I work in a dermatology office. Now whenever I see people that are purposely tanned, I think “Ew! How nasty! Do they not realize what they are doing to themselves, and what kind of problems they will have later in life?” Probably much like how non-smokers must think when they see someone smoking, or fit, healthly people think when they see an obese person eating a Big Mac.
Graphic design/music/editorial: Toxic perfectionism, occasionally leading to deliberate, self-indulgent sloppiness and consequent self-flagellation.
I’ve worked a lot of night shifts and the date changes during the shift. I’ve given my home phone number out to the organ donor network a few times in the wee hours
I work with blood, in a lab, and I’m so used to putting everything into designated biohazard bags that it’s really hard for me to throw a bloodied band-aid into the regular trash at home. I’m also a clean freak when it comes to surfaces (clean my kitchen counter as thoroughly as my lab bench), and I open small things, like my toothpaste tube, using my pinkie finger. I tend to want to put gloves on before doing anything icky. I joke with my mom that when I finally have kids, I’ll be swiping boxes of gloves from the hospital to use when changing diapers.
I also always write the date the exact same way as in the lab: 2006-10-14 and initial beside anything I correct. Even in my own agenda. It’s that ingrained. Doesn’t help that the job I held before this one did things the exact same way. My brain is trained.
As a planner, I too can not remember what year it is. The current plan amendments I’m working on were initiated in Spetember 2005, so they’re all named “CPA2005-XXXX.” Keep in mind that there are amendments carried over or continued from previous years. And we initated the next years planning cycle this last September, so there are now amendments named CPA2006-XXXX now being researched and worked on for 2007. And we work with budgets and planning horizons years in the future.
The effect is magnified by the fact that there are no seasons down here in SW Florida. Part of the year is a little cooler and a lot drier, but there’s no signal to the senses that time is passing. I’m stuck in a never-ending NOW.
Another mental effect is that all day long I spend time studying, creating and otherwise using maps of my county and nowhere else. So mentally, the world tends to stop at the county border. Sarasota and Sarajevo are equally distant for me. This is especially disturbing for me since I’m a geographer who is rather snobbish about my knowledge of the outside world.
Also, I forget that other people don’t spend all day looking at the county from above. When they start to tell me where they’re located, I just tell them, “Give me your STRAP (parcel ID) number.” And sheer repetition has given me an edge in memorizing 17-digit STRAP numbers. Impresses the heck out of people when I rattle their number back at them off the top of my head two weeks after they last talked to me. And I can tell where you are in the county from your STRAP number since the first six digits are a rough coordinate system.
Probably by not driving from Texas to the Washington DC area where the Potomac river is located.
I have the uncontrollable urge to edit and proofread everything I see, even signs in public places.
Also, I fear that my spelling skills may deteriorate since I’ve seen so many misspellings over the years.
I work as a travel agent in a call center. Much of my work involves booking flights. Airports all use three-letter codes, some of which are obvious (SEA=Seattle, BOI=Boise), and others not so (SDF=Louisville, RSW=Fort Myers). Whenever I see a three-letter code on something else, such as a license plate, if I recognize the sequence as an airport code I can’t help but to blurt it out to everyone in the car. “EYW? That’s Key West!”
FYI, RSW=South West (Florida) Regional
I work at the admissions gate of a zoo. We don’t allow plastic cup-lids or straws in the zoo. In Seattle, natch, we get a lot of people showing up at the zoo with a coffee cup, lid attached. So I have to scan everyone’s carryon, as it were, to check for cups with lids; stroller designers seem to be competing with each other for most bizarre placement of cupholders. So when I’m at work I have to be on high cup-lid alert for eight hours at a time.
So, I’m walking down the street, and sometimes I have to exert physical self control not to accost the passing stranger who’s carrying a covered coffee cup. I’m sure that some day I’ll be distracted and NOT think to stop myself, and I’m gonna get my ass kicked.
I find myself getting left and right confused, especially when watching something. I’ve noticed this in particular when watching sports on TV; when an announcer says "on the right side of the screen " I’ll look left, because that’s stage right (from the perspective of the people inside the television).
(sorry for hijack Me Too sheer admiration other-poster-post-padding)
This is too cool for words.
I want to be a fly on the wall inside your brain for a day.
Trade you.
Oh god, me too. I can’t read the menu for content till I find the misspellling – because there will be a misspelling.
Hey, gabriela, don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but…
thanks for not answering the OP! 
Also:
Where do I start??
I work for a brokerage firm. I think in stock symbols as well as how that company’s stock performed today. I also find it strange that other people don’t keep CNBC on most of the time.
I think he knew that.
Says the lady who once hosted a virtual post-mortem on SDMB…
Please take no offense, but I sincerely hope you don´t get the chance to peek inside my cranium any time soon. 
Talking about craniums last week I had to model the fossilized skeletons of some cartoon characters… I tawt I taw a Sewinus canawia skweleton, I did! I did taw a Sewinus canawia skweleton!
[[snork!]]
I want to see inside your cranium while it is still FUNCTIONING…
I’m bored with the other type.
Especially the ones with pulpifled gunshot wound tracks through them. Useless grey and white matter (splashed with red).
Wonder what kind of polygon topology that would take to model?
I’m working as a journalist (again) right now, and it has changed my thinking in all kinds of similar ways. I’ve noticed that conversations with people I don’t know can seem like interrogations, and I’m suspicious of people who won’t talk about themselves. I wonder what they’re hiding.
I also proofread EVERYTHING, even posts on the SDMB. I note every tiny grammatical or punctuational error.