job really a dangerous as they make it out to me? Like I understand the lights and trying to rush through traffic can be dangerous but don't most people just kind of pull off to the side like you're supposed to?
Just my opinion here, but once the thrill of driving lights and sirens wears off (which is unfortunately quite soon) you realise that the benefit to risk ratio isn't what you thought. People are supposed to pull over (this varies by jurisdiction), but in reality people panic and do a lot of irrational and unexpected things. Which is why are probably a lot more choosy about it's use than people realise, at least here (heading to the hospital - heading to a call is based on the caller's description and dispatch, but we are allowed to nope for safety). It also doesn't save the time one thinks it does (but it's pretty slick for getting through lights - this is the time saver).
I don't blame drivers though. They're trying to do the right thing but everyone has a different idea of that even if it's to full-stop in place. There was no formal training for me as a driver on what to do when sirens approach, and if there was it was changed since and muddied by countless buddy tales. For example, here you are supposed to pull to the closest side, but used to be the right IIRC. Sirens are HARD to hear when driving and blaming drivers for loud music is kinda bullshit when sirens aren't actually that effective. Lights are ineffective in some environments. Other environments have multiple sirens going on.
Statistician.
But the Simpsons lied to me. I have not been offered the opportunity to go to space.
I helped design large-ish electrical grids. 30-100k cables
Without the actual calculation bits, unfortunately.
Not very interesting. Bad software. Management didn't really care about the problem. I was there so the problem was "managed" from their point of view.
Grumpy sound guy.
Does consulting for energy utilities helping them improve their mapping systems (GIS) count as IT? I do manage cloud infrastructure but also assist with all the various pieces and parts that go into digital maps and integrations.
Yeah i would call anything actually working in GIS beyond reading what's there or adding dots or lines to it an IT job.
Construction carpenter. I do a majority of the tasks for building most structures. From rough structure to final touches I do a lot.
I'm a case manager for a local org that supports people with intellectual disability. I like my job, I set my own hours, and even if there was no profit motive it would still need to be done. My only complaint is where I brush up against the capitalistic intersection, so the county is our funder and they really pinch every penny compared to, say the sheriffs' office.
I work at a shipyard servicing and rebuilding engines.
Engineering
helping professional. i won't be more specific here.
I love the vagueness! Could be many things and sets the imagination whirring.
I also love this comment because it implies the existence of an "unhelpful professional" which is a wonderful distinction.
😆 some days i feel unhelpful! i was thinking after posting, i don't mind saying i'm a therapist, just prefer not to identify my specific field/licensure.
edit - ... as i'm trying to make myself not-too-identifiable.
Correspondence delivery profesional
(postal worker)
I’m an engineer in a manufacturing environment
Currently as intern at a municipality as financial advisor. Hoping to get a job from within the municipality.
Manufacturing
Quality Director for a multinational manufacturing company
I used to fix radios, does that count as IT? I would mostly just swap cards since everything's digitized now but every now and then I would get something old and have to jury rig it because the parts haven't been manufactured in over ten years.
Before that I worked at Target, before that I was in theatre, and I'm currently back in school.
Intermediate CS teacher
Quality manager in a plastic extrusion manufacturing facility.
My primary job is IT, but I am starting a farm and worked on one as a teenager.
I was/am a compositor/vfx artist for film and tv, but the industry has imploded over the last year so it's been a few months.
Healthcare
UPS delivery
Solar installer, I put solar panels on things and get them working. Recently my company got a reputation for competence with floating solar arrays so we've been traveling to build and fix them all over the country. Electricity and water is a fun combo.
I teach kids how to do physics, and how to write about doing physics.
I work as a car photographer in a dealership. We sell cars online so whenever we get a new car or someone trades in their car I take pictures of all the features the car has. However when there's few cars for me to photo I'm also responsible for checking what cars are dirty. My only complaint is that I don't really care about Toyotas and I work for a Toyota dealership
Maintenance, transitioning into automation tech.
Realtor and brand and marketing consultant for our brokerage. Not the astronaut or veterinarian I pictured myself as a kid. But still, I’m happy :)
I'm a psychiatric RN out in the community. I work with people who have thought disorders like schizophrenia at their homes or under the bridges.
I sell gold and silver over the phone.
So, a scammer.
Watch the mentally disabled. Most of the time they just need a friend so I get paid to hangout with em. Just gotta make sure they get their meds and food on time. Hell a few weeks ago I got paid to go to a baseball game cause he wanted to go.
Assuming you don't have to help them shower, or potty, that sounds like an awesome job! Does it pay a living wage?
Emergency humanitarian response program planning/monitoring/evaluation with a UN agency.
I'm a product development engineer in the biomedical industry. Although from what I read it seems I should have taken a few extra courses in school and gone into software engineering. However I do still enjoy my work (not more than not having to work, but still.)
Quality control chemist testing pharmaceuticals. Most of what we do is for clinical trial use and research purposes. It's been a good job.
I'm a truck driver, well nowadays more in the office than behind the wheel but I do still pull loads here and there.
And you pull my load of bullshit onto Lemmy!
I unironically love ya!
Well just keep bringing me your loads and I'll uh.... yeah what I mean to say is thanks.
HSE consultant: I teach people how not to be in the next Darwin Awards
I'm a hydraulic fitter. I repair and maintain hydraulic systems, primarily on earthmoving equipment.
Mechanical engineer in the space industry
Behavioral healthcare
Drink service
CNC machining. It's manufacturing; I work with titanium, inconel, and on occasion steel.
Commercial wide format print shop owner
I approve people applying for disability benefits.
That's awesome! Most others seem to only deny people applying for disability benefits.
Budget analyst
Healthcare. I'm the senior Pharmacy Tech for our little independent psych pharmacy.
Before joining healthcare, I worked both food service, and have my degree in Computer Science. I try to keep my passion of food alive in my home kitchen, and mix CS into my job responsibilities, and hobbies.
Transportation engineer (in training) working for an engineering consulting firm! Primarily helping design active transportation infrastructure and road reconstructions.
Quality tech in manufacturing
I manage a service engineering team for semiconductor equipment.
Acquisitions manager for a library
Safety adviser currently in airport safety
You just clock in everyday say don't use Boeing and then leave?
Does it count if i used to work in IT?
I still work in IT but I used to too.
In my youth I worked at a 24 hour gas station/restaurant for 2 weeks. It was robbed twice (not while i was there) and someone hit and ran and smashed up my car all in 2 weeks. But i did get unlimited coffee, pop and donuts (after 6pm) so overall I'd give it a 3/5.
Category Buyer for a large manufacturing company.
I'm a real engineer.
Not unusual but accountant in a private company. Accounting, like IT, is great because you can work at just about any company. Though to be fair I do some IT like most accountants, there is overlap since so much of the systems work is accounting systems, I'm sure the IT guys feel they are doing some accounting.
Physician associate in mental health
Nonprofit
Honey dipper, lighthouse keeper, lamp lighter, encyclopedia deliveries, phrenologist, and whaler.
I’m in IT now, but before that, I worked in construction. I operated tunnel boring machines that dug tunnels for underground metros. It was super interesting work, and I’m glad I did it, but it was incredibly tough.
Screenprinting. I also did work as a quality tech for machining. Manufacturing jobs in general do not seem to get any public recognition even though they can be some of the most engaging and can cater to a lot of people that don’t enjoy the employee-customer relationship.
That being said, finding the sweet spot for management can be a challenge.
It’s a career path that’s practically ignored in schools and I wish math classes used more examples from engineering and manufacturing to answer the age-old “Where am I ever going to use this?” question.
Engineering at national lab
High school teacher (Latin)
For the US:
https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/employment-by-major-industry-sector.htm
I don't really have a title, but I work in a factory.
Go to college kids. Fuck the expense, you still get many more opportunities that a factory scumbag like myself does not. If you don't know what you want or what you're capable of, who cares. Go anyway for anything and you'll meet people who you can network with and you'll be exposed to classes and topics you might not ever have considered. I'm the only scumbag failure in my friend group who didn't go to college and I'm the only loser working in a literal sweat shop while they all work from home with very nice salaries and wives/husbands they met at college. I'm still single.
Go to college.
Go to college for something that you can get a good job in. I have an associates and my friend has a masters. I make more than she does, and always have in our respective carriers.
Just saying "fuck the expense" is the reason she got her batchelors in art sculpting, and had to get a masters in something more practical.
Not to argue too heavily with your valid life experience, but I was one of the few in my friend group who did not go to college, yet I am doing somewhat what I want to do (tech related) while my friends do nothing related to their degree and make less :/
It's not a surefire way to get a better job unfortunately.
I'm of th opinion people like you should make more money and upper management should make less. No point in hiring management if no one works your factory. Manufacturing is some of the most important work there is
Before I worked IT, I was a job coach. I helped individuals with disabilities perform their jobs and teach them skills and all that. It was pretty cool because they sent me to all kinds of different places. I did work in a hydroponics non-profit, a senior center, a DMV, a bank, and some other places. It was pretty cool and most of the individuals I worked with were really nice and cool.
I'm a software developer. I work in automotive and do a bit of everything from embedded programming to cloud based software.
Commercial Real Estate Lending - Portfolio Management. I monitor loans for losses and collect periodic financial statements. I hate it. I used to do business loan underwriting and trying to get back into that. Had a dream job lined up but ended up failing the background check because of a bankruptcy 6 years ago.
BDE
Construction Superintendent. But did IT work when I was younger haha.
Lumberjack (tree care professional)
I work in electrical power delivery for municipal transportation, supervision-level. Before that, I was a shoreside engineer (basically a mechanic, not an engineering degree) in marine services. My work has always come very organically, often starting in floor-sweeping assistant positions.
Engineering.
Key Account Management
Licensed US Customs Broker, I help my clients navigate getting their goods imported through US Customs.
Found the drug smuggler with connections to cartels.
Physician Assistant in a Radiology dept.