Ask Lemmy

Waste industry any part of it. From dealing with smokestacks to garbage to agricultural to feces.

• Employment for life
• Get to make a difference, less pollution is a good thing.
• Salaries are high
• Get to work with the crazy but nice mother fuckers
• Always the badass of your friend group

Every work day I get up and go to my job. The world is that much cleaner because I did that. I get to work with my buddies. The work is mentally challenging and involves light exercise. If they fire me I will have a new job in under 6 working days (no exaggeration). And when I come home I can wait until my wife eats the first bite of dinner before I tell her about the frozen shitberg that my client was dealing with today.

I work as an environmental engineer that does inspections of industrial, government, and military facilities. Every inspection I get to tour a different place and learn how it works and how things are made. I've gotten to see some amazing places like

-NASA rocket testing sites -shuttered nuclear weapons production processes, -the factory that makes all the flavoring for Dr pepper/potpourri/cherry/fake almond (it's made starting with paint thinner, yikes) -refineries -military bases

It's fascinating to both see how the world actually works, and how stuff is made, the benefits to society/vs costs to society and environment, and every place has its own site-specific culture. I find so many people take for granted how our whole society is so dependent on a few resources, industries, and expert people working together.

I get to use soft skills to interview people and figure out if they are being honest or hiding something, use my engineering and scientific skills to assess sites, and have a mix of inside/outside work.

My work also does some good - helping develop cases to bring to enforcement. My cases have resulted in changes that improve living conditions for people near these sites, the workers at them, or the environment.

Environmental engineering doesn't pay as much as other disciplines like a senior software engineer or something. But it's a good income and the work isn't as subject to boom/bust cycles as other sectors because it's driven by regulations more than profits.

CAD drafting.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of shitty CAD jobs out there, but there are also plenty of great CAD jobs as well. I got my AS in Drafting for manufacturing, but manufacturing paid pretty low when I started looking. So I applied for civil CAD jobs instead. Started out at $26/hr, which was a little under double what I was making at the time.

The great thing about CAD work is that there's lots of room for upwards momentum. I applied for a designer position 8 months in, which bumped my pay to $30/hr. You can work your way up as a designer, or into project management. My company also offers continued learning, so if I get the bug to go into engineering (unlikely, math & physics is my sticking point) then I can, for free.

I was pretty active for a while in the CAD subreddit, and I was almost afraid to graduate because there were a few people in there who were so negative about CAD as a carreer. Turns out they don't look for good jobs, don't ask for pay raises or continue to learn. My experience in CAD has been nothing but fulfilling and exciting. I design substations, I'm learning a lot, my drawings literally build/extend America's power grid, so I feel like my job matters and is important. I find ways to increase my knowledge and pay, and there's tons of upwards momentum if I take it.

For reference, I was an animal hospital receptionist before I made the switch.

Most service jobs, if the worker isn't a total cunt (and even if they are, it's usually because they've had to serve such cunts and are not immune to cuntiness themselves).

Orthopedics

If you don't mind the hours, working on a garbage truck can be really good from what I hear. But oldy very dangerous too. My cousins husband was a garbageman, then he fell off the truck (I forget how) and was seriously hurt permanently. But until then he really loved what he did.

How old are you? I am assuming you are more interested in the trades?

If you like to travel go work for an airline. You could work as an aircraft mechanic if you are willing to go to trade school or work in one of a few different jobs around logistics or baggage handling. None of these jobs are customer facing, are often Union and you get to fly the world for free. Just make sure you get on with an international carrier or switch to one as soon as possible.