Tell me about… Your job?

@Ton – It’s just really been 3 friends who decided we wanted to brew some beer, but luckily one of us is a proper brewer. We are just about getting to the stage of having a small range of beers ready for the drinking public, so I’ll give full disclosure when we are happy with what we have. We are currently brewing small batches, in some rented space at a diary farm in the Dark Peak, but progress has been slow as we all have other jobs. We haven’t really thought about the image or marketing stuff yet, we have just been putting bottles in folks hands and asking what they think of it, it’s been a bit of a labour of love to date. One of the trio has just been laid off and we would really like to get things moving so we could make the brewery his proper job. We are about to get a little more grown up about things, as until now we have just been having a load of fun. Given your interest, I’ll make sure you are first on the list for some samples of the finished product 😀

@ matt outandabout – I think we have the label for the ‘Orange 5’

Inpatient consultant psychiatrist. Helping to get people back to where they want to be and contrary to popular belief they get there most of the time. Really rewarding, bit dicey at times, great great people but as you may have heard on the news today a bit over crowded.

Pays the bills and for carbon

Get away on Dartmoor trails; quiet, open and great riding

Smogmonster – 6 months at home and pay no tax? Thought it was 90 days max.

I run a genetics company with two labs in the uk and two in the USA, plus 4 other global locations. Currently in Boston 😀

Great job although I do rack up the airmiles.

Pay? It keeps my bike buying habit well funded!

Geotechnical Pretengineer or Engineering Geologist depending on how clever i’m feeling. Used to be mostly based out of Reading/London but now Perth Australia. Hate the office work, love the site work, even though its often stupidly hot, dusty and miserable. Probably liked doing it in the UK more but am paid about triple out here for nearly the same job. By Perth standards the wage isnt amazing but i’m pretty damn happy with it to be honest.
Always fancied teaching one day, I think if we come back to the UK I might try science teaching. Kids cant be harder than some of the people you find working in the mines!

Practice manager for 3 NHS emergency dental care centres. Were open 8-8 365, it can get stressful, and our patients are often the ones that no one else will/can see in a normal setting, so can exhibit “challenging” behaviours.

Staff are great, my managers less so sometimes.

Pay is good.

I write cycling books like this for peanuts and develop mapping services like this for peanuts as well

Controls & Instrumentation Technician here.
Pays ok for the effort involved.

Customer service gubbins on the phones.

Paid well for the industry as a whole but I’m a bit over it and looking for the holy grail of something that pays the same or more but is more fun/challenging.

smell_it, sounds ace that mate, keep me informed on where to buy from once you are selling. 8)

Work in a design workshop making proto, FIT and pre prod samples of clothes designed to have embedded tech or be used in harsh environments.

I answer the phone, talk to customers and suppliers, run around like my hair is on fire chasing stuff, make tea coffee, and send mail and arrange couriers. Occasionally I’m allowed to use my actual design skills that I trained for 🙄

Paid the rotten peanuts they would dare pay any one else

I’m a builder/dogsbody/Brickie/project manager/site manager/Groundworker/ in fact anything to do with projects from 6/7million to a days labour, all run by two of us! It can get quite busy at times 😀
Company does well I do well, company doesn’t do well I get a Harrods hamper..

IT Support Manager for a bank. Not overly exciting but I work with a good bunch. Some of our major internal stakeholders are a pita though, treat us like shite.

Well paid for what I do, really can’t complain at all.

Work for the government investigating bankrupts and directors of limited companies. Been doing it 4 years ran an engineering company for the 10 years prior to this. Job is not want I was originally told it would be, zero chance of progression and pretty dull tbh. Pay is pretty useless to, good job my wife can fund my bikes !! Only good bit is I get to ride in 12 miles with a shower at the office. Looking for something new.

What do you guys do for work?

Run an unusual bike shop, importing recumbents and folding bikes, building custom frames, stuff like that.

Do you enjoy it?

Very much, I get to play in a workshop with fun tools all day, interspersed with mucking about on fun bikes, and chatting to interesting people. It’s a dream job.

How much do you get paid?

Ah, now you’ve found the slight flaw in my master plan.

Another IT manager here, (no audi, Orange 5, ipad, woodburner etc) Shortest way to describe my job is I bring common sense to a room full of senior people (who have lost touch with reality), techies (who cant interact with humans), vendors (who try to rape us) and customers (who think you can get the moon on a stick, yesterday and for 3 pence…)

Pay is very good, better than it should be in my opinion – but still less than colleagues who do less and lack above common sense…

I’m a Project Manager for a company that designs/builds/supports Chilled Water plant, refrigeration equipment and HVAC Systems on Navy Ships and Submarines.
My current job role is supporting our kit on the RN’s batch of 6 new T45 Destroyers, both here in the UK, and while they are on deployed operations. (globally)

I enjoy it most of the time – it is interesting, and I get to do some very cool stuff. (shock testing new kit springs to mind)

The pay is OK – probably about the going rate for the role.
The perks are good though (car/phone/laptop/healthcare) and the rest of my department are fairly good to work with so not currently looking elsewhere.

Oceanographer, working for the Met Office. mainly spend my days looking at data on waves and currents…
can be really interesting, but the civil service bureaucracy is enough to make you go mental.
pay,meh, been on a freeze for 3 years now. would certainly get more in the private sector, but I get to live in Devon. and that’s worth loads IMO

I am a PMO (project management office) manager and manage a small team of project support analysts.

Don’t ask me what that means, I don’t really know other than “I make sure that stuff happens”!

I work for an internet filtering company as support/installation/network engineer.

Not a bad job, lots of IT Managers to deal with, occasionally some useful people that are really nice and working from home is nice too.

Pay isn’t great.

Another middle manager in IT.
No Audi
No logburner (did consider it but couldn’t make the business case work)
Yes, a nice espresso machine
Yes, an Orange Five, (and a Patriot)

Do I enjoy the job? No, it’s a means to an end.

Pay, reasonable for the location but not enough.

I teach English to Spanish kids/teenagers. I dont particulalry like it but I’m just left to get on with my job with virtually no “management”. Pay is ok. I get to live in a great part of the world and have time to ride most days if I want to.
The sensible part of me increasingly thinks it’s time to get a “proper” job again. I’ve got 13 years IT experience but no-one is interested in me due yo having a few years break from it. Anyone want a AS/400 RPG A/P ?

I’m a salesman or you can use the more grandiose title of Enterprise Business Development Manager if you like. Software and services for Marketing Automation. I do like it, in fact I love it, it’s a fantastic job with interesting clients and colleagues and I’m out and about most of the time. Money is dependent on results, results are good.

IT System Manager/Developer/DB Admin for the NHS. Take care of a system that delivers electronic pathology messages out to GP surgeries and hospitals.

Being in an office every day is extremely challenging as I’ve always worked outdoors prior to this job (in it 1 year now). I don’t love it, but when you see things progress and projects succeed because of your input, it’s satisfying.

I lived out in NZ for a year – my plan is to head back out there and find some work like this (or general IT), or buy a small business (hostel). If anyone needs an employee out there, HIT ME UP! 😀

Pay is good compared to my previous jobs, but I’ve lived happily on minimal income and think … mo money, mo problems. Also feel guilty when I hear how much nurses and front line hospital staff get paid – they’re in the thick of it, risking their health – they deserve way more.

I’m a receptionist, a bloody well paid receptionist, for a nice employer, dealing with mostly nice people. I stopped giving a toss about a career when I got made redundant a few years ago, and subsequently have landed on my feet big time with this job.

Sales/Tech support and training bloke for a vehicle diagnostic distributor.(last 8 years)

Sadly the arse is falling out of our industry having survived the recession it’s gone very quiet recently and the importing of cheap Chinese copied tat is ruining it for everyone. Used to enjoy it but the commute due to being now completely office based and the lack of career prospects has spoilt it.
Already have an escape plan and retraining to go back onto the tools. 😉

Pay… it’s going in the wrong direction lets put it that way.

Techie for a telecoms company specializing in contact centers. Today i’m sitting in a hotel sipping coffee looking at the sunshine. Tomorrow I’ll be stuck in a data centre. Job is varied, love technology and you never know everything, always learning. Downside is regular travel and trying to maintain a decent diet. Definitely not cut out for management, so trying to get some goals in place for the next five years and improve work/life balance.

Pay is ok, industry average. I have it cushty compared to some of the folk who have already posted and have jobs that make a real difference.

Talk to me.

Nope.

I was a service engineer travelling all over the UK for many years,just got sick of driving
60k a year,14 hour days, working away from home,took redundancy 3 years ago and
now work as a hospital porter for the theatres,despite being on a zero hours contract
and only earning less than the minimum wage I’ve never been happier,no stress, i get
to go out on rides when I’m not working,i get to commute to work by bike after the rush hour
What’s not to like

I work as senior management within the Recruitment industry. Mainly the Aviation, Rail, Electronics and Defence industries.

I mostly enjoy it.

I do ok, I could earn more elsewhere, the company isn’t one of the better payers within the industry, but by far not the worse.

The company makes a lot of money out of the efforts of me and my fellow managers, we don’t see much of it. Nothing unusual.

I would really like to go back into the nonprofit sector. Job insecurity and lack of ££ and full time work drove me out of it, as well as a bit of “compassion fatigue” but I saw a part time job with the CAB this week that I’d really like, and was spending my insomniac time last night calculating if I could afford to do it!

My job today is a bunch of arse 😆 just sent people to stand about oooh and ahhhhing while they watch other people re-oxygenate a river Brer Farmer has spilt slurry into.

That and the phone hasn’t stopped ringing and I am trying to sort out two oil problems one mahoosive and one small.

Dragon that runs facilities has just told me I cant leave my motorbike on site 😡 grrrrrrrrr and breathe.

I mostly measure gravity, enjoy it and get paid. So that’s good.

consultant for a large energy consultancy

it has its moments, but would I be on here if it was flat out excitement?

nowhere near as much as my O&G colleagues 🙁

Forgot to add that as well as the decent IT job, I drive a VAG estate (has lots of Audi bits bolted to it), own an Orange Five (1×9’d with a Reverb and massive wide bars) and have two woodburners, a full log store thats neatly arranged and a nice coffee maker. Oh and I wear Oakley specs. And I live in Calderdale. And I have a beard/gypo stubble.

I’m possibly one of the most stereotypical STWers on here.

Rope Access – both on and offshore.
I enjoy it, been doing it for a long time so the shine has rubbed off a bit & the industry has changed. I have a small rope access contracting company, I enjoy that side of things.

The money is ok, offshore jobs always pay better, its mainly a lifestyle choice – choose when you work, what jobs to do,

Mattbee -I worked on the spinnaker tower when it was being built.

DBW – inspired by your post: 🙂

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/who-is-the-most-stereotypical-stwer

Look after IT for a small, but perfectly formed, and very forward thinking holiday letting company.

Second job as a retained firefighter which I respond to from work.

Main job involves looking after pretty much everything with a plug in the building – and some things without as I also pick up a lot of general facilities stuff. I’m part of the management team and we’re not in an IT bunker so get the opportunity to get involved in all the other parts of the business – for example I do a lot of data analysis, demographic profiling and SQL programming to assist our marketing team.

Pager can go off at any time then I’m off to get kitted up and jump on the fire engine – respond to anything from RTCs to building fires to animal and water rescue. It’s quite a commitment in terms of time and training for not much money but it’s a nice counterpoint to the day job and good to do something community focussed.

Used to do application support and development / business analysis for big corporate organisations. Was considerably more money but can’t say I miss it much.

Cheers grum. What do I win 😉

I’m a Quantity Surveyor (chartered last year) for a fairly large private practice. I came to the industry a bit late having done a none construction degree and converted via a part time master’s degree whilst working (this was funded by the company that I work for).

I work in the retail team and generally enjoy my job. I work with a good bunch of people which makes the bad days more bearable because there is always some mick taking etc going on. I was pretty disappointed when I was first told that I was going into the retail team because it’s an area that most construction folk sneer at. As it turns out, I’ve been pretty lucky and have worked on some really big jobs. The company I work for are pretty laid back, so I can work from home, leave early if needed although I am also expected to put the hours in when needed.

Pay has been a bit of a rollercoaster since I joined in 2007; I took a pay cut to retrain because I hated construction recruitment and got a really good pay rise in my first salary review which was followed by a pay cut when the recession bit. I had pay rises after the cut, but they were pretty small and money was tight for a few years. Over the last couple it’s got much better, especially now that I am chartered. I guess I earn above the national average, but more would always be nice!

There are frustrations with stuff like cars because our company car scheme is rubbish being limited to Ford and Vauxhall but the allowance is weak too, so it doesn’t stack up financially. The fact that the company are laid back is great on one hand but annoying on others because they don’t manage people too well which is frustrating for someone like me who is keen to get on. My major frustration is that construction was never presented as a career opportunity when I was at school – it was all about banking, finance, law etc. Had I known more I would never had done my pointless marketing degree and done something more relevant. I love the building side of things – being on site and seeing something take shape is fascinating (especially on my last project which was a huge eco store).