Getting to know you. What do you do?

[JohnC]

I work in corrections. I supervise some bad mofos. 

I've worked all the maximum security units where the baddest of the bad are housed.

Right now, my post is Death Row. I call it the country club for killers for a reason.

We have levels, A, B and C.

A levels are able to walk around me free as a bird, no cuffs, shackles, nothing.  

We qualify with and carry weapons only outside on patrol, medical runs, transport to court, etc. But inside, we have nothing. Not a baton, mace, I mean nothing. If it goes down, all you have is a red panic button on your radio that sets off a body alarm in central control, and your hands, fists and feet. Well, I do wear a shank vest (looks like a bullet proof vest) and a face shield. Face shields worn on units 1 and 3. If you piss them off, they'll try to spit on you or sling ####/piss on you. knock on wood, I've not pissed an inmate off enough to get "#### out" as they call it.  

Shanks are found often. They have them, we don't. lol 

LEO's catch them, we CO's have to live with them.

I just wanted to try something different. I actually like it. But I'll probably move in to some other branch of law enforcement before it's over. 

 

Edited July 14, 2017 by JohnC

[Jeb48]

Grew up in NW Ohio, went to school in NW Indiana, got recruited out of school to work in research at Xerox in Western NY. Spent 37 years there most were fun but not all. Xerox has been in a death spiral for about 20 years now. I took good advice when I was young and lived below my means, invested my money and was ready to jump ship from about the time I turned 55. Turned down the first 3 offers to retire early then jumped on the 4th at 57 with a year severance and bridged medical.

My only big mistake was I hung around NY for almost 10 years in retirement before moving to TN. Fought the good fight with the state gun organization trying to make NY part of the US again, including a couple of marches on the Albany and lots of money, but decided I would rather enjoy life instead and just moved to the US instead.

Been loving life here in NE TN for 2 years now. Went back to NY for a wedding and visit some friends and was reminded why I left over and over. Did get to shoot a round of sport clays with a friend. Use to shoot clays with this guy a couple of times a month and neither of us had shot sport clays since I left. My over and under 12g Biden special was the only gun I thought was safe to transport back to NY. When asked why TN I tell them - Less: Snow, Taxes, Government - More: BBQ, Bluegrass, Sunshine.

[Chucktshoes]

Grew up an AF brat and then went in myself after HS. After 22 months I received an honorable discharge and spent the next year working for AOL in Ogden, UT. I then decided to move back to where the family lived here in W. TN and spent a couple of years bouncing around IT and construction jobs before landing in retail and quickly working my way into management. Spent a dozen years doing that with the occasional bonus of getting to beat up shoplifters. Then my employer decided to reorganize its store level management structure and I was offered a buyout. I was ecstatic to take it. 

These days I drive truck OTR and can finally afford the type of toys I've drooled over when I was eking by in retail. I'm getting ready to buy my truck and take it semi-local as I look for the balance between work and family. 

[Kilo0811]

Currently I am fortunate to work for Remington Firearms in Huntsville and I am a Technical CSR. Before that I ran couple Gun Shops, joined Marine Corps, Got my College Degree, and wouldn't change a thing.

Got married and she is the better half of course. Finally I have an OCD kind of fascination with the AR15/AR10 platform and have done over 300 personal build and got range time on each one to record the data.

Lived in Nashville and did shows for a while but now I am settled in Huntsville, AL.

[Ronald_55]

5 hours ago, Kilo0811 said:

Currently I am fortunate to work for Remington Firearms in Huntsville and I am a Technical CSR. Before that I ran couple Gun Shops, joined Marine Corps, Got my College Degree, and wouldn't change a thing.

Got married and she is the better half of course. Finally I have an OCD kind of fascination with the AR15/AR10 platform and have done over 300 personal build and got range time on each one to record the data.

Lived in Nashville and did shows for a while but now I am settled in Huntsville, AL.

You just admitted you work for Remington because you are too far away for all of us to start showing up at your house and being your best friend.

Jokes on you....I am going to be in Huntsville in a couple weeks. 

[Sam1]

On 7/13/2017 at 6:42 AM, TGO David said:

I'll start...

I am in Healthcare IT.  I manage an operational support team that takes care of the final tier of support for approximately 10,000 Windows Servers and over 1,000 VMware hosts.  We also do special projects and lifecycle work.  Basically, if it comes to my team of 12 engineers, it has generally exhausted everyone else's abilities to fix it or get it done.  My guys are the "special operations" of IT nerds and I have much respect and love for them.  They work some ridiculously long hours and make miracles happen every single day to ensure that doctors, nurses and our patients have reliable infrastructure serving them.

 

Same, except larger scale (and only work on virtualization) and I'm one of those engineers, not management (which is better than being responsible for subordinates imho lol).  Oh, and working on my PhD... not sure what that will do for me other than a sense of self-accomplishment.

Edited July 14, 2017 by Sam1

[peejman]

10 hours ago, hipower said:

Well, I have had diverse work experiences, but just haven't really felt fulfilled with them. I do think there is something else coming my way.

I suspect that it will show before I leave here.

I'm somewhat jealous of others who've done a wide variety of things through their careers and lives, as I feel somewhat trapped in my current position.  The grass is always greener I suppose.... 

[nightrunner]

11 hours ago, TGO David said:

I wouldn't feel inadequate with the life-experiences you have had.  There are foks who spend their entire adulthood trapped behind a desk and never experience anything else that the world has to offer.  Chasing the hot rod car scene?  I mean, seriously, that is a dream for a lot of office-dwellers!

I have come to realize that any time a door closed unexpectedly on me, no matter how much I disliked it at the time, later on I realized that I was so glad that it had.  God's always taken care of me just as it seems he has you.  There's a lot to be thankful for right there.

Amen to that. Some of my low level factory jobs, I was fired from (never on bad terms, typically temp job terminated) and got depressed and scared from no job but still have bills. Only to find a better job within a couple weeks. My last job I took a pay cut due to policy changes and started looking for a new job. Found one and now I make 1.5x what I did at the old job before the changes. I would have never tried looking without the pay cut. Seems like God has to knock me down a rung on the ladder to get me to start climbing again. Always works out for the better though.

[Ronald_55]

26 minutes ago, peejman said:

I'm somewhat jealous of others who've done a wide variety of things through their careers and lives, as I feel somewhat trapped in my current position.  The grass is always greener I suppose.... 

If you had ever sold Kirby vacuum cleaners door-to-door, you might think differently. Though, I understand because my current position is a dead end on promotions and I am not where I should be on pay. 

I understand people being afraid of change and the unknown when they have a job already. I have been caught up in 2 lay-offs and a business closure in my work history. I worry if I jump to an unknown job, that it might not be as rosy as they sell it to be or they might close up shop 6 months later. With a family and mortgage, that would be rough. If it were just me, I can live in my car and be just fine. The family, not so much. I do keep my eyes peeled though awaiting that dream job to come along.

 

[Erik88]

1 hour ago, peejman said:

I'm somewhat jealous of others who've done a wide variety of things through their careers and lives, as I feel somewhat trapped in my current position.  The grass is always greener I suppose.... 

I feel the same way. If I ever have kids I'm going to tell them to pick a career that will always be widely needed. I'm worried about technology replacing jobs too.

My friend is a travel nurse. He can move anywhere he wants and make a good living. I sometimes wish I had gone that route. 

[peejman]

49 minutes ago, Ronald_55 said:

If you had ever sold Kirby vacuum cleaners door-to-door, you might think differently. Though, I understand because my current position is a dead end on promotions and I am not where I should be on pay. 

I understand people being afraid of change and the unknown when they have a job already. I have been caught up in 2 lay-offs and a business closure in my work history. I worry if I jump to an unknown job, that it might not be as rosy as they sell it to be or they might close up shop 6 months later. With a family and mortgage, that would be rough. If it were just me, I can live in my car and be just fine. The family, not so much. I do keep my eyes peeled though awaiting that dream job to come along.

 

I've never sold Kirby vacuums, but I've got a really funny story from when a salesman came to my house. It ended with "Look, if I'm gonna pay that much for something that sucks, it's damn sure gonna suck more than my carpet."  

 

People seem shocked when I tell them I'm an engineer with a dead end job.  I've been doing exactly the same thing for 10 years.  I've laughed and said there's no opportunity to go anywhere unless someone quits or dies. Well, someone finally quit in the fall and it's only gotten worse. I seem to have a knack for finding dead end jobs, as every place I've worked has gone through difficult times.  Maybe its me, or maybe I'm just unlucky.  

 

My wife sent this to me a few days ago, and I keep thinking about it... 

... but I have no idea where I'd jump to. I'm too much of a planner and too risk averse, and I've got a family to think about (or that's my excuse anyway). I hope to instill in my kids a greater willingness to take that leap and follow their dreams.  

[Ronald_55]

Well , I just got told by our president that the CEO decided to hold my raise that was supposed to come out today (everyone's was) until I clean up my work area.

That sounds kind of simple, but it is not. My "office" doubles as the IT storage room for incoming and outgoing pc's, laptops, tablets and phones. I house all our site camera equipment, cables, projectors, software, and networking accessories in here too. 

I will admit, I am not the neatest person, that is a big fault I have, but my office is also in the warehouse. My door opens into the warehouse, so no one sees my office except a handful of people that come to get something from me or drop something off. 

Also, my workload already puts me here much more than 40 hours a week at a salary. So staying around extra to just clean up is not really at the top of my list. I have things that need done at home and I do like to see my family some. 

I think this is a very bad way to treat an issue. I had already discussed the issue with the President and we had a game plan in place to get things done. I have made very concrete progress in the last week and was working on clearing some stuff when the President showed up to tell me this. 

Someone told me that they have heard of this at other places. Is that right? Anyone else ever seen it? I know I am not the only IT guy with a cluttered office. It seems to come with the territory, especially if you deal with hardware. The software only guys don't seem to have that issue obviously.

 

[Sam1]

double tap

Edited July 14, 2017 by Sam1

[Sam1]

1 hour ago, Ronald_55 said:

Well , I just got told by our president that the CEO decided to hold my raise that was supposed to come out today (everyone's was) until I clean up my work area.

 

I work from home now, but both my office and the large datacenter I was responsible for up until October were spic and span clean without a single box or part out of place.  As an employee, I respected the fact that I owned nothing there and treated it as such.  The boss can make as much of a mess as they want, and if they tell me to clean up behind them, I'll do it... they're the boss.  Showing that level of effort is one of the reasons I now work from home now.  In short, if you want the benefits, clean up the area and address the issue if other people are making the mess.  I made some enemies after taking over the datacenter because it was used as a dumping ground for anything electronic, and that ended immediately.
 

Edited July 14, 2017 by Sam1

[TGO David]

I would agree with @Sam1 on those points.  If the CEO is bothered enough to comment on it and make your raise contingent upon it, then it is a big enough deal to get it done.  CEOs don't normally worry about such things.  So either the CEO has nothing better going on, or this is really a sore issue with him, and as a result it's something you need to get fixed.

Always keep the C-People happy.

[Ronald_55]

35 minutes ago, TGO David said:

I would agree with @Sam1 on those points.  If the CEO is bothered enough to comment on it and make your raise contingent upon it, then it is a big enough deal to get it done.  CEOs don't normally worry about such things.  So either the CEO has nothing better going on, or this is really a sore issue with him, and as a result it's something you need to get fixed.

Always keep the C-People happy.

One issue I have is that today he will gripe about my office being too full of equipment. Then next week he will ask me is I can cobble together a laptop for X person for $0 and be miffed if I can't. Part of my job has been to rebuild laptops that have been used in the office to be deployed to the field to save money. The savings is in not spending much or anything, not on my labor hours put in on it. Whether that is just reloading the OS, replacing a cracked screen, or swapping out the keyboard. We tend to use the same models for a while, so I can usually rob parts from one that is worse to fix one up. That requires donors though. I used to put all those in the warehouse until the forklift driver ran over stuff for a 3rd time.

I know it sounds like whining, and I know it is his company to run. With only 20+ people in the office, it is not like a Fortune 500 company CEO stopping by my office. This company is littered with his relatives and I am asked time and time again by him to do things that are not business related for him and them. I accommodate everything I can in those situations, so I would have thought he would see me working as an understanding that I am fixing the issue. Maybe next time he asks me to go to his niece's house to set up her wifi so she can work from home after having stomach bypass surgery and not have to take any vacation, I will have to just decline.

It just makes me sore that he is being petty over what will probably be a 2% (might get me a Big Mac meal per week) raise and he makes 7 figures a year. I know because he has me help him pdf his tax returns.....

I will drop this issue now. I have to get back to cleaning my office. I just had a break waiting for software to install on a workstation. 

[Sam1]

@Ronald_55 if the boss is making seven figures, it sounds like he may be doing something right.  Not many people pull down that kind of dough, I would be talking to the guy asking him what he sees I need to do to start down the path that got him there.  

[R_Bert]

8 hours ago, Ronald_55 said:

You just admitted you work for Remington because you are too far away for all of us to start showing up at your house and being your best friend.

Jokes on you....I am going to be in Huntsville in a couple weeks. 

Huntsville Hamfest?  We can gang up on him.

[R_Bert]

4 hours ago, Erik88 said:

I feel the same way. If I ever have kids I'm going to tell them to pick a career that will always be widely needed. I'm worried about technology replacing jobs too.

My friend is a travel nurse. He can move anywhere he wants and make a good living. I sometimes wish I had gone that route. 

Weak stomach affected a number of potential career choices for me...

[Jeb48]

22 minutes ago, Ronald_55 said:

I will drop this issue now. I have to get back to cleaning my office. I just had a break waiting for software to install on a workstation. 

I worked with a lot of IT hardware people over the years and did a little as a side responsibility to my main tasks for our group, so I can sympathize. Most of the real IT people had pretty messy offices and the bosses really didn't care as long as no private data documents were left out. I was suppose to keep my area a bit cleaner and I solved the problem by getting steel cabinets with lockable doors and extra filing cabinets. I kept some in my office but found corners in labs and other areas to stash a few more. You're right, if part of your job is to make value out of nothing you need a stash of parts.

[Ronald_55]

20 minutes ago, R_Bert said:

Huntsville Hamfest?  We can gang up on him.

No, just dropping a kid off for a camp. Hamfest sounds cool though.

[gregintenn]

2 hours ago, Sam1 said:

@Ronald_55 if the boss is making seven figures, it sounds like he may be doing something right.  Not many people pull down that kind of dough, I would be talking to the guy asking him what he sees I need to do to start down the path that got him there.  

Right. I've always tried to emulate and learn from people I consider my superiors. This has served me well thus far. Many of them, when they see a genuine interest, take this interest as a compliment and are happy to help point you in the right direction.

[res308]

Not a whole lot to tell here. I grew up working on the farm. I complained about it then, but I sorely miss it now. Did some time in a prison called a factory. I have worked sales for the "cold drank" industry. I have worked construction. I have driven a tanker hauling sulfuric acid (yes, it hurts), as well as a little bit of flat bedding. I have been a police officer for the last 22 years, and sometimes I love it, sometimes I just hate it. The thing I enjoyed most was the time I spent on the tac team with another agency.

These days I'm also TRYING to learn sheath making and holster making. Hopefully soon I can slow down enough to actually learn what I'm doing with this leather. But in this I have found something that I am very passionate about. 

[Johnny Rotten]

4 hours ago, TGO David said:

I would agree with @Sam1 on those points.  If the CEO is bothered enough to comment on it and make your raise contingent upon it, then it is a big enough deal to get it done.  CEOs don't normally worry about such things.  So either the CEO has nothing better going on, or this is really a sore issue with him, and as a result it's something you need to get fixed.

Always keep the C-People happy.

5S is huge deal with our C-people

[A.J. Holst]

8 hours ago, peejman said:

I'm somewhat jealous of others who've done a wide variety of things through their careers and lives, as I feel somewhat trapped in my current position.  The grass is always greener I suppose.... 

Within my wide variety, I've been trapped. Couldn't afford or wouldn't take a pay cut. Most importantly, I was unwilling to relocate.

Bigger is not better and more stuff is just, more stuff.

Low debt, not high income gives more freedom and choice.