What do you do for a living and why do you like it?

I'm a Det in the auto theft unit doing bait cars. It takes a weirdo to be po-po without letting it corrode you. I absolutely love it and I look forward to going to work almost as much as I look forward to going home to my kids.

In reply to Ojala:

damn, that's good

I was a personal trainer for 24 years. The first 8 were at a commercial gym and the last 16 were at my own facility. I loved it. The ability to directly change peoples lives and the ability to spend most of your life working with impressive people is incredible. The fact that you become close friends with most of them makes it even better. The downside is success is more about being a driven businessman than a good trainer. You have to hustle constantly or live poor. I hope to get back to it in a year or so, but as a side gig, not my only source of income.

I'm 37, went to school to be a high school history teacher...boy did I hate it. I worked in the sign and exhibit design fabrication industry off and on since I was 16 so I sort of fell back into that after I left school as a sign painter and graphic designer. Filled in as a purchasing manager when ours moved in then as the design director when ours moved on then the production manager when( you guessed it) ours moved on. Before long I was the operations manager for a 45 person shop. It was incredibly fulfilling seeing what you made and knowing you either designed or physically made everything out of a pile of wood, plastic, aluminum or steel. When the recession came signs and trade show booths took a hit as that is usually budgeted as discretionary. Chicago was hit early so when we closed down I decided to take 6 months off to clean up projects and figure out what I wanted to do next.

Two weeks went by before I was stir crazy and started looking in NW Ohio where my wife was from. We put our house in Chicago-land up for sale and when it sold quickly (during a recession at a hefty markup) we took it as a sign. I started with the company I'm with now 1/2/07 in Indianapolis to do a month of training. After a week they said I was good and sent me to Toledo to take on my day to day duties. It's an odd sort of business but I basically run a shop that does oil changes and tire work for semis. It's pretty rewarding finding and training a team that can take care of a customers needs with pride and care in an industry where that doesn't really seem to make a difference. Ten years in and I'm thinking it's time for a change so I've accepted a mentor in the finance side of our corporate headquarters and am going to finish a degree (no high schoolers thank you very much) in finance. Pretty stoked for the future!

Btw: my wife had the same job as XLR99 pre-kids and she loved it as well.

I think of my self as a senior non-com at a Dow 30 company that makes yellow bulldozers. The next step would be into managing a team of a couple people which I wouldn't mind except the pay isn't that much more and the headaches are much more.

I feel like I'm in the sweet spot of my career - doing what I like and am best at - product strategy, planning, pre-production project management, product management - a lot of responsibility in marine engines - my products bring in close to $250M in revenue every year. I'm doing three different people's jobs right now since people have changed jobs, left or been downsized and we are in a hiring freeze. The upside of being overloaded is that it lends focus to the work - everything I do is high priority there is not time for bullE36 M3.

I am 54 years old and have been selling all types of Industrial hoses in the Midwest. I work for a good sized distributor that offers many options; S/S metal hoses, hydraulic, pneumatic, gaskets, rubber pieces, expansion joints.

I like to go to all types of plants; paper mills, food plants, steel mills, refineries, and my favorite was an Alcoa aluminum plant that had a giant vat of molten aluminum. Last year my OEM engineer needed help installing some hoses on a test cell engine and he asked me to help him. How bad a day was it as I spent two hours wrenching on a large locomotive Diesel engine?

One part I like is the freedom to see who I want for sals calls but a lot of responsibility comes with the pressure to sell more. One item I like is I can hustle and make more money - I like being on commission sales.

I'm 31, and I work as an IT business analyst. Started out at a bank headquartered in the same city as the forum's favorite CL, and then sort of fell into doing software supporting Medicare Advantage health plans. The work is interesting in that I solve different problems every day. I've always had an interest in technology but don't quite have the brain to make it as a developer. The pace is fast and sometimes I work nights and weekends, but to me that's balanced out by the opportunity to work with some incredible developers and having management that stands behind us, recognizes us when we get the job done, and lets us rock and roll. The key appears to be to find an obscure industry niche, as that allows for pay well above more common industries.