Retired , now managing a 13 year old daughter.
But vaccines are safe and effective right ?? :zipper_mouth_face: What happened?
Sorry to hear that idahofarmer. 
If you don’t mind sharing, what did happen??
Well, lets see…
1973 - 1975 mowed yards as a young kid…
1975 - 1995 worked family farm (small) with Dad. Learned to rebuild engines, big and small, learned to weld various metals and machines, learned a lot about cattle, and crop production.
1983 - 1985 all electric grain bin troubleshooting and repair. Quit when I should have died… Ice, rain and 440 3 phase do not mix with humans. University
1986 - 1988 more University, worked for the mid-wests first Matsushita factory repair center component level VCR, TV and early video camera repair, component level RC craft repairs and sponsered racing.
1989 - 1990 Managed a PC repair shop and worked a repair desk. Side work on early computer networks.
1989 - 1995 worked weekends with a commercial ammo reloader, learned production level ammo loading, high and low volume casting and more customer service interactions.
1990 - present. Network Engineer at a major D1 University. Doing routers. switches, TDM DACS, Sonet, manage 280 network facilities, engineer and design power and HVAC for 7 large facilities and about 270 small network rooms.
I am 56 this fall and could have retired last year… I am really planning to next summer. I am not sure what the next chapter of my life will bring… I may return to work as a farm hand, I really miss the work and the people. I got my first computer in 1982 and have worked tech in some way since them and I am really approaching tech burn-out. But, a couple of standing offers on the edge of tech and power work are really calling to me as well. Many of my jobs have involved extensive and direct “customer” interaction, I really do like customer service.
I had the usual jobs as a kid, cutting grass etc., etc.
High school summer jobs I worked as construction labor.
Went to college & did several things during that time… all at night. Worked as a janitor for a couple years, a Bakery, Goodyear tire & Rubber.
Graduated & taught Jr. High School for 28 years.
During that time I did various different 2nd & summer jobs through those years.
Mechanic (mostly trucks & heavy equipment.), 18 Wheeler driver (tankers, flats, & boxes), labor building houses, remodeled a few places, sales (I sucked at that.), & managed a storage unit place my buddy owned.
About 10 years before retiring from teaching in 2005 I became a USCG Licensed Master & started running boats for pay in the summers. Then did that full time after I retired from teaching.
Slowed down about 4 years ago & just run boats occasionally now.
In other words… a Jack of many trades, but master of only a few. 
Sometimes lived the dream… a few times the nightmare. 
IT Systems Engineer for a large US ISP/Telecom. I manage provisioning automation systems that setup and teardown voice/data/video services for subscribers nationwide on a variety of hardware as well as wearing the Business Analyst hat assisting with projects and plumbing the depths of the database. Prior I managed provisioning fallout, supported installation, and for a brief stretch did helpdesk for customers.
I’ve been doing this work for 17 years now. I miss my prior career in manufacturing where I did mechanical/electrical design.
The work is stable, the pay is reasonable, but telecom is not an industry I’d recommend presently - slow growth, byzantine processes, and the increasing liabilities of legacy copper networks.
Supplier Accounting - Wine/Spirits Industry 20+ years
I can only imagine what Damage 440v can cause — I had a Miter Saw setup on a damp floor and cut the cord —somehow the ground fault never tripped —all I remember is seeing like sparks behind my eyes and there was chicken scratch marks in the saw dust on the floor where I was trying to get away from the saw — My helper said it was only a duration of a few seconds —Felt longer than that to me :person_facepalming:
I spent 5 years as a chemist until Clinton and the “Peace Dividends” put the company I worked for under with all the cancelled military contracts. Last 27 years as a Deputy sheriff but I’m retiring this week. No idea what the future really holds.
I work with major wire-line carriers often, their silo’ed operations make them so hard to deal with. My interaction with them mostly is on the data side of the house with metro and sw-wan transports. I do still have ties into the TDM world. Yes, the giants are starting to feel the pain of ancient copper plants and dwindling service use and infrastructure repairs costs going so high.
Chops, it was a bad combination of an inexperienced rural lineman, a mistake on my part and days of driving nearly freezing rain. Oddly enough the 30 foot fall is what saved my life. Second degree burns on my hands and knees and weeks of pain to follow. I would never work in that dangerous industry again. Metal grain bins, everything is a conductor, everything is always urgent, everything fails in the worst weather and high voltage is brutal when a combination of mistakes are made.
Jack off of all trades, masturbate of none.
what is more fun, chemist or sheriff :sunglasses:
Risk Manager
It isn’t any prettier from the inside looking out. So many disparate legacy networks and legacy backend systems held together with gaffer’s tape and bailing wire.
Barring improbable positive changes in the market my group had to tell the business no more new voice products - haven’t made a profit on voice since before I started with the company and the federal incentives are disappearing.
Good news is that the fiber networks are humming along. Bad news is that some ~20 years after the first large-scale fiber-to-the-prem rollouts they’re still costly to deploy.
Complete polar opposites. I worked in a lab knowing what my monthly retinue would be. Deputy, I was lucky to know what was for lunch. Problem solving skill set as a chemist does help in the field. I enjoyed both, more job satisfaction from being a Deputy.
Ahhh you’re a Fisherman —- LOL
Apparently so, he is a master-bater.
The last time I was friends with a provisioner, he told me that the provisioning front end took all of the commands in and parsed them and re-wrote them to a TL1 gateway and then converted it back to native configs and sent them out. Only because the backup system was very old and only understood TL1. I have not thought TL1 since the very early 90’s on a slik96!
TL1 is still the automation interface for a number of platforms . It’s old and fiddly, but easier to glance over than XML. CLI is generally easier still, but I only see it with GWRs.