What do YOU do?

I am a professional cat herder.

When I had student loan debt and no money to my name, I was really concerned with getting a good job "with a future". Random part-time and full-time positions as grease monkey, tire installer, catering server, and summer camp counselor with no upward mobility and crap pay seemed like "college jobs". Then I got a good job, but felt like I was spending too much time commuting, had no vacation time, and was pretty bored after work most days, but had great friends and family nearby.

Now I live someplace where I'm never bored, have an awesome wife, get decent vacation, have a "meh" social life, and a great job.

I do GIS (Geographic Information Systems) in the Natural Gas Utility Industry and currently at 4 years in the industry and 7 years of GIS experience.

One thing I've learned as I've got older (I've been on GRM since I was 18 years old - I'm 32) is that while life certainly is dominated by the pursuit of income, being happy, content, and living where you want to live is important. Sometimes where you want to live isn't where you family is. Sometimes where you want to live isn't where good jobs are. Sometimes the life you want to live isn't compatible with Corporate America. Sometimes it is. This community has tons of examples of all of these.

I wouldn't have left my home town if I had a great paying job with tons of vacation and a short commute, but I didn't, so I went searching across the USA. Is living on the opposite side of the country from some of my closet friends and family always awesome? No way. Is it something I'm always extremely grateful for the opportunity? Definitely. If I had the ability to take my job back to my home town, would I move back? I'm not always so sure.

One thing I know for sure is that I wish I had more time for myself, like back in college.

Started in an ad agency (journalism degree) then to an insurance company graphics Dept. In Dallas, tx. Moved to Chicago burbs, sold Porsche, Audi, vw, and saabs for a while then did my own agency for a while then got hired by a pro audio (mixing consoles) company to market their stuff (met lots of rock and Hollywood people - we made film production consoles before they got past up in engineering- didn't switch to digital). Got a gig in a life insurance company to market their stuff in Louisville ky. After a couple years it got bought and everyone got launched. Started a garage organization biz. A little early so it didn't go great. Moved back to Chicago burbs. Got a job in marketing for an association in Chicago. Did that for 3 years, then got a job in marketing at a cancer treatment organization. Started in marketing and web content, then marketing director, then got a masters in health admin and moved to operations did that gig for 16 years. Got laid off along with 450 friends in May. Helping a family member with health issues since then and starting to look for the next gig.

After years of working as a professional photographer, writing and producing TV shows and commercial video projects, I sort of backed into production and supply chain management for an energy and industrial safety company. I've been doing that for the past 10 years. Definitely pays a lot better if not as creative an outlet.

Marjorie Suddard wrote: I am a professional cat herder.

I thought you built decks?

DeadSkunk wrote:

FlightService wrote: In reply to DeadSkunk: I used to work for Faurecia...

I worked for the one in Hillary's TV ad .....you know, the one that skipped off to become Irish.

...and now we know why they are #1

FlightService wrote: Patent Examiner, Technical Services Manager (Engineering

Neat, I did a stint as an examiner for about 2.5 years. It was in art unit 725/interactive video distribution. This would have been about 12 years ago now.

In reply to Armitage:

You were over in crystal city, we moved over to Alexandria now off of Eisenhower across the street from King St. Station.

Marjorie Suddard wrote: I am a professional cat herder.

I guess that makes me one of the professional cats?

In reply to Ed Higginbotham:

Yes. And with that post, you've just zoomed to the top of my favorites.

FlightService wrote:

Marjorie Suddard wrote: I am a professional cat herder.

I thought you built decks?

I believe that is just a hobby of hers.

In reply to Ed Higginbotham: Suck up!

Major Maintenance Planner at a pulp and paper mill

Marjorie Suddard wrote: I am a professional cat herder.

House cats are my favorite animals to interact with, Even did a superbowl commercial years ago about herding cats.

DeadSkunk wrote:

MulletTruck wrote: I started out working at a nickle mine in Canada, Body shops, car detailing, familys stamping plant,Pizza delivery, Have always been involved with Horses and ranching, Came to California and started training animals for the movies while working at the Navy Stables and Doing Carriage rides in San Diego, Moved to L.A. to do the animal thing full time, Worked at ranches, Motorcycle Messenger, Helped start a Yamaha Dealer, Did Motorcycle repair and ran the parts dept at a Suzuki dealer. Now I make Eye glasses/lenses,Install low voltage in rich peoples homes, Work for a couple bands and still do the Animal thing when I have a little time, Still build Choppers and Hotrods, then in my spare time work on my truck.

You just made my entire career seem so boring.

And I forgot to mention the worst job I ever had, Must have blocked it out. Did a year contract at the Post Office as a CCA.

My company does cool stuff Cancer Genomics

I fix stuff. Mostly lab robotics.

I am a brewer. I brew beer. Mostly that means cleaning stuff.

Before that, I taught 4-8th grade English and Science at a Montessori school.

Oldest to newest.

Airframe and Powerplant mechanic (pay sucked)

ASE Master mechanic for dealership, independent and then Post Office fleet repair (paid a lot better than fixing airplanes)

Currently last 16 years, Fire Department (good retirement and schedule, good pay)

I had two jobs in high school. Worked for Pepsi stocking two stores (one was Jungle Jim's for any Cincy locals) in the evening and also co-oped at a small independent garage in the afternoon.

Won a partial scholarship, through Honda, to Northwest Tech in Lima, OH. at a statewide ASE competition for all of the high school auto tech programs. Life happened and didn't go.

Did a stint as a tire changer at a tire store.

Did a stint at a factory job in Blue Ash, OH. (I'm not made for factory work. berkeley that E36 M3.)

Another stint as a tire changer.

Started working at a foundation repair/ new construction waterproofing company. Learned a ton, had fun. Great experience. Had a good 8 year run there. Helped grow the company form a small two man operation to three waterproofing crews and two foundation crews. Went from bucket toter to managing the waterproofing side of the business. Then one day they quit building houses, like someone flipped a switch, and we couldn't survive. Looked for work for over a year and couldn't find a job, even the lowliest job. Moved to TN.

Worked at a very well known ski boat plant diagnosing and repairing boats after lake testing prior to shipping. (Factory work, berkeley factory work)

Worked at a one of the east coasts biggest foundation repair and waterproofing companies. Started at the bottom. Became a Supervisor. Destroyed my body, worked way too many hours, way too many nights away from home, way too many weekends, way too many days straight with one day off then back on the road again.

Left them for the countries largest foundation repair company. Started as a Supervisor, became production manager. Helped turn a money sink into a money producing market. They transferred me to help with another struggling market in TX.

Almost exactly a year later they told me that they were shutting this market down but wanted me to go to Houston for 6 months, San Antonio for 6 months then permanently to Dallas but I would be on the road going to all the markets all over the country training and Q/A type stuff. I politely declined the offer. I have no interest in bouncing around, dragging my family and then being gone all the time. I have no interest in living anywhere near Dallas.

Found my current job in the paper. Started installing granite. My body is too beat up for that punishment. Now I'm in the shop running the equipment. It's almost like factory work except there are only three other people in the shop with me so it's almost tolerable. It doesn't pay great but it has normal hours and I'm certainly enjoying having a more normal work life balance. It's not a very high pressure job though and I may get bored with it one of these days. I'm not getting any younger though and I know my body won't take the abuse like it used to. I may just ride it out here until I die. No way in hell I'll be able to retire, best I can hope for is becoming disabled.

In reply to Cousin_Eddie:

Same with the A&P, that why I ended up in high performance cars and European bikes. When I was done with that, I tried A&P again, but again the pay sucked, so I was pursuing fire/EMS when I got hired to do Medevac helicopter. Pay doesn't suck, but wish I had the time to at least be volunteer fire in the little town where I live. Fire fighting is the most fun I have ever had working.

I work as a Millwright and machinist, but I develop camshafts for oddball applications in my spare time. Occasionally I sell some.

I got my degree in Environmental Science and Resource Managment and worked as a biologist for a few years. Best part of that was getting to work out in Lousiana after the oil spill to help with the cleanup. Biology eventually transitioned to GIS when I ended up being the de facto data collection expert. I left CA for the greener pastures of OR and now I do GIS full-time for a power company here in Portland. Unfortunately it's the boring kind that's mostly just data entry. I'd like to get back into data collection so we'll see how that goes.

Started working part-time at age 16 for my neighbor in the machine shop he owned. Started out cleaning parts and by the time I graduated from college had moved up to the toolroom/special projects. This job paid for my college education.

Graduated from college with a degree in Industrial Education and got a job as a shop teacher. While teaching I had a number of part-time/summer jobs.
Worked in most of the construction trades.
Foreign car mechanic.
Motorcycle mechanic.
Gunsmith.
Security and PI work.
After 18 years as a shop teacher I got a degree in IT and taught introductory computer classes at the middle school level and part-time at the community college for another 10 years.

After retiring from teaching I got a job as a programmer/analyst at a local hardware wholesaler. Since the other programmers were all Cobol people, I ended up being the PC/Office automation guy. After 5 years of that the company was bought out and moved to TN.

So I got a part-time job as a department manager in a local hardware store until I retired at age 62.

Didn't we just have this thread?

I've been a research development engineer at Ford for 25 years.

Which is also to say that I'm just under 5 years from being able to retire.

For the most part, all of my work is in prototype cars, and my specialty is making them very clean. Because of that, knowing how to make a computer run a car is pretty important to my job.

Wow, I've done a lot over the years.

I'll start by saying, I skipped most of my senior year at HS and got a GED and got married. I hated school with a purple passion that knows no bounds. I'm that hands on guy that should have taken shop classes and was stuck in college prep crap. Formal school was not for me.

In some semblance of order, starting the summer I was 16.

Landscaping/gardener

Warehouse flunky, several times. Commercial/Industrial electrical and power line construction industry. In the middle of this I dropped out of HS.

Small engine and tool repair tech.

Electrical insulated glove and blanket test technician.

Delivery driver. Electrical industry.

Inventory control. Tools and materials for a regional power line construction company. HATED this one, but stuck with it for 2 years.

Electrician top helper. Industrial. Some of it sucked, but I spend almost a year wiring the interface between a computer system and a motor control center for a powerhouse. That was fun but the job came to an end.

Electrical service tech. Commercial/Residential. It sucked.

Shovel technician. Literally digging ditches. This was kind of interesting. We were installing an electrical duct bank at a shipping port. Lots of work under the pier and some work on the huge cranes.

Backhoe operator. Same ditches, different shovel

Crane operator, 65' boom truck and a 20 ton P&H. Setting manholes and heavy equipment at a sewage treatment plant. Stinky.

Retail flunky. Hobby industry. Fun job, didn't pay squat. I'd had all the heavy construction I wanted to take.

Retail Manager. Hobby industry. Not quite as fun, paid squat, but no more. I spent a good while here. Then child #4 came along and I needed to make more money.

Automatic door installer. Fair money. I was really good at it.

Automatic door repair tech. Good money and I was very good at the job, but the corporate environment was soul killing. The main office was pissing off customers as fast as I and the local sales guy could find them. I knew I could do better on my own. So...

Owner//Operator/Flunky/Bill collector/janitor/truck repair/accountant/treasurer/etc... Automatic Door Sales and Service company. I have a partner that is good at sales and managing customers, I handle the technical end of things. I've been self employed for 12 years. Some days it's the greatest thing in the world. Some days it's the worst.

In order, oldest to current...
Radio station answering phones, hobby shop clerk, museum attendant, hippie home depot delivery driver, day care teacher/bus driver, donut delivery guy, big box store that shows up in Idiocracy.
(With big red it was boxing/carts followed by stocking until landing a gig in the photo lab)

Dragging my feet about going back to back to school to finish an ElEd certificate.
(Especially since my current pay is alright, good bennies, schedule allows racing when I need, aaaaand it really really irks me that student teaching involves me PAYING to work for the school district)