Tell us a bit about ur job/occupation/business

[I Saw OJ]

I work on a small family ranch farming about 100 acres of almonds and raisin grapes. Its low acreage so I do just about everything, control pests, irrigation, harvesting, repairing equipment. You name it and I do it. Its rewarding and fun as I get to work outside and im pretty much my own boss. Hope to continue doing this and expand to more acreage and different crops in the near future.

 

[yhelothar]

I'm a graduate assistant intern at the Center for Neural Engineering at USC.
We're running simulations of large scale synaptic networks in the hippocampus. We hope to understand the computations the brain makes in learning and memory.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

I'm a Field Service Engineer for a major manufacturer of laboratory equipment. My work focuses on their clinical diagnostic analyzers, which means all my customers are hospitals and clinics. When a phlebotomist draws your blood for analysis, there's a pretty good chance it's gonna get run on one of our machines to measure it for concentrations of whatever chemical/antibody concentration that the doctor needs to know to diagnose your condition.

At the end of the day, I'm basically the Maytag repairman, but my customers' "dishwashers" are significantly more complex, precise, and expensive... and people can suffer a great deal of personal harm or even death if a mis-diagnosis results from the production of an erroneous measurement on one of our machines.

 

[stargazr]

I am a toolmaker, and work at a small shop building plastic injection molds. I have over 25 years experience as a diemaker, so this is somewhat new, although I had built a few molds in the past. As long as I have the opportunity to learn new things I'm happy.

They sent me to school for CNC mill programming a few months ago. Haven't been able to use it as much as I would have liked due to work load, but they're getting another machine so that will change.

 

[jersiq]

That sounds really cool. What kind of a path did you take to get where you are now?

I've done quite a few different jobs with my company which led me to my current job.

I started as a Cell Site Technician. From there, I became a MTSO technician. After that, I was a hybrid technician\engineer working in a new role that I helped to define for the company. Then, I was a RF performance engineer. That brings me to now.

I've done a lot of things on my own time to enhance my skills. In 2001, I paid for my CCNA out of pocket, back when all management was telling me "we're never going to use that stuff." (Now, they are pushing CCNA for everyone) Also, when LTE was the decided technology path, I took it upon myself to go to the 3gpp websites and learn as much as possible prior to the equipment being installed. This gave me a distinct advantage over my peers applying for the same job.

 

[Linflas]

Wow that is so cool.
Can you share if its true that government equipment in general are very poorly maintained? I heard a saying if a helicopter is not leaking oil you shouldnt get on it, because there is no oil at all!

Unless things have radically changed in the many years since I was in the Navy I can tell you that US Navy aircraft are very well maintained. Any plane we worked on had to have 3 signatures on the sign off of work completed, the person performing the work, the Quality Assurance inspector that did the follow up inspection of the work and the tool boxes we checked out to use, and the shop petty officer in charge when the work was completed. We were always very aware that given the stresses of carrier cat shots and arrested landings lives depended on us getting it right 100% of the time.

Currently I do IT support for the local school system. I am responsible for 1 middle school and 1 elementary school with approximately 1,000 desktops/laptops between the 2.

 

[Savij]

I work on smart meters - I write networking related code and work on specifications.

 

[z0mb13]

I work on a small family ranch farming about 100 acres of almonds and raisin grapes. Its low acreage so I do just about everything, control pests, irrigation, harvesting, repairing equipment. You name it and I do it. Its rewarding and fun as I get to work outside and im pretty much my own boss. Hope to continue doing this and expand to more acreage and different crops in the near future.

Interesting. Do you make enough $$$ to sustain yourself and your family? Is this a reasonable occupation to do year round? Or you have to support yourself with other jobs/businesses?

 

[DaWhim]

Interesting. Do you make enough $$$ to sustain yourself and your family? Is this a reasonable occupation to do year round? Or you have to support yourself with other jobs/businesses?

hah, you have no idea how rich farmers are! a lot of them are millionaires.

 

[Engineer]

I design and program machine automation systems.

Here is one I did several years ago. This makes side impact airbag tubes (left and right side) for the roofline of the car. Not sure which car this went on other than it was a Chrysler.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9vnwhBvbIc

Here is one that I did a few years ago (I did not program the robot on this one but did the rest of the machine control including interface and start/stopping of the robot).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5si8SYa0M0

 

[Chris A]

I work as a maintenance supervisor in a truly recession proof manufacturing company. We make all the fast food packaging for almost every fast food place you can think of. Cups and fry cartons burger boxes you name it. We have 7 presses Flexo and gravure our fastest one runs 1,200 feet a minute and can run a roll of paper 6 feet tall in less then 10 minutes.

One place we make French fry cartons for is crazy. We have a straight line that kicks out over a million fry cartons in 8 hours and runs 24 hrs 6 days a week. Millions of paper cups. And burger boxes. Three thermoformers. We have lots of equipment that I get to maintain and ensure they keep running plus lots of project work.

It is crazy work and hard to keep up at times I average 10 hours a day but often times I am so busy I feel like time flew by. I learn new stuff every day and have a good crew that gets stuff done. Most equipment is Plc and computer controlled so we are always learning. I love my job.

Only downside is dealing with budgets in each department. This last quarter was a bitch as we had 2 $15,000 servo drives go out and a bunch of annual Pm's come up. I have to repair and maintain but they can't or don't want to spend the dollars. Crying managers .

 

[Engineer]

Most equipment is Plc and computer controlled so we are always learning.

This man speaketh the truth.

 

[Chris A]

This man speaketh the truth.

Yea is crazy. " can you get me a 7/16th open end and my laptop out of my tool box"

 

[Engineer]

Yea is crazy. " can you get me a 7/16th open end and my laptop out of my tool box"

LOL. I'm don't get to do the mechanical side. I just get pointed at for sitting in my chair and called a "button pusher".:biggrin:

Hell, many times, I'm asked to program a fix, or program around, a mechanical problem or deficiency, which I have done many times (i.e. resequence machine to avoid have to make the mechanical side right in the first place).

 

[Chris A]

I design and program machine automation systems.

Here is one I did several years ago. This makes side impact airbag tubes (left and right side) for the roofline of the car. Not sure which car this went on other than it was a Chrysler.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9vnwhBvbIc

Here is one that I did a few years ago (I did not program the robot on this one but did the rest of the machine control including interface and start/stopping of the robot).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5si8SYa0M0

Cool ass video. The amount of work put into that is crazy I have a good friend that has his own company doing robotics so I know a little of what's involved in making that. Good job!!

 

[Chris A]

LOL. I'm don't get to do the mechanical side. I just get pointed at for sitting in my chair and called a "button pusher".:biggrin:

Hell, many times, I'm asked to program a fix, or program around, a mechanical problem or deficiency, which I have done many times (i.e. resequence machine to avoid have to make the mechanical side right in the first place).

Been there many times lol. " not sure what the problem is but can you add a few seconds to that output and I'm sure it will work fine".

 

[Engineer]

Been there many times lol. " not sure what the problem is but can you add a few seconds to that output and I'm sure it will work fine".

"Yea, but make sure that the few seconds that you add doesn't slow the cycle down!"

 

[herm0016]

some very interesting jobs in here.

I am a "seinor field professional" I run a wireline crew in the oilfields of wyoming for one of the largest oilfield service company's in the world.

I have a large truck with my office and a spool of steel cable on the back, a 26 ton truck crane, and an F-350 with a 14k gross trailer.

the cable has a copper conducter down the center. to that cable i can hook tools that will tell me where the oil is, what the shear strength of the rock is, porosity, elemental make up, cement quality, and I use explosives to punch holes and do other things in the well bore.

one of the tools I am our local expert on has what amounts to a miniture partical accelerator in it to blast the formation with neutron rad. equivlent to about a 50 Ci chemical source, but at much higher energy levels. we then detect the resulting gamma rays, their energy levels and the decay time of the captured neutrons to tell us all sorts of interesting info about the rock and the fluid behind the steel casing.

i am licensed by the NRC, BATFE, and have a CDL for hazmat transport.

ah, what the heck:
Equipment

view out my office window while working on a drilling rig:

 

[Oil]

some very interesting jobs in here.

I am a "seinor field professional" I run a wireline crew in the oilfields of wyoming for one of the largest oilfield service company's in the world.

I have a large truck with my office and a spool of steel cable on the back, a 26 ton truck crane, and an F-350 with a 14k gross trailer.

the cable has a copper conducter down the center. to that cable i can hook tools that will tell me where the oil is, what the shear strength of the rock is, porosity, elemental make up, cement quality, and I use explosives to punch holes and do other things in the well bore.

one of the tools I am our local expert on has what amounts to a miniture partical accelerator in it to blast the formation with neutron rad. equivlent to about a 50 Ci chemical source, but at much higher energy levels. we then detect the resulting gamma rays, their energy levels and the decay time of the captured neutrons to tell us all sorts of interesting info about the rock and the fluid behind the steel casing.

i am licensed by the NRC, BATFE, and have a CDL for hazmat transport.

ah, what the heck:
Equipment

view out my office window while working on a drilling rig:

You work in the Bakken?

 

[herm0016]

You work in the Bakken?

I try to avoid it if I can. I have been up there a few times. We cover all of Wyoming and do work in Utah and Colorado also.

 

[Oil]

I try to avoid it if I can. I have been up there a few times. We cover all of Wyoming and do work in Utah and Colorado also.

Why is that?

I'm assuming you're using e-line, right?

 

[herm0016]

Why is that?

I'm assuming you're using e-line, right?

yes. driving the 12 hrs. up there sucks, and having to deal with williston ND sucks. would much rather work out of my home camp.


how are you involved in the industry?

 

[Oil]

yes. driving the 12 hrs. up there sucks, and having to deal with williston ND sucks. would much rather work out of my home camp.


how are you involved in the industry?

Well control

 

[Godsend1]

Work for the Department of the Navy doing overhaul and maintenance on the propulsion plants on the Nuclear Powered ships (air craft carriers and all submarines).

Days can be anything from easy and not that exciting, to busy and not bad at all, to stressful and needing concentration. Most days are pretty easy and stress free. Money is good as well. No college degree and I make more than a lot of people with them.

Parts i hate...its the government nothing runs smooth. Things change all the time. Can be forced to travel. Forced overtime. Forced to do things not comfortable with.

Right now im on a project and we are doing the first Ship Alt for all carriers. So its kind of fun but aggravating applying things that were done solely in a lab onboard a real ship. Silly engineers just dont understand whats its like to do things onboard a ship vs in a wide open room.

Still i get to do things not many people can say they have seen/done

I worked at MINSY for about 10 years, mostly Torpedo Tubes/Mast/Antennas/Towed Arrays.

You at Everett, Puget, Bremerton?

 

[Godsend1]

Currently work at a Satellite Teleport performing uplinks/downlinks, basically we take a signal from one satellite and transmit it back up to another.

Also maintain/repair the antennas, at last count we have 65 antennas ranging in size from 3 meter to 14 meters.

My company owns approximately 58 satellites.