# Some of us were talking about our best jobs in our careers yesterday



## Shrek (May 1, 2002)

Posted 11/19/20 9:33 PM CST

When it came around to me , most knew that when my employer retired me my yearly salary was around $60k a year but being salaried I wasn't paid OT but it made it possible for me to buy my house and ground so I surprised them by saying my best job to me was the $20 a day for 3 hours work job I had in my junior and senior years in high school because in addition to the $100 a week, my employer also furnished me a company car.

After a few "a company car for a part time employee" ribs , I said sure the company car was a 40 foot long Ford Bluebird yellow school bus but I got $100 a week and a free ride to and from school for leaving 90 minutes early and getting home 90 minutes late and i had to get a summer job to replace the $400 a month she and I got used to for 9 months of the year , but overall it was pretty good 😃

Then I said the really best one was my part time gig during the school year and 3/4 time during summer as a repair tech at the local radio and TV store during my high school and junior college time as I made money , got OJT and although it came with an occasional electrical shock, no real headache moments like the real job I groomed for

Sadly now that I am retired radio and TV repair is a thing of a bygone age, but I still get a few dead flat screens given to me that I can scrap and assemble boards from to cover my home TV needs. 

So what do you consider your best job or jobs that got you to retirement? Feel free to be creative because often pay and benefit packages don't necessarily make a job the best of a life's career path.


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## Snowfan (Nov 6, 2011)

Assistant building engineer at a hockey/concert venue. Got the chance to see college hockey players become professional hockey players. Got to meet some big name stars. Never did see an actual concert. Learned to drive a Zamboni. Had an awesome chief engineer. Had lots of fun.


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## HonestAbe (Nov 20, 2020)

My best pay job ?
A series of administrative mistakes And me being willing to work hard and take on more work led to my making $900 a night mopping floors TWICE that on holidays!
The most fun? Working for the government researching sites in the wilderness of significant Indian historic significance.
8 hours of work a day in the Most remote areas of Alaska while the government supported camp
Life there.
So 16 hours a day to hunt fish hike and enjoy!


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## 67drake (May 6, 2020)

Hands down my favorite job was while I was in high school. I worked summers at Six Flags in Gurnee Illinois. I lived close so could walk or ride my bike. What a blast. I worked my behind off and was dependable, which was rarely the case with the majority of teens. So I quickly moved up to the sought after positions and paying better. To be that age with access to that many girls was a great position to be in and the work was actually fun. Obviously, just a part time teen job, but great memories. It earned me enough money to buy my first car junior year, a ‘66 GTO. 
The other job I really miss is the shop I worked in as an auto mechanic. It was a small shop and if you worked hard you could screw and joke around as much as you wanted. The other mechanics I worked with were a blast.Wild,but hard working. Even though I was a “kid”, I fit right in and had a blast.
My jobs after that were great paying, but not really great memories overall, just a job.


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## emdeengee (Apr 20, 2010)

Best job ever was not so much about the job which was still in finance, administration and bookkeeping but about the location and people. Civilian employee of the military but no office space available on base so our office was put into the clubhouse of the military golf club - for which we did the finances anyways. People playing golf - especially the veterans - are fun and relaxed. Beautiful views from our office and patio doors leading outside where we often sat to work.


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## snowlady (Aug 1, 2011)

Well, I’m not really retired but at 55 began receiving a pension check. I started at a county run nursing home as an RN then took many years off to be the mom. I started at the kids school as the librarian and teachers aide. Because it is also “government run”. My retirement years picked up where the nursing home years left off. So now I work at our nephews landscaping company as the office gal because it’s what I want to do.


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## RobertDane (Feb 14, 2020)

Working at Sikorsky transferring blackhawk engineering from dimensioned drawings and mylar to

*CATIA  *..a cadcam design system. Sometimes contracting jobs can be kinda slow..till the program

gets geared up. I had the whole top of the helicopter to do and another engineer had both side panels.

Milford ct..a really cool place to live..


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## Shrek (May 1, 2002)

Posted 11/27/20 2:08 AM

I put up with 22 years in an aerospace /space flight development career in the sector to make the money that I put up with for 15 years before it became tolerable as I moved up to upper 5 figure salary to build my investments and buy my place as my early retirement goal came closer into view.


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## RobertDane (Feb 14, 2020)

I was never in flight development..in product development. Usually airframe. The money was good but lord

some of the days were long. And I'm convinced working with a computer all day is not a healthy thing. I got

out in my 50s and was never more grateful to be away from all the politics and daily grind...


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## HDRider (Jul 21, 2011)

Getting to build a green field IT department


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## Shrek (May 1, 2002)

Posted 11/28/20 5:17 AM CST



RobertDane said:


> I was never in flight development..in product development. Usually airframe. The money was good but lord
> 
> some of the days were long. And I'm convinced working with a computer all day is not a healthy thing. I got
> 
> out in my 50s and was never more grateful to be away from all the politics and daily grind...


RobertDane,

I share your feelings of being grateful a leaving it behind.

I grew up on the family farm but my father after watching me build a shortwave foxhole receiver using coated wire from an old alternator to make a coil on a cardboard tube and using pencil graphite, bracing wire, razor blade, WW2 era headphones a neighbor gave me and our metal clothes wire as an antenna to faintly pick up a few transmissions, he decided my career path to be more financially successful than he had been before he retired to the farm I spent the best days of my life.

As I followed the educational path he chose for me, I enjoyed the time I spent in the simple side repairing TVs and radios and building my own amateur gear as my hobby.

When we figured out that after my high school and junior college two years that I could get an entry level job with a combination civilian product box build / aerospace R&D contractor that offered tuition reimbursement with my diploma, I convinced him that instead of staying in school and paying tuition , I could earn $250 a week , get OJT to CLEP some classes as I got my degree on the company dime.

I despised the early years as they floated me around the two sides of the company until I had completed enough night classes to land on the aerospace side to learn from all the retired military trainig staff.

Then I actually started enjoying going to work even though the hours were often longer and I had gotten an education and made some savings over the years since I had left a no benefits 8 month temp job at a aircraft company while waiting for the entry slot where I landed.

Between my time on the commercial side saving an going to night classes, after getting on the retired military brass run side, I kept my performance up , followed my fathers advice to dress in button down shirt and durable slacks and collegiate width tie when needed as a civilian version of casual or Class A uniform of the day and if a boss had his name and rank (Ret.) on his door to address him by his rank in passing conversation as friendly form of respect for his previous career.

Those three aspects I think helped me to get promotions further up as lab and floor "NCO" trainer/supervisor and let me plan on early retirement as I steered clear of riding a desk.

Two of my former brass bosses wer so impressed that I kept my working desk beside my work bench as I made sure our crews made them look good, they both kept me a for show small office that I had my class A suit bagged in the closet and could carry the neccesary files from my work desk and cabinet on the lab floor to meet with customer reps wanting status updates on as we called it , the Executive Hallway.

I am just glad that I did my time and was able to get my piece of ground a few miles away from where I grew up a few years earlier than my goal thanks to a contract and pension as part of our company merging when it did.


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## 50ShadesOfDirt (Nov 11, 2018)

When I went to the local park swimming pool as a high school kid, and saw all the swimsuit styles, I said "who do I pay to become a lifeguard?". It turns out that they paid me to be one. That was pretty much my best job ever ... I did it for as many summers as I could.

Among many other careers, I also am a volunteer firefighter ... luckily, I've never had to save a life doing this; whereas, as a lifeguard, I saved people several times a month. Lifeguards might be the lowest-paid heroes out there ...

For me, all the careers between lifeguard and now current homesteader are just filler ... they paid the bills for many years but left me with not much money for all the effort. I didn't really start enjoying my work until I focused everything on getting onto our homestead. When I did, I gained control over my life, my income, and am now doing what I want to do, vs what someone thinks I should do. I had to bail on the employment system, which successfully held me in place as a cog for decades.

I think the world would be a better place if everyone had the ability to focus on what they can do best, vs what an employer wants them to do, just to pay the bills. During this crazy year, the employment system has fallen apart for so many ... I'm not sure at all that my kids should join such a system.

Perhaps something like this:








America’s Favorite Anarchist Thinks Most US Workers Are Wage Slaves


Bureaucrats pushing paper decide what we and our work are worth. But ironically, Graeber suggests, it’s those bureaucrats who perform the most meaningless work.




www.businessinsider.com





Yes, I dislike the word "slave" ... just couldn't find a similar article without it in there.


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## Scott SW Ohio (Sep 20, 2003)

For a year and a half I was power plant engineer in Hillsdale, Michigan. We had five stationary diesel engine generator sets that would put out a bit more than 20 megawatts when needed, which was about 30 days a year. The rest of the time we kept the plant tidy and did routine equipment maintenance. I got to learn about power production and distribution, which is pretty interesting, and we had a clear-cut community mission but we were rarely harried in carrying it out. There were nine hourly operators who were very self-directed, so the people management part of that job was never a headache.

The power plant was literally a stone's throw from Baw Beese Lake and a half mile from our house. I was able to walk or bike to work, and at lunch I could take a book into the park alongside the lake and read it under the oak trees. From my office window I could see ducks bobbing around in a little bay. It was pretty idyllic. But the thing I liked the best is that I had an identity in Hillsdale - I was the power plant engineer.


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## Evons hubby (Oct 3, 2005)

My best job was when I worked in real estate. No real work involved, poor wages but it put me in a great position for investing. I started out with nothing and in just 11 years was able to retire comfortably. Not only that but we had loads of fun!


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