What do you do?

Right now im a heavy machinery operator for a recycling company

Volvo L120E is the biggest machine i operate.

But i plan on going to school after the summer and study civil engineering.

Maybe move to Norway or Sweden

Ive been inlove with bridges since i was a child. Also because my dad works in one of the biggest engineering firms here ive been to most of the hydroelectric power plants here and geothermal power stations here.

So yeah engineering is my future
 
I suppose I'll join the party.

I'm currently about 18 months into a 32 month long rotational program at Ford Motor Company. This program allows recent graduate engineers to change positions every 4-6 months to experience as much of the company and network with as many people as possible before settling down in a more permanent position. So far I've got to do some work on a prototype phase of the 2015 Ford Transit, design a few components for the next generation Super Duty truck line, and I'm currently working at our Louisville Assembly Plant launching the 2015 Lincoln MKC. Its incredible how much you learn by jumping between jobs like that as you get to see all the phases of development much faster than you would if you stuck to a single car from start to finish.
In about 2 weeks, I'll be done with this rotation and moving onto what I hope to ultimately end up doing - vehicle dynamics. For the first month, I'll be at our Arizona test facility hopefully spending the better part of every day out on the track before returning to our Dearborn facility when Michigan finally thaws over.
 
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I'm going to be boring. Software engineer, working on projects for mobile platforms (Android for now, planning to learn both iOS and Windows Phone within the next year or so and gunning for professional proficiency in all three soon-ish). Don't like web apps, so my future is going to be either in the mobile line, back to desktop stuff or moving to hardcore backend trickeries.
 
IT guy ... keeping the IT stuff running on my own in a 130 employee company that builds welding machines ... servers, workstations, network, databases, phones, printers, web-site - everything

coming soon: same gig, different company: "we-design-dinosaur-burners" (more money - yay!)
 
I'm a racing and performance driving instructor. Been doing that for a little over a year now. I mostly work with karts, but I do some car stuff when I can.

It's not a high paying job. We work on contract mostly, both private and with schools and experience companies. It's almost always a daily/half-daily rate. The daily rate for most instructors usually starts around the $100 mark for bulk contracts (schools and experiences). Standard rate for private gigs is around $500 per day around here for track days and club racing, around half that for karting. I've heard of some coaches price discriminating up to $2,500 per day for things such as Ferrari Challenge.

Right now I have between 2 and 4 days a week of work, but it picks up in the spring for obvious reasons. It can become a 7-day affair, but it is impossible to tell because it's all on call. I might get a day scheduled 2 months in advance, or I might get sent a gig the day before. The job is not physically demanding, but it can be extremely mentally taxing depending on your disposition toward being near or riding with learning drivers who are pushing their envelope and your familiarity with the subject. As you go along it gets easier. You learn about people skills. You have to help people do the most awesome, most difficult thing they've ever done in their lives and everyone needs a different approach to help them keep going. You learn a lot about helping people find their zen thing amidst the chaos. You learn a lot about what you can control and what you can't. There's a lot more of the former than you would expect. You learn how tone and phrasing changes everything, especially when you're sitting in the right seat.

You learn a lot about driving, too. As a driver, I get to see everyone make the mistakes I never made. I get to learn vicariously. Spending a day teaching folks in just as informative as spending a day driving. Maybe more so.

It's exhilarating, and a big adventure. There's a lot of pressure, because you're responsible for safety, their enjoyment, and their learning (in that order). It's a grand way to spend your time.
 
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I'm a professional zombie.

In the sense that I get very little sleep. Not the eating brains part.

(architecture student)
 
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I'm an account exec in the office supplies industry. It's mainly about people rather than product and I get to meet and speak to a real cross section of people. Plus with the added bonus that roughly 3/4 of stationery buyers are female so there is often a nice view attached! I also write most of the firm's marketing copy as apparently I have a way with words.
 
I am a student/hermit, and I'm pretty shit at being a student, so what I do most of the time is being a burden to society. On the studenting side of things, I study software engineering, which is even more dreary than it sounds.
 
I work at concentration camp plant at a mine.
 
I study software engineering, which is even more dreary than it sounds.

Yup, I went into IT studies hoping it would be nice, but ended up hating programming. Luckily, I found my zen at a student computer club there, maintaining their stuff and slowing down some of the more gung ho members of the admin team there to keep the users (yes, we really had those) in mind when "upgrading" stuff. It's also where my love for FreeBSD comes from.
 
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[video=youtube;InBXu-iY7cw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InBXu-iY7cw[/video]

Very accurate description of my life.

I actually work in the undersea warfare and submarine community and it is a lot gayer than that
 
Very accurate description of my life.

I actually work in the undersea warfare and submarine community and it is a lot gayer than that

Respect to you, I think I would lose my mind in a submarine. I am actually getting ready to go on my first boat deployment (carrier), and even though it is such a big vessel I am pretty nervous of the tight spaces and all that water beneath.
 
I drive around legally breaking the speed limit, running red lights and forcing my way through traffic to then usually do one of the following: help the elderly off the floor, scoop drunks out of gutters, get physically and verbally attacked, cut people out of cars, make someone a cup of tea and do their washing up, retrieve body parts from the road side, get vomited on, sit with family during a loved ones last moments, care for wounds (Both physical and mental), offer counselling to the bereaved, safeguard the vulnerable and very, very occasionally save a life. I also shamelessly flirt with A&E nurses, eat an awful lot shit food and drink a pretty obscene amount of coffee.
 
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^Respect. I could never do that. Except the coffee part.
 
I get paid to look out of a window. Yeah, in your face Mrs Batson who said back in year 7 at school noone's ever going to pay me to look out of a window :D

I'm a train driver based in Adelaide working mainly interstate intermodal freight although we also hook and pull passenger services for GSR's Indian Pacific, Ghan and Overland services.

736476_406261092792222_834432465_o2.jpg

(not my pic)

oh, i envy you!

i drive local freights with a POS shunting engine around the most dreariest part of this country.

yjfo.jpg


not my pic, but me driving in the pic. :)

i wish i could drive more long distances with some bigger locomotives, but then you have the most godawful work times and i have ernough sleep problems as it is now.
driving across autralia with some real long trains must be epic.
 
Very accurate description of my life.

I actually work in the undersea warfare and submarine community and it is a lot gayer than that

[video=youtube;80Dorc-bOTE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80Dorc-bOTE[/video]
 
i wish i could drive more long distances with some bigger locomotives, but then you have the most godawful work times and i have ernough sleep problems as it is now.
driving across autralia with some real long trains must be epic.

Ahh so this is you! :D


But yeah, shiftwork. Pretty much the number one drawback right there. Luckily most of our linehaul jobs at Adelaide are day work although there are local metro shifts that work through the night.

There are days where you're cruising along at 115kmh and it's the perfect job. The scenery's nice, the train is well loaded and rolling along smoothly and even train control are giving you a good run with main line crosses. You feel you get paid waaay too much for doing it. Then there are days like today where the Perth bound freight arrives late and we have to sort out the five engines it came in with (all of them with critical failures), pick out the two we need from the spare road, curse the inline fuelling connector which wont attach, spraying me with diesel fuel every time I go to connect it, then having the shift manager and coordinators both telling you to do different things, put these locos there, no wait, here. Oh nah back where they were is fine but can you get me that flat wagon and move that from 11 road to 5 road? Dont get paid nearly enough for those rubbish yard shifts :p.

Would kinda like to go to the US or Canada and drive freights over there for a bit for something different.
 
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