What kinda sorta rare job have you done for a living ?

[GOPAPA]

Originally Posted by special-K

What if the lake was out of level?

More like a dream job. I had a stock boy job in HS. Not so rare in general, but this was a place in a mall called Smuggler's Attic. It was an import boutique, sold hippy kinda stuff and it was all hot hippy chicks working there except for me. It had an 8-track sound system always playing the cool stuff of the time ('71/'72). It was upstairs on a corner above the central fountain with square seating thingies along the rail, and a straight shot in from the upper parking deck. All the HS kids "hung out" there. The whole corner opened up to the store. I was paid to hang out, basically. Keeping it stocked was simple, took less than the first hour to get that done. The rest of the time I watched for shop lifting. The funniest thing of all was I never worked Thursdays and that was the day the truck came down with stock from New York. I never unloaded a truck the whole time. Just got paid (not much) to hang with the harem and the other kids basically

Lots of memories there I bet Tim,,,On some says I would of traded jobs with you in a heart beat ,as they say.. Many a day when I was in highschool my junior year I would get off the buss some 1/2 mile from where my dad was logging ,,,jog down to where he was and get in his old work car and change clothes and then go help him buck up logs ,,take over the reins and drag in alder logs to the landing with "Nel" the work horse.

[1968k20]

[quote=GOPAPA;8468694]I agree good you got out of that job ,what is the life years of a EOD ?

[quote=100%Chevy;8467984]Nothing as good as the rest of you!
I did work as an electrician in the research and development dept of a chemical company for nearly 10 years.I saw a lot of bad,dangerous ( and very deadly) experiments and inventions.
Spent time on a nuclear sub in the early 70's.About 3 months for the security clearance.

Met a lot of guys who was on subs went to work at a Nuclear Site

[QUOTE='63GENIII;8468009]Had a couple of paper routes in the city as a kid. Got the first one at 9 and by 11 had 4 of them. One day while collecting the subscription money, this middle aged lady answered the door in an open robe. She wasn't exactly pretty but I was 10 and almost peed myself. I couldn't even ask for the money. First time seeing boobs not in a magazine. I pretty much turned and ran. Can still hear her giggling. After that I would take my best friend collecting with me.

It never happened again either.

I had a paper route when I was 12 and one day I went to deliver a paper and the sherriff told me to just skip this house . guy shot his wife and then himself dead.

Originally Posted by davischevy

In 1990 we built a high dollar boat house on Bull Shoals Lake. This thing was state of the art, top to bottom.

Sounds interesting Larry ,,I got to experience buikding something on unlevel ground too ..not as elaberate as yours ,,but..I once built a fish tender buiding on a barge on Lopez Island out from Aberdeen Wa.





Had to look up what a Zamboni was ,,now I can say I know a guy who shaves ice. is it a heated cab?



What kind of saws do you sharpen ? circle/ gang/band we had them all in the sawmill I worked in ..except band saw

We've got circle and bandsaws here

[projectking]

I sandblasted and painted water towers for 6 years and now do the same on bridges.

[Jrainman]

Most of my 36 yr career has been spent in the specialty feild of breeching and generater exhust system erecting in NYC , but where not talking house generators , or boilers , multible generators and boilers the size of your house creating thousands of horsepower or millons of BTUs , hundreds of feet of specilized exhaust pipe up to 60 inch in diameter with lots of welding and structual frame work in building interiterior shafts for hundreds of feet ,so you spend most of your day hanging in a boatsmen chair (bosin chair) or pulling , fitting and welding , massive exhaust systems and todays systems have so many add on like scrubbers and condensers to utilize the the tremendous heat from generator exhaust and take advantage of the waste and utilize it for heating purposes throught the building . they have become so efficent they run them 24/7 and power whole buidings rather then buy electric from the power company. and if designed correctly they sell power to power company. the work is heavy ,and sometimes dirty like if you are lining and old brick free standing stack like you see at a power company ,first you have to start at the top and cut out the old breeching 3/8-1/2 thick steel casing you in a chair and a demo saw till you get to the bottom then you get to build the new liner .this work is not for everyone but it has paid the bills for 18 years now.

[Jrainman]

Originally Posted by projectking

I sandblasted and painted water towers for 6 years and now do the same on bridges.

That is a tough job , and dangerous to your lungs stay safe

[projectking]

Originally Posted by Jrainman

That is a tough job , and dangerous to your lungs stay safe

It sure is! I don’t spend too much time on the tools these days, but we definitely protect ourselves!

Thanks

[Steeveedee]

OK, part of my job was rare. I had to spin-balance some satellites. It was a spin-stabilized missile early warning satellite, the Defense Support Program.

['63GENIII]

"I had a paper route when I was 12 and one day I went to deliver a paper and the sherriff told me to just skip this house . guy shot his wife and then himself dead."

I'll take the not so pretty lady over that any day!

The career I have now started in '89. I joined the electrical apprenticeship here in San Mateo. Commercial - industrial. Its been a mixed bag of interesting jobs.

Ran my first job as a 3rd year apprentice and never stopped.

Ive built load banks for the testing of an attack sub electric generator. This was interesting as there were no prints for this job. We just did what the engineer asked us to do. Never was able to find out what the output on the motor was either but did find out that the motor was able to annihilate a 4.5 million ft lb water brake!

After the cold war, I spent a couple of years connecting an Air Force base here to the utility grid. Until that time, they used a bunch of jet turbines to power the base. It was all analog and very mechanical (non computer) in nature. To sync a turbine and a generator, they were coupled through a transfercase that was the size of a large tool shed (20x20x8' tall). If the transfer case was coupled without the turbine and generator in sync, the transfer case would many times grenade. One did while I was there. I wasn't close by but the sound was deafening. I was 23 or 24 then. I have had some level of hearing loss ever since.

5 years ago, i got my "old man's" job with the city. The pace is a little slower than contracting but the troubleshooting is way more intensive and interesting. I get to use my brain more than break my back. 400hz ground power, 5kv airfield lighting systems, baggage handling and HVAC controls, motor and building management system repairs and builds are what I supervise these days.

Ive got the best crew that Ive had over the 30 years that Ive done this work, we stay busy and the days go by quickly. Although its the lowest paying job Ive ever had in this industry, for the most part I go home every day with a sense of accomplishment.

[Mudder]

Right out of HS I did night surveillance on the borders of E Germany and Czech. 1/46th Inf. Came home to paint bridges. Red lead in the winter and sprayed aluminum on them in the summer. No safety harnesses. Then firefighter, things I don't talk about.

[lowrollin70gmc]

Originally Posted by GOPAPA

Had to look up what a Zamboni was ,,now I can say I know a guy who shaves ice. is it a heated cab?

You know at least 2 of us now.

Open cab, need to be able to waive to the Zamb Fans and manipulate levers and wheels to adjust the resurfacing apparatus while watching what the machine is doing. I operated inside a local arena, so it was comfortable with a jacket on. The fans watch entire games at the arena temp (50-60 degrees) so the air isn’t nearly as cold as the ice (16-24 degrees).

['63GENIII]

Originally Posted by Troy Sr

I've been a mechanical designer my whole career, 1st job w/ NASA designing a satellite (EUVE Satellite) and now with DOE designing synchrotron light souce (Advanced Light Source) and beam lines at the facility.

Im guessing this is the kind of stuff they do at SLAC? Or do they do things with particles?

[GOPAPA]

Originally Posted by 1968k20

I am a saw filer here in Chester,Ca.

After 50 years ago from that sawing job ,,I decided I wanted a shank and tooth from a circle saw ,,(my circle saws were 54inch bottom and 38 inch top) so on a sawmill forum ,,,a guy sent me two of each ,so now i have them in my display cabnet..
I am looking for a photo of the hand grind wheel that I used to sharpen the saw teeth , and the tool that takes the shanks and teeth out to replace them ,, the guy tells me he is going to take a picture of both of these and post them so I can have them..

How big a mill are you in ?.. I had a off bearman .edger man ,trim saw man and one greenchain man ,,had to go and help him some times to get caught up..

[Troy Sr]

Originally Posted by '63GENIII

Im guessing this is the kind of stuff they do at SLAC? Or do they do things with particles?

Yes they do. I was on the design team that designed the Low Energy Ring (LER) for the B-Factory collider at SLAC.


https://www2.lbl.gov/Science-Article...edication.html Low Energy Ring (LER)

[CG]

Nothing rare, and barely interesting. But I have worked with a ton of people (office equipment service industry 40 years) most people are regular folks, but the weirdo's and odd balls, and A you know what, are the ones we enjoy talking about in the office (or here haha).

[davischevy]

Larry, I went from usher at the local theater, to skidding logs between my junior and senior year. A skidder I was running burned to the ground.

Then I got a job after school grinding weld off of electrical boxes at E M WIEGMANN & CO INC Freeburg IL. That was a nasty job.

['63GENIII]

Originally Posted by Troy Sr

Yes they do. I was on the design team that designed the Low Energy Ring (LER) for the B-Factory collider at SLAC.


https://www2.lbl.gov/Science-Article...edication.html Low Energy Ring (LER)

Interesting. That place is a trip. Many of the older guys that I used to work with fondly spoke of the initial building of the Magnetron (forgive me if I got the name wrong). Was a source of great pride to be an electrician on the earlier projects up there. Some of the most interesting construction back then.

Ive worked there too but in a much lower scientific capacity .

['63GENIII]

Originally Posted by davischevy

Larry, I went from usher at the local theater, to skidding logs between my junior and senior year. A skidder I was running burned to the ground.

Then I got a job after school grinding weld off of electrical boxes at E M WIEGMANN & CO INC Freeburg IL. That was a nasty job.

Ive installed a few thousand of the various boxes that you ground welds off of. Still do on occasion. Wonder if they are still in IL?

[GOPAPA]

Originally Posted by CG

Nothing rare, and barely interesting. But I have worked with a ton of people (office equipment service industry 40 years) most people are regular folks, but the weirdo's and odd balls, and A you know what, are the ones we enjoy talking about in the office (or here haha).

I can relate to some of that while I was suited up in our bunny suits waiting to go into the reactor building when I worked at the Trojan Nuclear Plant ,,we looked pretty funny all bunnied up. we were odd ball lookin

Originally Posted by davischevy

Larry, I went from usher at the local theater, to skidding logs between my junior and senior year. A skidder I was running burned to the ground.

Skidders were a great invention for making trails into the where you needed to skid the logs out ,,especially if they had chains on them ,,muddier than all heck in the northwest Oregon .. My dad had an old cat (McCormick Derring)later on to log with ..what happended to get the skidder catch afire. leaking diesel?

Then I got a job after school grinding weld off of electrical boxes at E M WIEGMANN & CO INC Freeburg IL. That was a nasty job.

I also worked around line pole transformers at Camp Rilea on the coast,, we took down all the old transformers and drained all the oil out and I repainted them and we put them back up ,,later on I found the oil had PBc in it ,, so far it hasn't got me yet.. I never got into much grinding and no welding ,,kinda wish I had

[blazer2007]

I,ve been a care aide for 20 some years working mostly with Quadriplegics in their homes and have learned to make moonshine with a biker ,also learned how to grow pot and rebuild computers. I,ve been paid to go to Vegas to see Barrett Jackson. Many more fun stuff over the years

[underliner6]

Originally Posted by lowrollin70gmc

You know at least 2 of us now.

Open cab, need to be able to waive to the Zamb Fans and manipulate levers and wheels to adjust the resurfacing apparatus while watching what the machine is doing. I operated inside a local arena, so it was comfortable with a jacket on. The fans watch entire games at the arena temp (50-60 degrees) so the air isn’t nearly as cold as the ice (16-24 degrees).

It’s funny because i’m in industrial machine knife sales. I sell Zamboni ice resurfacing knives all over North America

[davepl]

Well, a couple of years after working the night shift at 7-Eleven (you gotta start somewhere) I went on to write portions of MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows which are still in there, so I get to know that most people who use a computer use my code every day. I worked on Office Mac too, so any Mac with Office also has my code. And I did some minor Linux stuff in the 90s that might still be there.

Not hard or dangerous or sexy by any means, but it's fun to think of your work being "everywhere".

[whitedog76]

I was a tanker driver for about 6 years.

Got tired of being on the road. Went through an electrical apprenticeship.

Now I'm on the road doing nuclear plant work.

[68Gold/white]

I fix school buses, nothing extraordinary. I sub drive buses when needed, it's a tough job, I do like it. I get to be an example for children to look up to. I try to be a positive Godly example of what a man should be, many full time bus drivers don't get that part.

I have a friend, and fellow car/pickup enthusiast. He is an electronic engineer. The crap he knows and has experienced would make the hair stand up...on ANY part of your body.
We'll be on a trip to race or car event, he will start talking about something in his job (he's retired now) and he will reluctantly remember that what he's talking about, he can NEVER speak of, ever!!! So he stops his point of THAT conversation...We never got to the end of any of those conversations!

[cypressbog]

High school I worked a saw mill job cutting tree trunks into boards.
Before Military I loaded and unloaded air cargo planes and de-icing.
Navy I was hydraulics repair on F-14.
Since Navy Various project manager positions.

[GOPAPA]

Originally Posted by cypressbog

High school I worked a saw mill job cutting tree trunks into boards.
Before Military I loaded and unloaded air cargo planes and de-icing.
Navy I was hydraulics repair on F-14.
Since Navy Various project manager positions.

Do you mean logs into boards cypressbog ? being a old sawmill worker myself ..I am curious of just what you did at the mill..