Your Job/Occupation/Career?

[Dauntless]

I'm actually more interested in what dog food also, but since they asked. . . .

http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=48917

And the Job/Occupation/Career thread doesn't have to be an audition for a plumbing gig.

 

[tdiggs]

Full time bicycle mechanic whenever college classes are not in session. Going for a Geoscience (Environmental Geography) major and GIS minor.

 

[TRIGON391]

I work at UPS from 4-9AM, the "preload" for anyone who is familiar. I go to community college and I'm trying to figure out exactly what to study. I'm thinking computer engineering.

All I can say from my experience at UPS is, don't ever ship anything in such a way that you would not feel confident kicking it down the stairs. Most of the time, it's not even pissed off lazy union employees breaking the boxes. They have hydraulically actuated diverters that are supposed to push boxes off of a conveyor belt and into a sorting area. When this area gets back up, the diverter continues to function as if the packages are flowing smoothly. The diverter crushes any box in its path. I saw a box with a 5 gallon bucket concentrated car wash fluid get crushed like a cereal box, it made a huge mess. The thick plastic of the 5 gallon bucket was no match for the diverter. I imagined how bad it would be if some lipos got crushed in such a scenario... that would be bad.

 

[XLR8]

I am retired and loving it. I can spend all day in my shed working on my ebike and other projects. Currently i'm building a pv array that tracks the sun. It is so good to get on my ebike to go to the hardware store or whatever to buy odds and ends without having to use my car.

 

[tdiggs]

I am retired and loving it. I can spend all day in my shed working on my ebike and other projects. Currently i'm building a pv array that tracks the sun. It is so good to get on my ebike to go to the hardware store or whatever to buy odds and ends without having to use my car.

I am so jealous. I wish I was retired, but I am still in college!

 

[JohnC]

American commercial real estate developer, hotelier and financier. Big-box shopping centers, large apartment complexes and one of the pioneers of the extended-stay lodging business. Self-made, started with nothing. Retired now and live in a secluded beach community with my wife and 3 boys in Florida.

 

[jonescg]

Not long after I learnt how to walk, I knew I wanted to be a scientist. Any kind of scientist, it was all cool.

Through primary school I was all into fireworks and blowing stuff up - I'll blame my dad, and the time we were scrounging at the dump and found a suitcase full of bungers. Best Day Ever.

In high school I realised I had a passion for chemistry, but was always interested in the environment, biology, geology and agriculture. In 1998 I started a B.Sc. majoring in chemistry and loved every second of it. I was particularly interested in organic chemistry - this time I'll blame drugs, psychoactive plants and fungi.

I attempted a Masters in Science in chemistry, but I soon learnt the trick was to diversify and apply my chemistry to plants, so without knowing anyone over here, I moved to Perth in 2003 to start a Grad. Dip. in botany. SW WA is one of the world's plant biodiversity hot-spots, and THE place to learn about specialisation and adaptation in shit soil. This lead to my PhD in plant biochemistry where I set about cloning the genes for sandalwood oil biosynthesis. I also got my motorcycle licence about then.

I won another grant which became my post-doctoral fellowship, and saw me travel to Canada where I met the woman who became my wife. We finally cracked the santalene synthase enzyme. We later filed a patent on it, only to be scooped by the Swiss 3 months earlier. At least we published it first http://www.jbc.org/content/286/20/17445.

Back in Perth, with Katherine joining me 4 months later, I started building Voltron I and had a ball doing it. I raced it in the inaugural Australian TTXGP with some success. Got to meet lots of ES and AEVA folks along the way. I became the Perth branch secretary of the AEVA in late 2011 and have been volunteering in this role ever since.

My contract at UWA ended late last year and I am happy to be out of academic research. I'm focussed heavily on building Voltron II with the intention of developing some ideas from it in the coming years. I have started working for a company who builds VTOL flying crafts, mainly as their electrical / power electronics and battery guy, but I do bits of everything. It's funny being a plant chemist who is surrounded by engineers yet being just as skilled and valued as them when it comes to problem solving. I'm absolutely loving it and having so much fun, I might add.

Moral to the story; help others before you help yourself. You will always be happier when you do this.

 

[dingoEsride]

My father was a builder, I became a carpenter, I blame my father for this, but it is a very rewarding job, can't give a lot of advise regarding e bikes more to learn a lot here, fairly bike mad since my first ride on a bicycle at 5, dreamt of a minibike at shopping centre at about 12 first motorbike ride at 16 and first motored bike a 1970 Suzuki t250 at 18, that was over 30 years ago, had many pedal and powered bikes and a stint at mountain biking since but got a bit too lazy to pedal long ways up hills or against wind, ebike fills that niche

 

[kriskros]

marketing,advertising and sales,40 years..retired at 60.. stareted in sales,first job was selling magazine subscriptions by phone..moved to encyclopdiasa. vacuums ,used cars and more.. excellent basic training..to be successful , you really have to get to know and understand what motivares people... switched to commercialsales...did some time in an ad agency .. opened a sal;es and marketing consulting business ..developing sales presentations,training sales staff and developing new product market ing strategy.. a very interesting and copetitive field..i enjoyed the constant .challenge

 

[lbz5mc12]

Food service management and then retail supervisor. I'm currently unemployed and have been so since 12/03/10. Would love to get into something EV related and learn as I go as this is the only thing I've ever really felt passionate about. Normally with all the ups and downs that I've had with this, I would've moved onto something else by now.

 

[oldpiper]

I am an analytical chemist by training (Ph.D., 1980, U.Ga.) and trade. After working with "energetic materials" in a USAF lab, I taught at the college level for 26 years. Got burned out with that (the students seemed to come in less prepared every single year - I really would get depressed when I came across a reminder of what I was able to cover in 1985 and compared it to what I covered in more recent times with supposedly similarly qualified students). Now I design instruments (mass spectrometers) for monitoring water pollution and similar problems and write computer code for them. We use Lipo batteries in some of our instruments which operate under extreme conditions (e.g., at the ocean floor) for weeks or months at a time. It's fun.

Cameron

 

[Cargo_Tom]

I'm a forensic anthopologist by trade. Love the field, but I quit halfway through my stateside PhD due to the realization that my home country has no career prospects in that particular field. I then did some archaeology grunt work to pay the bills for a few years and finally started an engineering degree a couple of years ago. Sustainable energy engineering is the direction I'm heading in, and will likely end up specializing in power electronics (Siemens Wind Power has a R&D unit in my home town, several hydrogen tech companies within commuting distance etc). I'm looking forward to participating in a field dominated by double digit growth. A far cry from the permanent funding crisis in liberal arts and associated fringe fields.

 

[Lebowski]

I'm a forensic anthopologist by trade. Love the field, but I quit halfway through my stateside PhD due to the realization that my home country has no career prospects in that particular field. I then did some archaeology grunt work to pay the bills for a few years and finally started an engineering degree a couple of years ago. Sustainable energy engineering is the direction I'm heading in, and will likely end up specializing in power electronics (Siemens Wind Power has a R&D unit in my home town, several hydrogen tech companies within commuting distance etc). I'm looking forward to participating in a field dominated by double digit growth. A far cry from the permanent funding crisis in liberal arts and associated fringe fields.

That's a bitch ain't it that you can't follow you preferred career 'cause there aren't enough murders

 

[Cargo_Tom]

There is always mass grave duty for the UN, but I'd hate to spend my life away from family and friends. My Father did that pursuing his career, and I've vowed never to let that happen to my own children.

 

[Sunder]

I wish I knew what my job was.

All I can say is that on any one day, I can be cleaning dishes and restocking fridges, to negotiating million dollar deals, to crawling in dusty spaces to cable up a computer, to providing performance feedback to a subordinate.

My background is computer science. My title is Manager. While my boss sees me as an effective one, and pays me bucket loads, I fumble through my job, and sometimes I wonder if I'm going to be "found out" as a fraud. I just do what needs to be done, and by some unknown miracle, things work out. When I took control of the team, it was 2 people making 800k. It's now 6 people making 3.6 million, but I still don't know what I did right to make it work.

The only thing I can put it down to is that I'm a good judge of character. Everyone I've hired under me, have been amazing performers - with only one exception, I think they are actually better at their jobs than I am at mine. But then I think it was Charles M. Schwab who said something along the lines of "I get rich by surrounding myself with people smarter than myself".

Strange as it sounds, I am just as disturbed by the situation as I am pleased by it. I don't know how long this will last, but as long as I'm working hard and bringing in the money for my bosses, I don't feel guilty taking a cut for myself.

 

[slacker]

i believe franklin d. roosevelt uttered that phrase sunder but i could be mistaken.

 

[Dauntless]

"I like to surround myself with people more talented than myself."
-Walt Disney

 

[Sunder]

Yeah, I think there are a few variations of that quote. It probably wasn't Charles M Schwab though, Googled it and nothing turned up. Thought it was an American steel magnate though, so it probably wasn't Walt that I got that quote from.

 

[leffex]

I started a new job at my workplace. Delivery boy haha. well ive been working night for a while at a terminal lifting 80,000 pounds 5 days a week.

I've traded to drive with a smaller truck and 2000 pounds of packages to deliver everyday on a self-planned route is very nice indeed.

Also lucky as I am I will help a guy whose a more of a salesman than a tech at his store on weekends at his ebike store in our local town on sunny summer days.