Someone did a thread on this on another board I visit, and it generated some pretty interesting responses, so I thought I’d post it here. Nearly everyone of us who has a job has to interact with other people, but many times the things we make, or the services we provide are something that nearly everyone could see at some point in their life. For example, I’m a machinist, and while I work for a small foundry, we supply parts for a lot of defense contractors, so anytime you see footage of a soldier in Iraq, there’s a good chance that I made some of the gear he/she’s carrying. I’ve worked on parts for Apache helicopters, and the Patriot Missile System, so if you’ve seen one of those, you’ve seen something I’ve had a hand in. I’m sure that there’s other Dopers out there who in their work do things which some of us might have encountered, but not known that there was a Doper behind it. So pull back the curtain a bit and give us an idea.
Hey, I like this!
For a lot of you, If you popped the case on your computer you might see a piece of me (actually, if there was a piece of me there, your computer wouldn’t work. :rolleyes: )
If you live in Northern California and had your cat to the vet recently, there are probably pieces of me lodged under its toenails or between its teeth.
Yeah, sorry about that–my friend’s cat does have a bit of a temper, doesn’t it? 
I work at a large software company based in Redmond. Lots of people have seen stuff I’ve worked on.
Hmm, I don’t have much to contribute here, but…
If you’ve eaten at Freddy’s or Texas Steakhouse in Roanoke, VA in the past couple years, I may have served you. If you ate at Freddy’s and had a steak, there’s about a 50% chance that I cooked it, since I was one of two people in the restaurant who could do it correctly (and I wasn’t a cook).
If you were a varsity high school debater in Virginia in 2000-2002, odds are excellent that we’ve debated. Outside of VA, it’s still possible, as my team has gone to three regional tournaments and two nationals, but the chances are significantly decreased.
If you’ve recently been in the Roanoke area, pulled up to a stoplight next to a green Ford Focus, and saw the driver headbanging to what sounded (going by the bass) like “Shout”…yeah, that was me. 
Cool thread! What a great idea.
Um…if you’ve called a certain southwestern Louisiana university in the past year and a half, I may have connected you to the proper extension or given you a phone number. A few years before that, I worked in a department store and I may have sold you pantyhose.
I hope they fit.
PR pieces on the Web, web site content, and watch ads in Hong Kong.
If anyone has ever eaten Brunswick sardines, or Beach Cliff, General, PortSide, Port Clyde, King Oscar, No Frills, Millionaires, and more I’m sure I can’t think of… I’ve piled, or checked, or wrapped, or personally boxed off… well, seven years of an individual person’s work worth of those cans, from the year 1996 until 2003. My mother has personally counted each and every one of those cans. My father has ordered each can shipped to wherever it is now.
And just recently, add to the list Clover Leaf and Bumblebee brand products. I don’t work there anymore, so I haven’t dealt with anything besides sardines. But as for the rest - my mother counts 'em, my father tells them where to go.
I hate sardines. (aka Herring, aka Sild, aka Sardynki, aka Sardinas, etc, etc, etc - we ship *all over * the world. I don’t know why. But next time you’re in a grocery store, look for me!)
If you own a cell phone there is a 33.33% chance that I help make it.
Anything with DLP[sup]tm[/sup] technology I help make.
If you happened to hear heavy metal music while randomly going through the HF band, there’s a good chance that it was me.
If you watched ABC soaps, NBC’s “passions”, ESPN’s “cheap seats”, “Family Feud”, “Hollywood Squares”, “Who wants to be a millionaire,” or almost anything on ESPN classic with the captioning on anytime over the past two years, chances are I did them.
If you’ve ever listened to NPR and heard some gypsy swing playing at station breaks, you’ve heard one of my acts. Hell, if you know what Gypsy Swing is, you’ve heard or heard of my act.
If you’ve been to a jamband festival in Wisconsin, I was most likely producing or running it.
If, between May 22, 2000, and August 30, 2002, you used VarTec long distance and called customer service for whatever reason, there’s a chance you spoke to me. If, when you called, you asked to speak to a supervisor, there’s an even better chance that you spoke to me.
I also took calls for Cricket Wireless from mid-December of 2002 through mid-September of 2003.
If you were traveling through Missouri on I-70 between 1998-2001, and you exited at Kingdom City and stopped at Gasper’s truck stop and bought a belt buckle the size of your head and a polyresin pig on a polyresin motorcycle, and the cashier had to stop correcting the grammar and spelling in the religious tracts the born-again janitor kept putting in the bathrooms long enough to ring you up and take your money…
…that was me.
If you played two fairly popular computer adventure games from the late 90’s, or a more recent city simulation game, then you saw something I worked on.
If you have had a prescription filled at a Military base then I am one among many that routes that claim transmission.
If you’ve bought a puzzle magazine from a major publisher, the odds are better than 50% that my name is on the masthead.
Only barely on topic, but if you’ve ever actually been to Port Clyde, you’ve seen my Grandmother’s summer house - we used to pick sardine cans up off the beach all the time (mostly mangled, as the factory burned down years ago).
Actually on topic, if you’ve ever listened to one of the satellite radio services, you have a 50% chance of getting a Hidden Piece of Me.
I used to desgin sye-sublimated pro-hockey and lacrosse jerseys (inline hockey too). So you’d see one of my designs on TV, or if you were in the stands wearing a fan jersey, it might have been my work. (I’ve still seen some of my work in sports stores, but it’s starting to die out as teams have changed their look).
Oo, typo! That should have been “dye-sublimated”.
(Who put the “d” and the “s” right next to each other?)