what do you guys do

Color/Tech Rep./Trainer/Problem solver/product tester/peon.

I work for DuPont (Performance Coatings). Primarily as an automotive refinish color specialist but do training, and troubleshooting as well. When I'm not in the office or color lab, I'm out at customers shops around the country fixing color match problems or training painters to use new products.

Basically, I'm the guy that makes sure the paint matches (color, gloss, overall appearance) when the body shop repairs your car.

Chris
 
Grateful said:
I am a hot end operator at a glass plant. I work 12 hour rotating swing shifts 14 times a month. This schedule gives me more free time than a 9 to 5 straight 40 job. I spend at least a little time outdoors everyday that I am off. That's what keeps me as close to sane as I get. That and my daughter.
Jim
Click to expand...

If your AGC I'm Glad you'all didnt get the axe. Lost some friends in Victorville and Kingsport.
 
tidefan said:
Me too...I work 24/48 and have ten weekends a month to play outside..
Click to expand...

I do 2 24s a week one week is tues sat, the other is tues thurs. It would be nice if I could work a 48 on my tues thurs week, but I cant complain, Im off 5 days a week and every other weekend is a 4 day one.......:thumbup:
 
Whats up guys? I'll give a hint. Does someone smell bacon? That's right I'm a cop, copper, the law, pig. Whatever term you want use. Been at it for about 10 years. Currently work with my dept as a defensive tactics instructor. Our system is based mainly on krav. Also work in a patrol capacity. Its been a rewarding career but can cause you to bang your head against the wall at times.
 
cmgray, I thought I smelled pork:D, There must be an internet cafe that serves doughnuts........

JK man, Gotta raz ya a bit, were both public service, and you know how we can get!!!!!!!! Be safe
 
kgd said:
Sounds like you had a very rewarding career highdesertwalker. Fortunately, one of the perks of having an intellectual jobs like yours is the recognition that idea's don't necessarily run with a time clock. Often the requirements are more deliverable and timeline oriented rather than time spent. Of course, there are many times when we are on the losing end of that system and you end up putting hefty overtime hours without compensation.

Personally, I often get so caught up in a given project that when I do work a 70 h work week, I usually don't really notice it. Right now I'm writing a scientific paper that involves linking a fish bioenergetics model and pollutant model to interpret a long term experiment of pollutant elimination by transplanted fish. The bioenergetic model is solving for daily feeding rates, gill ventilation and body composition changes in 4 age classes and feeding this into another submodel describing pollutant toxicokinetics for 71 chemicals. I should have set it up as a visual basic program like I sometimes do, but because I was more interested in the results than the interface, I ended up building it as a spreadsheet model that is now over 90 Mb.

Anyway this is one of those things that I'm caught up into at the moment. I'm already adapting the model so that it can make some testable predictions that can be applied to fish from Lake Erie - justifying why I need to go out and do some field collections there this summer! This is one of my pet projects, the kind of think I slip in between my administrative tasks and something that is apart from the projects being managed by my graduate students (my lab now supports 8 graduate students and 2 post-docs). I shoot for trying to to write least one scientific paper a year where I am first author and complete most of the intellectual work and have my grad. students write the other (often more interesting) ones.
Click to expand...

Yes, when project deadlines approached I too worked 10 hrs a day, seven days a week. Whatever it took. It's worth it if you have the chance to conceive and lead your own projects even though you work at a large institution that tends to treat employees like cogs in a giant wheel.

Great job you have there kgd. Work sounds very interesting and having the chance to teach and work with so many students is very rewarding I'm sure.
 
kgd said:
I'm a prof. at a mid-sized university. A lot of my outdoors fun has to do with research. I have a bunch of lakes in Ontario that I study and also have some international projects in the middle east and now in the Caribbean. In truth much of my time is at a desk, writing proposals, reports and securing funding. I do get to live vicariously through my grad students though and sometimes they suffer me to come along for the ride. So as a Prof., I can recommend school - but fully aknowledge that isn't for everybody.

Your expertise as an auto guy can have some interesting spin-offs. One of my father's buddies runs a consulting buisness where we examines end-of-lease cars coming from customers and going back to the dealer. There is some fee schedule that I don't fully understand, but he does well and travels often doing this. I bet one could work in a lot of day hikes 'in-between' trips !!

Good luck on your vocational search. A bit of hiking and solitude might be a good source of inspiration. One word of advice, is to think more broadly about your skillsets rather than how you have 'used' your skillsets in the past. Many people box themselves into too narrow an area because they don't think about how the skills they have in one trade translate into multiple types of jobs.
Click to expand...

I'm an old, retired USAF Colonel ... who used to be a physics prof at the USAF Academy. Much of my wilderness time also involved specialized research. I have a PhD in Solid State Physics and the usual handful of other degrees, mostly physics and engineering.

I've done a lot of program management and systems engineering, a fair amount of laboratory physics (always willing to do more!!), some college teaching, and a lot of "Community Work" in the DC area. Presently employed as a Senior Project Engineer in a mid-sized aerospace corporation.

Like many here, I have a lot of odd and seemingly unrelated skillsets (in addition to those mentioned above). I, also, think a little time alone to meditate might be a good idea.
 
I graduate in a few weeks with a mechanical engineering degree from Texas A&M then I'll be working in Houston in the oil industry.
 
bacman99 said:
If your AGC I'm Glad you'all didnt get the axe. Lost some friends in Victorville and Kingsport.
Click to expand...
I am at AGC Springhill. I feel bad for everyone that lost their jobs. Is Kingsport and Greenland the same facality?
 
Fulltime knifemaker. Still work 2 nites a week at the old job for the health benefits.
Scott
 
I work for a company that makes glass. The plant I work at melts 3 train cars of sand a day to make about 550 tons of glass day. That glass is then sold to people who make windshields, windows ect.
 
My degree is in Outdoor Recreation, and I worked outdoors as a professional archaeologist for 12 years. Worked for ten years at Philmont Scout Ranch, most of those living in remote backcountry camps. I've also worked small ranching and farming jobs, and was a caretaker on a cattle farm in the Ozarks for two years.

Currently, I'm a mudlogger-geologist for a drill rig in Colorado. It's technically outdoors, but the actual work environment is totally industrial. Not a dream job of adventure, travel, and outdoor living, like archaeology, but it is nice to be paid in dollars instead of fresh air for a change.

I still get calls occasionally for small archaeological surveys, and I take them whenever possible.
 
I am one of 2 mechanics that maintain the 24 truck tanker fleet for a big oil company here in Northern Calif. Before that, I drove gasoline tankers for 17 years.
 
I've been a wildland firefighter with the state of Florida for 30 years. My career has taken me to forest fires in California, Oregon, Montana (Yellowstone 1988), Wyoming, Idaho, Kentucky and Georgia. If I'm not fighting them, I'm lighting them (prescribed fires in the wildland urban-interface). I operate a bulldozer, and at times a brush engine to fight fires. My duties include fire prevention (Smokey Bear programs) and fire training with local fire departments. I enjoy going to work everyday and get to play in the great outdoors!
 
Thats alot of diffrent ideas there guys. With all the skills on here we can set up our own country. Of course Evolte has the best job out there. Shoot everything in sight. Im working on a list of what i would want from my job and then see what job might fit it.. Im lucky in that im not married and no kids so i dont have to worry about family. Not that i put a family down or anything. I just didnt want to ruin a woman life by marrying her. *L* .... Its very intresting to read what everyone does.. does bring ideas that i would never even thought of. Thank you guys.

sasha
 
General computer nerd. Networking, sysadmin and programming. Most of the work at my current job is web development.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top