Giacomo 1 

I'm an Operating Engineer.

I know, what's that?

We operate and maintain all the heavy equipment on construction sites. We run everything from tower cranes to excavators, bulldozers, backhoes, loaders, asphalt spreaders, milling machines, and the list goes on and on. Not a bad career, but staying employed can be a challenge as we're really beholden to how well the economy is doing.

I've been on big and small jobs, from water mains to skyscrapers, or 800ft down digging the NYC water tunnels to the Madison Square Garden demo and rebuild, but my greatest project was the demolition of Yankee Stadium, easily my favorite job in my 30 years. I loved being a part of that history, and we had an audience everyday as fans came to pay their final respects. There are plenty of YouTube videos of the job, and here are a couple of my favorites -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-veEAKcjqY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ACOsoZ0S5Y

dedhed

I know what that is! The guys who run over all those stakes I used to meticulously pound in & mark when I worked construction survey!

greg3rd48 

Great gig! The operating engineers were great guys when I worked as a summer electrician's apprentice for Local 3 IBEW in '98 at Sotheby's on the East Side.

DiegoFrogs

Semiconductor and optoelectronics process and device engineer. I'm currently focused on R&D and product development, but in the past I've done a lot of manufacturing. I always find it therapeutic to work with my hands to make something.

In previous lives and while in school I did civil engineering work designing bridges and mechanical engineering stuff for architectural projects. I found all that stuff boring because I was always at the computer and never in the field and because every project was more-or-less the same. But those jobs were much more stable!

Doohickie

I could tell you what I do for a living, but then I'd have to shoot you.

Kactus

Been there before!

sykerocker 

Main job is a bookkeeper for Honda House Marine in Richmond, VA - Honda/Yamaha/Sea Doo/Can-Am motorcycles and power sports, Honda and Yamaha generators and Honda lawn mowers, weed wackers, and cultivators.

Alternate job is Syke the Shirtmaker. I'm a re-enactment sutler specializing in early colonial (St. Augustine and Jamestown) impressions thru late 17th century, with a bit of French & Indian War thrown in. At the moment, I'm just limiting myself to sewing clothing, but may go back into the full sutlery impression once I've retired from the Honda shop two years from now.

Plus there's Syke's Cyclery, vintage bicycle restorations.

brandon98

I support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. I've been arranging meetings with makers and breaking things as an instrument of foreign policy for 20 years. I will soon be hanging up the spurs and moving on to life 3.0.

Being an Old Silverback in a young man's game stops being fun when the recovery-to-effort ratio starts increasing to 2:1 or more. The bike is the one place where old joints battered by one too many T-10 rides into Mother Earth can still strut their stuff.

I need to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

PedalTraveler

I'm a bicycle mechanic/renter/salesman. I've had fun playing the game for a while but it will be time for a "real" job and career pretty soon. Who knows what is next...

CroMo Mike 

Syke, I worked summers as a motorcycle mechanic for Honda House in Richmond when i was in college, 1969 - 1973.

After that i worked 36 years in an accounting-related profession with the U.S. Government, now retired.

CMC SanDiego

I'm currently the head of Quality at a biotech company in San Diego. I've done everything from manufacturing (engineered, cryopreserved skin) to validation work at different pharma/biotech companies for the past 18 years. The companies in the industry are always laying off or merging, so I'm happy to be with a promising start-up that builds diagnostic equipment and drug discovery test arrays for some big pharma/university customers.

I don't get to ride as much as I used to, but my job puts me near the coast which is cycling heaven for much of the year. I've always kept a bike at work for lunchtime rides.

SuperLJ

I'm an A320 captain at a certain "legacy" US airline that will soon be merged out of existence, based up in Washington DC.

Besides trying to find time to ride my bike in the 12 days or so a month that I'm home, I work on my never ending honey-do list, and help out with my son's Boy Scout troop. I appreciate vintage trumpets almost as much as I do bikes, and play in a local big band.

wahoonc

My bride is a co-worker of yours... CLT based. Non PC job description... Sr Sky Mama

Aaron

Homebrew01

Database Administrator ... Keep the servers running behind the scenes.
Every once in a while I have a dream that I am a machinist again. I stumbled into the computer world years ago, but sort of miss the mechanical world.

SuperLJ

Ya gotta love senior F/As! No babysitting required. Alot of folks who live up where I do commute to CLT, but my juniority is much better up in DCA.

frameteam2003

I spent 40 years working for the Railroad , Half of those years were spent in a side track waiting on the other train , the rest was spent being rained on or yelled at. I love being retired.

obrentharris 

I have worked as paperboy, assembly line worker, library page, elevator operator, house painter, costumed security guard, toy maker, librarian in a tiny research library, bike mechanic, moped mechanic, mountain biking instructor, hiking guide, mountaineering chaperone, and a gardener; but most of the last 30 years have been spent working for a geotechnical construction company. That's a fancy name for a company that specializes in keeping gravity, water and earthquakes from pushing soil and rock downhill to places that would make people unhappy. (like onto buildings, roads, reservoirs, etc.)

I started as an over-educated construction laborer and high-scaler (someone who works from ropes on cliffs) and ended up as an area manager.

A couple of our projects:







I retired last June. Now I earn my keep as a volunteer tractor operator and trail builder for the local state parks, fish forager and camp cook for my wife, copy editor for my son, and book reader and lego dismantler for my two-year-old granddaughter. All of these part-time occupations leave plenty of time for riding my bike and goofing of in a a myriad of other ways.

Brent