What do you do?

[guydewdney]

I'm always facinated by what people do for a living - quite often, its a surprise, knowing someone through the 'net - then you find out the madcap weirdo on the forum is actually an accountant. Its also useful - I can offer advice on things I'm good at (having a mechanical engineering degree) - but need to ask things (as I failed AC electrics at uni... )

so - what do you do for your (main) living?

I build horseboxes (www.exmoorhorseboxes.co.uk) , and film people (www.atct.co.uk) - self employed.

[PEMTEK]

I have a degree in electronics and I am a project Engineer covering most of the electronic and optical aspects for a relatively small company in Southport, however we are part of Unipart which is rather big.

We make various road danger lights including those flickery things on the motorway roadworks and the annoying slow down and smiley face signs that fool you into slowing down, however our main business is LED Railway signals.

A previous job I had was an approvals engineer at a company that did LVD, EMC testing etc which I hated but it was a useful learning experience.

A part time venture of mine was also LPG conversions on cars of which I have done loads from Micras to a v12 Merc. Most of my jobs were repairs due to cowboy installers bodging the wiring and not having a clue how to setup the things. I still get a call or so each month from someone who recommends me to help them with a problem with a conversion. I do however try to avoid conversions due to time constraints but I dont mind giving advice.

My main hobby is renewable energy and I have started making various gadgets like a woodgas stove, beginnings of a chp system. I also have almost 1kw of PV, 20tube 58mm Navitron solar water panel and a couple of wind turbines one of which is connected to a grid connect inverter along with the solar PV.

I have a small machine shop which consists of an Ajax universal milling machine, Colchester lathe, drill press, a small denford cnc milling machine, a small denford cnc lathe, mig welder, ac/dc tig, hydraulic pipe bender, bench press, etc etc.. In the garage is also a small office which also has an electronics workshop for some more of my tinkering 

I also spend quite alot of my time modifying various cars of my own but also track cars for friends which mostly involves brain draining ECU wiring. Totally not environmentally friendly but atleast they are used infrequently.

finding time to do all these things in between living is usually the problem!

Phil

[Dan]

Ceng working with embedded systems. Mainly software recently but I can do the hardware as well.
Mostly industrial control and some of the stuff has been sparkerosion machine , cnc milling machine, laser marker, textile machinery eg looms, fire alarms, car diagnostics.

this year I am doing a full time MBA hoping to get a boost up the ladder but will have to see how that goes.

[AndySV1K]

I go crawling around on roofs fitting those lovely Navitron solar panels!

thats most of my work at this particular moment, but my core business is audio-visual design and installation, from domestic multiroom systems, right up to large sports stadium emergency public address systems.

Andy.

[Alan]

21st birthday                     Spent fixing lighthouse.
Occupation.                       All round fixer of things.
Qualifications.                     None worth mentioning.
Best job satisfaction.           Fixing ships. Would not drink      as much if I did it again.
Favourite country.               New Zealand.
Bad days.                          Shut down QE2 and biggest gas terminal in the world.
Hobbies.                            Don’t seem to get time.
Sport.                               Think about it often.
Sex                                  Would be nice. ( female )
Quirks.                              Never seen logic in putting things in your mouth and Setting fire tooo it.
Favourite food.                   Curry.

Regards

Alan

Why dont the Tab key work ?

Attempt Two at Tab

[insolare]

Mine could be titled "Who's had the most environmentally unsound job".

I work for the "World's favourite airline" 

I started in terminals maintaining all the computers, printers etc. I then moved on to overseas maintenance. Following that I was on the overseas project team, flying around the World to install and upgrade equipment at new and existing locations. I've lost count on the amount of countries and miles i've flown. Lots though!
That ended just over a year ago when I was move to the T5 infrastructure team. (Not my fault before you start!).

Now i'm in a job which I don't understand and probably never will, waiting for the next redundancy offer.

My dream is to own a little quinta (farm) in Portugal and do the self-sufficiency thing.

[pottsiwebber]

I grew up with a tool box in my hand thanks to my dad who was a haulage contractor, all round builder and fixer of anything and everything and general hero.

I work as a Commissioning Engineer in the water industry. Started as an apprentice sparky, 4 year M&E Apprenticeship, HNC Electrical Electronic Engineering. Had a 5 year break for full time uni, BSc(Hons) Architectural Technology and 2 years in architecture then came back. Architects are intensely annoying people to work with and I like fixing stuff more than drawing stuff.

I live in the sticks and my missus is a mad keen gardener and vegetable grower. I hate gardening and just dig holes and build stuff like vegetable borders and compost bins.

When I'm not building / breaking / repairing stuff I do a bit of "freeride" mountainbiking whilst trying not to break any more bones (ankle, fibula, tibia 14 on an MX bike) (clavicle 30 on a BMX) (radius, ulna 31 on a mountain bike) Its dads fault again, he bought me a 350cc trials bike when I was 12 :-). Also love game emulation, mainly MAME. If you don't know what MAME is but love old arcade games go here http://www.mameworld.net/

My wife says I'm like Dr Bishop from Fringe, I ramble on about stuff she cant understand then get very excited when I make something work.

[merkland]

Have always been a dabbler/bodger/diy'r. From school did 2years in a Merchant Navy training establishment then because a career as a Deck Officer was ruled out due to failing part of eye-sight test turned to agriculture (born and raised on a dairy farm).Three years formal training culminating in a Scottish Diploma in Agriculture then six years farming before moving into production management in the food industry. Spent  twenty-eight years in the food industry before taking early retirement on Dec 31st 1997. Now, despite suffering a slight stroke three years ago, don't  know how I ever had time for a full time job!

merkland.

[lightfoot]

Well I've always loved making something out of nothing and enjoy doing and learning new crafts.  I guess water and wood is my main thing...although when I left school, I had a passion to be a traditional Blacksmith (it's something I have dabbled in over the years and would love to do more of), but at that time I couldn't get a start for love nor money, as good apprenticeships of any kind were hard to come by when I left school in the early eighties.

However my Father was a Mechanical Services/Heating Engineer and run his own small company.  His advice to me was to get a trade under your belt and then do what you like.  So he put me through collage and I served a four year apprenticeship as a Plumber/Heating Engineer.  Anyway to cut a long story short, I've had a varied career in the industry, working on small domestic jobs to large commercial projects, both on the tools as a fitter and also as a HVAC Commissioning Engineer & Draughtsman etc.

At the time I lived and worked in and around the South of England and was getting sick of the rat race and wanted to do something a bit more wholesome with my life.  I've always enjoyed travelling and was given the nickname 'Lightfoot' by a good friend of mine...and it's stuck.  Anyhow I ended up working overseas (Papua New Guinea) for a couple of years with VSO for my sins and on my return, I decided to retrain as a Carpenter.  That was about fifteen years ago and I've been building various things out of trees ever since....but I still work with the wet stuff and have always been passionate about renewables, sustainability and appropriate technology etc.  

I now live and work in the North of Scotland with my Mrs who's an Ecologist, great cook, soul mate and generally keeps me on the straight and narrow!  Among other things I'm currently building our new family home in the woods - out of wood...but it's been a case of the Blacksmiths horse stays unshod and is taking longer than it should...but such is life and I'm now glad we didn't go the big mortgage 'buy now - pay later' approach.


Em tasol (As they say in Papua New Guinea)

Lightfoot  

[martin]

it'd probably be quicker to list what I haven't had a bash at!
   I grew up with a father who was great at "make do and mend" - he ran the family nursery (as near as dammit organically), and plonked a copy of "Silent Spring" in my hands as a teenager, but was also passionate about electronics - he was one of the first "TV hams" in the UK, and I remember him knocking up equipment using ex-services radar equipment with vast jamjar sized valves, and the exhortation to "don't touch that, it'll kill you", or dodging flying solder as he flicked his soldering iron.......so I grew up with Meccano, and bending your own chassis' from the aluminium cut from an old pram
 On leaving school, it was accepted back in the middle ages that you "went into a profession", so started off being "articled" to a chartered accountant - that lasted all of six months before I was ready to explode (I'm still haunted by the Foulkes-Lynch double-entry bookkeeping correspondence course), as a revolt, went into Journalism when the industry was run by the unions, and thoroughly enjoyed it until I fell foul of the NUJ (they didn't take kindly to anyone demanding to be exempt the political levy) - then started training with a chartered surveyor, but after some years drifted into sales, and spent some years as a negotiator.........all the while, I'd been taking photographs (the family hobby - Dad, Uncle and Grandad all passionate amateurs)
Then I had a rush of blood to the head, jacked the lot in, and did a 2 year, mostly practical training course in teaching what they in those days referred to as "mentally subnormal" kids - got to within a few months of my qualification, and was told that the whole thing had moved from "health" to "education", and I'd have to start all over again...........3 years teacher training, and a fourth "specialist" year - being on the verge of marriage, and already tiring of the pinbrains in the average common room, threw an epic wobbler (I'm  good at those), and stonked off back to the property business..........
Shortly after marriage, we bought a beautiful oak on oak 45' ketch that started life as a french fishing boat that had been part-converted, and went to live aboard it down in Cornwall, and finished the conversion, the idea being to go to the Med and charter it - after a couple of years, pregnancy and the tax man caught up, just as we were starting sea-trials..............
I then returned to the property business, and went into partnership with the chartered surveyor under who I'd trained
- a couple of years later, having picked with my usual impeccable sense of timing, the beginning of one of the property slumps, (and probably the worst businessman in the world as partner), I baled out of the partnership, went to work for another firm, while I looked around for something else - We then went and managed a free house in the sticks in Kent for a couple of years, where I developed an unhealthy appetite for the stock! - went through the painful process of "drying out", (and haven't touched it since)..........after another short stint in the property business, turned a hobby into a profession - a friend offered to put up the funds, and we started a free-range, "additive free" egg farm, which was just beginning to really get up and boogie.......then the "friend" decided it would be much more fun to buy and sell aeroplanes out of Canada than to pay the bills, and the firm folded.................
A while back in the property business convinced me that I really was heartily sick of it, and turned another hobby into a profession - I became a "Social photographer", and made a living of sorts for nearly twenty years - weddings, portraits, masonic ladies' nights, classical nudes, festivals............then about 5 years ago the rot started, weddings fell year on year, portraits virtually stopped (not me, the whole trade went down the pan - of 7 local photographers 5 years ago, there's only one left) Somewhere along the way I taught myself some webdesign, and supplemented my photography with that for a while............SO, having started with Meccano, and carried it on with boating, I've always been of a practical bent, and "green" round the edges I started moving in a decidedly "green" direction, culminating in my getting together with an old friend to start "Solarwind" about 3 years ago. About a year ago, we opened our stores, and in December I was taken seriously ill, had major surgery, and a really good shot at clog-popping on several occasions over  a couple of months........and was wheeled out of the local hospital in January to convalesce - which is what I've been doing ever since...........(and I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up)
ps, nearly forgot - especially for the delight and edification of those who suspect me of being a leftie bedwetter - I was once offered a safe Tory seat on the local Town council.......(which I declined for business and boredom reasons)

[sws]

OND and HND in Mechanical Engineering then 22 years at sea as an Engineer Officer initially all around the world, but then after marriage and kids I worked on ferries. Worked my way right up to Chief Engineer. Had an accident in 1991 and was permanently beached and pensioned off. (At 43!!!!!!!!!!!).
Worked at varied other technical jobs (such as customer care with a boiler company and hotel maintenance engineer) until 2001 when marriage broke up, decided to live on my pension, bought a 30ft yacht and sailed it out to Barcelona.
Met my new partner in 2006 in Majorca, sold up the boat, came back here and we set up home together. We are mortgage free, neither of us work, I'm always "doing a project" and loving the retirement game.
I've installed a Navitron 20 tube system, would like to earn something fitting them for others - but no takers so far!! Am I worried? - not really. I'm recently into veggie gardening and trying to find 1001 things to make out of old junk such as discarded pallets etc!  Even be known to make the occasional few litres of biodiesel at times.

[wookey]

Anyone detecting a theme here yet? Bodgers and fettlers international.

My dad was never much good at DIY (unlike several previous respondents) but I've always taken things to bits and put them back together (OK, except for that carriage clock - clocks are _hard_). Learned how to get mains shocks doing experiments in the barn. Soldered up a ZX81 on the kitchen table and was nearly as impressed as parents to find it worked. Later had a BBC micro and did a lot of staying up late.
 
Science student at all flavours of school: comprehensive, public, and private. Parents were teachers. Started Engineering degree at Cambridge to find it involved no taking things to bits at all - just an awful lot of hard sums, so changed to Computer Science which was dead easy, allowing me to spend most of my time on sex and caving.

Somehow failed to leave Cambridge for last 20 years working an arm-related things for all that time. First Acorn add-on hard drives with a mate, then PC-cards in RISCOS machines, working up from support serf to Chief Nerd. Since then it's been Linux on arm of various forms: Debian for Acorn machines, wrote an armlinux book, got into Open Hardware production, NAND flash filesystems with a guy from New Zealand, and now working for an assistive technology company: Toby Churchill Ltd, and for iEndian producing the Balloon board embedded arm system.

For play I do caving expeditions (Austria, China, Borneo), mountain bike, do Free Software (currently Debian GNU/Linux and Embedded Debian), fettle houses (my own), and recently have got rather excited about energy efficiency/renewable energy and home automation. In fact it's so much fun (and so important) I'm wondering if I should work out someway to be doing it full-time.

[KenB]

It all started when my father made me a crystal set when I was six.

From then on I tinkered with electronics. After school, I used to rummage in the attic of a TV repair shop where all the old valve sets were dumped.

After buying an old TV set for 5p at a jumble sale, I had the tube implode on me, causing a scar on my chin. After an embarrassing explanation to my deputy head, he invited me to join the after-school, electronics club - a year early.

I was given a couple of tatty old control line model aircraft to fix up, at the age of nine, and that started my interest in diesel and glowplug engines - and mixing my own fuel.

In my early teens I meddled with model engines, radio control, toxic metals (lead fishing weights) and explosives.
 
I also built a ZX81 up from kit, when I should have been studying hard sums for my A levels.   I built an electronic speed control system for an electric wheelchair in 1981, which was runner up in a national engineering competition.

After 3 years at Bangor University, I had an electronic engineering degree, and I joined BBC Research Department, and worked on high definition TV, amongst other things. 

I left after 8 years on a redundancy deal, and got a job making control systems for scientific material analysis instruments. 

Between 1990 and 1995, I was involved in making an electric car - as a spare time project.  At that time I frequently exceeded the national speed limit in a home made electric vehicle.

I left the instrument maker, after a power struggle with a co-worker, with a £12K "golden bog-off and don't phone your solicitor" hand out.  Being sacked, was the best thing that ever happened to me in that firm!

I joined a telecomms design company and worked for 4 years on dialler and energy remote metering equipment.

I left them to work as a manager at a telemetry equipment company in the Midlands.

Realising that, the company was already fairly crippled, without my help, I resigned after a year and took a job with a Californian Telecomms company designing equipment for American payphones.

That job involved many trips to the US and China, but ended suddenly after 2 years. 

I then went freelance, and have spent the last 2 years hardware designing a smart telephone answering machine that has just been launched  - that also involved several trips to China.

http://www.truecall.co.uk/

I will shortly be looking for some more design work - hopefully in the domestic energy monitoring field. Either that or getting a proper job. 

Married,  with at least 7 known, dependent Lister engines!

[kristen]

"I'm always facinated by what people do for a living - quite often, its a surprise, knowing someone through the 'net"

My Father was a founder member of the local motor racing club and I remember him telling me how useful the collective-skills of the members were.  When they started doing some round-the-field races and needed Lawyers, First Aiders, a Farmer, tents, etc. all the requisite skills were readily available amongst the members.

I built, and maintain, an "engine" that is used by web design companies who want to sell eCommerce solutions (their customers range from 0 - 3,000 orders per day).  Its a full bells and whistles system with content management etc.

I have a few other web projects - a system for schools to manage their calendar (sporting fixtures and events like "3rd form parents evening"), email the parents when Little Johnnie is in a match, that sort of thing.

I'm basically a Database Jock; and I also do consultancy on MS SQL Server - helping people with database driven websites when they discover that their performance is dire.

Hobbies include photography, gardening and astronomy. I'm doing my best to reduce my energy use, and the energy use of those of my friends that are still listening to me!

[The Crofter]

Ex REME
Ex Manager for Maplin Electronics
Ex Electronics Engineer, British Antarctic Survey
Current -  Picture Framing, NW Highlands, Scotland.