I teach older kids how to point lenses at stuff, and younger kids how to splodge paint around. Some might say more importantly I am also responsible for the well-being and progress of 180 11 year olds.

2nd line IT Engineer

I consider how to move trees about, build roads and bridges, manage quarries, tell machine operators what to do and wrestle with an absolutely crippling clutter of ****-wittery. Occasionally I come on here and laugh at peoples opinions regarding parallel activities in the places where boring trails are built.

I help teams, depts, functions, organisations figure out what they need to do better (and why now) then create the tools to make it happen.

Social Work qualified. Manage a team of social workers who assess and support family members (kinship carers) looking after children because their parents aren’t doing an especially good job of it.

I’m a Technology Manager for an international payments application in a US bank.

I’m responsible for making sure we follow banks tech policies but also deciding how we respond to and implement new regulatory and business requirements upon the system.

It’s ok – I certainly don’t dread going to work, but I’d retire tomorrow if I had the means to do so…

I think I exemplify a ‘portfolio’ career.

Former member of the SAS, indie legend, astronaut and secret agent. Also a gigalo.

I am part of the team who run the cloud infrastructure and databases for a small technology company – who in turn provide software to the energy industry.

After 25 years selling climbing equipment and outdoor gear, I now work with disabled people helping them to ride and walk in the outdoors.

For the last 12 years, we never made anything for Sunderland built cars, all heads went to Renault, Dacia and Daimler Benz. Cylinder heads we used on engines, were brought in from Japan. Never did find out the reasoning for that

Hmmm, knowing what cars your place actually made, and the connection with the others mentioned, I can hazard a guess, but I’m struggling to actually define it, something to do with using Japanese engine parts in an ostensibly Japanese cars, while the engine parts you made are for European partner companies. Or something.

After over thirty years in various aspects of print, design and prepress, I started working in vehicle logistics with British Car Auctions, which then led to doing a similar job for one of the places I dropped off cars at, and picked up from, which repaired and refurbished them, prior to them either going to dealers, or mostly to auction, which then got taken over by Cazoo, a perfect fit for them. Been doing logistics for them for nearly four years, now I’m training on a secondary contract that was won during lockdown, and has been retained; we, and the other sites, basically build driving school cars for a major national learner driver company – we get transporter loads of brand new cars direct from the various factories, fit the dual controls, and apply the vinyl decals to the cars, which is the bit I’m learning to do. So far, fairly successfully, to my immense surprise!

It’s certainly not easy, trying to make large pieces of sticky-back plastic adhere neatly and tidily to a three-dimensional object that has blended curves mixed with straight lines, using soapy water, squeegees and a 1600w hot air gun.
Then after a bit, they come back, have the extra bits removed, are cleaned up and, if necessary, repaired and then sold.

I’ve certainly had worse jobs in the past.

I am a Workshop Manager in a bike shop situated between Furry Creek and Anal Intruder. Some might say that I am ‘living the dream’ in BC, which is just as well as I can’t afford to go anywhere else 😀

I sometimes wonder how people ended up with their jobs. For me, I was permanently stoned from 1993 to 2006 and when I came out of the bud induced haze, I found that I still knew more about bikes than anything else. And it beat my dreary office job at HSBC. So I jumped on a plane to Whistler….

I sometimes wonder how people ended up with their jobs.

Unwillingness to give up mathematics, natural inquisitiveness (am a science geek), late discoverer of Biology, and a need for improved income with an impending increase in family size, were my motivations.

And I’m a published bone fide rocket scientist who fancied something a little easier 😀

Apologies
I do
Focall.

Academic (Chemistry). Mostly, train people at undergraduate or postgraduate levels. A lot if time us spent writing grant applications, some of which are occasionally funded, writing papers, teaching students, plus other admin stuff (committees etc). Every year I have to explain to my dad that I don’t go on holiday from July until October (“this isn’t France, you know”).

Help (primarily)b2b businesses integrate the use of video, eg client testimonials as a tool for advertising, internal training videos, health and safety videos, recruitment videos etc

Just me at the mo with a lot of hiring in talent per job. Hopefully me+1 full timer toward the end of the next financial year

Early days but love it so far. Nice to make a real difference to businesses

Software solutions architect for a big American company specialising in Identity and Access Management.

At a very high level I automate management of user accounts in computer systems.

I am a compulsive tidier

I join companies and sort their IT systems, teams and processes end to end, get bored and leave. I wish I didnt as I fed up looking for a new job every three years.

Looking now as I have just finished working for a travel company, now thats been fun over the last two years, I did convince them to throw everything out and buy new so I cant be bad at this.

I wanted to do Sports & Exercise Science at Uni, but discovered computers on the way.

I’m the son of a local virgin and her carpenter husband. I don’t need to work but my time with you is precious. I will see some of you again…..

Full time water fairy

Ride bikes (typically only one at a time)
Fix bikes
Think about riding or fixing bikes
Procrastinate
Eat too much
Earn money in hospitals to enable the above.

For 25 years I worked as a Design Engineer and Drawing Office Manager – for a company that manufactures boiler cleaning equipment (aka Sootblowers). I retired early five years ago.

I really liked my job as I had relatively free reign to do what I thought was right without any real pressure from upper management. At one point I even managed to get a (joint) world patent on a new design we came up with.

However, at one point, late in my career, said upper management decided to appoint a Technical Manager to be in charge of me and my group. This person was a Fellow of the Instutution of Mechanical Engineers. Holy sh1t he was an ar5e of the highest calibre and a real disgrace to the engineering profession. His big contribution to the company was to change my job title from Engineering Manager to Principal Design Engineer. During his short tenure (he was sacked after only 1 year) his effect on my attitude was profound and was highly instrumental in my determination to retire early (I’d always planned to retire at 60).

Now I potter about with riding bikes, engineering stuff (still use Soilid Edge 3D CAD with a home license), fixing cars and bikes and making stuff on my lathe. Retirement has, so far, been fantastic.

Facial Animation supervisor. I strap cameras to actors faces and film them. We then track/retarget that motion to film or game characters

I run big trials for new drugs – or I used to, just been promoted: now I try to win contracts from pharma/biotech companies to run the big trials for their new drugs, and try to keep the project management teams on the straight-and-narrow.

I’m a generalist, but everything coming my way seems to be either covid or oncology at the moment – although having said that I’ve just won a big gout study, and one in a really interesting west-African infectious disease that I’d previously never heard of.

I’m based in Sydney so am working a lot with new biotech companies from APAC – which is interesting. Working with clients who have no idea what they are doing presents a new challenge (for those of us previously based in Europe) and I am getting quite good at telling people that what they are asking for is going to take twice as long and cost twice as much as they had imagined it would.

Mostly, it’s just emails, phonecalls and the occasional powerpoint

Currently a twiddler of thumbs as I am waiting for a work permit in the USA. I would have thought the government would have handed those out quickly order to tax me. Formerly a Transport Assessment Manager for a large UK government infrastructure project. Basically we worked out how many trucks we need to build it, if that number will break the road network and therefore do we need to improve it as a result – or not in some cases as remedial works might cause more chaos than short term, but very busy construction periods. Let’s just say that I wasn’t a popular person at project events with the public.

Facial Animation supervisor. I strap cameras to actors faces and film them. We then track/retarget that motion to film or game characters

I did that nearly 30 yrs ago 🙂 along with the full body mocap for medical, film, games and sport. I got to stick markers on the T9000 himself

for some sequences in the terminator ride @ orlando (IIRC). We did a demo up at anglia tv in Norwich and the subject was an unknown young chap by the name of Andy Serkis.

Macro Data Refinement, or so I’m told. I don’t really know.

I sometimes wonder how people ended up with their jobs.

I chose very carefully to be where I am. I wanted to be in upstream, but industrially linked research in which things I worked on would make a direct difference. I’d tried IT, pure academic research, Engineering and I’d tried industrial research, but all were a little limited in some way.

I’ve been offered MUCH more money to do more specific things, but I’m still here. Low paid, but pretty satisfied. Things I’ve directly researched, designed and manufactured are now in space, in the air, on and under the sea. Research I’ve started and industrialised has saved millions of tonnes of CO2. People I’ve identified and supported have gone on to do great things – there’s a good chance I’ll end up working for some of them. I’m still paid less in engineering than I was in IT 15 years ago 🙂

Would I like more money? Sure. Would I take it to do less? Nah.

L&D consultant in financial services and insurance.

Vaguely interesting to a small few, suitably dull for everyone else.

I will never have enough money to retire, and my dream job is to be a postman…(or at least the posties of my youth before junk mail became a thing)

I sometimes wonder how people ended up with their jobs.

As someone who was struggling with aspergers I took any job that I got offered as my interview abilities were shocking and managed to get a job where IQ testing was a big part of it and stayed in IT ever since.
It is not an exciting job and while I would not say I enjoy it I don’t mind it and it does keep my brain going. It also pay very well so I have a good life outside of work.

For me pretty much anything becomes boring/dull after doing it for 8 hours a day for years on end.
I love messing around with bikes (fixing, changing parts etc,.) but would be bored of that after a week, I love riding bikes but having to get up and ride every day for hours would lose its appeal, I love playing guitar but doing it as a job etc, etc,

After my somewhat lighthearted response to the question, I have to say that the variety of peoples occupations is fantastic. Some hugely interesting jobs/professions that people have here.

I try and make houses less wet, dams less leaky, river more natural, coasts les dissapeary, slopes less slippy, developments more soakyuppy and moan about architects.

Thats right, I’m a civil engineer and and we mainly focus on sustainable and ‘natural’ solutions.

I also some times wander round scotland looking at railway bridges

Sell really really really old plants

Account manager selling fuel

It’s ok – I certainly don’t dread going to work, but I’d retire tomorrow if I had the means to do so…

I concur.

JAFO*
Offshore North Sea.27 years, only another 15 to go….

*(Just Another F*****g Operator)

Apparently you don’t have to grow up. You can spend your life playing with felt tips 😀

Yep TBH, playing with the Speccy in the bedroom at 14 and playing with the iMac in the bedroom at 50+.

Tape loadings more efficient these days thou.

Surprising how life goes full circle 🙂

However, at one point, late in my career, said upper management decided to appoint a Technical Manager to be in charge of me and my group.
…
Holy sh1t he was an ar5e of the highest calibre and a real disgrace to the engineering profession.
…
During his short tenure (he was sacked after only 1 year) his effect on my attitude was profound and was highly instrumental in my determination to retire early

I’ve had a couple of truly terrible managers, they really suck all the joy out of a job. Bullying, micro-managing middle people who simply wouldn’t exist if the organisation trusted their workers. The move to remote working during Covid really highlighted how little some of these people do other than walk through the office trying to catch you out, trying their best to find you on Facebook or chatting in the kitchen or taking 1hr, 1 minute on your lunch break.

Didn’t help that they were largely clueless about our roles anyway.
Yes, I am on Facebook (and Twitter!) thanks because social media is an integral part of my job, I’m not just sitting here updating my status. 🙄

Sorry, went off on a tangent there… 😉

Oceanographer/Research Scientist.

which in reality means 99% staring at a screen in office and 1% staring at a screen on a boat.

Engineering geologist / geotechnical pretendgineer. Just moved to a mid sized consultant and starting to finally do design work after years contracting and fieldwork. Mostly enjoy it and it’s taken me to some cool places. Always dreamt of being a farmer though.

A Civil servant. I get no satisfaction from my job. But it pays the bills so I just suck it up and hope I will one day win the lottery so I can escape and do something that I enjoy.

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