What Do You Do For Work?

[Happycampers]

I am a Reg Nurse... with only 5 days left before I retire.. leaving for Fla for the winter the next day..

[juel]

What a great looking Argosy you have. I too am a Registered Nurse, but won't be able to retire for several years. Poor planning I think. I have a 1978, 24ft Argosy that gives me a lot of pleasure right now. Heck, I just love looking at him sitting out there in the yard. Since it's getting colder, I may have to settle for that until Spring. Have fun in Fla.

[CanoeStream]

Bradjun1 -- I have 45 weeks until I retire and am in fear that I will unravel before then. I commend you both that you can ravel at this stage of your life. Do not go gentle into that long good night!

[Boondocker]

well short version is for something like 8 years I worked with learning disabled and conduct disorder adolecents in a outdoor setting, and I was a firefighter/EMT for a spell there in the last century.....Then I got the hairbrain idea to go back to school just over seven years ago. In the spring I should emerge with a PhD looking for a job. No telling what I will get myself into next..........

[Budsinacan]

Good for you. Go for the gusto while you can. We did and never look back.

[silvermoon]

Great thread- great bunch of folks!
I inject radioactive materials into unsuspecting indiviuals for a laugh- sorry, I meant for a living!
My husband is currently addicted to the lawn tractor, and a retired real estate developer.
All our kids have 4 legs (kitty-Fin,mutley-Pickle,shepherd-Z, and (another) JR terrorist-Chopper(also our chief navigator while traveling)). Aluminum has become an obcession for us- as with all of you it would seem!

Hope to see all of you out in silver land!

PEACE! Holly

[59toaster]

WOW I can't believe I missed this thread when it originally posted. What a diverse group! Rocket scientists and rock stars! Who would have thought.

I have done a few things over the years including specialized plastics printing, body shop and commercial flooring installation.

For the better part of the last 20 years I have been in the consumer end of the wireless phone business. I got in this mess when it was still a baby and not everybody could afford a Cell phone. I cut my teeth putting the cheap Motorola 1,000's in peoples car...Yeah cheap when the Motorola bottom of the line phone was $1000 with a whopping 9 number memory, HALF duplex hands free was a $250 option. I charged $125 to install it.

I started out with a couple agents and ended up working for Bellsouth Mobility about 14 years ago. I did a lot of the specialty installs on high end cars or for high profile clients. I have put phones for half the GA legislature, Flames, Falcons, Braves and the big dogs in business. Evander Hollyfeild, Travis Tritt, Elton John are all people I have done work for.

As this insane business evolved I moved into repair. I did Level 2 Warranty repair for Nokia, Motorola, Audivox, Ericsson and moon lighted in a major Level 3 (board level) repair facility. I eventual ran one of the company repair facility's. Once BellSouth Mobility Merged with SBC wireless to become Cingular it went to a down hill slide. They finally did away with all the shops and I went into sales. I did well in sales but I hated it.

After 6 months of sales I managed to move back into a more of a technical job. My Current Job title is "Field Asset Administrator". What I do is keep the Field Engineers in GA in parts.

I handle all the repair and return work for about 1800 cell sites. Get it turned around and back out into the Field. Other then I no longer repair the actual product it is very much like what I did in the shop. I just happen to handle 30lb transceivers worth about $4k each and when I ship off equipment its by the pallet and its going to have $20k repair bill when it all gets back.

I also help with inventory related work with new build out as well as inventory of new equipment. We ran $300million worth of new sites though our facility in 4 months. I have about 10 million worth of inventory I am responsible for to Keep Cingular GA customers online.

I wear a T-Shirt and shorts to work and my commute is 3 miles. I love my job. LOL.

[flamingo-kid1]

Originally Posted by silvermoon

All our kids have 4 legs (kitty-Fin,mutley-Pickle,shepherd-Z, and (another) JR terrorist-Chopper(also our chief navigator while traveling)).

PEACE! Holly

I wanna see Chopper!! Got a picture?

(I'd like to see the rest of the fur babies, too, but we're JRTerrorist people, ourselves.

[EvelynDickinson]

Quite a diverse group from a prefessional perspective but there are definitly common themes. Interesting.

Here's our story:

My wife and I are high school sweethearts and we started out in the technology field while still in high school in the 80s. I wrote some dial up bulitenboard (BBS) software and other public domain software that made it into wide distribution -- yes using some 680xx assembly -- and parlayed that into working as a wunderkin for and with Comodore computers Vic 20 - Amiga through college.

I've always been the entrepreneurial type so after graduation I started a small company focused on developing database software in (fox-pro, d-base and clipper) for a number of vertical markets, everything from payroll/accouting, utility billing to mortgage broker automation. Most stuff ran on small business networks running dos/novell or Unix so we set those systems up to and built a lot of hardware.

That got boring so we started a "new media" advertising consulting agency helping the printing industry transition from traditional knife and film pre-press into the digital era mostly on the Mac at that time. Our clients started getting a lot of requests for interactive CD-Rom development so we did that for a number of years in Macromedia Director, Authorware and some Visual Basic. Worked on some cool projects; a striker taskforce combat simulator for the Marines, lots of CD catalogs, voter registration, mountain bike stuff for Continental tire, etc.

Rode the internet wave like a pro surfer... not as a dot com but as a consultant to the venture capital guys. That was a blast. Survived the bubble burst nicely. Then after the collapse got all the amatures out of the game we started doing hardcore web development.

Did some neat stuff.... the first web cam to browser software, early e-commerce with on-line credit authorization with fraud detection, computer based training modules, video encoding and hosting, etc.

One of the applications we developed enables auto and rv dealers to input and manage their inventory (with photos) via a back end web site which then provides them the ability to present an on-line searchable front end to their customers.

This caught the attention of Lazydays RV - the largest single site RV dealership - and I started doing some consulting for them. Ultimatly this resulted in my going to work for them as the VP of Information Technology. I did that for about 4 years total while my wife, Melissa was working on her writing skills. She's published a few articles and fiction for SiFi journals, a couple of movie scripts and is now working on a couple of book ideas.

Now were getting ready to set sail on the next adventure. Just purchased a 25SS, in the process of selling the house -- yard sale tomorrow -- and heading out to the Seattle area. The plan is to take some serious time to enjoy life for a change. Take it down a notch or two. Travel for a while and then -- since cooking has always been a joy of mine -- maybe open a small cafe' or possibly a food related e-commerce site in a year or so.

[uwe]

Originally Posted by Budsinacan

We are both retired bankers. Thank goodness we're both out of that now dreadful business. It's now full of puppets and the holding companies pull the strings. What ever happened to the good old days when you had to think while standing on your own two feet. Anyone out there agree with me?

More than you know!

[yukionna]

Originally Posted by Happycampers

I am a Reg Nurse... with only 5 days left before I retire.. leaving for Fla for the winter the next day..

Congratulations! Are you guys leaving Ontario for good?

[silvermoon]

I'm not sure about loading these pictures- I had to crop the cutest part!!
Are your jrt's pictures on the forum? Holly

[silvermoon]

sorry, they all didn't go!

[tin sista]

I'm a mom and a substitute teacher...

[cccamper]

we found a big silver thing in the driveway and are working on it so we can get it out of there.

[ironfem200]

...Just retired this year from the Fire Department...I'm really going to miss the boys and most of all: driving "Code 3"

I've traded in my big red truck with the lights on top for my wee trailer (she doesn't have anywhere near the knobs and buttons...)
And now I work part time as a Occupational Safety Instructor (CPR, fire prevention, hazardous waste containment, etc. etc.) ...the way I figure it, since I can't do it anymore, at least I can talk about it!

Ironfem200

[myoung]

I say that I am semi-retired because I still expect to do some work for pay, but in the present reality I'm just catching up on many of the things I've wanted to do for some time but couldn't with the demands of that old paying job.

That last old paying job was Chief Information Officer for a subsidiary of a major global bank. Until three years ago, our little 1,200 person real estate company had been a much more enjoyable place to work, a place where innovation, productivity, and profitability mattered. Under the bank, and perhaps this is true of most major banks, the focus had been on compliance and security and risk avoidance, almost all imaginary or certainly fanciful. So, it's quite refreshing to be out of that strange world. It's also quite sad, because it didn't and doesn't have to be that way.

Oh, well. On to better things. Our yet-to-be-built-and-delivered 2006 Airstream 25 FB LS is one of those better things. My wife and I and the two dogs are expecting to take one-week jaunts around our homebase in Northern California for about a year or two before spending longer periods away across the country seeing friends, visiting old favorite National Parks and ones we have yet to visit, flyfishing along the way, and improving my photography.

Still "work" on the computer every day. I'm writing the foundation of a national and potentially internation service for posting and subscribing to commercial real estate listings of property for sale or lease. Also, I'm collaborating with folks at a few universities in the US and the UK on some research papers. I have 3 in production now and a couple more planned over the next few months.

Yesterday, my wife and I went on what for me was a marathon shopping trip trying to find stuff for the new Airstream. Best find, although we didn't purchase it, was a 76-piece set of everything one would need to outfit a kitchen for just $35!!!! Even if we hadn't liked every contraption, I thought it was a bargain not to be missed.

So, for those contemplating retirement, I can say with some modest experience of a few months that it's probably going to be better than you think. That's way cool in my book.

Here's waving at you all. Mike

[Happycampers]

Nancy.. we are only going to Fla for the winter.. will return to Ont. in April.. hope to see you at the Rally in New Hampshire next summer..

[maxandgeorgia]

Annie, aren't you newly retired? Congratulations and have a wonderfully unfettered winter, warm and deliciously unscheduled ~G

[maxandgeorgia]

Robert, we wave hi everyday as we drive by on our way to work on the new-to-us place. Someday we'll see you outside by the Airstream and stop to meet and really say hello and see what you are doing on that big silver "thing." Isn't this COOL weather terrific? Hope all is well. ~G