[Closed] What do you do for a living and do you enjoy it?

Maintenance Engineer (acting unit manager) for local authority. I look after all the woodwork and metalwork machinery in the local secondary, special schools and adult education centres.
I love problem solving and fixing stuff but the red tape and newly added additional paperwork is mind numbing. Loads of great people who do thankless jobs for local government who at times can be the only good thing until the weekend.

Pathologist

Bike Shop Owner,
Get to work on some nice bikes, meet like minded people, been a steep learning curve on the biz side, and long days.
Prob doing more hours a week than when I was a money grabbing Aircraft Engineer!
On the whole I really enjoy the job, be even better if there wasn't so much paper/office work!

Marine Engineer .... Jack of all trades, master of none .
Hate boats and engines ; other than that it's ok.

Curto80.

Yes I work at swanwick.

Interesting thread as most of the jobs I've never heard of or considered! Been a squaddie, ski instructor, sparkie and shop stock room boy but I've landed on my feet now.

Not surprised you like it - I've seen how you guys work! If you know Monkey tell him his bro says hi.

landed on my feet now.

Subsea Engineer for a big oil company.

I install the bits which sit on top of the well at the seabed and control the flow of oil/gas.

I love the job, but the time offshore away from family is tough, and the current trajectory of the oil industry means job security is becoming a big worry.

Part time teaching assistant in a nurture unit, so work with children with social, emotional and educational needs. It is full on, demanding and tiring. But the children, nursery reception and year 1 are brilliant. On certain days theirs tears before bedtime both children and staff. Good stuff in the main.

Self employed gardener, was an engineer for 25+ years got bored with it so started to do something else and really enjoy it. It's hard work but I choose the jobs and the hours and it beats lining someone else's pocket.

Solicitor in Brecon. It's ok most of the time, I like my client's, mostly knarly Welsh hill farmers. I used to be an agricultural mechanic/engineer however 16 years and not much more than min wage put paid to that.

industrial roofer.
love it

I don't know anyone at work who's on here tbh!

Jambalaya, I can't think of a witty response, sorry!

Firefighter. Works 5hite but lads are great. I should have stayed in the army though

I run a small design agency in Carlisle and on the side I take photos of mountain bikes. Most of the time neither one feels much like work which is ace

Clinical Pharmacologist. I get to mix Maths, Medicine and Biology in equal measure. It's not a job, it's a vocation and I feel privileged to be able to develop future medicines - when they work (which is seldom). Resilience, optimism and geekiness are the necessary three skills for career success.

In another life, I'd be a full-time cycle coach, but that doesn't keep me in the bikes to which I'd like to be accustomed, so experimenting on people keeps the wolf from the door instead 😉

Marine Engineer...
...Hate boats and engines

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Marine Engineer .... Jack of all trades, master of none .
Hate boats and engines ; other than that it's ok.

I loved boats and engines but hated the being at sea (eventually). Would do it again tomorrow if someone figured out teleportation.

Currently an operator technician in a nuclear power station. As an engineer in a previous life it can be frustrating being treated like a child day in day out. Doing a degree to get my stripes back and hopefully regain some job satisfaction.

Hydrographic surveyor, work offshore on large ROV survey vessels.

Love it, especially the time off (5 weeks on / 5 weeks off) and the reasonably good pay. Our lass less keen at my being away 5 weeks at a time though.

Oil price is causing concerns though...

For the moment - pretty content.

For a long time I moved pianos. Sold the business last year and walked away at the age of 68. I had no residual injuries, nothing hurt on my last day, and I never missed a day from injury.

The reason I sold the business is that not that I couldn't do it any more. [url= http://fattireflyer.com/ ]I wrote a book about my mountain biking adventures[/url], and the publicity efforts would not permit me to run the business effectively, so I sold it to my employees.

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I tinker with MR scanners. Sometimes it is a good job, sometimes a proper pain.
Get to buy lots of Titanium tools for use on my bikes. If nothing else I have the most niche spanner collection.

Northernerindevon are you freelance? Pending some R&D trials I am running over winter I may have some interesting hydro survey work coming up in the 2016 season that would be based from shore.

Peterfile - do you work for a law firm?

Teacher. Love the teaching bit, hate all the constant changes and trying to manage other teachers.

I'm a bike fitter for a well respected small chain of fitting studios. I also do a bit of physiological testing for cyclists as well.

I enjoy it on the whole, although it's not as much fun when the seasons change and the demand drops, because it means that I have to work in a bike shop- far more stress and disorganisation than I would ideally like. I also get to use all the best bits of my degree (sport and exercise science) so it doesn't seem like a complete waste of time.

Would love to do more of the physiology stuff, but even finding a way to gain experience is hard enough, never mind getting someone to pay me a wage to do it! May well end up just doing something completely different to avoid my current 45min car commute.

oceanographer - passes the time and pays the bills.

Consultant IT architect here.

Used to not enjoy it but now I'm with a small company it's tolerable as there are no internal company politics.

Pays too much and isn't that bad to justify jumping to do something more worthwhile and interesting. Ideally I'd get made redundant and forced to try something else for a year.

Clinical Pharmacologist. I get to mix Maths, Medicine and Biology in equal measure. It's not a job, it's a vocation and I feel privileged to be able to develop future medicines - when they work (which is seldom). Resilience, optimism and geekiness are the necessary three skills for career success.

In another life, I'd be a full-time cycle coach, but that doesn't keep me in the bikes to which I'd like to be accustomed, so experimenting on people keeps the wolf from the door instead

If only there were a way you could combine the two...

RAF Logistics type. I spend my days working with interesting kit and interesting people in interesting places. I love what i do, for the most part. However, lots of time away can really put a lot of stress on the family (i went to the middle east in January, and only got back a couple of weeks ago) as can moving around every couple of years (I've gone from Wiltshire, to North Lincolnshire, to Lincolnshire and to Cambridgeshire in the last 5 years).

I left school 12 years ago with no qualifications, no aspirstions and no prospects. The RAF took me in, and now i have a great work-life balance (when I'm in the UK), i earn much more than most of my contemporaries, I've got loads of transferrable skills and experience, and i get to go biking on work time (as a Joint Service Mountain Bike Leader).

I'm also soon to start a degree, which is very heavily subsidised by the Service; It'll cost me a couple of hundred quid at most.

I owe a lot to my job.

Supermarket trucker
Work/ life balance is not good & like a lot of people on this thread I could do with a career change..
Until my late 20's I was a spark,maybe I should retrain in something involving those skills.

fallsoffalot - Member
industrial roofer.

Glorified forklift driver/yard manager. Don't hate it, but don't love it either. Pays the bills etc. Could be doing a lot worse for a lot less and not too stressful so mustn't grumble.

Building Control Surveyor - Local Authority.

Enjoy the job - yes, I work from home or a remote office 10 mins from home 4 days a week, manage my own workload and time, essentially do my own thing most of the time. 40 hrs a week. Lots of leave, flexi days, flexible hours.

BUT if I had to change areas within the county and work from a central office again I'd be looking to leave ASAP, the above mentioned positives would more or less be cancelled out by having to sit in an office with my managers and colleagues, very few of whom I like or respect. A lot of what goes on in the council environment, and the people it employs really are EXACTLY how people envisage them, infuriatingly tedious, bureaucratic, inefficient, time wasting, spineless management etc etc etc...........

Chakaping - genuine LOL there!

Let's just say that Ferrari was a smart cookie when he decided on optimal micro dosing of EPO. My specialist field is antibodies and proteins.

These threads come along once in a while, but this is the first time I've seen so many posts and open and honest posts too.

We all do very different things don't we?

Niiiice.

cladding manufacturer /fabricator. Hate it.

Mostly a photographer these days. Commercial landscapes/cityscapes/lifestyle/editorial stuff as well as a few weddings and events/festivals etc. Still do a bit of music education work. Love it - creative and varied, get to meet lots of interesting people.

Back in construction after a 15 yr career change as a DT teacher. Now Site engineering/setting out again.Apart from not working until next tuesday !!
Enjoyed teaching mostly all the sh1te around it did for me. Enjoy being back on site and dont miss the holoidays too much. Any builder types need site eng west yorks?

Ex-Brickie now Lecturing in construction at a college, teaching classroom thoery, workshop practical and assessing NVQs.
Our clientele are somewhat demanding and generally not very motivated, but that's modern teenagers for you.
Paperwork and pressures for results are ridiculous.
Holidays are great.
Pay is ok.
Don't miss the early morning-late home of site work.
Don't miss the wet and cold and sunburn and backache.
Do miss the ability to tell someone to **** off and that they're a c**t when they need it 😉

Another RAF man here, aircraft techie mechanical.
Can't decide whether I like it anymore, stuck in a rut, not bothered by the promotion aspect. Can't see the benefit of a couple of k a year more for all the extra grief. At the minute I'm a top level producer pulling in just under 30k and I have a fairly easy work life.
Enjoy the actual work and the lads I work with, but constant cuts and time away is wearing a little thin.
On the flip side I went sailing on the Solent last week for free, and have 74 days leave to enjoy this year

im a graphic designer with a side salad of brand and marketing stuff, set up my own business almost a year ago and work from my wee cottage. its still a bit up and down but its great being my own boss. feel I'm truly creative again, even entertaining factoring in drawing and painting as part of what i do/sell as well. loud music and top drawer in the work place with no one to disagree! (until the boss gets home)

being able to switch the mac off and head out on the bike whenever i fancy is great as is no longer dealing with an awful commute and idiots in suits anymore. take comfort from the fact 'if it was easy everyone would be doing it'.

IT Director at the UK's only remaining truck manufacturer. Hard work but enjoyable.

I spent my working life making cigarette filters. It was definitely a livelihood not a career but served me well. Took ill health retirement three months ago.

I run my own Contruction / Project Management company.

It's just coming up for 2 years old so it's still very up & down but still learning loads about how to do things better. Overall it's a B+. Making enough to make ends meet is a D- but I'll keep flogging the horse until I dream up a better way to make a living!

It's a reflective process...i.e. "well that approach didn't work...let's try this one"!

The up side is I get to ride whenever I want to which is no bad thing.

beaker -

do you work for a certain mahoosive company which own/run satellites out of a crappy hellhole in Wiltshire?

If so I work as a maritime field engineer for the same company !

We probably each other, as I will defo have spoken to you lots.

Business Systems Analyst.
Also about to launch 2 small businesses.
Looking to escape the corporate slave world.

Property - London & Spain.

I love it, my own boss, wear shorts & t shirt every day, lots of time to swim, bike & walk every day. Live in Spain but go to London every 3 months to inspect flats. Do everything myself so its blocked toilets/painting/buying white goods from JL etc.

Before that 15 years in oil & gas - supply chain, pipeline scheduling, exchange agreements (looks like someone here is doing my old job then gas operations. Did the job in half the time so started dabbling in property alongside the day job. Made enough to concentrate on property full time so took the leap 15 years ago.

Future more of the same, no wish to do anything different & probably won't ever retire, I'll just get a man Friday to do all the chasing around. Wouldn't mind owning a café but not working in it.

Driving trains for Northern Rail Ltd. Don't enjoy it most of the time. I find all driving (whether its a car or a train) tedious after a while not to mention uncomfortable. The pay is just under 45k for a 35 hour week.

Horrible car commute to Manchester to add to the misery.

Because its shift work I nearly always miss out on group rides and have to bike on my own most of the time. Its crap. I have to work 2 Saturdays out of 3. Every Sunday off though. Sundays are optional overtime. Mid week evening rides are out of the question unless I've got the whole day off.

I'm in a bike club yet seem to miss out on 80% of the rides that I want to do, mainly because the epics are always put up on Sat rather than Sun. Don't know why ? Do people need Sun to rest before going back to work on Mon?

Reqlly hard to get a annual leave in August as well on Saturdays its impossible. Really pissed off now after an entire month of riding on my own nearly all the time.

No job at the moment and I hate it.

Logisitics lead for a massive pharma comapany in London. It's ok, the pay is good and work life balance is also good. Offices are nice and the people ok. Although no-one seems to have any idea what's going on....ever.

I hate living in London though, and would jump at the chance to move elsewhere, which I may do in the next year or two. Im in my mid 20's, and my goal of six figures by 30 is becoming less appealing by the day, the older I get and more I earn, the more I just want to ride my bike and be outside.

over the last 4 months:

Publican - have been for the last few years but onset of family and marriage made it too much of a burden and I wasn't seeing my wife/daughter at all. Good fun and glad I did it but towards the end I hated it!

National Trust Ranger - easily the happiest I've ever been in a job. outdoors in the woods/on the beach with the dog, extremely low stress - lots of public interaction, knowing that you're doing something good. company vehicle is a quad bike and I get to play with lots of noisy toys.

BUT, it's only a 3 month job I took for the summer, before I go back to school to do a PGCE in primary education. Start a week Monday. Hopefully I haven't made a horrific mistake 🙂

Oceanographer / marine consultant. provide data, info, research on winds/waves/currents to the offshore industry.
Interesting work, oil price drop not helping. Get to live in Devon, which is the main plus point!

would it be cheeky to contact a few of the engineering types here? Mid-20's material scientist/ engineer and looking for new work.

Northerntom - would be interested to hear of your career path thus far...

Oceanographer / marine consultant. provide data, info, research on winds/waves/currents to the offshore industry.
Interesting work, oil price drop not helping. Get to live in Devon, which is the main plus point!

do you work for Pete?

pen tester, loved it to start with can get a bit boring now. although owning other peoples networks is still fun when we are allowed to do it.

do you work for Pete?

no Jam bo, I work for a certain civil service department based in Exeter! I do know a Pete though (Gaches).?

You?

no Jam bo, I work for a certain civil service department based in Exeter! I do know a Pete though (Gaches).?

You?

South devon based manufacturer of oceanographic stuff.

a friend of mine has outpost of a largish consultancy down this way, thought you might work for him.

a friend of mine has outpost of a largish consultancy down this way, thought you might work for him.

ah right, what company's that then? always interested to know what other oceanographic related work may be available in the region!

Fisherman - i hate the sea and everything in it

ah right, what company's that then? always interested to know what other oceanographic related work may be available in the region!

Partrac. although the devon office isnt mentioned on the website by the looks of it. I know they have at least 4-5 guys based in the SW.

edward2000 - Member
Fisherman - i hate the sea and everything in it

Tried the meat industry? 😆

Policy advisor in Government. Stressful and the pay is on the low side of average, but it's cool striding around Whitehall and watching stuff on the news every day you've been working on directly.

Flexitime is fantastic and I've just escaped the capital to move back to Sheffield.

Military Air Traffic Controller in the RAF. Enjoy the core task, don't enjoy constant unpaid overtime, jumping through hoops at the whim of a madman. 6 years to go, one eye on the exit.

Renton, also not sure what to do. Have you thought about trying the charts with the armourer song?

Cobrakai, I'd try and chisel for a job but I know NATS' policy to ex-mil over 30!

Property Maintenance (handyman) -- Love it being, your own boss is the best bit!

Associate Director for a small Acoustic, AV and IT consultancy, looking after the offices in Singapore and Hong Kong and projects throughout the SEA region.
I'm so out of my depth I may as well be a deep sea diver.

Mechanic. Love it

Partrac. although the devon office isnt mentioned on the website by the looks of it. I know they have at least 4-5 guys based in the SW.

ah yeah, i know them. used to work with a couple of their guys back at Fugro a few years back.
small world is the oceanography one!

Hansrey

would it be cheeky to contact a few of the engineering types here? Mid-20's material scientist/ engineer and looking for new work.

No dentists yet?
Oh well, I stress test model railways in that case. Love it.

I work in Computer Security, a nice growth area which should keep me employed for a while yet.

Do I enjoy it? Sometimes. There are times when I think I should just jack it in and become a landscape gardener or international hitman or something.

Main job - Firefighter, I enjoy the going out on shouts bit but the erosion of the work force whilst increasing targets means that for the most part it's drudgery.

Also do 1-2 days a week as a tree surgeon, love that, bloody hard work though.

Also do the occasional Saturday in a butchers shop, quite enjoy that but I'm glad I left it as a full time job 21 years ago.

Northern Sales Rep for Europe's market leading industrial PVC hose manufacturer.
Dealing with customers in well over a dozen very different markets and industries.
Started 8 weeks ago and absolutely love it.

Worked for their competitors in the past always looking up to this company.
No pressure on sales, targets or pressure down from the management as it's mainly a PR role.
Now that I've got my foot in the door I'm here to stay and the results are already rolling in.

Offshore Medic and Registered Nurse...work in Australia but live in UK. The commute is a bitch,but I get 6 months a year off, paid more than I ever dreamed possible, and have very nearly zero stress...so I can hardly complain really. And frankly anything beats the NHS right now, and certainly what's going to happen to it over the next 5 - 10 years.

Ir_bandito, you have mail!

Technical Manager in food manufacturing. I enjoy it most of the time but the job has become less enjoyable these last couple of years.

The problem with the raf for me is that it's getting a lot smaller and the workload is getting bigger. Moral within the troops is on its arse. It doesn't help that a lot of people that are still in are "yes" men to afraid to say no to stuff and it just pisses the lads off even more.

Also for me I see my immediate superiors sat at their computers all day and its not what I want to be doing next at all.

Airtragic, Recruitment is at a stand still anyway. I've got friends of friends who passed selection still waiting on a course. As I said earlier, I was a squaddie for 8 years so got out whilst young enough to try something else.

I also know Mil pension rates so your better off just hanging on in there.

Don't post on here much, but what the hey.

Army Chaplain. Best job in the Army. Hated being the minister of a church which I did for three years. Was a squaddie before that, nice being back in the military environment but without all the bull of being a jnco.

@renton, sounds familiar!