It occurred to me that of the many members I communicate with near daily, or at least weekly, with laughs, pictures and advice shared about our favourite mutual subject, the Mighty K Bike, we know little about most members' current or previous occupation. It comes to me particularly sharply as we lose a member from time to time, and though we're not always face to face personal with one another, their presence on our beloved forum is often sorely missed. 

I envy those fully retired, who have time to tinker and travel more, or those with obvious high-level electrical or mechanical experience whose advice is appreciated by those of us less well-endowed with such skills. I've held many a job in my lifetime living between Australia, UK & the US - not necessarily in this order - from chimney sweep to bicycle repairman, offset printing press operator to copy editor, Sturm Ruger gun company mailroom to copy/fax/printer repair, outdoor guide to deckhand, wood cutter to paper boy, moto tour group rider to builder of greenhouses, with the years after university mainly working management in auto & motorbike dealerships and shops in parts & accessories sales. 

As I approach early retirement I am looking for ways to continue to spend time doing what I like, riding, tinkering, travelling, with not much thought about earning heaps of the extra dosh each day, but rather to the enjoyment of the task. I'm curious what others have done for work throughout their lives. If you were a spy, a pollie or a sex worker, and don't wish to or can't share, no worries. I thank you all for your particular interest in BMW K Bikes and your camaraderie over the years. Please share your working life highs and lows.

Okay, I'll play. 

Most of my working life I worked in industrial and aerospace control systems installation and repair.  My specialty was plastic processing machinery.  Later, I was an independent sales representative selling tooling and machinery to plastic molders and tool builders. 

After all my customers moved to Mexico and China in the late '90's I semi-retired and stumbled into a job working in a yacht club's boatyard.  Now that I am getting a bit too old to carry around heavy stuff and crawling into tiny nooks and crannies I got my USCG Master's license.  Now I supplement my retirement income by taking the yachties back and forth from the dock to their boats that are moored in the Niagara River where it empties into Lake Ontario.

No stress or heavy lifting, I work in the Summer and because the job is seasonal I can collect unemployment all winter.

My first job (aged 11) was a trapper. No, not a heroic, fur-swathed outdoorsman; a lad who fired clay pigeons into the air for chaps to blast with shotguns.

The guy who ran the club was a real eccentric, an old timer who had injured and lost most of the use of his trigger finger and so had it set with a bend to allow him to continue shooting. He did that all right, he shot me full pattern in the back.

Luckily I was sat in the trap at the time so the 1/8" steel plate between us came in useful.

Came out of school with more school qualifications than just about anyone else in my year, then promptly f****d up my university entry. I spent way too many years designing traffic systems and working for assholes in Siemens, but there wasn't anywhere else to go (believe me, I tried). It near killed me with stress and boredom (not joking...). Then I got made redundant after 17 years which, in hindsight, was a Really Good Thing. I spent almost half my redundancy pay on a decent PC - shows how much redundancy I got for 17 years slave labour - and set about teaching myself to program.

Met Elizabeth and moved to Northern Ireland. Ended up with a series of dead-end shitty jobs just to make ends meet and was going nowhere when, after one particularly demeaning job interview, I decided Elizabeth was right and I needed to go back to college/school/whatever you call it in your part of the world. Tertiary education, anyway. I was 42, probably a good number to start with.

I spent a year in Kentucky as part of the college course. Completed it with full honours from both my US and UK colleges (knowing this is your last chance really, really, really concentrates your mind). My current job was a direct result of that year in the USA. I do technical support for a global software company (no, not that one or that one) and it's the only job I've ever had that requires a valid passport. Most of my work is in the US.

I'm now officially an OAP with a pension and a bus pass, although I can't retire for another six years (at age 66).

IT consulting for large corporations and government. Worked in many industries: aerospace, pharma, high tech, manufacturing, healthcare, finance, chemical distribution and nuclear to name a few.

In college I spent three summers freezing and boxing salmon 60 hours a week.  The last couple of years in college I had a great job - driving high end cars and sticking my hand out for money - valet at a luxury hotel.  It was great because I always had a pocket full of cash to buy beer and go skiing. (And the owner of the hotel was my next door neighbor so the management always treated me well.)

Got my first road bike - BSA C15 - in February 1969 and thrown out of school one year later with a basic leaving qualification in English Language and Woodwork.

Fell into a job as a trainee computer operator - IBM 360/20 - Google it if you want a laugh.

Spent almost my whole career in IT - the first half in systems development, when relatively few people did that and the second half in Management, when almost everyone did.

Lived in NYC and Dallas through the 80s and spent the last couple of years before retirement as a management consultant - which is what you do when THEY need someone to remind THEM why stupid ideas which were stupid the last few times around are still stupid now.

Started a family later than most and still have two teenagers at home, so I don’t tour like I used to but I do like a good rally.

Retirement - and particularly the K - have motivated me to get the wrenches out again and pick up what I spent most of the 60’s and 70’s doing: sitting in a workshop listening to music, having a smoke, a cup of tea and trying to keep some sad old beast on the road (even if that beast is now water cooled, fuel injected and managed by computer).

I went through high school and when I graduated I realized I wasn't prepared for any kind of work. I had no idea what I wanted to do.

So I went to university. Graduated in 1978 with a B.Sc in Computer Science and Mathematics. I graduated and thought I wanted to become an accountant so I got a job as an accountant. Damn that was boring.

Still in my early twenties I had this crazy idea to become a male model and stripper. After a few years reality came crashing down that I was homely and out of shape and no one wanted to pay for that.

I became a computer programmer. Back then there was no software that ran manufacturing. The company I worked for made forestry equipment and a small team of 4 of us wrote all the manufacturing systems for inventory and production control. Got lured to go work for General Motors. Did that for 4 years but got bored. Then went to a company that made windows and doors. We designed and wrote all the manufacturing, inventory, engineering, accounting, cost accounting, etc software. They went bankrupt so worked for a company that was very early into on demand video (mid 90's). Got lured into go to a bank as a Sr.Analyst where we developed Canada's first online banking applications. The bank got purchased by a bigger bank. So, I got a job working for Ford Motor as a Sr. Analyst in their production systems group. That was cool. Ford sent me around the world as part of a team trying to figure out how to rationalize their production systems. Back then Ford had 2 different production systems. After 5 years of commuting to the US and back to my home in Canada and being away from my family I came back permanently to work for a large insurance company. I retired 7 years ago after being bored to tears and hating every minute I spent in that place.

Now I ride motorcycles and dream of becoming a male model and stripper.

Signed up at the age of 16 in the OZ Army as an apprentice Motor Vehicle (Mechanic, Diesel, electrical, welding, fitting and turning virtually anything to do with vehicles lawn mowers to tanks) . Ended up in Cavalry shoeing horses actually 113's. Left and worked for Datsun as a mechanic not much money. Went to Toyota as a spare parts interpreter and ended up as manager still not much money.

Left and went into construction as a trade assistant  building a new paper mill, less hours doubled my money. My tradesman was hopeless and I ended up doing his job. When the job was over I wangled a job as a instrument fitter building mainly power stations and paper mills along with other jobs. Did other fitter, fitter welder, instrument fitter jobs. An old boss rang me up so I went offshore as an instrument fitter for 10 years. Conditions were changing and choose my family over work and left.

Bought a run down bakery and built it up and sold it on 2 years latter. Retired and moved to QLD but got bored started doing Traffic Control part time. Changed companies due to a dodgy boss and ended up as a supervisor. The company ended up merging with my old company so ended up going to another TC company I became a supervisor then ended up as Traffic Coordinator doing aerial overhead traffic plans.

The company lost the big contract that involved my job, so they told me my job was gone but refused to make me redundant. After a couple of years of trying to get me to quit they finally pushed me out. Did a few years volunteer work with a charity shop. Now sort of retired doing a couple of days a week at the local trades guild. There are other brief casual shut down jobs mingled in while looking for other jobs.
Regards Martin.

Well for me it was moving off a farm in Northern New Zealand following high school (50km north of Dargaville for those that want to search  Trounson Kauri Park) got a bus to Auckland and caught a truck to Palmerston North to attend uni.  I started in veterinary science, but, like so many never got into second year, so swapped to Agricultural Science for a 4 year Bachelor (not slow it is a 4 year degree).  Centred around milk production and got a job as a research technician on a dairy research farm in East Taranaki near Hawera.  Had a '79 R80/7 at this time and raced a 4 valve Jawa Solo Bike at Stratford Speedway.

During this I took on my masters on top of my job ass well as got married and had kids, near completion was made redundant so managed a dairy farm while completing my thesis.  Luckily I incorporated experimental design, data analysis and statistics which got me a job as a research associate at the Meat Industry Research Institute in Hamilton researching meat science.  Still raced, but in Auckland and had the twin which was later replaced after a crash with a k100.

Moved to Brisbane, Australia where I worked for a company consulting and selling abattoir electrical equipment - immobilisers, stimulators, back stiffeners all for meat quality and worker safety.  Brought a k100RS when I moved over.

Since made redundant (common theme in this thread) and took the product set and started a company - I'm it!  Purchasing officer, marketing, quoting, installing, consulting, accountant etc.  And still doing it.  Work own hours, travel installations in England, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, China and all the seaboard of Australia.

Varied past which has lead me to by interests - high voltage generators (tesla coil, wimshurst, walton cockcroft), high end audio (electrostatic speakers and valve gear - love the high voltage).

Funny where live takes you - from wanting to be a vet to working with dead animals!

Do a lot of DIY in audio and work on both my K100RS's, but, don't build so much high voltage generators living a suburban Brisbane.

My new ride.

As part of my plan to work, sort of, but not really work, I managed to reconnect with some riders who'd wanted me to come on board with them three years ago, riding ex-police bikes like this authorities R1200RT. Weddings, funerals, parades. I've nearly reached my level two training level. Next position is lead rider.

Most are Beemers, with one ST1300 and several Harleys ridden. Watching these blokes move 60 cars and a hearse through the middle of a major city,  stopping traffic, blocking intersections, is akin to ballet in blue! I hope I'm half the rider. I've had to retrain for CPR, Lollipop duties, get certified for operation of an emergency vehicle, and practically take the advanced MSF course in one day. 
It's a tight group and riding in formation at 70 mph "two up" like CHiPs do, is a strange feeling, as it goes against everything I've ever known and been taught about safe riding. 

This bike is the DOHC version, R1200RTP, a 2013 model, and someone let me out on it, sirens, blueberries and cherries.
Look out.   

Looks like that could be a fun gig TWB. I just watched the CHiPs movie the other night (good entertainment for those times when your mental acuity is at the lobotomised level).  Those RTP's can really get flogged.

Second job (aged 15) was obtained for me by a pal - he was after some farm work but he couldn't drive a tractor. No problem, he told the farmer that he had a pal (me) who could drive one (I couldn't) and together we turned up for a summer's hay baling. At that point I was unaware of my alleged tractor skills. I don't think the farmer was at all fooled as I climbed aboard the ancient Massey but, hey, it wasn't his neck. And, we were very cheap.
We worked out that our piecework rate meant that we had to pile as many bales as possible onto the trailer, so's we made fewer trips with them back to the barn. We were totally bereft of all those admirable, rustic, long-standing hay-baling skills, or any ability at all really. Neither did we have any equipment besides a thousand year old tractor and a trailer. However, we were blessed with the eternal optimism and adventurousness of youth (aka stupidity) and so, as our trips back and forth betwixt field and barn racked up, we developed a system that I would like to call 'the spider'. This involved hurling ever more bales up onto the inexpertly built stack on the trailer, so's the guy on top (the 'spider') got higher and higher as things progressed. Thing was, old spidey ended up so high that there was no way to climb down before the journey back to the barn.
No problem, because 'spidey' found that it was useful to prostrate himself a la starfish on top of the very wobbly stack, holding the thing together as best he could. Of course, this was taking place in the good ol' Pennines, so flat ground didn't exist, anywhere. The trail back was very very bumpy, which absolutely did not register with the 15 year old whose turn it was to drive (word used loosely) the Jurassic tractor, as any fifteen year old would drive anything with an engine - flat out.
We kind of ascertained an optimium number of bales that it was possible to hurl onto the trailer - too few and it was inefficient (also cowardly, hence boring) too many and, whereas it was hysterically funny for the driver to see 'spider' airborne with a flying squadron of bales, we lost time reloading the trailer.
Happy days.

• Apprentice Motor Trimmer with a major car manufacturer that no longer exists
  
• Motor Trimmer/leading hand in a large smash repair workshop
  
• Motor Trimming teacher in NSW Technical(VET) colleges (13 years)
  
• IT Teacher in NSW VET colleges (16 years)
  
• Postal Delivery (Post Teaching Burnout/stress and redundancy)
  
• Upholsterer/Motor Trimmer at a large Motorhome/caravan manufacturer (close to home)
  
• Trainer/Training Coordinator at same
  
• Back to Upholsterer/Motor Trimmer and Technical specialist at same very soon
  

Retirement beckons.

Al

I used to be a welder, for 11 years, then I joined the Army reserves and civilian Driver for 13 years. I left them and became a Bus Driver. I have been doing that for the last 20 years.

3rd job - working as a turner/miller/general machinist in a small engineering company. Paid in fags (cigarettes for you US folks).
Degree student, civil engineering, kicked out - lack of ability/interest.
4th job - production manager (big title, small job) in an engineering company, sacked.
5th job - production planner in a drop forge, great job, poor pay, lecherous boss's daughter (perk)
6th job - working with my Dad, designing & manufacturing mechanical handling systems, great job, great colleague.
7th job - beat police constable, great fun (rose tinted spectacles no doubt) except Hillsborough.
8th job - detective, tail end of the Life On Mars era (a British TV program, very accurate & funny portrayal of the pre-politically correct times)
9th job - vehicle theft detective
10 job - drug squad detective
11th job -  fraud squad detective
12th job - internal investigations detective 
13th job - detective, sex offender manager
14th job (after retiring from police)  volunteer co-ordinator for Circles project (sex offender management)
15th job - grandfather
Solomon Grundy eat your heart out.

chris846 wrote:Solomon Grundy eat your heart out.

How many Solomon Grundy references can we dig up?

My Favourite's the 1st one (I was a Crash Test Dummies fan during the Cookie Monster singing style era).

1) The comic book version of Solomon Grundy is mentioned in the song "Superman's Song" by the Crash Test Dummies.
"Superman never made any money, saving the world from Solomon Grundy, and sometimes I despair the world will never see another man, like him."

2) In a 1979 episode of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, "Solomon/Grundy Binding" is referenced on the box of ACME Jet-Propelled Skis

3) Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday,
Christened on a stark and stormy Tuesday,
Married on a grey and grisly Wednesday,
Took ill on a mild and mellow Thursday,
Grew worse on a bright and breezy Friday,
Died on a grey and glorious Saturday,
Buried on a baking, blistering Sunday.
That was the end of Solomon Grundy

Hmmm - not quite the rhyme I grew up with and still sometimes gets chanted around the house!

Solomon Grundy
Born on Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Sick on Thursday,
Worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday.
That was the end
Of Solomon Grundy

The "long" version is from the 1840s. Macabre days indeed.

"2) In a 1979 episode of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, "Solomon/Grundy Binding" is referenced on the box of ACME Jet-Propelled Skis"



Jeez, I thought I was afflicted with a tendency to obscure references, but that takes the biscuit, all the other biscuits, and the f*****g tin they came in.

Love the reverential, full title btw. As it should be too.

Puts me in mind of another 'destiny' rhyme:

Monday's child is fair of face.
Tuesday's child is full of grace
Wednesday's child is full of woe
Thursday's child has far to go
Friday's child works hard for a living
Saturday's child is loving and giving
And the child that is born on the sabbath day - (can't remember the words, but basically they'd be a clever, high achieving tw*t, or something)

I was born on a Thursday. Being male, and somewhere on the fringes of the autism spectrum (as are all males in my hugely incorrect view of the world) I took 'far to go' as meaning that everything, e.g. the shops and stuff, were a long way away. Nobody seemed to explain stuff properly when I was a kid. I expect this might be a popular view on this forum. After all, we are generally middle-aged men who tend to form satisfying relationships with machines. Y'know, those things that don't change of their own accord, or have feelings...

Off topic again, sorry. Can't help it.

chris846 wrote:Friday's child works hard for a living

I was born on a Friday morning under a full moon in early Winter. So that's been my problem all along?!

Born on a Thursday and have travelled a bit. Went as far as Glen Innes and back once.
* First " job" was as a professional Rugby League player at 16.
Concurrently worked in a sports store then managed a sports store in downtown Gosford.
Rugby league career interrupted.. er...terminated by motorcycle accident so a change of career path was in order.
Went into book retail with good old Angus and Robertson in Bondi Junction. You know... back in the days when we enjoyed the tactile sensation of a book in our hand and turned the pages ourselves.
Went backpackjing to Europe and found myself in Berlin just as the Wall was crumbling....met a girl... went to Leipzig.. stayed there for 8 years and taught English and eventually also translating  English/German.
Did an Arts degree at UNE.
Went to Korea for a year and taught English there.
Taught English and German and tutored indigenous students as well. ( Online)
Now semi-retired... have written a novel and self published it and am currently pretending to be a musician/singer/songwriter for some pocket money..
The motorcycle addiction remains.

My first job was selling live bait and fishing tackle for grizzled old Capt. Andy from a small dock jutting into the mouth of Salt Creek, a place where water being discharged from a power plant mingled with tidal flow to attract tarpon that rolled through its warmth, where snook drifted languidly in shaded current circulating among the latticed roots of red mangroves growing along its shoreline, and where bottle-nosed dolphin wrangled vast, frothing schools of black mullet into its shallows for feasting at sunset.

After that, I tried being a car wash attendant, an independent distributor of psychedelic compounds, a coconut palm tree trimmer, a commercial laundry worker, a small-appliance salesman, a major appliance/furniture repair- and deliveryman, a psychiatric orderly, a jug band founder and guitar player, a municipal garbage truck laborer, a topographical survey crew rodman, a botanical garden laborer, a city parks department tree trimmer and truck driver, a county jail's roadside work-crew boss, a putrefying-fish shoveler and transporter, a tropical plant nursery laborer, a plant nursery salesperson, a field-grown tree nursery foreman, a tropical fruit tree grafter and nursery laborer, a tree transplanter and tree crane operator, a sheet metal worker and welder, a dump truck-body production welding foreman, a firearms trader, a forest habitat improvement contractor, a firewood cutter and a scientific journal proofreader.

As far as working-life highs and lows are concerned, one memorable occasion was transporting a massive Paurotis palm clump horizontally on a flatbed truck to a hotel for planting but still having to lower the air pressure in all the tires and suspend twenty of the planting crew from the tree's trunks by ropes to lower the trunks enough for clearance under an expressway overpass, then using two cranes successfully to move it into its site. It survived and prospered.

Another was when I had the barrel of a Walther 9mm pointed at my head by one of the landscaping crew of that job after I told him to work in the shade for a while. Some people are just too sensitive about gender roles. His was a case of machismo run amok from working in 95ºF humidity digging planting holes by pick and shovel through an asphalt parking surface because the landscape foreman had misread the blueprints and directed a skidsteer-mounted planting auger to plunge right into the main underground wiring junction of the hotel. It was a shocking turn of events for everyone, or could have been. The construction operations manager of the hotel then banned motorized planting.

Anyway, the aggrieved worker quit his job instead of pulling the trigger. He waited three hours in the truck cab for a ride back to the nursery with me. Conversation was sparse on the return trip. We survived—unscathed. He moved on to greater things.

Working-life lows involved pinched chainsaws, broken peavys, snapped comealong cables, mislaid rockbars, thrown connecting rods, deadlines, and lovers departing in vehicles with all of their belongings—ephemeral stuff.

As Chris846 has started the episodic approach, and it’s 6 a.m., and its too cold to start putting the bike back together:

Also worked as a fibreglass boat mould repairer sanding down gel coat in damaged moulds to a mirror finish (should anyone wonder why I can’t be bothered with the Beast’s engine covers). I quit before I could be promoted to the yacht building section where the apprentices would start on tape and resin of internal bulkheads, and frequently laid outside    until they ‘came to’ from the fumes.

I avoided a career estimating the costs of erecting various configurations of concrete agricultural buildings (a job that provided a full time living for a dozen men - and would now take a couple of hours). This job was so exciting we would spend a lot of time faking outside calls to the switchboard to call imaginary staff from the yard via the public address system. Amongst others, ‘I P Sitting’ was regularly summoned to meetings.

My first Saturday job involved starting the day by cleaning the congealed fat from the bottom of the chicken rotisserie and the rest of it swabbing around the wet fish counter. I often thought that this must be just like Hollywood...
This was also the job where I first drove a delivery lorry without supervision, or training, or the driver’s knowledge. They kept me on until I’d paid for the damage to the gates.

I spent one Summer as a spray boy on a tarring tanker running back and forth on an aluminium platform next to the burner turning off and on a combination of 21 taps to ensure that manholes and road markings didn’t get tarred. This was the Summer I learnt that no matter how hot your feet, don’t quench them in diesel. I was only young and think I may have sobbed in the bath that night.

Dumb ass carpenter (& cabinetmaker).  I've made several attempts to not work in the construction industry but to date I have had no success.  I blame my parents.  I've never directly asked my dear old mom as to the particulars of my conception but I am reasonably certain it was in the first house my folks were building at the time.  I was around and fully conscious during the construction of the second house when I was 13.  In the midst of those projects there was a lot of renovation too.  Oh, and the males on both sides of my family tree always seemed to be woodworkers - carpenters, cabinetmakers, carriage builders.  Because I never intended to be a carpenter I never did serve a formal apprenticeship.  For a long time I had wanted to write the exam for certification but that was too much like school and I had been quite successful at dropping out of high school, and later university to - wait for it - work in construction.  I've been lucky enough to work on projects in Central & South America as well and would do this again in a heart beat but this will wait until my kids are set up and independent.

About four years ago I moved off of the tools and into estimating and sales.  I now have an office, sit at a desk, stare at a computer and crunch numbers, usually feeling like a great imposter.  My father passed away before this part of my work life came to be.  He had managed to make the transition from blue collar to white collar through an insane amount of hard work which included going back to grade school at age 40.  I think it mystified him a bit that I was only ever interested in working with my hands.

No plans for any kind of retirement but maybe someday I'll find employment in another field.

Steered by your father. That's a Good Thing. You'll no doubt aspire to doing the same for your kids , and so civilisation progresses.

I was a greeting card salesman.

Rick isn't that a cover for a CONTROL agent.
Regards Martin.

MartinW wrote:Rick isn't that a cover for a CONTROL agent.
Regards Martin.

Surely he's more into Kaos!

Al

Probably as long as he doesn't do over 99 on the bike.