Just curious, what do you guys actually do for a living?
Scrolling through comments here, you can tell there’s a huge mix of people, some clearly technical, some more creative, some who sound like they’ve been in the working world for decades, others who feel like students or early in their career.
No particular reason for asking, just genuinely curious what kind of professions make up this community. Feel free to keep it as vague or specific as you’re comfortable with.
Drop your profession below, and if you want, one thing about it people usually don’t expect.
Space shuttle door gunner. It’s a surprisingly easy lateral move from my old job as a submarine screen window repairman.
Hey I’m a billionaire space cowboy. We probably know the same guys. Do you Bob, from accounting? He’s a putz.
That you, Maurice?
Former rock star, now retired, living on my private island, occasional public speaker, industry leader consultant when bored.
Just kidding. IT of course.
Damnnn , I was two seconds away from asking you how you broke into the rock star industry 🤓
I have no idea what is called in English. I just work at a car park. Just above minimal wage, it pays my bills, finances my hobbies, is stable and once I’m out of the door at the end of my shift it is not my problem anymore.
Parking lot attendant, unless you drive the cars too, in which case valet parker.
“AROO!! AROO!! AROO!!”
No, not really. I’m an English teacher & childcare provider.
Used to work in IT, but preschoolers are generally easier to please.
Graham crackers and juice vs id10t errors. Lol
I used to teach, now I wait tables. I’ve also been a computer tech, event security, summer camp counselor, and lay minister.
I’m thinking about switching it up again. Maybe electrician?
Electrician gang rise up
Get amped!
My profession is whatever job I can get with a HS diploma. Right now it’s a crane operator, I climb 1-3 stories to troubleshoot problems for a warehouse in 34f or -15f. Actually not bad, coworkers on my shift are pretty cool, pay is good, benefits not bad. Just allot to learn with the program and system they use. Still in training, wish my luck keeping this job till I get a college degree or trade.
Mood. Over the last 8 years I’ve been: a server, retail worker, a cashier, a barista, a cake decorator, a software designer, currently I’m a dishwasher.
Almost there same haha. Retail, cashier, order filler for warehouse, restaurant cook, more retail, brewer, even more retail, plastic molder and now cranes.
That sounds like so much to me! I’ve only ever been a warehouse worker at ups for 5 years straight now. Only job I’ve ever had. Job hopping sounds exhausting
I just want to add that dishwashing has been my best experience. I work at a gay bar and everyone is super nice and I’ve made a lot of friends since starting. Surprisingly it pays a living wage but there’s not a ton of hours because they want to keep people off of insurance, which makes sense (they are a small business). I’ve also barbacked on weekends and holidays. I’m also learning to prep cook so I can work more hours. I’m trying to keep one job that can pay me more, than two jobs splitting my time and I get paid half as much. I know FedEx has a union does UPS have one too?
Fedex does not have a union, you are killing me right now.
Ok lol thanks for informing me I was wrong. FedEx has union, UPS has shit.
I’m a crane technician, I work for myself repairing all kinds of cranes apart from towers.
Crane operation in Australia is a great profession that i have seen carry many people into retirement.
Why wouldn’t you stick with it? A good crane operator can keep a job site running so smooth. The only downside is no one notices until the primary operator is out sick and someone who isn’t as good is operating that day.
The only reason why is because of moving, don’t like the state (USA) I’m in and want my son to have a better education. I was nervous and being hard on myself that I wasnt doing a good job, but boss man told me I was doing a good job and heard nothing but good things. Have to learn other departments for the company eventually.
Yeah i get that, im in the process of moving now because we don’t want our son growing up where we are living now.
It’s not a great place
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What was your setting? Why did you leave? I’m school-based. Considering leaving - kids are fun but admin sucks and schools are getting more and more chaotic. I’d keep my license to pick up prn hours if needed.
ETA- I have a friend with CP who’s an OT. I think OT was so helpful to her as a kid that she was kind of enamored with it. Now, 5-10 years into working, she’s finding that the clinic is too physical for her. She’d like to get into accessibility work. How did you make the transition?
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Super interesting! Do you work for a government entity? Would that be the place to start looking at opportunities?
Schools have gone the same way. Admin only cares about how much we can bill Medicaid - none of the $ trickles down to us and there’s little/no concern for kids who are struggling.
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Curious, with ur PT background, how do you handle stress or old thoughts that resurface? Trying to figure out how I can work on that for myself…
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Environmental health officer, aka health inspector.
Most people don’t know who we are, but we play a huge role in the background on education and prevention for public health issues like food safety, communicable diseases (gastro, outbreaks, pandemic, tattooing, beauty parlours, mosquitoes, rodents, flu, covid, etc.), health of the environment (soil, air, water),… We are a jack of all trades kind of profession.
I am a caregiver for high functioning adults with special needs. The pay isn’t very good and there’s no benefits. I love my clients, they are hilarious and they like to tell me how awesome I am. I don’t let it get to my head because that’s one of the behaviors they do to get what they want or need.
I’m in education. It’s pretty alright. The kids aren’t alright, though.
I make knives. I write about knives.
What? Those are totally some of my professions.
Used to be cop.
Went into a completely unrelated line of work purely because it was remote, promoted from there.
Edit for the curious who want to know why I’m not a cop any more: https://lemmy.world/post/43267939
We did it, guys! We finally found the good cop!
Statistically speaking it’s likely that I was somewhere close to a 5/10. If you consider that “good” so be it, but I reject the notion that just because a(n ex-)cop goes on Lemmy they must be or have been good.
I’ve tried to address the issue across many spaces, but there’s never anywhere near a consensus on what makes a cop a Good Cop, so I don’t think I or anyone else will be able to truthfully answer that question about me (or any other cop) in a way that suits most/all people.
My joke was that there are no good cops, because even the “good” ones still uphold the blue wall of silence and passively enforce systematic oppression. The entire system is designed so that cops who refuse to fall in line are quickly weeded out. Even if the “good” cops don’t directly oppress people and abuse their authority, they keep quiet about their coworkers who do. There is no “good cop changing the system from within” because the system is designed from the ground up to expel anyone who tries. So the only way to be a good cop is to stop being one.
I don’t strongly disagree with that notion, but I strongly believe that spreading the idea leads to making cops worse as a whole.
Say your message reached the eyes/ears of every single (prospective) cop, whether they (think they) (will) contribute to that problem or not.
The ones that want to contribute to that don’t care what you have to say about it; they might even get a kick out of it.
The ones that don’t want to will either be motivated towards mental gymnastics into ignoring criticism of law enforcement (“they obviously have no idea what they’re talking about” and other similar cop-outs) or look for a way out of that line of work. In other words, making people think “it doesn’t matter what I do, I will still be considered evil,” will push a lot of otherwise good people to either ignore criticism, deviate to the worse, or get out entirely. The former two are basically the logic behind Labeling Theory. Do you know who invites them with open arms? Bad Cops.
So by subtracting (potential) Good Cops and not affecting (or bolstering) Bad Cops, you make the ratio worse.
Finally someone else who shares this opinion!
One of the biggest deflating sentiments that ruins the ACAB meme is the one-two question:
“Do you think you are a good person?”+“Do you want to be a cop?”
If they’re answering truthfully, most ACABers would answer: “Yes.”+“Of course I don’t.”
The reasoning behind the latter varies, in my experience with them, from “Because there are too many bad cops (therefore I am afraid for my personal safety).” to “Because I qualify for better jobs.”
The former is, frankly, an argument from a place of cowardice. Imagine a world where nobody put out fires because fires are dangerous. Sure, it’s totally rational for one person to avoid danger, but if everyone avoids danger we are all screwed. Further, though no group is a monolith, you also see “Cops always protect their own no matter what,” come from ACABers, at which point wouldn’t that person trying to be good be one of those cops that is above any adverse action?
The latter is an argument for incentivizing good people to join law enforcement, most directly with better pay, and indirectly with not shitting on every cop just because one/some/most/etc. of them are shit.
I only skimmed that to get the gist, but I do really appreciate you sharing that, and I commend you for choosing option 3. sorry that happened to you
No worries. Where I posted it on Reddit, I had it where the more granular detailed sections were blacked out spoiler-style so people could read less of it if they wanted to, but I don’t think Lemmy supports that function (yet).
Mechanical Engineer. 14 years in automotive interiors. I design tooling for instrument panel toppers, door uppers, arm rests, etc.
Primarily, the type of tooling I specialize in is known as edge wrapping or edge folding. Basically, you have the plastic “substrate” and the leather or vinyl “skin” that is either vacuum formed or press laminated to it. Extra material is left around the edges, and that is heated, wrapped, and glued around the back of the part with a number of metal fingers. I do the wrapping tooling, as well as the lamination tooling.
The most complicated tool I ever designed was for a large, flat component behind the back seat of a car, by the rear window. Let me walk you through the sequence for it.
- Operator loads plastic substrate in tool upper
- Operator loads flat skin pattern in the lower on skin pins, and a clamp in the rear
- The infrared heating shuttle moves in and the upper closes to the heating position, where the skin and substrate are blasted with tens of thousands of watts of IR heat to activate the glue
- The IR shuttle retracts, and the tool fully closes to the lamination position, and the skin pins all retract. In the case of this tool, it had (I think) 0.25mm of compression a-side of the part.
- Seven slides extend to laminated areas that were either undercut in tool draw, or protruded in a way that prohibited skin loading.
- Three 200C hot air heaters extend down from the upper to heat the back edge of the part, and around the two speaker openings.
- Once those retracts, 25 edgefolding pieces wipe the skin around the back, and up through the speaker openings (that’s the coolest part)
- The edgefolders retract in the reverse sequence of which they extended
- The slides retracts
- The tool opens, and the skin pins extend
- the Operator can now step in the light curtain to remove the part, then return with the new substrate and skin.
So far, I would say it is the pinnacle of my career. But car parts are getting more complicated all the time. My design focuses lately have been focused on simplicity over that level of complexity. Where can we use a guided cylinder where we used to use linear rails? Can this detail be made in multiple pieces to reduce waste material? What components can be 3D printed? It’s great fun, really. I do love my job.
Geographer, I make maps
Hey same! Kinda. What kind of maps do you do?
Basically land use. You?
Utilities. Kinda similar, but I wish I was on your side of the coin :)
This sounds interesting. What kind of maps? How long have you been doing this? How have things changed over the course of your career?
I used to be a scientist, lived the startup (hardware) dream, now thinking about next moves - world needs housing, right? Maybe reskill to civil engineering?
Surprising thing: hardware startups face so much upfront capital cost that they’re almost impossible these days, also, I’m starting to wonder if we maybe have enough Science/Tech and that investment could be better directed to short term material needs of people and the planet
I’m currently an engineer at a hardware tech startup. It is crazy how much upfront capital is needed, even just to build non-form factor test devices.
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