What's your job ?

[weeksy]

Lets have some 'getting to know one another time'

So... What do you do for work ? Or in some cases what did you do before you retired

I'm an IT nerd, working on Windows servers and VMWare. Been doing it forever now and can't see anything much changing.

[KungFooBob]

IT for me... since leaving school. Currently working for an MSP/box shifter.

[v8-powered]

Consultant to the rail industry, specialist in rolling stock fleet management.
Been in the industry 30+ years now....

[ogri]

Housekeeper at QA hospital, portsmouth. Basically serve meals/drinks to patients in my designated ward.
Not great pay but will pay the rent until i retire in a few years.

[rodbargee]

Re-recording mixer. mixing soundtracks for film and television



currently in my home studio.

[Skub]

I started work at 16,served my apprenticeship as an aircraft fitter. Then moved into jig and tool and latterly building surface to air missiles for whichever countries wishing to kill the fuck out of each other. 21 years gone in a blink.

I left work when I was about 38 to be a full time mum. This carried on until 2002 when I took part time work as a monkey for a well known DIY store. I punched in almost 18 years,until the start of this year when I called it a day.

I tooshed about servicing/repairing/buying and selling bikes in between times,until my mate was killed on his bike,then I lost interest.

Money from pretending to play guitar has kept me afloat financially over the years.

That's me done with work now.

Hopefully!

[Horse]

Job title is 'Senior Safety Consultant' - but in 12 years (I started Thursday 13th November!) I have done little in the way of 'consulting' but lots of 'safety'. Mostly in roads, but occasionally wider 'transport'.

Often involves carrying out research, part of which has been running trials, playing out on the roads or on test tracks. Sometimes with toys, notably hiring a wind machine (an aero engine and fan on a trailer) to blow stuff over. Or doing a series of about 60 crash tests - actually driving a mad max style 'armoured' car into stuff.

[636mick]

I run a team who shut Motorways when required to do so. We also deal with breakdowns, accidents, suicides, issues and problems on my bit of the network. Been doing it for 15 years, before that I was an AA man for 17 years, before that a mechanic on anything, trucks, coaches, vans, cars, bikes.
My life in a nutshell!!
Thanks for asking,
Mick

Ps, I met Horse once!!

[Mr. Dazzle]

Development Engineer. Lead Dev, Senior Dev....changes like the weather.

I've fairly recently moved into a new job working on high performance electric motors. We make the kinda stuff you find in the latest supercar Hybrids and the like. I joined cause we're currently working on our first high volume products for the big OEMs. I do mostly structural design and computer simulation konda stuff, I predominantly work in the "new technologies" department, so looking at stuff that will hit the roads sorta 5+ years from now.

Prior to that I spent about 10 years doing similar sort of stuff in composites, mostly carbon fibre. All kinds of industries, F1, Medical, Road Cars, Pro sporting equipment. I am doing a lot of carbon in my new job too.

[Horse]

Ps, I met Horse once!!

Whatever I did, I apologise

[MingtheMerciless]

Railway "Lifer", joined BR in 1992 after finishing an apprenticeship at a power conversion equipment and watching them go bust again.

Spent a bit of time working trackside as a signal technician, substation maintenance tech, then office based as fault controller and then fifteen odd years trackside again as a Telecoms tech predominantly maintaining the old Cab Secure Radio network before its was turned off and then a general Telecoms tech doing anything from legacy kit maintenance (possibly better described as heritage) to the new fibre and copper network equipment, real world telecoms staff would class most of this as legacy as the majority of it was outdated when it was installed........

Currently an Electrical Control Room Operator (and hopefully will be till I retire), which involves managing the 33000 Volt AC network that feeds our 750V DC network which powers the 3rd (or "live" rail). Much of the job is checking safety paperwork for night time and weekend engineering work so that the track staff are protected from inadvertent re-energisation of the track once its been switched off. We also do day to day electrical switching to allow staff to perform maintenance on the power network whilst providing continuity of supply to the track and signalling kit. And the "interesting" bit is when the equipment turns itself off for a variety of reasons and we have to decide whether to turn it back on again or leave it off and stop the trains running if we cannot work around the problem.

Finally we have to turn the equipment off rapidly when a troubled soul visits the railway wanting to end it all, sometimes they succeed and sometimes we manage to get the power off and trains stopped.

[Pirahna]

From toolmaker to IT techie, the bulk of my working life was spent in IT Infrastructure. I escaped in 2017 and do some garden maintenance plus part time for Tesco as a delivery driver. Wifey has also realised there's more to life than commuting into London every day. The house is on the market, I've got a VW Crafter on order and we'll live in that for a while once the conversion is done.

[Horse]

3rd (or "live" rail).

What's the reason for all new electrification using overhead cables (with massive associated infrastructure costs)? 3rd rail seems so much simpler.

[asmethurst99]

Nurse specialist for something somewhere ....30 years gone by in a whirl

[KungFooBob]

Mine sounds rubbish now.

Can I change it to Hollywood stuntman and part time bounty hunter?

[Mr Moofo]

I used to be the global sales and marketing head of the savoury business for a food ingredients company - Japanese owned, based out of Cologne.
But , TBH, they were rubbish at being global - so I retired early.

And COVID kind of buggered up the plans ...
Happy no longer travelling to Germany every three weeks , Japan and Singapore once or twice a year, Russia twice a year and then numerous visits to France, Spain, Poland , Italy etc.
Kind of miss the Far East stuff - I did like Vietnam, Singapore was the dullest place on earth - but with some really nice people living there.

TBH I this COVID will have a lasting effect on the industrial sales - everything will become far more office ‘ product management based. It has been on the cards for years - the airlines have been supported by loads of senior people doing pointless flights, just to go to dinner.

I should have waited till they made me redundant.

[JamJar]

Also IT nerd here ... specifically SAP Finance Analyst/Architect ... contractor/tax avoider.

[Horse]

Mine sounds rubbish now.

Can I change it to Hollywood stuntman and part time bounty hunter?

don't knock it too much.

Without IT I couldn't be sat here at home working on a spreadsheet (downloaded results from an online survey) and Word report, listening to Spotify and browsing RTTL.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

IT Networking and Security at a large industrial site - mostly office based these days, but I used to climb cranes to look after the IT equipment on those.
Quick potted history - from 16 to 21 I did 6 or 7 dead end jobs in factories and such like, learnt some machining and engine building skills in one job, learnt to kill chickens at another, 21 to 31 I worked for BT, started off on Strowger maintenance and then became a network planner, 31 to 37 did a load of IT jobs for various employers, generally they pissed me off so I went to work for someone else.

37, I become a father, decide I better get a proper job, and 16 years later I'm still doing it.

[MingtheMerciless]

3rd (or "live" rail).

What's the reason for all new electrification using overhead cables (with massive associated infrastructure costs)? 3rd rail seems so much simpler.

25KV AC Over Head Like (OHL) is much more electrically efficient and safer. 750V DC is a historic throw back, 1930's era I believe. However the cost to convert the southern region to OHL from Southampton/Bournemouth ish in the west to all the southern London Terminals, including Wessex, Sussex, Kent, Surrey from 3rd rail to OHL would be eye-watering. All the bridges and tunnels would need altering as well as track layouts before the actual cost of the power equipment.

Advantages of 750 DC 3rd rail is its not bothered by high winds, heat but it is limited to about 100mph linespeed, suffers from ice build up issues and from a H&S viewpoint its lethal electricity laying on the floor for anybody to touch. You also need more substations and rectifiers and track circuit breakers as the electrical sections are smaller than for AC OHL.

25KV OHL is more electrically efficient, line speeds can be much higher (look at what TGV's can run at), it is safer as the electricity is up in the air away from curious fingers. However it is unsightly to look at, doesn't like high winds, high temps (sagging cables), dewirement issues can affect many miles of track (picture a break in the contact wire and then a 140mph train with its Pantograph popping the wrong side of the contact wire and into all the support cables).

So each has its pros and cons BUT both will kill you stone dead and it will hurt like fook all the time you are dying and neither will turn off automatically/trip for a frying human!

Sorry to ramble on...........