Best job in the world

[Kevin Mienke]

My parents and teachers always said I was a smart kid and could do anything I wanted with my life. I don't know if that is true, but it's what they said. The career options they laid out for my consideration were always of the high paying variety, doctor, lawyer and such. You get the point.

For whatever reason, I wasn’t driven by money and chose to become a firefighter/paramedic instead. The pay is not good, the shifts are 24 hours, and a guy sees a lot of things that he later wishes he had never seen. But overall I have loved being a firefighter and wouldn’t change a thing. I think I could have done better financially, but there would have been a tradeoff.

I wonder about others. Are you doing what you do out of necessity or are you doing what you love to do?

[Hobcobble]

Twenty years ago, I took my job out of necessity. It has
developed into something I like to do.
John

[oldmopar]

Worked 37 years job was ok but it did pay the bills and had a good retirement plan. So now that I am retired I am doing what I like playing with my cars and trucks.
Here is a link my vehicles past, present and future

http://www.oldmopar.com/cars.html

[Gordon Maney]

The best job I ever had was working as a vocational automotive instructor in an urban high school with about 1,800 kids in three grades.

[Clint Dixon]

Strictly out of necessity

I have had only one job during my working career that I truly enjoyed. I was a Maintenance Man for a non-foods mechandising warehouse. I would wake up in the morning and couldn't wait to get to work to find out what I would be doing that day.

During a typical day I could be found working at a dozen different jobs, from designing/building a new main entrance/waiting room for the front office, to rerouting/repairing conveyor systems, to repairing toilets in a restroom, to spotting trailers with over-the-road tractors at the shipping dock, to working on the rooftop ventilation fans.

I had the best boss one could ever hope for. We would study a problem together and consider it from all angles before turning one wrench regardless of how long it took. We seldom had to do any rework. In the job I have now EVERYTHING is driven by the deadline. We never have time to do a job right the first time, but we always have time to do it over later on.

I would never have left that job, but I was making just over minimum wage and I was doing a lot of dangerous Millwright type of work high in the air. I had been with the company 18 years and I could see the writing on the wall. The place closed two years after I moved on. The bad thing about having a job I really enjoyed, and working with a boss who I really liked, is that every job I have had since then I have unfairly compared to that one.

I was laid off for a while when the ecomomy turned real bad in this area in the mid to late 1980's. I had the opportunity to take some dislocated worker courses to help retrain me. I was given a lot of testing both mental and physical to find out what I was cut out to do. Based upon these tests, we would applied the results to a master list of "jobs". This was done by placing pegs in holes along the edges of a huge stack of punch cards. The selected holes represented the resultes of the testing. One would place the pegs in the appropriate holes and shake the pile letting loose cards (with slots in the specific locations instead of holes) fall away. This would continue until all of the results were applied and the remaining stack of cards represented the list of jobs you were qualified to perform. Not many cards fell out of my pile. This meant that I could do about any job that I set my mind to.

The next portion of the test was based upon a questionaire we had to answer. This was to determine which jobs would be the best for me based upon personality, personal preferences, whether I liked to work outside verses inside, etc. The same process was repeated with a fresh stack of job cards. Insert pins, let cards fall away, insert pins, etc.

When I was finished with this portion of the testing, only one card remained in my stack. Most people were left with a whole stack of cards. The resulting stack represented a mariage of the two test results - the jobs we would personally like, from the jobs we were physically and mentally capable of working at.

The one single job left for me, that met all criteria, was Bricklayer.

[74w300uteline]

$$$ keeps me in NYC, but I hate it

I took a similar test. result= animal husbandry. looking back test was probabley right. Now I'm a comm tech for a wall st. firm. Sitting around like a lifeguard waiting for somone to drown. Long periods of boredom broken up by panic and mayhem when something breaks. Pay is very good, but commuting into and out of the toilet called Manhattan is a true waste of time. 2.5 hours each day 50 miles round trip. Between waiting all day for something to break and the commute , my motto at home to the family is "waste anything but time". Now you guys understand why I love PW rallys in rural locations. My dream job, Forest Ranger

[KevinM]

I've always felt fortunate that I'm doing what I love and have the added benefit of getting paid for it.
I was the kid in school who was always doodling on my bookcovers or daydreaming out the window, ...school bored me, but I was creative and was encouraged by a few teachers along the way.
My grandfather was a high school woodshop teacher, my mother was an artist in her own right drawing political cartoons for local newspapers as well as creating oil paintings,....some would say its in my blood.
My break came when in my early 20's I was asked by a friend to design and fabricate a Sign for their family heating oil business......I had been doing woodcarving and other woodworking at the time but this was to be my first attempt at a Sign .....with the exposure of that first Sign my "career' grew from there, other businesses saw that Sign and commisioned me to upgrade their image. Thirty years later and as they say " the rest is history".
Being self employed has allowed me the flexability to persue other passions like my PW's and some dabbling in construction/real estate. Sign Carving not only provides me a decent living but a great sense of satisfaction , taking an idea from thought to reality has its own rewards.....
One of my latest projects...

[Longhunter7]

Best Job

I spent 31 years as a communications technician for AT&T/Illinois Bell/Ameritech/SBC.

Without a doubt the best part of my career was the last 12 years as a buried telephone cable locator.

I worked the same geographical area every day and got to know where almost every cable was located in my area.

I was my own boss, I was able to route my daily work load to accommodate my lunch desires and route myself to be close to my starting location.

I only saw my supervisor in morning and at the end of the day. They were happy as long as I got my work done and no cables were cut by contractors.

I had six weeks of paid vacation and it was a beautiful thing!

[74w300uteline]

longhunter fiber optics and train wrecks

mid 1980's every time a train went off the tracks out west (which is the whole country from here) we would have a busy day in NYC. The fiber backbone lines were buried alongside the tracks and redundancy was not as available as it is today.

[Steve Pellock]

I spent 31 years as a communications technician for AT&T/Illinois Bell/Ameritech/SBC.

Without a doubt the best part of my career was the last 12 years as a buried telephone cable locator.

I worked the same geographical area every day and got to know where almost every cable was located in my area.

I was my own boss, I was able to route my daily work load to accommodate my lunch desires and route myself to be close to my starting location.

I only saw my supervisor in morning and at the end of the day. They were happy as long as I got my work done and no cables were cut by contractors.

I had six weeks of paid vacation and it was a beautiful thing!

would you happen to know Bob Thompson?

[Warren Watt]

Careers and how they evolve

[QUOTE=Clint Dixon;68519]I have had only one job during my working career that I truly enjoyed. I was a Maintenance Man for a non-foods mechandising warehouse. I would wake up in the morning and couldn't wait to get to work to find out what I would be doing that day.

I couldn't wait to chime in on this thread. All of the posts are interesting to me.
If there was a way to do so, this is the kind of material that would do a lot of good to some young person who is trying to figure out what they want to do in life. Material that a guidance counselor could pass along.

My story is somewhat similar to part of Clint's. I have found that the trade I am in (Operating Engineer) gives me something different to do everyday. Now, from a managerial perspective, I am watching my staff experience just that. I take the opportunity to tell them so when they are rolling their eyes at a difficult job that lies ahead.

I started out stripping and waxing floors. Transferred to being a trades helper. Learned a lot. Transfered to being a building mechanic, then an licensed engineer, then an assistant chief, then the chief engineer - all in one very large building / power plant in a 16 year period.
From there I've stayed in the managerial side of the trade. Its been 35 years altogether. This is with no college, some trade school and no set plan. Great pay and benefits the whole way through. I have to say I like doing what I do.
I am happy with how the trade has been available to me for these years. There is sometimes a lack of respect from the suit and tie crowd that we have to deal with everyday. After all, we wear shirts with company and name patches on them. You do get looked down on. This used to bother me. Then I found out that in a lot of cases, I was making more $$ than those people. I also realized that I like doing this kind of work. Also, as I became more skilled, I was more in demand. I ended up making more people happy from providing a service in a pleasant and efficient manner than having conflicts with snobbish folks. After a while, I ended up waving and saying HI to most of the office people on a first name basis. Sort of like you would in a school setting. Friendly. Professional.
One thing I enjoy doing now is interviewing new apprentice applicants at our Local. It is only one day a year. I take the day off to do this. It is great to be part of the process that allows young people into my trade. Some don't get in based on their interviews. That is a whole bunch of stories for another day.
Kevin - Great idea, this thread. Thanks.

[BobbyMike]

I have done many different things, but all common in that they required me to solve problems and work with my hands.

I prefer to design something and then make it.

I did have a great job as the maintenance man for a theater chain when I got out of the Marines. I set up projectors, fixed things that got broke, worked as a projectionist, etc. I only left that job because the pay wasn't enough for me to save any of the money I made.

I have done straight design for clients before (glassware for Dansk most notably), but even that involved making the prototypes and documenting the process so in that case the glassblowers in Romania and Poland could duplicate what we (my wife and I) made.

I call myself a furniture maker now, because that's what I usually do, although I'm also usually involved with some kind of renovation (old houses out here are like fleas on a junk yard dog). So I'm skilled at cabinetry, framing, tiling, painting, etc.

I like what I do mostly, although I don't seem to get enough time in the shop just tinkering and spend too much time on the computer tweaking designs to meet changes needed, or discussing projects.

[Kevin Mienke]

Kevin - Great idea, this thread. Thanks.

Thanks Warren. To me, this is interesting because there was a time in most of our lives when we had choices to make that would affect our entire lives. I didn’t understand how important it was at the time.

I came to be a firefighter in a roundabout way. Right out of high school, I got an opportunity to play college baseball and jumped on it. My college education would cost nothing more than the cost of books but I still didn’t have a good focus on my future. I just wanted to play baseball. Without going into great detail, I soon realized that a career in baseball was improbable.

After a couple years, I left college and worked as a roofer and construction laborer before becoming a carpenter. Later I had an opportunity to get a fairly good paying job as a printer. I took the job but it was hard to be inside all day. Nevertheless, by this time I had a wife to take care so I continued printing until I finally decided that I would return to college and pursue becoming a fireman. I worked full time printing while I earned my Fire Science degree. Later I went to paramedic school and the city of DM hired me. My dream was realized. I have no regrets.


Kev, I’ll always be grateful for the “Dodge” detail work you did on my tailgate for the price of a cup of coffee. What you do is amazing.

And

Clint, I can mix mortar for you. It just might be in the cards.

I'll be away from the forums for awhile with other things. Enjoy the thread.

[truck4myboys]

Great thread! Not only interesting stories, but it made me really reflect on what I'm doing.

I'm in the family business, although I tried everything I could to escape. I'm a commercial real estate appraiser. The job was very boring to me when I started in high school. I worked for my family for a few years, but wanted to work with my hands. I was studying mechanical engineering in undergrad, and went to work for a bunch of different auto shops when I decided, like some of you, that I would rather design than just repair. I went to work for Hilborn Manufacturing making fuel injectors and all of the assemblies that go with them.

Ended up finding that, at least during college, that a desk job made studying easier, so I ended up back in the appraisal office. After going through a few majors, dabling with making jewelry for a living, and trying a few other creative jobs, I ended up going to law school. Lawyering did not work for me. I just ain't driven enough to be a lawyer. I was a lawyer just long enough to meet my wife (she was my paralegal), then ended up combining my desk job experience to be a realty specialist for the FAA. After getting bored there, I was back in the appraisal office.

Once I dedicated myself to the job, it became a career.

I've now been in the field for many years, and overall it is very rewarding. I've learned and experienced enough that I now teach to professionals, and that is a great experience. I work out of the house so there's no commute and I get to spend lots of time with my kids. I'm established enough that I get to choose the jobs that are interesting to me. And it pays pretty well, now that I'm well respected and truly dedicated to the work.

It took me a while to realize why it's called work. Once I accepted that every job is work, I learned to love the good parts of this job and trudge through the rest.

[Bruce]

What Warren Said

Good Idea Kev!
I was a Chef instructor for 18 plus years, before that 6 years as a cook in the Air Force & 3 in the MD Air Nat. Guard, since 2000 I've worked as a working chef (there are 7 of us, I'm not even the top banana) for the University of Richmond. A big part of my job is purchasing all of the produce, nearly 300 g's each year.
For a long time I did it because it was easy for me, didn't realize how much I enjoyed showing others how things like cooking are done or done right.
I know that there is more than one way to skin a cat, not all of them are the correct way.
I am looking forward to spending more time in the shop, when I am not sure?