Do you know or friends have (or HAD) an unusual/cool job?

[iGas]

Here's my office when I'm on console:

I work for NASA on the International Space Station program.

Awesome!

I was at Houston space center 2 months ago.

I though working at the NRC Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics was awesome, but all I can say is that submarines built/repair is even better.

PS. I volunteered for the sea trial of our subs before we turn them over to the Navy.

 

[Kreon]

I spent last spring doing routine inspections of the Big Dig in Boston. Most of the time I prepared the inspection reports, but every Thursday night I went out on inspection teams.

That was awesome. Crawling around inside the plenums and girder bays was epic, and I loved working nights.

I also loved the summer I spent surveying. I worked on a project catalogging all of the water main valves in a town.

Spent this past fall doing field work at Logan Airport too, on the EMAS extension project they have going on.

Hoping to get into tunneling for a career as well. Hopefully I'll get some cool stories form that.

 

[xSauronx]

my brother in law is an ah-64 apache pilot. he started out as an enlisted mechanic because his eye sight wasn't good enough, then the army started covering lasik and get it ASAP and re-upped to go to warrant officer and flight school

he in the national guard and has been deployed a couple of times, but his home is maybe a 45 minute drive south of the guard station where he flies out of. ive been visiting him and my sister more than once only to have him drive to work...and fly over the neighborhood so his girls could see. pretty sweet job (well, when youre not deployed, i suppose) and he absolutely loves flying those things.

i interned with a health care system til last year and got to go all over their main hospital. what i did was boring, but it was pretty neat to get to go into the datacenter, huge network closets (im a nerd.), then operating rooms, the gamma knife room, ER nurse stations (some interesting converstations there when things are busy), and a few other spots.

I've kicked around the idea of becoming a surveyor... spend all day outside doing some basic trig? SWEET.

my cousin does it around here, doesnt earn squat. im sure some people do better than he does (this is a very rural area with a meh economy) but i was making about as much as him when i was an IT intern.

ill stick to going outdoors when i can drink and not be bothered to do anything else for what he makes.

I work in a cool industry (sports). But my job isn't very cool (Sharepoint).

a buddy of mine is a sharepoint instructor and travels nationally....he sort of likes sharepoint, but he gets paid pretty well to teach it, its amazingly easy, and they cover all of his travel expenses. he's been to nyc, st louis, seattle, phoenix, houston, dc and a few other places. if they cant get together enough people for an onsite class he does a VCL from his pajamas at home...from noon til 430, and racks up over $100/hr to do it.

he did an on-site for a football team last year, the seahawks i think...they wanted him to stick around but really needed several people to set up a datacenter and run things and he just does some basic sysadmin stuff and sharepoint.

i used to work with a tower climber. i was working for a wireless ISP in kansas and my company hired the guy to climb telecom towers and stuff to hang/maintain APs. before that he worked somewhere else and told me the tallest tower he had to climb was 1200+ feet tall. id never do it, but he said it was always a hell of a view.

 

[iRONic]

Everybody has a thousand stories, but this one is good. The airport is on the shore of a big lake and infested with Canadian geese. The airport management spent a lot of time scaring them off with fireworks, noisemakers, etc. with out a lot of success.
Somebody spooked a bunch of those big bastiges up right in front of me. They can do some serious damage!
I stabbed the throttle and maneuvered up over them, then continued in to snag the banner. Apparently when I pulled up the hook swung down and beaned one, direct hit. It went into the lake like a toolbox with a broken handle, according to the ground crew.

Ohman... I dig mother nature and all her creatures but birds + aircraft = disaster.

Had a seagull obliterate the chin bubble of the 206L1 ^ up there and a crow plaster the leading edge of the C500 wing I was riding in on a MX flight. Nasty..

 

[iRONic]

What platform?

HI561 (CNG) and HI330 (Phillips)

 

[skyking]

Ohman... I dig mother nature and all her creatures but birds + aircraft = disaster.

Had a seagull obliterate the chin bubble of the 206L1 ^ up there and a crow plaster the leading edge of the C500 wing I was riding in on a MX flight. Nasty..

Seagulls are bad. I've only hit the odd tweety bird, but dodged eagles, geese, etc.

 

[ringtail]

I was a lifeguard for several summers and 1 full year and got to hang on the beach, surf, watch bikinis, tune into nature, and stay in top swimming shape

nothing much cooler than that when you're a horny healthy 18 -21 guy running on testosterone

 

[Howard]

I had a big part in the design of the new facility for the production of a significant fraction (of total worldwide volume) of Walmart's "equate"-brand body washes. Does that mean anything?

 

[440sixpack]

I suppose this all depends on your definition of cool, but:

1.) Sternman on a lobster boat for a couple summers. Dragging the pots in, refilling the bait bags, Measuring the catch, tossing the crabs overboard, etc.

2.) Engineering Technician for the DOD at the now defunct US Army Materials Testing Laboratory / Army Research Laboratory in Watertown, MA. Assisted with research into armor / anti-armor materials. A powerpoint slide I designed with a T-72 diagram was apparently impressive enough that it was used in presentations to generals. Could have been killed at least twice on the job, but obviously I lucked out. Lab was a Superfund cleanup site after almost 180 years of munitions manufacture/ nuclear research / various other dirty projects. My old office is now a Panera Bread location. Hope they got all the DU / beryllium!

3.) Currently co-founder / co-owner of a consumer product testing lab. As an owner I wear a ton of hats, but I generally spend my day testing or overseeing testing of toys / children's product / random hard goods. I can now operate an ICP-OES, GC/MS and several other lab instruments. We are quite possibly the largest (capacity-wise) privately owned lab that specializes in ignition strength testing of cigarettes. We are the only lab in the world CPSC recognized to test ATV's to mandatory federal safety standards.

 

[coxmaster]

My brother flies the DirecTV blimp.. Thats pretty cool/rare

 

[Imp]

Wow, some interesting stuff here.

Not much exciting as a civil engineering tech. Some of the field work isn't bad in retrospect, but I always screamed and cursed "shit job" while actually doing it. I got to jump into streams and hump up and down rivers in the country on the hottest days of the summer. Spent days, literally, walking along highways and under bridges doing inspections - kids never disappoint with their paint, vaporizers, etc. "hidden" under them.

 

[ImpulsE69]

My wife was a Funeral Director/Mortician for a number of years. Now she runs a porn shop :thumbsup:

 

[Dr. Zaus]

I have a friend that works for AMD doing something with his masters focus in VLSI.

A guy from high-school has gone from NASA to Google and a girl from high-school clerked for the USSC.

I'm just looser finishing my first year of Ph.D. in business, for the second time.

But I'm happy: wife 3 kids big house .

 

[marmasatt]

I guess the most exciting job I've ever had is both a prison guard and bouncer in my younger life. It can go to the most monotonous, boring job to sheer terror in seconds. To be in a cell block during a riot, or to be in the middle of like a 5 v 5 gang fight, etc. Some stuff I'll never forget.

 

[marmasatt]

I had a big part in the design of the new facility for the production of a significant fraction (of total worldwide volume) of Walmart's "equate"-brand body washes. Does that mean anything?

Holy Crap! That was you? I was wondering how they were pumping those things out so quickly and efficiently.