What do you do or did you do to earn a living?

[sid]

I think it would be interesting to find out this information from the people who post here. I will begin by telling about myself.

I was a clinical psychologist and retired from practice in 1995.

Now let's hear from some others.

[togor]

Electrical engineer, still on the job. Computer systems and power systems engineering. And fascinated that a former psychologist feels the need to block posters who intrude on his safe space (not just me).

[Ken The Kanuck]

Pipefitter

KTK

[Vern Humphrey]

Soldier. After retiring worked developing training -- trained commandos in Singapore, developed the tining program for the Army's experimental Motorized Brigade at Fort Lewis, and so on.

[m1ashooter]

USAF Nuclear Weapons operations officer and now for many years a retail manager.

[Fred]

Not in any particular order...

Iron Worker, Summer Stock Stage Actor, artist, school night janitor at one of the colleges I attended, school teacher, School district grounds keeper, North American and Meso American archaeologist, heavy construction laborer, dinomite rigger, concrete laborer & finisher, topographer (map maker), unmarked human burial recovery and archaeologist for the MO Dept. of Natural Resources. Developed and taught combat tactics at the NTC for Desert Warfare, Armor officer, Psycological Operations officer, Petroleum Operations officer, School district maintenance worker and fixit guy, Peacock Chicken and Horse rancher, Husband protector and consort of The Memsahib!

[Mark in Ottawa]

Civil engineer with the Government of Canada. I started as an airport construction engineer at what was then Toronto International Airport (Now Pearson International) then moved to Ottawa and shifted to the marine area and then to the urban transportation program. I then transferred from the Department of Transport to the Treasury Board Secretariat as a type of financial analyst and from there went on loan to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to handle the day to day management of their construction program. Eventually I returned to Treasury Board as a policy analyst in the real property and environment area. When I retired I was asked by the Mounted Police to come work for them and spent an additional 9 years in various roles and tasks. In addition to being a civil engineer I am also qualified as a Certified Financial Planner and although I don't practice I have written a book on the subject and self published it on Amazon (2001 Boring Things That You Should Know About Your Finances).

[Art]

OK, in chronological order.

Store clerk for a few weeks in high school, the only job I was ever fired from. I learned then that retail was not going to be my thing.

2 years 7 months and 14 days in the army as a guided missile technician.

Laborer for about 4 months between the army and starting college.

Three years at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge on the GI bill. I had a variety of odd jobs and a back doored scholarship from the athletic department (I wasn't a great athlete but they liked me.)

Graduated from L.S.U. and went to work four days later as a Federal Law Enforcement Officer in the old INS which now doesn't exist any more; now part of The Department of Homeland Security, specifically Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I put in 26 and a half years in that one. I had some good times on that job before retiring in 1998.

Post retirement:

Trainer in a health club. I thought I would love it but came to hate it pretty shortly and quit after about 7 months.

10 years as a Substitute Teacher, which I learned you could massage into a cool job, at least in the district I worked in.

"Unpaid Staff" which means volunteer position with defined duties and a little bit of authority in a Christian Non Profit for the last 8 years.

Also helped my wife with her little home business off and on over the last 20 years or so.

[RED]

My first job was washing electric motor parts in gasoline for a repair shop I was 12 years old and the pay was $.25/ hour. In high school I worked bagging groceries, and any other job I could find. I got a partial football scholarship to a State college and played one season. After that I did any job I could get the best one was working at a Phillips 66 Station. I would work from 4:00PM to 9:00 Mon. thru Fri. and 7:00AM to 8:00PM on Sat and Sunday while taking 5, 3 semester hour classes. In the summers of 1965 and 1967 I spent 10 weeks at the Navy OCS in Pensacola and received a commission upon graduation.

After 5 years, 8 months of active service I couldn't find a decent job and tried to go back to grad school but hated the long haired hippies that were professors that had never done anything but go to school and smoke pot.

I finally got a job as a Mfg. Rep for a Fortune 500 company and worked for them for 23 tears until they sold out and the company (SCM Corp) was bought by a British company and broken up. Then I managed to get a job representing a company that manufactured lead/acid batteries. I was there 12 years until I was disabled in an accident in 2007.

BTW, I was married to my first wife 49 years, 8 mos, and 10 days.

[Former Cav]

machine operator (NC milling machines in a "job shop"....production)
part time in a convenience store, at nights on the edge of the ghetto. Amazingly I was ROBBED at gun point at a store on the "good side of town"
they caught the guy AFTER they BLAMED ME!
Draftsman
Automobile mechanic (went to school two years, made a living at it for one year and decided with my crippled combat leg I wouldn't be able to do this at an older age.
Went back to drafting, and school and got a Bachelors degree.
Designer, Tool Designer
Got the title Engineer, Senior Engineer, Senior Production engineer, Designer, Sr. Tool Engineer. Most of these were in manufacturing type environments and involved doing jigs, fixtures, etc for machine shop type work. Did some PROCESS engineering, some folks called it manufacturing engineering. Worked in industries from Thin Film head disc drives to John Deere 4 Wheel Drive tractors, and everything in between. Even got into a medical manufacturing outfit designing molds for Catheters and Pacemaker wire introducers etc.
Did Auto Cad, CadKey, Computervision 4 X, Anvil 5000 (I called that last one ANCHOR 5000............all it did was SLOW ME DOWN)
Interesting thing, I could write a program in auto cad using Auto-LISP and insert it into ANVIL and I had some really NEAT routines that sped up the process.
those were fun days. Then, our wonderful congress geeks over a period of 50 years or so moved all our manufacturing jobs OFFSHORE they called it "free trade".
Glad Trump SEES the picture!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Glad I voted for him. May GOD BLESS him and his family and watch over them!!

[JB White]

Mostly commercial construction. Cross trained Journeyman carpenter and Millwright. Retired as project superintendent.

Had a few interesting jobs along the way. As a youngster I did the newspaper routes. Then a pin setter at a local bowling alley. In my late teens I worked part time on the grounds crew at the Astrodome while mostly working as a construction laborer in the Houston area. Dealership wrench. (Houston & Chicago) Tried a salaried position with Northern Trust for 6 1/2 years. Too much drama on a daily basis so I bailed out. Back to construction & commercial remodeling where I was always happy...most of the time. No regrets.

[S.A. Boggs]

I think it would be interesting to find out this information from the people who post here. I will begin by telling about myself.

I was a clinical psychologist and retired from practice in 1995.

Now let's hear from some others.

What was your practice centered on, mine was chemical dependence with the criminal background individuals.
Sam

[High Plaines Doug r]

Quit college in February ’69. Got a notice to report for my physical in March and inducted in June. Vietnam with the 1st Cav from February through December 1970. Took Construction Technology and Drafting classes on the GI Bill from ’72 to ’75.
Job shopped in Chicago and ended up in Denver after a while. In ’78 I took a straight job with an ordnance outfit that made odds and ends like escape devices for military aircraft and satellite fueling valves. This outfit made inflators for most commercial aircraft escape slides.
That end of the business drew us into making airbag inflator gas generators and making the electric “squib” or “initiator” for the inflators. I did mechanical design and project management for the aircraft/aerospace side at first and moved over to automotive division to design and manage the gas fill operations on the hybrid inflators (used both compressed gas and propellants to fill the airbags).
24 years later, the company sold out to Autoliv, a Swedish automotive safety products giant, sold off the aerospace operations and moved the automotive operations to their Ogden, Utah facility. I took a pass and early retired.

[Sako]

Grew up farming and at the ripe age of 24 I started contract pumping in the oil patch.Bought a truck to haul saltwater and expanded on that. Today I employ about 30 workers, down from 60 workers in 2014. My wife and 4 kids all work in the company with very little input from me.
Basically been self employed all of my life.

[aintright]

Worked in the hay fields , heating and ac company , started doing line work , wife started bitching about being gone all the time , so got a local job at a printing company , went from part time status to assistant foreman and set up guy on the Bindary dept . Interesting work , but work politics sucked compared to construction mentality , tried commercial electrical work , to many lazy asses , went back to line work and haven't looked back . Currently working on becoming a retired old fart . Two more years baby !
Kenneth