I often get the sense that I’m in the only one here doing manual labor but I’m sure there are others.
Identify yourselves.
Tallship sailor/rigger
Cleaning CD’s, tapes, cameras, computers, cartridges, all the stuff you’d expect from a typical Blockbuster store.
Software engineer. Sometimes I spill coffee, sometimes it’s chocolate or chips crumbs.
It’s honest, hard work, but someone has to do it.
As a software dev, I have spilt coffee on myself a number of times. People just don’t understand what a hard working environment it is. 😞
switch to my feet
I process meat. My hands are rarely dirty but sometimes there seepage through my overalls.
I’m a mechanical engineer for a small manufacturing plant and I run their maintenance department. Its more hands on than most engineering jobs though.
I work in tech now, so I’m a lazy schlub. However, I’m also a college dropout out (English major) who had a ton of actual jobs in the past. Warehouse loading delivery trucks, worked in a cabinet shop, food service, etc. i
I think college grads who go into tech should have to work a normal job for at least a year before getting their tech job and making six figures right out of college.
Otherwise you end up with these entitled shitbags who complain that their company provided duck confit at lunch doesn’t have crispy enough skin (an actual thing that actually happened when i was at a big FANG company. Fucking unbelievable)
So even though I’m a techbro shitlord, i have respect for the people who work jobs.
Are you me? I’m also a lazy tech schlub now who was formerly a paint store warehouse worker, home renovation worker, etc.
Fully agree that everyone going into tech should spend real time working hard labor and retail. I genuinely feel that my non-tech experiences made me a better person and a better tech schlub.
I remember tech coworkers complaining that the wall filled with free snacks and candy didn’t have the right kind of snacks and candy, and having to hold myself back from going full Everett True.
Man i feel that complaining about the free snacks 100%.
Covid was so hard for some of these kids because they had to fend for themselves during the work day while working from home. Constant complaints.
You and i would get along great i bet :D
I work for an ISP in the southeast USA as a field technician and it’s dirty work sometimes. Fixing rodent damage to fiber connection boxes for businesses, placing temporary cables when underground lines get cut, working in dusty equipment closets, etc.
It’s not bad or hard work most days.
I work as an assembler in a sporting goods store. I assemble bicycles, indoor and outdoor furniture, bbqs, snowblowers, lawnmowers walk behind and rideon), log splitters.
My boss just had me change two coworkers’ passwords so they wouldn’t be able to log back in.
I keep washing and washing, but the blood won’t come off.
I fulfill various contracts put out for my industry. They pay very well but involve great risk and can be taxing on the soul. I just keep telling myself these were bad guys, and if I didn’t get to them, someone else would’ve eventually. And I draw the line at women and children.
I don’t anymore, but some jobs I’ve had that involved very dirty hands were dishwasher, weed puller, landscaper, helicopter mechanic, industrial carpenter, commercial carpenter, residential carpenter, ditch digger, field worker, and machine shop saw operator. I’ve had my share of dirty jobs.
The dirtiest by far was industrial carpenter. I’d go to work with clean jeans and a clean white shirt, and every day I’d come home with jeans that were black from the knees up, and a shirt that was black from the chest down.
I had to wear white shirts because nothing else would come clean. Only white with a lot of bleach would give any appearance of being laundered after a day at work on that job.
I still have a T-shirt from that job, some-odd 20 years later, and it has Hilti C100 industrial epoxy stains all over it, just as hard as the day the shirt was stained. That’s my “shit’s about to get real” work around the house shirt.
what about industrial carpentry caused that?
Working up in the rafters for concrete tilt-up buildings that had already been in service for decades. There’s so much nasty-ass grime up there, and years worth of dust and crud.
crud being a technical term I assume
I believe the industry standard term is “fucking bullshit”. ie. “Now I’ve got this fucking bullshit all over me!”.
Hands themselves stay clean, but through my gloves/gown, I’m regularly elbow-deep into blood, guts, and poop.
Surgical technologist. It gets pretty nasty.
Pay is kinda shit though, so I’m trying to switch over to nursing.
Damn, I wouldn’t expect the words “surgical” and “shit pay” to go together, especially when a basic surgery gets billed at $40,000+. From what you described your day at work to involve, you deserve all the money! Especially since you’re helping people.
We’re ultimately ‘just a tech’. We make enough to pay the bills, but not enough to make things like the check engine light not-terrifying.
It’s a good foot-in-the-door job, especially if your path of entry is like mine (enlisted USAF, they just told me “You’re going to be a surgical tech!” and I was like “Cool! …what the fuck is a surgical tech?” and they covered all my training for it).
I generally discourage people from actually paying to go through a surgical tech school, cuz if you can afford that, then you can afford to go to nursing school, and nurses make about twice what we do.
Super cool experience, but not a good long-term career choice.
Project Technician working in development of machines
Window manufacturing Our 2-part industrial sealing silicone gets everywhere; hands, clothes, hair, whatever. Never comes out of clothes and you gotta scrub hard to get it off skin.
