What's Your Job Like?

OkieFlyer said:
We actually don't run any turbines in the plant. Most are electric driven recip compressors for inlet and residue compression. We do still use 3 gas recips in one plant, one 8 cyl White, and a pair of 12 cyl Waukesha. In the field, the booster stations on the gathering side are primarily gas recips, mostly 16 cyl Caterpillars. The transmission side is mostly gas turbines, particularly on the big interstate transmission lines.
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Sounds like not all that much has changed over the years.
 
azblackbird said:
Sounds like not all that much has changed over the years.
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Emissions are the big change. All the gas fired recip compressors have catalytic converters and run lean of peak. The state regulatory agencies run annual tests to ensure compliance. The old engines just don't cut it for new permits.
 
mscard88 said:
These companies that are building the pot growing facilities, see if they'll allow you to invest in them. If they're a public company you can do so on your own. Might work out for retirement.
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He doesn't need to invest in them. He can do it himself. I am from that area and have family there who rent to growers. The growers are willing to pay twice the going rate to rent any building.
 
FORANE said:
He doesn't need to invest in them. He can do it himself. I am from that area and have family there who rent to growers. The growers are willing to pay twice the going rate to rent any building.
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That too, but I was referring to private company stock and public company stock.
 
azblackbird said:
That's pretty much a given. EPA has tromped on the entire oil industry over the past 30 years. :mad:
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Don't get me wrong. I like clean air. I also like things like tax breaks for adopting new technology. Give and take in the regulatory world is a good thing.
 
Some interesting things here. Me, I retired from the Air Force a little over a year ago and transitioned to the private sector. I work for a privately held fortune 100 company as an internal technology commercialization consultant.

I listen to a pitch on the next bigger/faster/better thing and then ask a lot of people for an hour of their time to better understand how to segment, target, and position a technology. If we can’t figure it out in about 12 - 15 hours of interviews, we pass on it. We’re on the venture capital side of the equation.

That’s about 10% of my time, since most of the pitches die before they get to me. The rest of my time is spent on strategy, specifically how we can improve our internal business effectiveness. Not in an efficiency sense, but in an ROI sense.

I’m salaried and usually work a 40-hour week with the option to work from home as much as I want. I generally work out of the office, which is a 20-min commute since I like the social aspect.

My base is ~10 mins from my house, and is convenient to the office and the house.
 
FORANE said:
He doesn't need to invest in them. He can do it himself. I am from that area and have family there who rent to growers. The growers are willing to pay twice the going rate to rent any building.
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Yep, it's true. Very hard to find industrial space in Santa Rosa or even Sonoma County.
 
Clark1961 said:
Don't get me wrong. I like clean air. I also like things like tax breaks for adopting new technology. Give and take in the regulatory world is a good thing.
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Yeah, I'm for clean air/water and all that, but some of the EPA crap has been carried to the extreme. Most of my close friends are oil guys and farmers/ranchers. You wouldn't believe all the hoops they have jump through just to drill a well, set a new sprinkler, or build a dam on their own property. Some of it's just ludicrous. I remember when OSHA was hitting everybody hard and heavy. Did it cut down on any deaths or accidents? Nope... stupid is still stupid, no matter if you're wearing a hard hat and have tons of machine guards, safety ropes, or trench supports in place. There's always somebody somewhere that's more than willing to test their limits. :lol:
 
I can’t figure out how to describe a “typical” day, because there hasn’t been one in four years, and I like it that way.

I’ve basically helped rebuild six companies’ IT and telecom infrastructure along with a small team of one dedicated sysadmin (me), one Jr. Sysadmin and primary desktop support guy, two DBAs who double as management (we moved the manager role off of me and back to one of them after my work got him unburied from wearing way too many hats), and that’s it.

We had a DevOps guy for less than a year, and that was a bad hire and a disaster in the end. Almost nothing he built turned out to be sane. Unfortunately.

Currently doing the slow hiring look around thing for another sysadmin who fits the culture. No idea where we will put him, but we’ll figure it out. Maybe I don’t need a desk anymore. Ha.

Rebuilt:
Server room, all servers, all network, and phone system...

Redesigned:
Server VM architecture, network design, security design, remote worker design and implementation, etc etc ...

Spec’d:
All of it, really. With the team.

Vendor relationships:
I manage most of them, along with one other person for sanity checks.

Involved but didn’t do alone:
Replaced all sorts of stuff... chat, source control, added Ansible and Jenkins automation, monitoring system, VM farm, trashed old standalone servers and upgraded all hardware... you name it, the former sysadmin’s stuff all got ripped out and replaced.

Also involved in a massive move away from a hosted data center to AWS for everything. Largest system we run deploys over to it for Production this week.

The above understates it all. When I got there the phone system had to be rebooted weekly at a minimum or it crashed (one of three six companies is a call center. Phones are critical to them). Network was 10/100 unmanaged, VM farm was a disaster running in XenServer, OS’s were hideously out of date (one Production server was running RedHat 4), no UPS on anything, nothing in racks, cabling was impossible to trace anything, no PoE for phones, no WiFi, no conference bridge, chat server crashed twice a week, source control server was down at least once every two weeks, I mean... it was BAD. Really bad. I estimated three years to clean it all up, and I was right. While still keeping the pieces that hadn’t been fixed yet, running.

So, a typical day? Didn’t really exist. Still doesn’t. But I like it that way.

This has now morphed into I’m the “project” guy. And I’m allowed to set my own schedule while chasing flight ratings. Some weeks I can’t play airplane, like this week... big AWS move this week. But other weeks, I can disappear to the airport.

Once the ratings are all done, I don’t know. Really I don’t. In the last few years we finally reached our goal of being 100% debt free. It’s a game changer for us. We’re still figuring it out. Part of that is the question of whether or not I’m switching to full time Aviation. I don’t know yet. Just taking that project one step at a time, and 2017 was such a disaster for other reasons, that it’s just getting to where I can push that ball uphill some more.

All I know is I don’t want a “typical day” anymore. I enjoyed my time in a few big telecom companies and a big data center company, but after a number of years doing project work, I’d go nuts doing the same thing every day and sitting in meetings about it.
 
I'll play

I work for a national low-voltage contractor/integrator. We install all the voice/data cabling, CCTV/access controls, A/V, etc. in commercial buildings, data centers, higher-ed, and what-not.

Started as biz-dev, but fell in to a multi-hat role of branch manager, biz-dev, project manager.

Typical day, isn't very typical. They are always fairly different.

Show up between 7-8 to the office most days. See what the techs that are there have on tap for the day. Get my computer fired up and start answering emails. Visit job sites as needed. Meet with distribution suppliers and manufacturers as needed. Lunch meetings with someone probably 3 out of 5 days a week. Look for new project opportunities. Start the estimation process. Send out proposals. Sit in various meetings for projects. Etc. Out whenever appropriate for the day, I don't punch a clock. There's days I'm out early and days I get out late and still work on the laptop at home into the evening.

What I like...always something different. And I'm always learning something. When I started I had come from a completely different background (hospitality/restaurants) so learning a new skill-set and trade at over 40 years old has been refreshing. I also have pretty free reign on some things and a lot of freedom with my time if needed (Flight lessons!). If I need to run an errand, work from home, have lunch with a friend, there's no issue with it. Also have an expense account (never had one before) so taking care of clients is a lot of fun. I used to travel more, too, but that has slowed down some the past few months. It can vary based on the projects and where they are. I'll be traveling more now, though (we have a standing in-person meeting each month starting December, so I'll be flying somewhere once a month at a minimum).

Dislikes: Sometimes finding new projects can be challenging. And finding ones that upper management thinks are good is even more-so. Dealing with employees again, after not have anyone reporting to me for a few years, can be a pain. But I'm used to it, did it for a few decades, so no sweat.
 
Job: Remote Pilot Operator
Location: DFW

In a nutshell: I fly drones to inspect homes for hail/wind damage for insurance companies.

My typical day starts with the night before. I look over upcoming TFRs/NOTAMS/Weather/etc and look over my appointments for the next day for the best possible route and order. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not. I have a two hour window to show up at an appointment to start the inspection, but the schedulers want me to go faster so they double book me: 0900-1100, 1000-1200, 1000-1200, 1100-1300 for example. This can be frustrating but depending on how far the appointments are apart determines if it's possible. My record for one day is 6 houses with 1 cancellation. A typical day is 3-4 appointments.

In the morning I pack the drone and my laptop bag in the company rental provided to me and head towards the first appointment. Driving around DFW in the morning can be intense and time consuming so I usually leave 2 hours before an appointment and arrive 15-30min early. I call the homeowner 30 mins before I arrive and let them know I am coming. Upon arrival, I knock on the door and introduce myself as a pilot on behalf of EagleView. I have two inspections to complete, ground and aerial.

Ground inspections consist of looking for evidence of damage to fascia/shutters/gutters/doors/windows/etc. A systematic set of pictures that the desk adjusters can follow without completing the inspection themselves. During the ground inspection, I try to figure out which direction the hail came from as well as look for any obstacles around the house for when I fly the drone (trees/power lines/etc). Knowing where the hail came from helps to focus on a certain slope for more imagery depending if it's easily visible or not. Darker shingles are harder to see from my equipment.

I walk back to the car and get the drone out, calibrate, set home point, preflight, double check controls and systems, double check airspace and weather, and then launch. From there, it's the same as the ground inspection - a specific shot list and zoom level for the roof. I capture soft metals and missing shingles as well as ridge caps and any outstanding anomalies. Usually the roofer/contractor/homeowner has never seen this drone inspection in action. It is apparently quite new even though I have been doing it for 3 months. The drone can fly for about 30 minutes but I wind down at about 20% power to ensure safety. In higher winds you can expect lower flight time. The drone can do 45mph in a straight line, but 20-30mph is where things start to get dicey. As it turns out, winds get really complicated on some roof types and you have to be paying attention when the wind gusts and you're in a valley taking an image because you can suddenly sink. The Phantom 4 Pro has collision sensors on it but they decrease your sensitivity when flying near a roof so recovering may be difficult if the winds overpower the GPS aided hover. Also if you are taking pictures of the peak of the roof and you are above where the sensors can see, the sensitivity can go from 20% to 100% and go very quickly in a way you don't like.

After I run around the DFW area and handle my appointments, I head home and start the task of sorting through all of the images. My target is around 150 images per house for ground and aerial images. I end up having about 1gb of images per house. Start the uploads, go through tomorrow's schedule/notams/weather/etc and add contacts and addresses into my phone, and then head to bed.

Other than the home inspections, I have also flown a couple of cell towers in AR and acted as a meat servo for a structural engineering survey. The pay could be better but who couldn't use more money?

//edit

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overdrive148 said:
Other than the home inspections, I have also flown a couple of cell towers in AR and acted as a meat servo for a structural engineering survey. The pay could be better but who couldn't use more money?
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Interesting. Both the tower management companies and the tower erection companies around here just fly their own drones to inspect the towers. I’m surprised they contract it out in your area.

Sure is handy when you’re trying to figure out if some dipweed blocked your antenna in by running their hardline over your brackets, or to see if something has come loose or been burnt to a crisp by lightning, if there’s visible damage anyway... saves a trip up and down the tower for tools or to call the dipweed and tell them you’re about to Sawsall their hardline if they don’t come fix it, like... right... freaking... now. Nah... nobody would EVER do that... LOL...
 
Lndwarrior said:
Non-degreed "engineer", though in the great State of California I'm not supposed to call myself that. This, even though I'm a partner in a small firm. I design building systems - HVAC, plumbing, some fire sprinkler systems.
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Even with the degree I can't call myself an "engineer" now that I don't work for a company. I don't have a Professional Engineer license. I do have the only certification in the world for EMC engineers, but the state doesn't recognize that. So, I'm a "consultant" and my business card says "President". They don't regulate that (yet, don't give the parasites in Olympia ideas).
 
Lndwarrior said:
Non-degreed "engineer", though in the great State of California I'm not supposed to call myself that. This, even though I'm a partner in a small firm. I design building systems - HVAC, plumbing, some fire sprinkler systems.

Being a partner I spend half my day actually designing systems in AutoCad. The other half of the day dealing with personnel issues, writing articles for our web site, writing proposals, writing collections emails, invoicing in Quickbooks and managing one or two junior engineers (real ones...).

I used to design hospitals, prisons, high rise buildings, wineries and an occasional medical cannabis dispensary. Then, last year, California passed the recreational cannabis law to go into effect in 28 days.

Well, guess who was the "specialist" in the industry when this happened? I wrote a few articles for our website, my partner got interviewed by a local newspaper - and the next thing you know the phone started ringing.

Since our office is adjacent to the famed Emerald Triangle of northern California, and since the City of Santa Rosa decided to open their arms to the industry, we are busy as hell. About 50% (and growing) of our work is now designing cannabis indoor grow facilities, extraction facilities, processing facilities and dispensaries.

There is a mad rush for construction and this is a surprisingly technical field. I have to admit, I'm kind of excited about my job for the first time in years. Learning about this is a whole new challenge.

Also the industry has a ton of money and they don't nickle and dime us like most of our architect clients.

Pros: I like designing stuff. It's given me enough money to do a lot of cool stuff, including building and flying my own plane.
Cons: I've been doing it for 40 years, have no pension and no good retirement plan and no good way to get any real money out of the company partnership. (Yes, I know this is my own fault). Trying to figure out how to retire financially. At some point I'll just say screw it, quit, and trust that something will work out.
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The funny thing is that what you do is about the only thing an ME would need a registration for. I'm actually a degreed ME, but I'm licensed as a civil, which pretty much allows me to do whatever the hell I want, including electrical, if it's part of a civil project I'm in charge of.
 
ironnerd said:
I supervise the people who write the work instructions for building aircraft at a defense contractor.

Sadly, it is not as interesting as it sounds...
df7ad65b1ae147a2d21581459ba3f9fc.gif
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"Condition: Square peg. Action: Negate round hole."
 
denverpilot said:
I can’t figure out how to describe a “typical” day, because there hasn’t been one in four years, and I like it that way.

I’ve basically helped rebuild six companies’ IT and telecom infrastructure along with a small team of one dedicated sysadmin (me), one Jr. Sysadmin and primary desktop support guy, two DBAs who double as management (we moved the manager role off of me and back to one of them after my work got him unburied from wearing way too many hats), and that’s it.

We had a DevOps guy for less than a year, and that was a bad hire and a disaster in the end. Almost nothing he built turned out to be sane. Unfortunately.

Currently doing the slow hiring look around thing for another sysadmin who fits the culture. No idea where we will put him, but we’ll figure it out. Maybe I don’t need a desk anymore. Ha.

Rebuilt:
Server room, all servers, all network, and phone system...

Redesigned:
Server VM architecture, network design, security design, remote worker design and implementation, etc etc ...

Spec’d:
All of it, really. With the team.

Vendor relationships:
I manage most of them, along with one other person for sanity checks.

Involved but didn’t do alone:
Replaced all sorts of stuff... chat, source control, added Ansible and Jenkins automation, monitoring system, VM farm, trashed old standalone servers and upgraded all hardware... you name it, the former sysadmin’s stuff all got ripped out and replaced.

Also involved in a massive move away from a hosted data center to AWS for everything. Largest system we run deploys over to it for Production this week.

The above understates it all. When I got there the phone system had to be rebooted weekly at a minimum or it crashed (one of three six companies is a call center. Phones are critical to them). Network was 10/100 unmanaged, VM farm was a disaster running in XenServer, OS’s were hideously out of date (one Production server was running RedHat 4), no UPS on anything, nothing in racks, cabling was impossible to trace anything, no PoE for phones, no WiFi, no conference bridge, chat server crashed twice a week, source control server was down at least once every two weeks, I mean... it was BAD. Really bad. I estimated three years to clean it all up, and I was right. While still keeping the pieces that hadn’t been fixed yet, running.

So, a typical day? Didn’t really exist. Still doesn’t. But I like it that way.

This has now morphed into I’m the “project” guy. And I’m allowed to set my own schedule while chasing flight ratings. Some weeks I can’t play airplane, like this week... big AWS move this week. But other weeks, I can disappear to the airport.

Once the ratings are all done, I don’t know. Really I don’t. In the last few years we finally reached our goal of being 100% debt free. It’s a game changer for us. We’re still figuring it out. Part of that is the question of whether or not I’m switching to full time Aviation. I don’t know yet. Just taking that project one step at a time, and 2017 was such a disaster for other reasons, that it’s just getting to where I can push that ball uphill some more.

All I know is I don’t want a “typical day” anymore. I enjoyed my time in a few big telecom companies and a big data center company, but after a number of years doing project work, I’d go nuts doing the same thing every day and sitting in meetings about it.
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You left out checking in with POA to see what's happening and don't say that's just on coffee breaks
 
denverpilot said:
I can’t figure out how to describe a “typical” day, because there hasn’t been one in four years, and I like it that way.

I’ve basically helped rebuild six companies’ IT and telecom infrastructure along with a small team of one dedicated sysadmin (me), one Jr. Sysadmin and primary desktop support guy, two DBAs who double as management (we moved the manager role off of me and back to one of them after my work got him unburied from wearing way too many hats), and that’s it.

We had a DevOps guy for less than a year, and that was a bad hire and a disaster in the end. Almost nothing he built turned out to be sane. Unfortunately.

Currently doing the slow hiring look around thing for another sysadmin who fits the culture. No idea where we will put him, but we’ll figure it out. Maybe I don’t need a desk anymore. Ha.

Rebuilt:
Server room, all servers, all network, and phone system...

Redesigned:
Server VM architecture, network design, security design, remote worker design and implementation, etc etc ...

Spec’d:
All of it, really. With the team.

Vendor relationships:
I manage most of them, along with one other person for sanity checks.

Involved but didn’t do alone:
Replaced all sorts of stuff... chat, source control, added Ansible and Jenkins automation, monitoring system, VM farm, trashed old standalone servers and upgraded all hardware... you name it, the former sysadmin’s stuff all got ripped out and replaced.

Also involved in a massive move away from a hosted data center to AWS for everything. Largest system we run deploys over to it for Production this week.

The above understates it all. When I got there the phone system had to be rebooted weekly at a minimum or it crashed (one of three six companies is a call center. Phones are critical to them). Network was 10/100 unmanaged, VM farm was a disaster running in XenServer, OS’s were hideously out of date (one Production server was running RedHat 4), no UPS on anything, nothing in racks, cabling was impossible to trace anything, no PoE for phones, no WiFi, no conference bridge, chat server crashed twice a week, source control server was down at least once every two weeks, I mean... it was BAD. Really bad. I estimated three years to clean it all up, and I was right. While still keeping the pieces that hadn’t been fixed yet, running.

So, a typical day? Didn’t really exist. Still doesn’t. But I like it that way.

This has now morphed into I’m the “project” guy. And I’m allowed to set my own schedule while chasing flight ratings. Some weeks I can’t play airplane, like this week... big AWS move this week. But other weeks, I can disappear to the airport.

Once the ratings are all done, I don’t know. Really I don’t. In the last few years we finally reached our goal of being 100% debt free. It’s a game changer for us. We’re still figuring it out. Part of that is the question of whether or not I’m switching to full time Aviation. I don’t know yet. Just taking that project one step at a time, and 2017 was such a disaster for other reasons, that it’s just getting to where I can push that ball uphill some more.

All I know is I don’t want a “typical day” anymore. I enjoyed my time in a few big telecom companies and a big data center company, but after a number of years doing project work, I’d go nuts doing the same thing every day and sitting in meetings about it.
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Virtually all of my career has been project work. I learned really early that I like doing something the first time. And then, maybe doing once more because I learned so much more about it the first time. But then I'm not interested anymore.
 
Struggle to wake up.
Make espresso, coffee can't cut it.
Drive wife to work.
Drive to my hangar to clean plane and hangar.
Decide I should fly said plane now that its clean.
Fly over the central coast of California.
Put plane away dirty and rush to work.
Preflight helicopter and make flight plans.
Fly helicopters in between paperwork.
Leave work.
Go to the gym.
Go home.
Make dinner.
Go to sleep.
Repeat.
 
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neilw2 said:
I know I'm very late to this thread, but reading through this quickly....

Am I the only person who thinks @azblackbird is just Henning? I mean the similarities are astounding. He is the only one who I know who has had as many life experiences.

And any chance I get like to my favorite post ever on POA: https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/should-i-remove-my-tag.105253/#post-2348391
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AZ does not promote hydrogen therefore he cannot be he who should not be named.
 
Cardinalguy said:
I'm a zip line maintenance/guide at Sunrise Ski Resort in NE AZ.
Day starts at 7-8 am with inspection of the line and equipment.
Tours start an hour later, we gear up the guests and talk safety before taking the ski lift up to the start of the zip line. Two guides take groups of 8-10 guests on zip line tour that lasts 2+ hours. We'll do 2-3 tours a day and then go lock up so I've zipped the full tour up to 5 times a day. I work 5 days a week usually weekends and holidays. In the winter I work at the same resort as a ski instructor with about the same schedule. I retired from a school district in Phoenix after 35 years of service, this job is for extra AMU's for avgas and aircraft maintenance!

It is fun though.
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Woah...both my brothers were born and raised in Eager, AZ lol. One of them still lives there. Used to spend a ton of time up there watching the Round Valley Elks football games haha. I haven't been to Sunrise in years, but I used to snowboard there frequently. Had no idea they had a zip line.
 
neilw2 said:
He is the only one who I know who has had as many life experiences.
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I was never blessed to be able to sit at home playing video games or playing sports when I was a kid. I was always doing the chores associated with running a large cattle ranch. Nor was I ever blessed to spend years of my life in an institution of higher learning being "educated" on what vocation or profession I should make a career out of. I was however blessed with always having an entrepreneurial backbone, and a dedicated work ethic from the time I was a little kid up to the realm of present day. So yeah... you could say I've been around the block a few times. ;)
 
In software development since the 90's. I lead a team of developers building automated software testing solutions. It's actually a lead/architect role. Currently in the last year of a major 1.0 project.

What's the job like? A typical project has been 3-4 years. If I do my job correctly then by the end of the project everything is automated and so easy use/maintain then I'm no longer needed.

Typical work: It's a leadership position so obviously there are meeting involved. For my team I ensure that we are planned to capacity. If anyone is blocked, usually by a technical/code problem they cannot solve, then I step in and help. I review submitted work (code reviews). Everyone on the project including developers can write tests so this can be a huge task at times. I also handle all framework development and project automation decisions including which tools to use and how to implement, etc. I do the same work as my team members. We divide the development workload. I lead the Performance testing team and build solutions for them too. There's a bunch of other stuff that's real boring to most people. The end.
 
jsstevens said:
Virtually all of my career has been project work. I learned really early that I like doing something the first time. And then, maybe doing once more because I learned so much more about it the first time. But then I'm not interested anymore.
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Similar here but there are overriding things I enjoy even if they end up repetitive. Hunting performance issues on networks and servers, for example. That never gets “old” for me, even though the causes and problems solved are often exactly the same today as they were twenty years ago. Same mistakes, repeated forever.

MadseasoN said:
Currently in the last year of a major 1.0 project.
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I should thank you. People deciding to go first on 1.0 software has paid my bills handsomely for two decades. LOL. Wish I were kidding, but I’m not. Software development never really gets better. It just gets more complex. Funny thing is, the problems have not gotten all that much more complex. Same mistakes. Different decade. The mistake usually runs faster on modern hardware is all. Hahaha. And the “fixes” being so easy and cheap to distribute (they don’t have to mail out floppies anymore) means 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 get me paid, too, because they’re all rushed and create three problems for every “fix”.

I’d say it’s annoying but really when I’m getting paid for it, it’s not. When I have to deal with it on consumer products it drives me to severe anger. Because I know better than to install .0 of anything.

iOS 11.2 is truly horrid in battery life but seems to have stabilized my Crapple gadgetry for now. Took the phone off the overnight charger and it was dead by 11. Yay software bloat! ROFLMAO.
 
denverpilot said:
I should thank you. People deciding to go first on 1.0 software has paid my bills handsomely for two decades. LOL.
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I hear that! I've taken over many automation projects that were on the brink of failure and brought them back to life. Most of those weren't technology problems they were due to incorrect tool implementation, bad practices, or invalid theory/mindsets. The old adage 'software is easy, people aren't'.

Unfortunately (fortunately?) the software we're developing on this project is proprietary. Not for public consumption.
 
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