What do you do for a living?

27 years as a Fireman. Retired since 81. Just an old guy working in the shop making knives.
 
Just another software engineer. Been doing it since '71 so I'm one of the old farts in the business without a degree.
 
I make knives and ironwork. I am getting close to two years of being self employed. It has not been easy but I keep pushing on. It gets better little by little. I live in a rural area and have very minimal bills. I own my own house and do whatever needs to be done to keep my spending down. Of course my wife helps with the bills and I do all the house work. Sometimes I feel more like a housewife than anything.
I do have other sources of income like buying and selling horses and hay. I do odd jobs for cash sometimes just to get out of the house/shop. Like last summer my dad, a few other guys and I did a cleanup job in a closed down diecasting plant.
 
I work for Timken Service Engineering. I handle all hands on technical issues with Timken customers in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and Alaska. Timken makes anti-friction bearings. I spend most of my time teaching maintenance classes, doing bearing damage analysis, consulting on equipment rebuilds, troubleshooting, and engineering bearings into new equipment designs. I visit both Original Equipment builders (such as, Freightliner, Consolidated Metco, companies that design and build tunnel boring equipment, gear box manufacturers, mining equipment manufacturers, and on and on and on), and I also visit end users (like coal, platinum, copper, gold and silver mines), power plants, truck dealers, repair facilities, bearing distributors, food processing plants, cement and aggregate companies, paper mills, rolling mills, sawmills, and on and on and on.

If they use or make something that turns, I've most likely been there at one time or another.
 
I have a Risk Mangement degree and used it for the first 6 years out of school, then I ran businesses for 10 years in the HVAC, plumbing and electrical trades and did a ton of traveling. About 5 years ago I decided to come off the road and leave the corporate world to watch my daughter grow up. I bought a local company that was in the general contracting business. Lately I have not had much of a job or a company thanks to the economy. Sooo now I am looking for work and making a few knives.
 
If have been in Information Technology for the past 24 years. These last 5 years as a IT Security Engineer for Healthcare Corporation of America. I specialize in wireless security these days.
 
Since 1973 I've been in the construction trade using steel. 73 to 97 I built subs at Electric Boat in both Groton, Ct and Quonset Point, RI. Out of the 24 years 18 of it was as a nuclear pipe/structural welder and the rest of my time there was as an NDT inspector using surface test such as Magnetic partical, Liquid penetrant and Visual inspections, subsurface inspections such as Ultrasonic testing and Radiographer. For the first couple of years after leaving EB I worked a weld inspector at various power plants and oil rigs
around the world. Since 2000 I've been a Radiographer at Thielsch Engineering Inc.

I started forging knives in 02 maybe someday I'll actually finish a couple of them :D
 
Union bricklayer for the BAC local 9, PA, for the last......had to think almost 10yrs. did the first 5-6 yrs in commercial masonry, schools businesses, ect. Then the last 4-5 in refractory, mainly working on coke battery ,oven repair. HOTTTT work.

Idea of how hot it was, the first year i was on the battery, I had just bought a pair of Georgia or Carolina metatarsuls, thought they would hold up, due to there reputation of being a half way decent boots.....well we were working on a set of walls and had been at the roof work, which means the rest of the walls would be built while the ovens were actually being fired....eeeh hard to explain, if ya never been on a battery.

Needless to say after the 4 or 5th day those boots i was so proud of had a sole that flapping in the wind, by the time i made it back to the job trailer the sole had came off completely...hehe gotta love going to work 12hr shifts just knowing that your either gonna catch on fire for a bit, or at the very least bake like a turkey in the oven all day!!:)
 
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I grew up being my dads shadow in his welding shop and went to work there at around 15 learning to weld on heavy equipment and farm equipment. But for the last 19 years I have been working for a county road district running a brush cutter and road grader and a back hoe once in awhile. Still do the welding on most of our equipment. would like to go full time at making knives, when I retire.
 
NickWheeler said:
All these guys and not a single man whore??? I find that hard to believe! :confused: :D
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I used to try to be a man-whore, but I went broke :eek: :grumpy: :confused: Maybe it's because I have a face that's perfect for radio... :o

Now I have an honest woman who wouldn't stand for that sort of thing, so I'm trying to make an honest living instead. :)
 
=jim moyer;6663186]...full time knifemaker...
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Jim (may I call you Jim?) I saw that vid in another thread but neglected to comment on it. I must say I'm impressed. :) Thanks for sharing, and don't retire too soon... it looks like you're making some fine knives. I especially like your handle treatments; the guards/spacers/handles/buttcaps compliment each other nicely.
 
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James_Terrio said:
=jim moyer;6663186]...full time knifemaker...
Jim (may I call you Jim?) I saw that vid in another thread but neglected to comment on it. I must say I'm impressed. :) Thanks for sharing, and don't retire too soon... it looks like you're making some fine knives. I especially like your handle treatments; the guards/spacers/handles/buttcaps compliment each other nicely.
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Yes you can and thanks for your compliments.
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I do a variety of things in the office of a chrome plating shop. Answering phones, estimating, purchasing, payables, receivables. I worked in the shop for about 10 years starting with grinding bumpers then moved to polishing small parts and stainless.

Things I've done in the past... I worked in a small hockey stick plant, an auto dismantler, roughneck on oil and gas drilling rigs, operated a water well and soil sampling drilling rig.
 
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