I’m asking out of curiosity mostly.
Is anyone here into digital marketing? That’s what I’m studying for right now.
I do water maintenance. Flowing hydrants, turning water valves, leak detection etc. I keep the water in city pipes doing it’s job.
That sounds pretty cool. If you’re a fan of being an unsung hero, this seems like a good point. And with that being said, thanks for keeping your city’s hydrants in tip-top shape.
So how did you get started? Does it work well for you?
I work for a private company so I work in a lot of different cities. But I started off with utility locating and found my way here from getting to know people.
I do CNC machining, a great, non-people oriented job (for me anyway)
Rad. What kind of things did you mill?
I do both lathing and milling! The past few jobs I did were water spindles for fire departments, a few small electronic pieces for some local science department. I did firearms, mostly pistol barrels but also rifle barrels, pistol slides, gas blocks, and baffles. Currently I and doing airplane engine bits! Very fun, very regulated lol
Oh man, that’s a wide variety of things to make. That’s cool.
I used to work in a shop with CNC machinists. I remember asking one of them one day what they liked about it. And I got an interesting reply from one of them. He said, “I like how I can make just about everything you would ever need. I just need the raw materials, my machine, and a few tools to measure. And a trusty hammer for when you need to… encourage something.”
I think it was the dude next to him, who made the point that there are so many different metal pieces that you don’t realize are around you when you walk into a building in general. All of them had to be made somehow and a lot of them are small or tiny pieces of components for something larger.
That really opened my eyes to the world around me. I started to look at things differently from then on.
So hats off to all of the machinists out there. We sure as hell couldn’t have the world like we do without you.
DevOps / Linux sys admin / user support / “it has buttons and plugs into a wall socket” support guy
Holy dang man! All of that sounds big brained to me.
How did you get started?
Started as a tech at a computer shop back in uni, doing diagnostics and assembly for custom PC builds. After I got my bachelor, I started as an IT guy in a factory, and for the next ~20 years worked as a sys admin at a bunch of different companies. Over the last 5 years or so I moved more and more towards Linux, automation, IaC, ansible, docker, k8s, terraform… and now I work as a devops engineer. I work for a small company, so I double as a backup sysadmin/user support guy, because I’m the one that “knows what active directory even is”. 🤷
Holy moly. That’s got to be one heck of a full resume you’ve got.
What would you say to someone who wants to get into DevOps?
Tinker, play, break, fix. Start with docker, a couple virtual machines, use the terminal, even switch to linux. Start automating/scripting mundane or repetitive tasks. For me, this is fun, I actually enjoy the work I do. I have a homelab, a few mini-pcs that I play with, and that I’m not afraid to break. I use ansible and terraform to manage them. Completely overkill for just a few apps and services I run for me and my family, but that’s how I learned a bunch of things.
Getting a job in devops might need a few years of experience as either a sysadmin or a developer, but it’s in high demand.
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tl;dr: software developer
Software developer. Unable to thrive at school or university, I had phases ever since I had a PC where I self-improved with more or less intensity. A few years where I had neither energy nor motivation, but discipline to do a little bit most days. Just a solid hobby-level.
Then out of nowhere It became an obsession for 5 years, like it usually does for a substance or gaming addiction. Just wake up, immediately study, trying to get everything perfect, to understand all the competing approaches and their reasons to every problem, only sleep when I can’t keep my eyes open.
Finding mentors online, big names in their niche. Most people think that these people are annoyed from hundreds of “fans” who want to learn, but actually, that rarely happens, and when they see how much effort you put in, they are happy to help. One day, the phase ended as quickly as it had started. But I still had the knowledge.
That was 20 years ago. Much of the stuff from back then is still relevant, but there are the massive changes to web clients, and there are “clouds”. In relation to relevant frameworks and standards, I’m far less skilled now, but I have two decades of reference projects which make me LOOK better.
A problem is that working away from home really doesn’t work for me, thus having to refuse > 95 % of offers (they just come, I don’t apply). But since 2020, that is no longer an issue.
I work at a small company where I wear a lot of hats.
I audit chats, supervise a team of agents, answer billing and sales tickets as well as the phone for sales.
When theres downtime i also work on spreadsheets which we use to track agent performance and make tools to help us work. Thats probably the msot fun part. Its a good job.
Pay is way under what we should be getting but i like the company and they treat me well. Plus wfh so cant complain too much.
Software engineer is my title but my actual role is much more … chaotic.
I love it
Same, more or less. I work with self driving cars, in software integration (for people not familiar, that is putting together the software components other teams make, and solving the interactions between them).
It’s supremely fun. Constantly changing, chaotic, requires me to see the whole picture and never keep detailed focus on a specific part for very long. I love it.
Tech lead here, but same idea. The chaos and variety is exactly what I love about my job too.
Same here. If something is on fire it’s fun to deal with and easy to hyper focus on till it’s resolved. If it’s repetitive everyday kind of stuff, ughhhh.
I’ve had lots of jobs, but not as many as my (untreated, but diagnosed) father.
Currently I’m working in a bakery while getting my master’s to be a German as a second language teacher for adult immigrants to Germany.
Previously I’ve been a waitress, insurance adjuster, litigation manager (fun, but soul-sucking, because it was for an insurance company), tutor and I’ve worked at a call center, shisha (hookah) bar, and tobacco farm.
The important information from this is: I need something stimulating, that can involve lots of different types of activity, otherwise I’ll get bored and either quit or slack off. Too much control of my own work is also not a good thing for me (it’s straight up illegal to not answer certain types of email as an insurance adjuster- terrifying). Physical activity helps keep me on track as well, but that’s mostly correlated to low pay jobs (hopefully I can pace enough as a teacher).
Additionally: see if you can check your boxes outside of work. I was much happier dancing and playing dnd while working in a call center (it was a bad job) than trying to make data entry work physical and involve problem solving.
dancing and playing dnd while working in a call center
This sounds like a sitcom. Hahaha.
I realize now that it was also potentially misleading! I was dancing and separately playing dnd outside of work while my job was in a call center.
Oh, hahaha, ok. Well if you or anyone you know is looking for a TV sitcom idea, there you go.
Now that I think about it, it kinda sounds similar to Workaholics. Could be different though.
Process Manager in the Client Solutions Operations department
Oh, that sounds cool.
What are somethings that attracted you to that career?
Well, as back story: I started at this company as a Member Services Rep on the phones. Somehow I got promoted to Team Lead, and then again to Supervisor, before I saw this position. I like the job because I get to analyze systems and find gaps and weaknesses, and I get to help people solve problems.
Oh nice. What does a typical day look like for you?
I’m one half of a small college’s Conference & Event Services team. We’re essentially the campus party planners, and I admin their space reservation software.
That sounds interesting. How did you get started in that?
Random job listing on Indeed.
I had worked in sales for 20 years, and gradually hated it more and more. Switching to a new field helped for a little bit, but that two year itch would cause me to start looking again.
I got lucky at the interview. I wouldn’t realize until a few weeks in, but my supervisor ALSO had major ADHD, so even though HER boss didn’t think I was the best pick, we felt like we spoke the same language and connected instantly. Also, they needed someone nerdy enough to run their scheduling software, but not nerdy enough to expect an IT professional’s wage. 😂
I love it here. It’s been just over two years, which is usually when I start getting bored and looking for a new job, but instead I’m thinking about how I can stick around here until retirement (in the next 25-50 years, depending on how bad they fuck that up for millennials.)
Also, they needed someone nerdy enough to run their scheduling software, but not nerdy enough to expect an IT professional’s wage. 😂
LOL. Sounds like you were a great fit for the job and team.
I’m always surprised when I hear about/from people who were able to stick it out at a job for over 10 years. It’s a weakness of mine, that I can’t seem to stick with a job for more than 8 months. All sorts of things make it difficult to stick around for me. Depression tends to be the downfall of the job for me. I’ve been able to find a great blend of anti-depressants and minor anti-anxiety meds that work for me. Took me years to get here though. But not to make it about me, there’s room for improvements and I’ve had some over the years. Still going at it. Slow and steady I guess.
So what aspects of your job position do you like the most?
The biggest thing, is that my paycheck doesn’t rely on how many people I’ve swindled.
But also, there’s a lot of variety in my week. I could be processing payments one day, making the schedule for student workers the next, or ordering 200 stuffed animals for the faculty party, setting up a new user in the scheduler system, or moving furniture around for a conference.
And some days there just isn’t much going on and I can browse the web and play games online most of the day.
Aircraft Maintenance Controller, I coordinate and advise on the maintenance operations for a fleet of cargo 737’s and 767’s. It’s a lot of auditing and making sure everything is done right, but also troubleshooting advice and on the operations side it’s a lot of making a plan to keep the flight schedule as intact as possible while still handling maintenance issues.
Tech support, get that dopamine solving new problems everyday
All the previous jobs were in the vein of either huge risk (pizza delivery) or puzzle solving. Got quite disheartend doing anything less demanding.
Dito, fixing interesting problems is fun. My main issue is that we have had a caroucel of bosses (4 in the last 4 years) and the current one gets a C-. Half the team does not trust them due to drama with the previous manager and the they keep trying to make it so the different team members specialize in different tasks (everyone used to be trained to do everything). I like the job and the company, but its one or two step removed from “Office Space” levels of corpo whohash.
In my office the only issue is admin stuff, time tracking, emails, case updates that sort of time sucking boring nonsense, found a way around, train the new guys, tell em’ contact me if you have problems, so now I fix their stuff and they do the emails/notes :D
I have to convince mangement I’m doing work every yearly review, so far so good!
Depending on how old you are, I’d say that you’re working with what you’re best at and delegating the things you’re not good at, to those on your team or department, that are better at them. If you’re under 45, I’d have a hard time seeing this as you doing a good thing. That you’re just passing off the things you and everyone else should be doing for the new poor schmucks. I could be biased though.
I’m above 40 but below 45, i am shit at paperwork and composing an email takes half a day. each time I solve an issue the solution and more importantly the process I go through to get to the solution is shared, I don’t want to have to fix things more than twice and it is my job to share knowlege/train the new guys.
They don’t know that I don’t know shit and every problem is fixed with detailed troubleshooting not ‘knowing’ what the issue is.
I loved doing tech support when I worked in a Verizon store. I was supposed to sell stuff, but I’d rather solve problems.
I’m an engineer. I don’t usually spend more than a few hours on a single job, and there’s always something to do. My favorite thing is finding out how to do an unusual job and becoming the go-to guy for it.
What kind of engineering are you in? What aspects of your job do you like the most?
Electrical engineering. I’m not in the department that does all the heavy math, I mostly just do what people tell me to do. But there’s satisfaction in making something comprehensible, even elegant, and solving the few problems I come across in my work. It’s not artistic, exactly, but it’s still very easy for the hours to melt away.
Data Architect… also management at the moment.
Holy moly. I fantasized about working that job many years ago. From what I gathered from job research sites, it takes many years of college to get into it. That’s just not a path I can take as the way I learn isn’t very cohesive with textbook learning, lecture note taking, and the like.
Am I wrong about this?
And how did you get started?
I tripped into it… I have always been database/persistence focused and joined a rather young small company so I became THE expert - years pass and I’m now managing persistence and design for a modestly sized team.
I’m a waitress. A lot of bartenders and waitresses have ADHD or are undiagnosed but share symptoms.
Previously I’ve been a teacher and worked in childcare.
In my experience the healthcare system would collapse overnight if we ran out of Adderall.
I’m the President of the United Plates
