Just curious, what do you guys actually do for a living?
Scrolling through comments here, you can tell there’s a huge mix of people, some clearly technical, some more creative, some who sound like they’ve been in the working world for decades, others who feel like students or early in their career.
No particular reason for asking, just genuinely curious what kind of professions make up this community. Feel free to keep it as vague or specific as you’re comfortable with.
Drop your profession below, and if you want, one thing about it people usually don’t expect.
I used to work for a city school during the summer to get school books ready for the year/ recycle old ones, retail, bike mechanic, 3rd party labor builder for various companies, mostly bikes and furniture, and most recently at a factory cutting aluminum.
Nowadays I mostly look for jobs.
I was self-employed in media for around 10years. Mostly Album covers, posters and some clothing. Mostly in reggae. Than, with 37y, I did an “apprenticeship” for 3 years and now I’m a webdev. Mostly typo3 and a bit wordpress.
I do the 3Dies
RF Engineer.
Was a wage slave all my life until I retired. The best I could do in life is sell my time for money. I didn’t care who I sold it to.
I used to whip men for a living. Now I just herd them, and some engineering-related stuff happens as a result :-)
hey there is a french guy on youtube that makes a living of whipping and performing various acts, in a medieval type setting.
His technique is probably better than mine … TBH I never used a proper whip on a person, just riding crops and sometimes a cane. But when you’ve been in that line of work, everyone just assumes it’s whips so I go with that
Did you ever fist anybody in addition to the whipping?
Not the men, no - probably most guys into receiving butt stuff in a big way would prefer a man.
There’s been a couple of women over the yearswho liked it, but it didn’t do anything for me as the provider over and above just using my fingers or a dildo
Hmm that’s interesting. I’m a straight male and very much like being on the receiving end of butt stuff from women so it seems I’m in a small minority. Other dudes are missing out!
It may well be because of societal differences - I quit that line of work nearly 20 years ago, it was in the UK, and most of my clients were older than me, so there was a very strong line of homophobia among them … more than one of them struggled with their urge to stick it in my butt, in case that made them somehow a little bit gayer :-/
People are weird, and repressed people even moreso!
I have a nonsense job title which doesn’t describe what I do, so on linked in I self title as a digital accessibility specialist. Prior to getting into this field, I was a physical therapist (technically I maintain my license so I still am, but feels weird to claim when I’m not practicing)
Curious, with ur PT background, how do you handle stress or old thoughts that resurface? Trying to figure out how I can work on that for myself…
I’ve had a cumulative 6-ish years of weekly therapy (over three bouts, with 5 different therapists)
What was your setting? Why did you leave? I’m school-based. Considering leaving - kids are fun but admin sucks and schools are getting more and more chaotic. I’d keep my license to pick up prn hours if needed.
ETA- I have a friend with CP who’s an OT. I think OT was so helpful to her as a kid that she was kind of enamored with it. Now, 5-10 years into working, she’s finding that the clinic is too physical for her. She’d like to get into accessibility work. How did you make the transition?
I was 90% in SNF and assisted living. I did a few contract rotations that took me to acute. I went through the medicare payment changes which really made clear how admin was just working to manipulate metrics to get paid more (and yet the rehab department was a “loss” because we were a different branch of the company, so staff never got raises, just cuts) rather than accepting recommendations from the treating team. Being in a SNF during the height of Covid (find a side story/complaint below) really finished my burn out.
I went to a coding boot camp, and then got recruited by a friend turned coworker. It’s a nice, niche field if you can get into it, but a LOT of it is government work, so how important they find accessibility varies with the election cycle. That said, it’s probably a good time to get in. I work under the rehabilitation act of 1973, but a recent-ish ruling based in Americans with Disabilities Act is requiring that State and local government entities with a total population of 50,000 or more also have a baseline level of digital accessibility. Spoiler, most are not ready.
Side story: Covid was announced a public emergency or whatever in March 2020. Our company offered us a “hazard bonus”, but didn’t specify that their small print was that there had to be diagnosed covid in the facility. They also didn’t announce that they were only offering the bonus for six months. So when our building had covid sweep through in December 2020 (before vaccines were available), I was told to be providing physical therapy (close contact with heavy breathing) to people who ended up dying the next day with no vaccines and no hazard bonus. They also decided that some staff was not essential, so I totally got paid physical therapist wages to mop rooms and change linens.
Super interesting! Do you work for a government entity? Would that be the place to start looking at opportunities?
Schools have gone the same way. Admin only cares about how much we can bill Medicaid - none of the $ trickles down to us and there’s little/no concern for kids who are struggling.
I work for a company that has a government contract (actually they have multiple government contracts, only a few of them in accessibility), but I work super closely with the team that works directly for the government.
interesting how long did you go from coding bootcamp to getting a job in digital accessibility?
A little over two years. However, I wasn’t aiming for accessibility per se. It sort of ended up falling in my lap and being a really good match to use the skills I had collected as a physical therapist.
Is there any certification you needed, or the accessibility training was just rolled up in the bootcamp? We’ve been doing a lot of training at work here for it (education) and I feel like a mini expert at this point.
Need is a strong word. I was hired without any, but they had been looking for someone for a while and were a touch desperate. I’ve since earned both my JAWS certification and DHS trusted tester. I’ve been “in progress” for the IAAP core competencies for years.
That said I walked in with a (clinical) doctorate degree, years of transferable experience, and a personal reference.
Education and eLearning is a great way in.
IT support for a non-profit. We are a small IT dept so I do everything from installing printers to managing our network. I’ve been at this job for 20yrs. But worked in IT for 25ish.
WOW… A very interesting career life !!!
I did IT support for a non-profit too. I felt they tend to glom onto the clue until you’re used up and then move onto the next savior. Needless to say, I haven’t done charity work in a number of years.
Environmental health officer, aka health inspector.
Most people don’t know who we are, but we play a huge role in the background on education and prevention for public health issues like food safety, communicable diseases (gastro, outbreaks, pandemic, tattooing, beauty parlours, mosquitoes, rodents, flu, covid, etc.), health of the environment (soil, air, water),… We are a jack of all trades kind of profession.
What’s the nastiest case involving a resaurant you’ve ever seen?
Oh boy… I’ve got a few. There is always one that comes to mind, but I’ve had somewhere I just get the creeps when I walk in, and it’s confirmed crawling with cockroaches: In the walls, ceiling panels, floors, under benches, under the ticket machine (RIP), but surprisingly not actually IN food… That I could see. But I’ve always been during the day with people getting food all the time, so it was probably too risky for the cockroaches to get the food.
The one: I walked in, and things get worse and worse. First: Bag of chicken on the floor beside the oven with boiling stock to the left. To the right, someone cutting up cooked meat. Down the back: Back door is wide open. I also get the familiar cockroach feeling.
I turn back to the left and the chicken has gone in to the stock. The person uses a skimmer to skim off the herbs, spices, fats off the top of the stock, and the strainer goes in to the bin… And back in to the stock.
I look back to the right, someone is taking out the rubbish. Ties the dirty bag, drags it out the back door. Comes back, rinses hands for 2 seconds, goes back to cutting meat. No soap.
Cool room is filthy (walls, floors, containers), smells rotten, it’s too warm. I find cockroach nests inside the cool room, and outside of it.
I walk outside the back door to take a breather, and I find rats in the overflowing rubbish bins. Walk back in to the front area (small display case) and it’s warm.
I shut the place for almost 3 weeks. The owner had no idea, I’m sure he got his kids to do the training I ordered him to do because there was no way he could have gotten 98% when I asked him to demonstrated the skills. They tried to move to another Council area, but we gave the EHOs a heads up.
Worst ever.
Oh yeah that all sounds super nasty 🤢🤮
I used to teach, now I wait tables. I’ve also been a computer tech, event security, summer camp counselor, and lay minister.
I’m thinking about switching it up again. Maybe electrician?
Electrician gang rise up
Get amped!
Former rock star, now retired, living on my private island, occasional public speaker, industry leader consultant when bored.
Just kidding. IT of course.
Damnnn , I was two seconds away from asking you how you broke into the rock star industry 🤓
I’m working in IT as a software developer 👾 Not sure if it’s sustainable until retirement though, maybe I’ll try something new at some point… I always dreamed of becoming a train driver
Currently, nothing. I closed by shop, a local gang shop, in March and have been looking for work since.
Or you could, like, not help our future doxxers find us and fuck up our shit 🙄
ain’t no way anyone’s doxxing that space shuttle door gunner
I don’t know, there can’t be to many ex submarine window repairers who are now in that roll
Bro. He can shoot you. From SPACE.
Bah. I’m in IT; and one can tell that from my comment history. Run even a dumb LLM over my comment history and you’ll probably have me identified +/- 1 person – job history, location history, current employer. I think there’s more in my comments than even in the lengthy form I had for my last background check.
But if get it if you’ve been careful, and that’s completely your choice.
Automate stuff, fix stuff that does not automate.
