Mail delivery honestly does it for me

It's perfect when you know the application inside and out. A completely different story when you get dropped into a project that uses sixteen frameworks and libraries, including widely employed features that are barely documented. You get to do guesswork on whether this pattern is recognised by that library, while your system is constantly swapping under the weight of dozens of browser tabs with the docs and StackOverflows.

Find a client who needs to keep two kinds of books, it's gonna be pretty exhilarating.

This is universal human experience, right? Right??!

So, it's an adventurer's life from your typical isekai. I see. Makes sense now. Only that the things asked are never clear, change midway, the finish conditions keep being altered, the validation at the end keeps being enforced differently or that 3 weeks later someone will ask about the thing done and you have zero memories of that place. Or that because you did it one time now it will always be pushed onto you, even when you don't want it anymore. All of this while slowly killing you on the inside. Yep. Perfect.

For my son it was working in the library. Quiet organizing, different every day.

I did try asking for help. I was either ignored or was told that I shouldn’t ask for help.

How are you the problem?

Teaching meets all of these criteria. The one it doesn't meet is "make enough money to survive"

Mechanic,

Every day is a new puzzle that at the end of the day fits into the box exactly as it should.

No matter how out there and strange the problem always makes sense at the end. It's so rewarding

Not to mention people are optional. Some of the best mechanics i know don't talk to customers they have a receptionist who deals with that

It’s shameful how the US treats its teachers.

Engineer at a tech startup. Extremely fast-paced and nearly everything is resolved in a day. My train commute enforces strict boundaries on my working hours. It's like an episodic procedural TV show, except instead of finding a murderer I'm finding out why these widgets are wrong today.

Best reality can do is a boring predictable job where the only real variety is when you get bollocked and what for.

They're typically called Service Managers, not receptionists.

The good ones do a lot more than take info and pass it between the mechanics and customers. They know a lot about troubleshooting and can help give a ballpark estimate on cost and time. They also typically sell the general stuff like tires, brakes, batteries, etc.

Tho in some places they actually make more than the mechanics, cause they're there to upsell, not assist. You want to avoid those places as much as possible.

It's shameful that teachers are treated wildly differently based on zip code.

Honestly I don't mind this one that much. IFF it is well designed, the entire team is in the loop of what's to be done, and you don't get immediate unrealistic time pressure.
I've always preferred working on JIRA tickets that were meatier than having to work on 15 different tickets in one day. The context switch just eats a bit too much energy for me every time.

Der er selvfølgelig en del mennesker, der tror, at de er Guds gave til verden, og at alt skal gøres med det samme.

I made cable filler (the stuff in the lines that goes under the ocean) for an Employee Owned Company.

It was the BEST job I ever had. Hit all the markers, AND we were respected as emoloyees being EO.

Left during the pandemic. The company.. tbh, tanked. My payout (not even close to what I could have walked with if I stayed til retirement) would have been 12k (after taxes/fees) the day I left. I had to wait 5 years to get my stock payout due to resigning. Walked with $2k. So.. I left right when the culture shifted, and though pissed at losing 10k, my leaving feels validated.

But I know I wont ever find work like that again. Yes im sad about it.

Try my life, autism + schizophrenia. That means I'm obsessed with my own schizophrenic hallucinations. Yay!

Some things are supposed to fall on me. I should be able to handle some things as a person. Yet I feel like a burden on everyone and everything.
This is not about my job. Everything else is shit. And I'm worried it's affecting my job a little.

The great service managers know what questions to ask. Customers say the dumbest things. It's the difference between a mechanic getting"Customer states it makes a womph womph sound sometimes." and "Customer states it makes a Womph Womph sound when they're trying to get on the highway." The first one could be anything the second one points to a transmission problem. The mechanic still needs to diagnose it, that's not the service managers job but they can make it a lot easier.

There will be more employee owned companies when we make them.

Yeah my bad service manager is the better wording.

Though to also play devils advocate as I know people who do it they literally have receptionist to just answer the phone and do nothing else.

Me too!

Stoicism helped me a lot. I can recommend Happy by Derren Brown.

Imposter syndrome is common.

Yes. I do have to go back to reading stoics. There was a time I myself recommended it to others.
Thank you.
I wish it was the imposter syndrome.

Being a draftsman kind of hits these boxes. Sometimes it's a struggle to get through the bits that you don't like to do, and everyone is different in that regard, but part of the creative aspect imo is finding inventive ways to automate as much of the tasks you don't like as possible and then enjoy the ones you do like.

I actually kinda found it. If not for upper management it would be perfect. I'm a metrology tech, I do precision measurement all day, whether that's gathering the data myself by using a laser tracker and physically measuring it or sitting behind my keyboard for 6 hours straight, repeating the same analysis functions again and again in spatial analyzer to see whether our part is in tolerance, then creating a customer deliverable report highlighting the deviations from nominal. Or maybe a part wasn't machined to the correct surface profile, guess I'll set up and sand the part while tracking how many .001in increments I've removed. Do I have a boss? Absolutely, gives me my list of things that need doing for the night. The leaves me to fuck off and formulate an attack plan and execute. Occasional break ins between parts to assist the mills with accuracy testing, or levelling a pallet station to +/- .005 flatness or training mill technicians on metrology collections.

The variety is as endless as the parts we manufacture. Aerospace is pretty cool. Too bad I have help process these parts for fuckheads like beeeezo and leon. Other cool things too, science mission stuff, which kinda help make it tolerable. Kinda.

Oh man, preaching to the choir here. The things I’ve seen… or had people ask me to do. No, I will not endanger the lives of your crew, yourself, and everyone in a two nautical mile radius of you. Yes you can buy something like it (but not built to marine grade) online and install it yourself (poorly) for a third of the price, but you’ll be either doing it all over again soon, having me fix it, or killing yourself.

Edit: I will say that managing the shipyard was worse for me. It was during covid and everyone was so demanding. I was yelled at, threatened, we had a guy rampage through the shop convinced we’d sold his outboard because the repairs were taking so long. No man, yamaha was 6 months wait for parts, like we told you. It was definitely because I was the face everyone saw and shielded the techs as best I could. But man, that was the end for me in the industry. 30 years and I’m out, going back to school.

This is why I'm stuck as a line cook 🙃

Teaching is such a joy.

I'm in a similar position with aerospace manufacturing but on the welding side of things, always something a little bit different but also all within the same realm of action and requiring a fairly high degree of precision. And yes , fuck the current big players in the space game, but hard to deny some of the stuff the companies are doing is pretty dang cool

It wasn't for the news, it was mostly for aviation. So I'd compile their take off and landing weather with a brief overview of the flight path weather, any areas of upper level ice or turbulence and the Go/No Go parameters of all of that.

Job also included ground forecasts and watches/warnings for ground personnel. And every week or so there would also be a need for a forecast for a convoy driving out to repair something elsewhere.

Super cool job. I miss it all the time.

I was a custom picture framer, that fit the bill if anyone's looking for recs

Where are you based? Are you hiring? And what's the income?

I traveled a lot, there were shops in NOLA, Iowa, and Houston I went back and forth between. The reps for the products knew me and could recommend me to the shops in whatever area I wanted to go. It was great there for awhile. I've been fully disabled since 2010 though, and at that point I was a manager, but still only made $10/hr. The cost of owning a frameshop and supplies makes it pretty hard to pay employees what they're worth, regardless of how the owners feel about you as an employee. If you want to get started in the industry though, I would ask around different shops and see who has time to train you. I ended up liking to work for The Great Frame Up brand bc their miter saw is German and much less likely to chop limbs off than the chop saw a lot of private owners use. One of my former bosses almost lost her arm that way.

That must be difficult for you. I hope you do well.

Thanks

Sounds like a recipe for making art! Good luck fellow traveller

I wad about to say, welcome to the trades unions! Show up at 6am and do a manual labor puzzle!

Yeah I'm AuDHD myself, got the diagnosis in my late thirties after finally seeking help after burning out at my seventh engineering office job. Stimulant medication has helped a lot with the ADHD side of things, but I'm just done with office jobs at this point. It's possible things might work better with another one, this time with proper medication and support. But I'm just done. I've spent so much time and lived through so much misery trying to be productive in engineering office roles that I have some degree of PTSD about the prospect now. At this last job, even though I didn't know what was happening, my subconscious sure did. I quit in a panic after three days and had to be convinced to come back. I gave it another shot and made it nine months before total burnout.

I need a new career path. And I needed to try something different. And I think teaching is it. Prior to this year I have some experience teaching undergraduate students and doing a lot of K12 tutoring, but my K12 classroom experience was limited. To explore this path, I got my substitute teacher's license over the summer. This year I'm substituting basically every day, and honestly I'm having a blast.

It works with my brain in a way almost nothing else does. Mine is more the inattentive form of ADHD than the hyperactive form. I really struggle with executive function and focus when working on long repetitive tasks, especially those with no immediate value. I've studied engineering extensively, up to the doctoral level. I love it as a subject. I love teaching it. I love learning it. I love applying it in hands on ways. But stick me in a cubicle and ask me to grind out calculations all day, day after day? I break. By the time I reach burnout on the job I'm basically catatonic, staring blindly at a screen or wall, disassociating the whole day away. That's what office jobs are like for me. Hell. And I say office job, but the actual setting is irrelevant. I've tried work from office, work from home, and hybrid. It's the work itself that is the problem, not the environment.

But teaching? Substitute teaching is hard. There are days that I leave frustrated, as some classes you just can't ever get any traction on. There are some classes I've taught that no matter what techniques I use, I simply cannot get them quiet enough to teach. There are days when the kids really get to you, and you wonder how some of these kids are going to possibly survive in the real world without just immediately ending up in jail the instant school isn't covering for them.

And yet, I wouldn't trade my worst day substituting for my best office day. (At least any office day past the first few months, when I'm usually able to maintain focus when things are new and the learning curve is still steep.) Teaching just works so well for my neurology. The regular schedule. The defined work and work hours. The immediate feedback and sense of purpose in your work. It's everything working as an engineer in a design office isn't.

Yes, the money sucks. If I substituted every single school day of the year (not really practical), I would make 40% of what I made doing engineering work. If I go enroll in a program, get a formal teaching certificate, and become a proper teacher? 60%. But honestly, I don't even mind. It's not like the engineering salary is really a sustainable thing to begin with. Thankfully I at least have a spouse that is able to make the engineering life work, so we're fine no matter what. But it would be really hard to make ends meet doing what I am now if it were just me.

It's atlassian software 😅

Literally how my brain works. Not diagnosed with anything, though.

I run a small window cleaning company, no high rise.

It hits the spot.
Jobs are on rotation, consistent, predictable.
Work is adaptable, requires active problem solving, easy to notice what's finished and what needs detailing.

I did customer service for 14 years, and I thought I hated working. Turns out I just hate stupid people and wasted effort.

I'll work hard, if it makes sense.

ahh, that's beautiful. Gives me hope

Ty :)

Most people I know that work in restaurants could be on the spectrum or have ADHD. You get really good at doing a lot of small different things and you have to remember about 5 things at a time.
I opened my own restaurant last year to add both extra boringness (paperwork) and extra scaryness!

Yea, I was offered a promotion to be foreman for the subcontractor I was working for, That was the quickest and sternest no I’ve ever given. Fuck that, never in a million years, you could offer me all the money in the world and the answer would still be fuck no and fuck you.

I’m actually back at school, not because I necessarily wanted to, but 187kg of MaK 32A piston fell from above and fucked my back and crushed my right leg, so I didn’t really have a choice. But at least I can study with a monthly payout comparable to my old salary.

Oh shit, I’m so sorry you got injured. That sounds brutal. Still, thats great you’ve got money coming in while you retrain. I’m going the starving student for a bit, just till after Christmas anyways. I’m learning GIS and mapping with drones, what are you taking?

I think I'm finding these communities just aren't for me because 99% of the memes describe absolutely utterly normal wants & needs. Every single NT person on earth would want those things.

😬