What Do You Do?!?

I get paid very very very well to blow shit up! Only work 28 days on then get two weeks off
make over six figures + a year......... laugh my ass off all the way to the bank ! Laugh my ass off sipping coffee watching everyone else rush around to work . don't give two shits about repubs or dems or whatever As long as there are people who need cars/computers and all the other crap of modern civilization Ill have a job.

I work mostly in the mining industry Contract driller /blaster/miner

I'm a Planner and GIS specialist for Carbon County Wyoming. I'll soon be adding MPA student to that.

psychiatric SAR - sometimes surfing this site isn't a distraction from work though...

Foreman at a stone shop. We cut stone into thin veneer and building veneer.
stoneyard.com/

I look at the stuff we climb on under a microscope all day (or all night, more often). Being an oil well geologist is a great job for a climber, what with the good pay and time off, providing you don't:

A) Have a family, spouse, dog, or any other being that is dear to you and you ever want to see up close. work+climbing+family=does not compute.

B) Have ethical qualms about taking a paycheck from an oil company. Which, if you drive your car to the crag and use a nylon rope, you probably shouldn't. I'd rather have it come from North Dakota than Iran. But, you'll have to come to terms with that on your own.

C) Have any trepidation about being surrounded by conservative, redneck assholes all the time. Or have any interest in seeing the finer sex (I'm pretty sure all the woman left North Dakota sometime around 2006).

I have done a lot of different things in the past few years.

During University I managed an after school program and a summer camp. I took a year off and worked at a ski resort in CO, then after Katrina I went to NOLA and got involved in an aid organization down there. I worked for them for a while, then went back to Raleigh and finished school.

After that I managed a retail store for a few months, got tired of it, and decided to travel. I worked at a hostel in New Zealand, as well as a few vineyards. Did a lot of odd jobs too, and farm work.

Then I went to Thailand for some climbing and got offered to manage a climbing shop there. Did that off and on for three years. Only job where I could wear board shorts and drink beer at my "desk."

When I wasn't in Thailand I'd live in my truck and work at a bar near the NRG and then head out west for the end of the Fall season. Then back to THailand.

I got married last year, and now I am back managing a retail store again. Jack Wolfskin, outdoor stuff, great company to work for. I get over 40 paid holidays this year and lots of cheap/free kit.

I think that most people sit down and read MP when they need a break from work. Some people on here obviously do more MP than they do work. And we wonder why the economy isn't doing so great ;)

In all seriousness, I spend more time on here when I am NOT climbing that much. It's just a way for me to keep psyched and motivated - keeps climbing in the front of my mind, not the back. Keeps me training hard in the gym since I see all these pictures all the time and think that someday I'll get to climb at those places.

Also a way for me to remember all of the places that I have seen. I'm pretty lucky in that I have gotten to travel a lot and have a wife that has always supported me.

Chris Miller wrote:I'm not really much of a Republican. More of an Independant. For example, I'm pro-choice and pro-guns. However, I think that third trimester abortions as well as selling machine guns at Walmart are equally stupid practices. Accordingly, I reserve the right to form my own opinions. Nevertheless, it seems like Republicans work and pay taxes while Democrats suck their thumbs and expect to be pampered by the government. Let the flaming begin.

Hard to argue w/ any of that. We would probably have fun drinking together (and shooting the beer cans afterwards).

Just landed a position as a brewer for the only brewery in Monterey, CA. It's a little micro brewery so psyched! Honestly the only down side is that I won't be on this website anymore due to having to actually work. The up side is being on my feet and not having to sit at a desk anymore.

If anyone ever vacations to this area stop in and get some delicious beer, I'll buy.

ross.mon wrote:I'd rather have it come from North Dakota than Iran. But, you'll have to come to terms with that on your own. C) Have any trepidation about being surrounded by conservative, redneck assholes all the time. Or have any interest in seeing the finer sex (I'm pretty sure all the woman left North Dakota sometime around 2006).

Interesting...my beautiful wife is from North Dakota and left the state in 2006! Maybe I got the last one?

We do go back to visit from time to time and I sure haven't met too many of those "conservative, red-neck assholes."

RN, paramedic before that and I swung a hammer/hanging drywall before that. As a nurse (cath lab) I am able to confortably support my family here in SoCal, send my kid to a nice school, purchase gear when I need it and take trips when I want.
Nursing as a career is often overlooked by guys because its thought of as a womens profession. Not true. Some claim that MEN were the FIRST nurses(the Parabalani, St Benedict, The Hospitallers). Whatever, its a great rackett none the less.
Nurses do alot of 'traveling', that is, taking a job on the otherside of the country (or world) through an agency. I know other nurses whove worked in Dubai, Alaska, Morocco, Hawaii, England, India, New Zealand and of course all over the US. Kind of an optimal set-up for climbers and surfers willing and able to travel.

And yeah, you'll have to go back to school but its worth it.

I´m the boss so do what I like, as we make climbing gear reading forums is work anyway (market research) just like going on climbing trips is (testing/customer contact and feedback). The tax advantages are considerable!

Electrical Contractor, bust alot of ass during the week. 3 overseas trips in less than a year and just bought a sweet house in Golden. Rarely read or post here anymore.. not that there's anything wrong with those that do, there's some sweet talent on MP these days, just way busy.

Sheldon Deeny wrote:I work in the oilfield for a well service company that does hydraulic fracturing. I was hired on for manual labor and operating the frac equipment (I don't have a college degree). The work can be physically exhausting with long hours. There's also a lot of sitting around doing nothing and waiting. It's dangerous, dirty, and I wonder about what it's doing to my long term health. In the 5 months I've been doing this, I've gone climbing twice. I went from being a full-time climbing bum, coming really close to doing my first 5.12c sport redpoint back in February, to top-roping 5.9. I have little free time and no social life (I have nothing in common with anybody around me anyways). So, I like reading the forums to escape from my current reality and fantasize about climbing. I got into a bunch of debt when I was flailing through college classes with no idea what to do in life so I decided to quit school and work in the oilfield to get my finances out of the toilet. During the past 4 months, I've managed to pay off about $13,000 of my debt, so there is an upside. I keep my living expenses extremely low (I don't blow my cash on strippers, backpage.com, payments for a lifted truck, and alcohol, like a lot of guys do). I'm not going to do this oilfield shit forever though... I dream about climbing and think about what I'm going to do in the future to find a good job that also allows free time to climb. This guy: knows what I'm talking about and can maybe give me some insight. I'm thinking of eventually going back to school for petroleum engineering or geology, because it's an interesting, multi-faceted field with a practically guaranteed well-paying job (barring oil price collapse, which I guess could happen). Does anyone reading this have experience in the industry? What types of jobs are there that have free time and don't tie you down to an oilfield shit hole? Part of me wants to quit this job as soon as I have some money saved up and go back to being a happy, poor, travelling climbing bum. But I also don't want to find myself at the age of 40 with no career, no savings, and a resume full of holes and short-term jobs. Are there any engineer types or career types out there who manage to balance work with their love of climbing who can give me some words of wisdom or inspiration? I'm really needing it right now. (I've thought about posting something like this for awhile, especially after reading this post and this seemed like an appropriate place to pipe up.)

Stay the course Dude, there's a lot of liberty to be found in getting rid of your debt. Sorry you're having to sacrifice your sanity for it. Hopefully, that's only temporary. Much respect.

Chris

currently on recovery from surgery. when I'm fit for duty I keep all you desk jockies cool or warm. One word about keeping up with MP "smart phone" ok well maybe two words.

Engineering Technician here. More specifically, power electronics for industrial and utility applications.

SendaGorilla wrote:As for the rest of you; Thanks, this has actually been quite helpful (except for someone ^^ who didn't get his diaper changed this morning ..not you MIYG). Puts things into percpective for me. Clean air vs. Recycled?? Hmmm. Staying in shape Vs. ....not. I dunno though...still sick of this manual labor shit. I think I need to go back to school!

Not sure what your background is, but I couldn't be happier with the eng tech role that I've been doing for many years. Basically, an engineer hands something to you and needs to know if something actually works the way it looks on paper. There's no set test plan or procedure, and no existing test fixture that can find out, so you have to develop those yourself, trying to use mostly stuff that's lying around the lab to keep costs down. Of course there's no safety protocol for the fixture or tests you're about to play with, since they didn't exist until you came up with them, so you have to make sure you can pull it off without hurting someone. You come up with a way to test it, you build whatever fixtures and whatever else you need to make it happen, document it, analyze the results, write a report on what you found, present it, and half the time the engineer doesn't have time to make your recommendations happen even though they like the ideas you present, so management just makes you the engineer and you take the project to its finish.

You get a great combination of being on your feet and doing manual labor in various environments, getting feedback from customers, getting feedback from production and service people, and sitting in a quiet AC'd cubie/office doing research and cranking out theoretical stuff while sipping coffee.

The pay is reasonable. As far as education goes, I know people that do that line of work with a 2 year degree and additional coursework and experience, as well as people that have a 4 year degree who realized sitting at a desk all day isn't their calling.

I work in the MMJ industry here in Denver. I have a degree in Arts management but moved to CO for the climbing. Kind of fell into the weed thing. I get to work with plants all day which is nice. People are laid back about taking days off to climb. Pretty stoked.