Kinda OT?: What do you do / have done?

Svashtar

Svashtar

Joined
Dec 28, 2003
Messages
4,791
The thread that Dean just updated about posting pics of ourselves got me thinking (OK, dangerous I know! (-:)

Several folks don't want others to know what they do I guess, because they leave it out of their profile, but for those not too bashful or worried about privacy I thought it would be interesting for folks to share what they do to get the $ to support HI. For that matter this could have been done years ago and I just missed it, but lots of new folks anyway justifies a new effort.

For instance, I know Munk has managed a gun shop and is currently writing the Great American Novel, I know Gin (mamav) is working in the Mesa area roughing up suspects, I know Shann is an attorney, Dan is a knifemaker, Dave is in the military, John (Spectre) is in the Reserves and going to school, and Nasty is an enforcer working for the local loan shark (I'll have the $ next week Nasty, I promise!), who moonlights doing work for the FedGov and making his own knives on the side. Yvsa was a machinist and toolmaker for many years I gather.

Seriously, this is just a facile overview and I want those folks to go into as much detail as they would like to (or not), and of course have no info on their previous jobs. Just curious about all my friends here.

This could be a good thread and give folks a little more detail about your career(s).

Mine is pretty straightforward:

2 years at Unocal, followed by 6 years with Chevron USA in a Company operated station as a salesman and service writer and jackleg mechanic and everything in between.

3 years driving for Yellow Cab in Sonoma County, CA. Still the most fun I've had working.

Back to school, and for the past 20 years I have been in Software QA as an Engineer, Manager or Director. I've worked for WordStar (MicroPro), Borland, Softbank of Japan, iLogistix, and my current unnamable private hell. I've absorbed about enough concentrated institutionalized incompetence and stupidity to last me another dozen lifetimes.

So that's it for me, someone else jump in and lets get the ball rolling. By the way, if you work for the IRS, that thread I had last year about screwing the Gov't at tax time was just my idea of a joke, OK? :eek: ;)

Regards,

Norm
 
update me to Part-Time Knifemaker, Part-Time College Professor, and Part-Time Architect....

:eek:
 
Interesting thread possibilities here. My career to date:

4 years Coop w/ Grumman Aerospace doing everything from drilling airplane wing skins to programming statistical analysis systems

Work as a lab tech in a large wind tunnel, white water canoe guide, and reference librarian while in school

1 year w/Joseph Pollak as a automotive switch and valve accessory designer

4 years w/ Clean Room Products as Engineer and Project Manager designing and building Contamination Control Environments

8 years as a self employed hot glass artist (national gallery coverage)

8 years as an engineer in a large construction firm working in the field and office in a variety of roles (currently serving my term in Purgatory as a mechanical estimator)

Somewhere along the line I earned my PE. as well, and am currently "keeping my options open" if anyone know of openings in the Rochester, NY area.
 
I'm next in line for my family's 50+ year old custom swimming pool construction/concrete business. Third generation. Oldest son of the oldest son. I started working in the summer with my dad when I was 12.
I learned how to build the pools, form and finish concrete, etc. By the time I was 16 I was building the above the ground pools pretty much by myself with a helper. I did this for years until I was out of college in '03. Soon, it was found that I was a better sales person than a builder, and i'm a pretty good builder. My family figured a guy that knew the way pools went together backwards and forwards would be handy to have in the store selling stuff. I was put in charge of our main retail office. I also run our advertising budget, am the go-to customer service guy when there is a troubleshooting problem, and idea man for new products and sales ventures. I've been doing this all my life.
My first few years in college, I was an athlete on our schools rowing crew. No scholarship, but it was a full time job. My junior year I transfered to be with my now wife. I worked my butt off at Target making ends meet. No money to speak of, but it was during this time that i discovered the HI forum.
And here I am today. Successfully riding the coattails of my family's hard work, all the while goofin' off and looking at sharp things when I should be working;)
That's overly simplified, to be sure. i work hard, but I'm lucky that I have constant access to the net all day, everyday. If my dad would give me a raise, you sharks would really have something to worry about;)

Jake
 
Done? Nothing.

The wind's already covered my tracks with sand. But I was a psych nurse/counselor for 5 years in an acute psychiatric receiving unit in the greater Los Angeles area, and spent 5 years working with the criminally insane in a long term lock down penal hospital.
I managed a largish gun store in the 'inland empire' of California for about 3 1/2 years. I was briefly a counselor in Idaho, an addiction counselor in Sheridan Wy, and now merely raise the sons I helped to make.
I've also been a pot scrubber, and worked for Wriggles Gum factory on and off through a temp agency. I coulda turned Pro, too! There's some stuff left off, some small amount of jail time, and lovely moments with the DT's wandering San Bernardino Ca. But hey- Let's save the good stuff for another thread.
I'm not working on the GAN, as Norm suggests, but have submitted a common pulp book to the Fantasy SF industry. I've had a short story published previously and Hope Springs Eternal.

Or, "everybody needs a stone to roll,"


munk
 
Update me to unemployed in a week and a half.

Losing a job never felt so good.

Before the Navy I hauled trash, flipped burgers, and performed an assortment of other menial tasks that no one else wanted to do. Not much different than working for the government, now that I think about it, but the government paid better.
 
Scrub a pot and flip a burger. I was a janitor once too.

I think you could work your way across the Country as a pot scrubber, because no one wants the job and Eatery's are always looking. You could get paid under the table and virtually be a ghost, an unknown in society. It sounded so good I had to quit after only one summer.


munk
 
munk said:
Done? Nothing.

and now merely raise the sons I helped to make.

munk
Click to expand...

That is the most important job there is!

"The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world":thumbup:
 
"The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world" >>>>>> Hollow

If he shops at Walmart.




Just kidding.
Thank you, Hollow.

munk
 
I currently design antennas for DOD small business research projects. That means I machine small metal parts, design electronics, and use autocad constantly. That is when I'm not in long boring meetings where we discuss and rediscuss everything under the sun that I'm not in the least interested in.

In the past I: worked the fileds with my grandfather, pumped gas, washed dishes, waited tables, stocked shelves, and slaughtered chickens.

I miss the fields. On holidays I get to visit the family farm in north Mississippi and do some dear hunting. With Thanksgiving around the corner, I'm excited to unleash my CAK in a big way.

Andy
 
Hollow, I love goats! My wife thinks I'm nuts. (She's from Ft Lauderdale)
 
Currently going to school to learn furniture making. I graduate in spring of '07.

Before that:

2+ yrs. managing a small warehouse for a martial arts publication center
2+ yrs. as a woodworker in a frame shop
2+ yrs. as a sales junkie at an outdoor store
3 yrs making a living off of bicycles ~ leading tours; bike messenger; mechanic. Those were really good years!

Hopefully with the woodworking thing I'll break my 2 year habit and settle down for a while.


Nice thread Svashtar. :thumbup:

~ Bamboo
 
Norm, you forgot contract zombie killer.

Oh...and I get paid for knowing stuff by the government.
 
1 yr flipping burgers after high school. 13 yrs 6.5 months US Navy, unemployed for about 4 months, Home Depot for 3 months, Dept Of The Army Police 2 yrs


James
 
I have a BFA in graphic design from the University of Illinois, Urbana ('64) and a MS in photography from the Institute of Design at IIT, Chicago ('68). I taught (so-called) "fine art" photography to undergraduates at a large private liberal arts college in Chicago since 1968, until I escaped into the Dean's office where I graduated to teaching the faculty how to use their new computers. Then, I was put in charge of developing the content of the college's first website. I retired in 2000 to play in my workshop, read and do whatever the hell I want. Ya sure.

I made my first knife in grade school in maybe 1950. I still have it.

I started making fancy handles and sheaths for Indian Ridge, Morseth and Randall blades and then graduated to making my own blades in 1970s - pretty much on my own. Some of my early knives and comic knife drawings were featured in an article by Ken Warner in Knives '82, and I wrote a tongue-in-cheek article on knife sheaths in Knives '89.
 
i am business analyst and have worked at 3 large faceless, inhumane, corporations.

my job is to squeeze as much money as impossible, then beat it by 15% for the next plan year.

my other duties include political games and the using or being used by co-workers/enemines/allies to get to the top.
 
I always have open contracts on zombies if you'd like to branch out Dave...
 
Dave Hahn said:
i am business analyst and have worked at 3 large faceless, inhumane, corporations.

my job is to squeeze as much money as impossible, then beat it by 15% for the next plan year.

my other duties include political games and the using or being used by co-workers/enemines/allies to get to the top.
Click to expand...

So you're the guy in the office across the hall! ;) I _used_ to wonder how people could load up and go postal at work, now I understand it on a basic primal level.

Work here is on the final approach for runway 28R at MRY, but I promised a few folks I would let them know when to evacuate the building... :eek: :D

Just kidding. Seriously...! (-:
 
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