Work - what do you do for a living ?

[drunkinbda]

wow..i havent hear the term DT in years..haha. Well, since im kinda in the middle of both, hopfeully i can translate. Yeah, basically DT is "Shop" class in the US. They do the same stuff, wood, metals, plastics. Since i took DT here, and not "shop", Im not sure how much design they actually do in the US(i remember a good chuck of our class was schematics and orthographics,etc ) but the rest of it is the same!! hope that helps!!

 

[sinkweight]

Hey y'all.

I have a desk job at my dad's construction company.

Don't know a thing about construction.

Make reports look pretty and presentable. Oh, and answer phones.

no.

I'm his son, not his daughter.

Need vacation/life changing experience/rich ex-bartender girlfriend.

I hate the gig.

I hate cilantro, too. Not related. Had to mention that I hated cilantro.

 

[Jon]

Old Man Dave,

My father-in-law is a, recently, retired "shop" teacher in the US. He started out teaching wood shop, and then metal shop, years ago, but during the past ten years it was mostly auto-body repair, welding, and CAD design. He was also head of a "school-to-work" auto repair program, which has since ended since he left due to budget cut backs.

Along the same lines, my mother-in-law was a home economics teacher for years, but has only been able to do long term subing for the past decade since the budget cuts gutted all the home ec positions.

I used to be a grade school teacher, for a dozen years, but am now a stay-at-home dad since the budget cuts have eliminated most of the teaching jobs. My last school never replaced my position, or any other teacher who have left/retired, in the past 3 years- it keeps them from having to lay anyone off, so far.

Thank goodness my wife has a decent job, in bio-tech, so I can stay home with the kids. I teach diving here and there, but am not sure what I will do a couple years down the road when I have to go back to work full time.

As far as other jobs I have had in the past:

Baby sitter
Lifeguard
Ski shop worker
Bike shop worker
Dive shop worker
Camp counselor
Waterfront Director
Factory grunt
Teacher
Dive boat crew
Ski instructor
Nursery Supervisor
Occasional (dive) salvage job

The best job always paid the least, like Waterfront director at a YMCA summer camp, but supplied me with some of my best memories- and the idea to get into teaching.


Jon

 

[Old Man Dave]

Hey Jon
Interesting life! What's "Grade"? Is that what we call Primary (5-11 Years)? Do you call Secondary (11-16 years) "High". We also have 16-18 years "Higher Education" or "Sixth Form". Have you ever tried making a living Spearfishing? Is it legal where you are? It's what I make additional income from. I also used to be an engineer before teaching. Only got a few years to get in as a teacher and have just sold my commercial fishing (diving) licence so am retiring from that too.
Cheers Dave
PS One of my kids has left home (but still sponges off me) but the other ones still here and sponges off me. When they finally fly the nest I think life will be different. No one other than you mentioned looking after kids but boy that's one of lifes big jobs. How many you got?

 

[Jon]

Dave,

We break it down to elementary (6-11), Middle (12-13), and high school (14-18). I spent most of my time teaching third and fourth (9-10), but during summer sessions I have taught everything from K-8. For a while I was even teaching scuba to highschoolers at the military academy- that was a trip!

It was pretty neat when PADI dropped the age on discover scuba because I could then take my third graders to the pool to dive after we got done with our reading unit on the Titantic. I have run a few hundred kids through that over the years and they always remember it the most.

So far I have one kid and another on the way- due in less than two months! After teaching for as many years as I did I knew that it was important for one of us to stay home during the early years, it just worked out that my wife made more money than I did.

No such thing as commercial spearfishing around here. One of my brother-in-laws is a commercial fisherman out on Lake Michigan. It is a hard life that I wouldn't want for myself, but he seems to love it. They go out, through the ice, 20 miles in the winter time and fish for chubs. His days are very long and they loose a boat, and crew, every few years out there.

I do spearfish for fun, but we are only allwowed to shoot pan fish and rough fish. If there was a commercial market for carp I could be rich. rofl

Jon

 

[drunkinbda]

dave,
yeah the good ol grade-year comparison. Ill try to break that down, even though jon has already listed the years. Our primary 1 is the US's "kindergarten". The states does 12 grades, and kindergarten totallying 13 yrs. We got p1-p7(at least here we do) and then s1-5, and of course the sixth form. Not sure what the equivalent exams are for 12 graders in the US, but we did our GCSE's in S5, which i assume you did too. The sixth for is where BDA crosses over. As far as i know, you guys do the A levels(or O levels, not sure which is higher) whereas we do the US Advanced placement(AP) exams. I believe they are the same thing, just different based on the culture. I think the US kids have a choice as to whether they do the AP, but here, we have to do them. Hope that is all understandable and explains the schooin differences for ya!

 

[Oldsarge]

Whether or not working with the hands is stressed in schools depends on which state you're in. Since the '70's, California fell into the trap of believing that we'd all go to college and manufacturing would be left to the unfortunates who all lived overseas. About three years ago, the benighted souls in the Legislature finally saw the error of their ways and now what used to be called Manuall Arts are coming back strong. Is about time, bigawd! What really drove the local district to wake up was the word from the biggest local employer (Boeing!) that if they didn't start training a whole bunch of new metal, wood and electrical workers to build airplanes, the plant would be closed. Things are finally beginning to look up.

 

[Old Man Dave]

Anyone,
What sort of status would a "shop" teacher have? Are teachers highly regarded in the States? They used to be in the UK but now probably not. What's the salary like compared to other jobs. We earn £20-40K (average £30K), thats about $50K US. How many days do they work? We're on 200 contact (with students) plus 5 mandatory training days, although you got to work a lot more than that to do the job. You also get to keep as many pencils as you can steal. Job swap anyone.

 

[aegean]

Summer: Scuba instructor at islands.
Winter:car-truck driver.Hope from this summer and on do not have to do that winter job again rofl

 

[iceselkie]

- Lifeguard
- Parent
- spent some time studying to be a respiratory therapist but because my kids are still small, I don't have the time to finish the program right now so I'm going back into lifeguarding/wsi/lsi. I'll see if I get back into the RT program down the road; perhaps head into hyperbarics or something, who knows?

 

[diver-marc]

Lending Manager - Finance Industry. Man -oh-Man do I come across some wombats! Had one bloke trying to obtain a loan with his deposit coming from growing dope! rofl rofl rofl

 

[immerlustig]

sorry, but what is a respiratory therapist?

roland

 

[DeepThought]

sorry, but what is a respiratory therapist?

roland

Lending Manager - Finance Industry. Man -oh-Man do I come across some wombats! Had one bloke trying to obtain a loan with his deposit coming from growing dope! rofl rofl rofl

There you have it.

 

[island_sands]

jack of all trades, mistress of none: (jeez Jon IS the master...)

bar tending
waitressing
investment banking
export sales for perfumery and cosmetics
diving instructor
construction administration
housewife-ing (still looking for that silk teddy, Amphibious)

 

[IB Boyd]

I work as a Superintendent (not sure I can spell my title) for a stevedoring company here in sunny Socal. Get to meet lots of strange and interesting people and then yell at them. Received my start in this industry by attending a strange institution in Norther California known as the California Maritime Academy or C.M.A. Some of us though of this acronym as Couldnt Make Annapolis. Some of the down sides to the academy included morning formation, uniforms, a gnarly course load, and a bad ratio of women to men. The main good thing about the school was that the education primarily revolved around practices of seamanship and ship handling/navigation. Me and my clasmates scatterd around the pacific rim like a fritned ball of bait after graduation. Some ended up in Alaska on tankers, some went into comercial fishing, a couple joined the navy. One buddy of mine was quite proud to be the first of our class to attain the rank of capitiain, and had comand of a small freigter running from a nasty place called dutch harbor (berring sea) to seattle. a couple months after this loffty acomplishment, he also became the first of our class to earn the honor of abandoning ship in the gulf of alaska, after his vessel burned to the waterline as the result of a stack fire. (OK to laugh, everybody got off OK)Anyway, I am starting to wander, but a carrer (spelling, i can navigate, but cant spell for S%t) as a merchant mariner would be something I would highly recomend to any young single guys who are undecided as to what to do in life. Pay and vacation can be good, depending on who you are working for, and it will give you a seachest full of memories and stories to trot out at will when you have a captive audience.
Happy Spearing,
Boyd

 

[iceselkie]

No, a Respiratory Therapist is not someone who smokes dope.:rcard

heres a link: http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos084.htm

 

[Amphibious]

housewife-ing (still looking for that silk teddy, Amphibious)

ah, what a girl!

 

[Cliff Etzel]

Cliff comes back from the dead....

:hmm Let's see..

Web designer
Sound Designer
Photojournalist
Writer
Barista
Winery Employee

Now: Dive Shop Manager and currently working towards NAUI Divemaster and eventually Instructor ratings

 

[blumon]

Boat Captain for the last 20 years...mostly on private power vessels. Saw a lot of Central America (Pacific and Caribbean sides) including Mexico, Belize, Guatamala (the Rio Dulce was like stepping into the pages of National Geographic),Honduras, Columbia, Panama, Costa Rica (excellent) and yes, most points along the US Eastern Seaboard. But, as the ad says ... "it's better in the Bahamas" and I don't mean Nassau or Grand Bahama!
In my journey/s tho' I was always struck by the amount of trash that I saw on the beaches, reefs and in the rivers and at sea...basically the cast-offs of a "civilized" world. Plastic everything adrift with the wind, currents and tides...never ceased to shock me! And then there were the longliners literaly stripping the Ocean to feed the monster producing all that plastic.
Ok, so what can I do? The answer brings me to where I am now ... trying to make a dent in the pollutants and floatables flowing out of the Miami River. I am operating a decontamination vessel called the SCAVENGER ( see SCAVENGER2000.com). For now I am doing something about it and, believe it or not, my job satisfaction is high!
Ahem...before I close this post I would like to appeal to all DB'ers to "Be Aware! and please help however little - it all adds up and our Mother Ocean needs us!

 

[Erik]

Very cool blumon!
Cheers,
Erik Y.