What do you do for a living?

[noseoil]

Dales133 posted this in his build, what do you do? Figured it was worth a post & we can see what types of people like to build. I'll start it off.

I work as an estimator in the construction industry, residential home building, as a roof truss estimator. That's the last 20 years or so. I've been in construction-related fields all of my life & will retire next summer. I'm not an engineer, but I do have to deal with a lot of the concepts involved in building trusses.

I started as a cabinet maker for houses, then did a stint in aircraft cabinetry & have build a few rifles, a couple of small wooden boats & other things. I've played with darkroom work & photography, cars a bit & knives.

Here's a job form 2 weeks ago. A church I sent trusses for was built by a guy who didn't read the bracing instructions I provided. Half the trusses came down. No one was killed, fortunately... This is why I can't wait until I can retire, there's a lot of stress at times that goes with the job.

The walls after the trusses came down.



The trusses were 56' long, dual sloping flats.

[pete49]

Was locksmith until I retired couple years back. As for hobbies its scary close to what you do noseoil. Not a cabinet maker but do a lot of wood work and metal work as a hobbyist home shop engineer. Built dories and dinghies for fun,I've played with darkroom work & photography, cars and faceting. now do a bit of astronomy when the nights aren't too cold and camping in the TD

[WoodSmith]

Lemme guess, "diagonal bracing is required" translated to "slap a couple nearly level stringers just above the fascia line" and somehow they want to blame you right? Since it was a church, were they just praying the trusses would stay in place?
How do people like this even get jobs this big?

[KennethW]

I am a mold maker,machinist and programmer at the same place for 3 years shy of 4 decades (or 37 years) I run a Makino V33.
Hobbies I have build a solar therm collect array to help heat my home in Minnesota. It cuts my heat bill in half.

[ParTaxer]

Tax Consultant. I work for four months and then I'm retired the rest of the year. Not a bad life. Retired from the state of Kentucky 16 years ago at the age of 47.

Mike W

[bc toys]

I an a electrician for the past 37yrs still got 5 more to go before I retire
my hobbies are cooking and camping and when I can do them together it even better
also like to build BBQ smokers

[daveesl77]

In the 70s I went from submariner to musician to long distance sailor to boat builder/restorer and boat recovery for insurance companies and govt. During boat times, while really bored on long trips, I taught myself how to program. This was before the PC was made. Due to Navy related stuff and summer jobs as a teenager, I also became a licensed electrician, earning my NRC controls license in the late 1970s. So half the year I'd sail or play with boats and the other half I'd work in nuclear plants and military stations. By the mid 80s I had started a software company and sold out to a big blue company in the early 90s. We were one of the original test companies for the Mosaic web browser, when there were about 100 websites in the world.

I always loved video, photography and building stuff. I built a couple of houses and several sailboats. Canon was one of my partner companies in the 80s and since the mid 90s I've spent my time travelling and making travel documentaries and shooting stock footage, which adds to the retirement funds. I have about a dozen unfinished video projects that I'd love to complete but probably won't. I was invited to video the Christmas Eve midnight mass at the Pantheon, twice. Earned an international Emmy nomination (but didn't win) through a project I worked with Korean Broadcasting on.

I'm disabled and "retired", but try to keep busy unless the pain gets too great and I have to stop for a few days (like now). I have two wonderful children (now adults). My son is a graphic designer and photographer in Colorado. My daughter is ex-Army, now a reservist, holds a Master's degree in international relations and works in a job field that she loves. My wife of almost 20 years is my best friend, likes sci-fi, nascar, football, traveling, camping in the weirdest places imaginable and is a retired Special Ed teacher.

So for me, what I do for a living is have some wonderful memories, ignore my disabilities, look forward to the things I'll do next. I don't have a big income, but also don't have any big bills and we are pretty thrifty (in sailor terms = cheap).

dave

[bobhenry]

17 year construction estimator for a wall panel plant. Estimate material needed to build the panels and calculate the labor to produce and ship them.

Retiring in the next 10 minutes or the next two years depending on the owners attitudes.

[Irmo Atomics]

Retired after working 28 years in the commercial nuclear power – start-ups, shutdowns and de-commissioning.

[bobhenry]

You can tell by the glow its Irmo

[bobhenry]

oops .....double post

[Irmo Atomics]

You can tell by the glow its Irmo

I'm my own nightlight!

[dales133]

Good work starting this

Ive done all kinds of things!
When i first left school i tried several differnt trades including cabinett making ,carpentry , building cool storage and comercial refrigeration before settling down in a brake service enginers apprenticeship.
While doing this i did alot of exhaust work including building extractors/headers for hotrods and classic cars .
I did a couple of ground up rebuilds on cars around then and was in the hotrod sceene.
At about 22 i sold up everything and left on my own with a few thousand and a plane ticket to indonesia.
Spent almost a year in asia and 1 in australia before returning to NZ and did a tiling aprentiship then started my own buisness .went traveling again at about 33 back to asia and was gone this time for about 4 years a good part of it working in aussie before going home and working in construction and maintenance.
Built a few houses then got engaged to an australian and moved there and eventualy got into bathroom renovations but do a bit of everything.
Heres a job im working on at the moment.
Complete strip out and change around.

uploadfromtaptalk1441738569062.jpg (20.7 KiB) Viewed 1032 times

uploadfromtaptalk1441738554922.jpg (22.99 KiB) Viewed 1032 times

Hobby wise building smokers and smoking fish and meat,fishing and building stuff have alays kept me happy,and of course traveling

[pchast]

Retired operation and maintenance supervisor for NYS in boiler room, hvac, kitchen equipment, Water and
Sewer plant... Industrial electric, generation and Whatever they called to complain about.

Did some systems design and controls application, basic programming. I've worked in prisons, hospitals and
half way houses, prison farms. I filled in for several years as a substitute teacher, primarily math and sciences.

Prior to that... I couldn't list them all.

[felixx]

Training advisor for BCITO
http://www.bcito.org.nz
I assess construction apprentices after 15 years as a School Teacher. Commercial fisherman before that