What's your "real" job

[BobD (Archive)]

As much as many of us would rather work with wood full-time; those of us who are not retired usually have a day job.

Mine's pretty obvious <grin>, but what do the rest of you do?

Bob

[wwalker47]

real job

BobD-

So you want to know my real job. I am a Design Engineer I design Printed Circuit Boards. Been doing it for 30+ years. And yes I can't wait to retire so my real job will be scroll sawing.

See you at the Open House next October. Looking forward to that, too.

-Bill

[CanadianScroller]

I have the good fortune of having one of the best jobs in the world.
How would you like a job that pays well and offers training opportunities.
You get to walk 10 to 15 km per day, literally stop and smell the roses as you walk along.
You get to work in a city and in rural areas, surrounded by scenic mountains and fields.
Get paid well and have reasonable job security, I have been withe the same employer 26 years.
I do most of my creative designing while I am working, packing a pad of paper and a pencil as I work.
I read water meters for the City. Not a job for everyone but it is great for me. 8 more years till I retire.
Then I will just change lines of work.
Although my job title is Meter Reader, I prefer Water Distribution Data Acquisition Technician....wonder if that warrants a raise?

[Sparhawk]

I'm a metal fabricator at a sign company. I enjoy it most days. I'm creating things with my hands and continuously learning new techniques for doing things that can cross over somewhat to my woodworking. Not to mention I have almost unlimited access to some alternative scrolling materials such as plexiglas, aluminum, and sentra. I can get the scraps which are perfect sizes for scrolling. Have a few projects in mind for those materials just haven't done them yet.

[bronco]

I work at a chemical plant in South Texas as a process operator.
I work 12 hr. shifts. I don't have to much time for scrolling but
I try to get in a few hrs. per week.
Bill

[PiALaModem]

I was someone who yelled at other people to do their job as it relates to my needs instead of as it relates to the four other project managers who had calls on their time. That was the slow, drifting disintegration-through-promotion of a career in technology. Fortunately (and I don't mean that ironically), my job was sent to India (and I trained the guys over there who divided it up), and I looked to other things.

Armed with a decent severance package, I set out to become a luthier. Along the way I discovered scrolling, and somehow also teaching English as a second language.

So now. I work three partial days a week at a Woodcraft franchise, which gives me little money but a great discount on materials, a place to use machines I can't afford, and contacts with people who need custom register grates, false mullions, and other custom scrolled work. I work a few hours a week teaching English in workplace settings, and I make Mountain Dulcimers and market them at music and art festivals.

The rest of the time I scroll, teach classes on scrolling specific projects at the Woodcraft store, design patterns and market scrolled and turned objects on the internet, ebay, and craft shows.

Thank goodness I have the one most important tool a craftsman needs: a spouse who has a job with health insurance.

[Grizz]

My official job description would be Evangelist, but I'm also known as 'preacher' and 'minister.'

[Hobbyhorse]

I guess that I am lucky enough to be a full time woodworker.
I am not too sure what my real job was having started in 1956 as an apprentice carpenter and moved on through the trade to become a building inspector and then an urban valuer. In 1976 we as a family left New Zealand on our sailing yacht for a 3 year trip around the world and of course stopped on the way. In Australia I was a foreman of a joiners shop, in Israel I became a shipwright, in Cyprus I gained tickets as a ship master and finally became a salvage tug master.When we finally arrived back in New Zealand in 1996, having taken 20 years to sail aroud the world I could not get a decent paid job so I went back to my trade . It seems that I have done the full circle and ended up where I started.

Rhys H

[novascroller]

i'm an electronic technician. i fix and test devices that the US govenment uses .

[TIMBERTODD]

I am a Fabrication shop manager. We supply cutom parts to the High Tech. industry and the Research Institutes.
TIMBERTODD

[Woodbutcher68]

My official title is Plant Superintendent, but I do a little of everything. I have 27 union employees. two of which are "Foreman". I handle all the firing, hiring, disciplinary actions, problem solving, ordering repair parts and materials, troubleshooting electrical and mechanical problems and any other problems they can throw at me. We produce long span prestressed, precast hollowcore concrete slabs used in building. After 5 years, of promises, they are interviewing an assistant for me.
A lot of the time I feel like I'm running a daycare center.

[novascroller]

i'm an electronic technician. i fix and test devices that the US govenment uses .

too imflamatory? whatever happened to freedom of speech? ok, how about this. i test devices used in the marines' light armoured vehicles to protect
the people of the US and their interests abroad. :-) i don't really like my job but it pays the bills until i can find something else to do.

[heavykevy]

real job

I work for Pella Corperation in SW Iowa. We are the only custom size window that Pella has we stay busy almost all year long. We work 10 hour days five days a week and 5 to 9 hours on Saturday's if needed.I have been working for them for 6 1/2 years . There is nothing like the smell of saw dust at 5:30 in the morning. Pella is a great place to work they really take care of their people.

Kevin

[GrayBeard Phil]

I work with computers and computer networks. Normally, if I start to explain just exactly what I do, most folk's eyes glaze over in 10 seconds or less. I will spare you the details.

'Nuff' to say that what I do is all in the computer. At the end of the day, there is nothing I can point to, or hold in my hand, and say "I did that". It is all ethereal, gone in a flash, not physical in nature. Two days after the fact and there is no trace, or memory, of how or what I did.

The work I do is in a support role to the company's Prime Mission. My department (MIS / IT) do not have any direct impact on adding to company's Profits, instead we are just a sink hole the company throws money into. But everyone wants a faster computer, a faster network, and more complex software applications.

Now look at scroll sawing, something made is physical and right there in the hand, wood lasts a long time and a cut does not 'crash' or get 'overwritten' or 'lost', a more expensive scroll saw will not make the cutting go 'faster'. And what is even better, scroll saw knowledge doesn't become obsolete every few years.

Phil

[lonepine]

I am a Fire Alarm maintenance techinician at a local Hospital.There is always something that needs attention, often right away...most days it is busy, and if not, there are PM's that are always due. I do enjoy my job, but would rather work with wood. Bob