Sounds fun. I was in the Navy in Cryptology. CTR2 when I got out. Not sure what the Air Force MOS for that job is. My roommate in WV was Air Force in the same field.
What do you do for a living?
- Thread starter JT
- Start date
I am a semi-retired (only work 60 or so hours a week now) professional eccentric. I've been a performer (magician) for over 50 years and earned a good spot of cash from it.
I am also retired Navy and work for the State of Maryland (which like a lot of states has gone broke) and has been downsized (due to age and illness - cancer surviver) in my actual day-to-day job (lost almost 1/3 salary). I administrate Mental Health services within the DPSCS for the western region of the state giving me responsibility for programs within 5 adult, male, maintaining institutions (OK, that is admin speak for prison).
I am under a lot of pressure to fully retire but am sticking it out in hopes that the economy will stabilize and all the little bits and bobs that I've cobbled together will survive intact. Tis a scary time to even be thinking of living on a retirement income.
I am lucky in that I genuinely like what I do and believe it to be important.
As someone once said and I've discovered to be true: "the only thing golden about these golden years is the piss!"
I am also retired Navy and work for the State of Maryland (which like a lot of states has gone broke) and has been downsized (due to age and illness - cancer surviver) in my actual day-to-day job (lost almost 1/3 salary). I administrate Mental Health services within the DPSCS for the western region of the state giving me responsibility for programs within 5 adult, male, maintaining institutions (OK, that is admin speak for prison).
I am under a lot of pressure to fully retire but am sticking it out in hopes that the economy will stabilize and all the little bits and bobs that I've cobbled together will survive intact. Tis a scary time to even be thinking of living on a retirement income.
I am lucky in that I genuinely like what I do and believe it to be important.
As someone once said and I've discovered to be true: "the only thing golden about these golden years is the piss!"
Thank You! Gotta give love to the military and vets on here. I served 9 years in Naval Intelligence. My buddy is an E-8 in the Army also a MP. He is on his 3rd Middle East tour, currently serving in Iraq as personal security for a general. My brother in law is heading to Kuwait in September with his unit and my cousin just transferred over to the officer ranks in the Navy is headed over as well. It can be a thankless job at times, but I loved every minute. Thanks again bro!
I aquired my dream job back in 2007 when I started working for Hershey Entertainment as an amusement park rides mechanic. I work on everything from water rides to kiddie rides to roller coasters. I absolutely love my job!
That is awesome man, I am jealous haha free access to the park I imagine
I have yet to go to Hershey Park and it's not even that far from me. Sounds like a fun job.I aquired my dream job back in 2007 when I started working for Hershey Entertainment as an amusement park rides mechanic. I work on everything from water rides to kiddie rides to roller coasters. I absolutely love my job!
I stop there last December with my wife on our way to Montreal. Really nice out there...
It would be worth the 2 hour drive. If you like coasters, there's 12 to ride. There's a lot of other stuff to do as well.
Last edited:
That's a long trip for you. Too bad you weren't there around July to see the full beauty of the town/park.
Yeah, I bet. My wife's been there with the kids. I was working the weekend they went. My brother in law's ex-wife lived close to Hershey Park. If we decide to go sometime I'll drop you a line before we head there.
Michael Wilson
New Member
I'm structural certified and pipe certified. Funny how I'm a motorcycle tech and can't tig weld :/
Currently I'm working as a service rep for Kaiser Permanente. Entry level type job getting into the medical administration field. It's a new career path for me that I started a little under 2 years ago.
Previously I spent 13 years in sales for an industrial plastics company. I was outside sales for the last 3 years of that job. I enjoyed the job tremendously. Company car, cell phone, computer, out in the field every day, not stuck behind a desk, getting to go places few people ever get to go and see, etc... But when the upper management completely changed everything from the structure of the company to the philosophy behind their sales force, I couldn't handle it. I really mis dealing with a lot of the clients and industries I worked in. Everything from water treatment plants and construction, to theme parks, wildlife research, aquatics, pharmaceutical research, to nuclear power plants, luxury yacht building, food processing, chemical manufacturing, semiconductor and circuit board manufacturing, and everything in between. Not many people have been able to go behind the scenes at places like Disneyland, Sea World, and the San Diego Zoo for work, and in the same week or even the same day, be driving behind a tank on a military base or stand next to an experimental nuclear reactor, then later on help an engineer design a piping system for a 10,000 gallon aquarium going in a royal palace in the middle east. It was very cool and I learned so much about so many different fields. But when your sales numbers go up 18% in 2008 (the beginning of the worst economy since the depression) and you're told by the VP of the company you're doing a shitty job because you're not making the $50K a month in profit that they want, that kind of hurts. The final blow came when my direct manager took an order from one of my clients while I was on vacation. They mistakenly specified the wrong part number for 2 $1500 chemical pumps. He knew what application they were going into and knew they would fail. But he decided not to mention it so that when they did fail, we would be able to sell the right pumps and play dumb, saying we shipped what they ordered. That was it for me. He would get pissed if I spent time with a client trying to solve a problem and ended up not selling much if anything, but fixed their issue. Not thinking about the fact that I'm solidifying relationships that will allow us to be their source whenever they need help. So I wanted to go somewhere that the only reason for being there was to help the customer, not just focus on numbers. My family has been heavily involved in the medical industry just about my whole life. So it just made since to go in that direction.
Previously I spent 13 years in sales for an industrial plastics company. I was outside sales for the last 3 years of that job. I enjoyed the job tremendously. Company car, cell phone, computer, out in the field every day, not stuck behind a desk, getting to go places few people ever get to go and see, etc... But when the upper management completely changed everything from the structure of the company to the philosophy behind their sales force, I couldn't handle it. I really mis dealing with a lot of the clients and industries I worked in. Everything from water treatment plants and construction, to theme parks, wildlife research, aquatics, pharmaceutical research, to nuclear power plants, luxury yacht building, food processing, chemical manufacturing, semiconductor and circuit board manufacturing, and everything in between. Not many people have been able to go behind the scenes at places like Disneyland, Sea World, and the San Diego Zoo for work, and in the same week or even the same day, be driving behind a tank on a military base or stand next to an experimental nuclear reactor, then later on help an engineer design a piping system for a 10,000 gallon aquarium going in a royal palace in the middle east. It was very cool and I learned so much about so many different fields. But when your sales numbers go up 18% in 2008 (the beginning of the worst economy since the depression) and you're told by the VP of the company you're doing a shitty job because you're not making the $50K a month in profit that they want, that kind of hurts. The final blow came when my direct manager took an order from one of my clients while I was on vacation. They mistakenly specified the wrong part number for 2 $1500 chemical pumps. He knew what application they were going into and knew they would fail. But he decided not to mention it so that when they did fail, we would be able to sell the right pumps and play dumb, saying we shipped what they ordered. That was it for me. He would get pissed if I spent time with a client trying to solve a problem and ended up not selling much if anything, but fixed their issue. Not thinking about the fact that I'm solidifying relationships that will allow us to be their source whenever they need help. So I wanted to go somewhere that the only reason for being there was to help the customer, not just focus on numbers. My family has been heavily involved in the medical industry just about my whole life. So it just made since to go in that direction.
lwclancers
New Member
Software QA (Test) Manager for an LMS (learning management system). I tell software developers what they did wrong 
