Work Thread

Colonel Thunder

Renowned Blunderer & Dishonorary Czech
Member
Enough time's gone by that most of us are grown-ass adults with either part-time or full-time jobs. Chances are we're not currently living our dream job, but we make do. In theory.

Use this thread to:
-bitch about work
-share funny work stories
-share progress on your job hunt
-talk about your dream job(s)

It's probably going to be mostly the first one though.

Papa @Requiem when do you get to quit your current meme of a job?
 

Ro Ro Ro

Active Member
Member
So I work as a contracted land surveyor. This job usually means marking out locations of stuff like manholes, lights, and building corners for other people to build. The current project I am working on is at the airport nearby. This job needs me there every workday for one reason: their accuracy tolerances are impossible to achieve, and they know it.

5 millimeters. That's their elevation tolerance for this job. For you Americans, that's just under 1/4 of an inch. My surveying device alone has an elevation accuracy of 3mm, so the construction workers basically only have 2mm to work with.

So what really ends up happening, is they need me to cheat numbers. Sometimes the elevations are close, but more often than not, I'm spending my time raising and lowering numbers to match the design. The engineers know that this is happening, but they turn a blind eye to it because they need to sign off on what I give them so that they can say "yup we're all within spec." This has been going on for decades, and the airport seems none the wiser.

And you know what? The accuracy that they end up with, is actually pretty good. It's 20mm instead 5, but that is good enough. I just recently flew on the runway that I surveyed last summer, where I was constantly adjusting numbers, and it was really smooth. I've heard pilots say that that runway is the smoothest they've landed on and taken off from.

Basically, I have a job right now because there are still people who sit at their computer all day looking at the numbers I send in, instead of the big picture. I guess I should be thankful.
 

AndyM03

Well-Known Member
Member
That's pretty interesting, ask for the impossible and get as close to it as possible.

As some of you might recall from discord, Ive been using my Photoshop skills to pretend to be an artist and I've started selling merch online. I've made 3 sales so far and I'm pretty happy to continue with it! Next year I'll be a student again with a degree to finish and I'd love to have a real passive income stream to keep me alive.
 

Shadow

Well-Known Member
Banned
So I've been working six days a week for the past two months, and I will probably be on that schedule for another 3-4 weeks at least.

I average about 9 hours a day, with some days in the 10-11+ hour range. I've had close to or over 100 hours on every paycheck since the end of March.
 

Firedemon

Well-Known Member
Member
So I'm job hunting right now before I become unemployed, and right now is an interesting time to be an analytical chemist in the United States. For example, I see lots of job listings like this one in various states.

Kazmira LLC said:
We’re hiring!

As an analytical chemist at a Kazmira lLC, you will be exposed to the exciting development side of scaled-up technologies applied to pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. At Kazmira, your responsibilities as an analytical chemist will include:
  • Analytical method development for quantitative and qualitative chemical analysis
  • Analytical support for process development (LC-MS, HPLC, UV-Vis, SPE, GC)
  • Mass spectrometry services: method development, sample analysis, data interpretation
    and instrumentation troubleshooting and maintenance
  • Complex analytical tests, data analysis and interpretation, documentation and presentation of
    results
  • Laboratory scale preparative chromatography for process development and POC studies
  • Process scale up and commissioning support
  • SOP writing and project documentation
Basic Qualifications:
  • B.S. or M.S. in Analytical Chemistry
  • Strong communication skills
  • Ability to work as part of a multidisciplinary team
  • Strong experience in wet-lab work
Preferred Qualifications:
  • Knowledge of API purification
  • Highly skilled in chiral and achiral purification techniques
So they asked for a degree that doesn't actually exist, and the job they seem to want done (based on this description alone) doesn't really need "wet-lab" skills beyond things any chemist can do. But aside from the fact that some obvious non-expert wrote this, sounds perfectly normal, right?

Well this is Kazmira LLC. They make cannabis extracts. Easily 99% of listings for chemists in the cannabis industry are like this. A perfectly normal sounding job, maybe a reference to some license you've never heard of if you live in a state like Texas, and then WHAM they sell weed. It has led me to play a fun game called "spot the cannabis company!" Turns out that it's actually kinda hard, because a lot of companies have some totally innocuous name too.

This may or may not also be up there on industries I'd be totally cool with getting into, but I'm not specifically looking to become a weed chemist.
 

Colonel Thunder

Renowned Blunderer & Dishonorary Czech
Member
I've started working 9 hour shifts on Monday through Thursday, in order to work just from 9am-12pm on Friday.
Makes scheduling a little tighter, but gods I get to sleep in on Friday morning and have most of the day left afterwards. I freaking love this.
 

Null Hypothesis

Well-Known Member
Donor III
So I've been working at a homeless youth shelter for 2 years now. I work the graveyard shift which is 99% of the time 2 hours of basic cleaning and the rest whatever I want besides sleeping, usually it's videogames. 1% of the time it's dealing with some sort of emergency. Some of you may remember TC used to do something similar. Yes this is TC's old job. Usually people who apply here actually want to work with kids so none of them want to do graveyard, so it's a bit of job security for me.

I still do graphic design as a freelancer in my spare time which sometimes includes the down time at my other job. Fun fact: this is the only job I'm doing that I actually went to school for.

I've also work as a fit model for a company that makes equipment for military, coastguard, firefighters, etc. I basically try on garnets and seamstresses do measurements and stuff to figure out how to make said garments fit better. This job is not very regular, because I'm very tall and skinny I only get called in when they get an order for a medium or large extra long. This job is mostly me standing around for 20 minutes and then getting paid. It's mostly some extra spending money from time to time.
 

AndyM03

Well-Known Member
Member
Some of you may remember TC used to do something similar. Yes this is TC's old job. Usually people who apply here actually want to work with kids so none of them want to do graveyard, so it's a bit of job security for me.
I was about to say what's with all these graveyard shifts going around.

Sounds like things are going well!
 
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