I'm always curious about the professions of car guys. How many of y'all work with cars to feed yourselves? If not, do you find it hard to fit your hobby into your 9-5 life (No saab jokes!)?
Me: I've sold car parts for the past 5 years and sometimes do machine work (mostly head rebuilds). I've worked as a shade tree mechanic as well.
JThw8
PowerDork
2/8/14 9:15 p.m.
I play with computers and refuse to document anything so no one really knows what I do and they are afraid to get rid of me. The checks keep cashing :)
I work for DoD during the week (and sometimes nights and weekends), and at a ski shop on Saturdays (ski tuning master tech). I usually get my car work done on evenings after the kids go to bed (if it's a quiet thing I'm doing) or on Sundays if it's something loud.
Or on occasion I'll take a half day from the office if it's great weather and get some car stuff done.
EvanB
PowerDork
2/8/14 9:36 p.m.
I do product development for an industrial supply company, it allows me to get tools and maintenance supplies for my projects for cheap.
I'm a program manager for software development.
I started working on locomotives for a living but found I didn't like being a mechanic for a living so I got an education and do this now.
I worked in a race shop in college and sold auto parts.
I got into wrenching young because I'm awful about paying someone for something that I could do myself. Also, It exercises the mind and gives me some alone time to just work on stuff.
Machinist. I turn, mill, drill and grind stuff.
GCooper
New Reader
2/8/14 9:43 p.m.
I work as a production engineer for a polymer manufacturer.
Some of our product ends up in cars, but I have no involvement in it.
I fix cars, and pay 4 other guys to fix cars along with me.
Kinda cuts into the enjoyment of the hobby, but I can probably do it faster than most of you guys.
I dabble in old cars a little: www.vintagerodshop.com
For large portions of seven states I am the one your power company calls if their power goes out.
I totally play with cars. And, more realistically, spend all day helping others do the same.
I work at Costco, do very little involving cars.
Occasionally help out in the tire shop, but that's almost entirely work on boring appliances from Canada
Sonic
SuperDork
2/8/14 10:26 p.m.
What I do totally involves cars, but not ones that I drive.
If you were to cause a car accident, and then get sued by someone who was injured in that car accident, I defend you in the claim up to and including a jury trial.
I'm not a lawyer, but I work with our lawyers and control the checkbook and strategy and try to protect our insureds from having any personal liability, and try to avoid paying sum bags any more than possible. This is difficult in the venue were I am, which is all of PA, but mostly in Philadelphia, which was named the #1 judicial hellhole again this year!
I am a Media Architect for a large NW software company creating business impact. In other words I do email and make Power Point decks. I love cars and often think about changing directions once the kids are gone in a couple of years.
JAhmed
New Reader
2/8/14 10:35 p.m.
I'm a resident physician. I work 80 hour weeks for the next 2.5 years to graduate to the level of attending physician. Luckily I have an understanding wife who will often let me do the car thing on my rare days off. Plan to up the ante as an attending, though.
Does it involve cars? I certainly see some nice ones in the parking lot...
Civil engineer in an old chemical plant. Some of the plastics we make end up in cars. We also make race fuel an high spec fuels.
I do auto glass replacement. Sometimes I get to work on neat and interesting cars but mostly its commuter appliances and rolling trash cans. I try to do the absolute best possible quality work on everything but when I get to work on neat/unique/exotic/enthusiast owned cars it adds a nice highlight to the day. I couldn't do cubicle thing for more than a couple days so working outside and on cars being fairly autonomous is perfect.
I restore vintage cars.
http://www.sportscarshop.com/category/blog/
I'm an architect, spending most of my time doing contract administration (meetings, review of shop drawings, field observation, troubleshooting).
I drive and enjoy cars, have done nothing more than routine maintenance and replacement of external parts (engine, body, interior, audio). I enjoy all things mechanical and hope to someday spend more time getting up close and personal with a fun vehicle such as my dad's big Healy. Love the depth of knowledge and comeraderie without attitude on this forum.
I work building modified muscle cars, Pro touring cars, kits, donks etc. Part of the time at my home shop and partly as a traveling hot rod builder. I do almost anything the owner doesn't want to do and often they help with some or all of the aspects. Kinda cool to go to someones place and build a kit or tear down their car to a shell & rebuild/modify everything in their garage or shop but I'd rather do it at my place.
wae
Reader
2/8/14 10:48 p.m.
I work for an IT infrastructure reseller and provider. Most of my work is on the resale side, but we also do the whole "to the cloud" thing. I manage a team of pre-sale engineers focused on data storage and protection. Our job is to accompany the sales reps to customers and prospects and help design, architect, and sell complex solutions to simple problems. I've got some customers that are in automotive-related fields, but until I get someone who wants to put a VNX or FAS storage array in a trunk my work and hobby are pretty much in different worlds.
I work for a large national used car dealer as a mechanic--previous years were spent at a Nissan dealer and an Infiniti dealer, but I was sick of flat rate pay and bad benefits. I've tried getting out of it (being a mechanic) once before (I was a cop for a short time), and I would like to again, but for now I'm here. Doing it everyday makes the hobby less enjoyable, but the money is great, it's what I know, and I have a family to provide for. Not sure what else I'd do, but I would love to find something else that I really love and keep cars as a hobby. We'll see...
Been selling auto parts for the last 10 years. Was a tech for a year or so before that. I found that working on cars 40 hours a week killed my desire to wrench on my own toys. Being in the parts biz has been a good mid point for being around cars yet not getting burned out.
In reply to Spoolpigeon:
I agree with this. I've never felt tired of cars when dealing in parts. In fact I think it helps, there's always a few items I keep for my whip.
carbon
HalfDork
2/8/14 11:23 p.m.
I teach automotive technology.