I’m not sure if this is universal, but nearly every public school teacher I know drinks like a fish.
Another thing I seem to do in most jobs is translate. And write. And review other people’s writings and translations.
And that’s not cAjones unless you’re talking furniture, damnit! Why do gringos insist on admiring people’s closet’s drawers?
My job is online chat customer service.
We use a program called Macro Express. My favourite application of the program in chat is the shortkeys, where you type your activation key (mine’s “…”) plus a few letters, and it will automatically type out whatever you set.
I sometimes find myself typing …ty or …yw when I’m at home on MSN. At work, this would type “Thank you” and “You’re very welcome” for me.
F12 automatically fills in my username and hits tab and fills in my password, too. I find myself hitting F12 sometimes when faced with a login screen and having a brief moment of “OMG MY MACROS AREN’T WORKING” before I realise I’m home.
Also, I’m Canadian but I deal mainly with Americans, so our auto spell-check is set to American English. It’s really annoying so I started spelling things the American way at work so as to appease it, but at home goofing off online I now find myself spelling things the American way. I keep having to backspace and fix it. I have spelled “colour” with a “u” forever and I’m going to keep it that way! 
But where else do they keep the stacks of dvds full of username/passwords, credit card and social security numbers? 
I don’t know how my job’s affected me (no doubt it has, and now I’m terminally screwed up, but I’m not aware of it), but the classic example of this is in Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi. He complains that being a riverboat pilot has sapped his ability to appreciate the aesthetics of a river scene. He looks at a gorgeous sunset over the river and sees, not a tranquil and beautiful scene, but the coming rainstorm, the way the bank is silting up, the snags hidden just unmder the surface at the inside (revealed by those wavelets, which are no longer picturesque, but clinically revealing), and the likely presence of a tree just over there.
Judging by my visits to assorted nerds, hackers and security IT specialists, on piles on the table. Mostly without so much as an envelope.
I’m an engineering/math major, so I am always absurdly practical. Last night on Sportscenter, there was a fluff piece about the Iranian hostages being given passes to all Major League Baseball games for the rest of their lives. But instead of focusing on the gesture, I focused on the fact that baseball games have assigned seating, and the passes didn’t specify a seat. So could they go to a luxury seat and force their way in? Would they be forced to sit in the nosebleed seats? And then I started devising strange plans to make the pass system feasible. It’s a sickness, really.
We make fabric awnings where I work. I do a lot of renderings - adding virtual awnings to digital photos of homes and businesses. See before you buy. Everywhere I look I think, “They need an awning.” and imagine what style would look best. Our awnings are everywhere and I don’t often get to see the finished product. When I do, I point them out to Mr Johnson. I think it annoys him a little.
I’ve nearly memorized the Sunbrella® awning fabric color names and style numbers. I haven’t gotten to the point of referring to the colors by number - but I do use their names sometimes, “Where’s my Jockey Red sweater?”
I need to get out more.
I’ve also learned a lot about metals, fabrics, construction, styles of windows, and other home exterior details.
I work at a newspaper - and I’m always thinking a day ahead. As I leave work Friday, my mind is already in Saturday, and I almost always wake up at 8 a.m. Sunday thinking I’m late for work.
Also, every time something interesting happens for me, I reach for my video camera (I also film for the Web site of my newspaper). Next time we have a riot, flood, or earthquake, I am so going to be prepared.
Oh, and one really morbid quirk of mine is that I mentally compile lists of what everyone around me does in their lives - so I know how to phrase it in their obituary (I write those).
~Tasha
Oh yeah - I’ve done this. I’ve answered my cell phone “Thank you for calling Domino’s Pizza, how can I help you?” and “Newsroom, this is Tasha.”
If you’re surrounded by ringing phones all day, you get used to answering them on autopilot. This can be dangerous.
~Tasha (apologizing for the double-post)
It’s a shame that journalists can’t make ends meet with just a daytime job. 
Or, as twikster noted, we really do have the same job. You didn’t happen to have your free meals eliminated this year by any chance? Our industry just isn’t that big, so chances are good!
To make this post sorta on topic again -> this job has also made me very, very good at instantly memorizing numbers. (We do a lot of our “programming” by assigning and hooking together random four and five digit ids in a database.)
Lawyer. Absurdly anal about details, which washes over into real life by making me over-plan and over-prepare everything unless I catch myself and stop. The practice of law can be death to spontaneity.
Tendency to let that odd use of language that lawyers have slide into everyday conversations. (In supermarket aisle - "Absent any reason to the contrary, I incline to the purchase of Colgate toothpaste, dear. Any firm views either way?) I’m not really as bad as that example, because I mostly catch it in time, yet the reflex is there and needs a constant threatening glare to keep it in line. But it sometimes leaks out.
Tendency to draft and correct drafts of sentences in live conversations. Professional desire for clarity means that I drive people nuts making a point (that everyone got ages ago) unnecessarily clear.
Tendency to forget names immediately. In a trial, I will know with perfect precision the full names of everyone involved. As soon as the trial is over, there is a sort of reflex brain dump and they are gone (much like the brain dump everyone does after university exams). Within a day, I can’t remember the name of the victim from a three week trial. But it transfers to real life, and the name-dump of social acquaintances can be quite rude.
I am sure I have other profession-derived faults, but that will do for now.
“Does anyone else have weird mental quirks that go with the territory in your job?”
I teach people how to do everything from how to wipe their ass to how to fill out a TPS report, and why your organizational structure requires you to fill out a TPS report. I also do proofreading. I can walk through a grocery store, a golf shop or a bar and explain product placement and advertising. I can deconstruct any printed material for gender, racial, ethnic and disability bias, as well as why they use specific font size, type and color. For any business, I can walk through the physical setting and procedural and organizational processes and structures and tell you what is good and what is bad.
I keep my mouth shut most of the time because otherwise I’m a pain in the ass or I scare people.
whistlepig
As a telefundraiser, I call many hundreds of people over the course of any week. And I always start the conversation introducing myself with my full (real) name and the charity I am representing.
I cannot count the number of times when I have made calls for NON-WORK related stuff and have gone into my ‘spiel’ before having one of those :smack: moments, generally accompanied by laughter on the other end of the phone from whichever friend/organisation I happened to be ringing.
I really hate phones. 
I dunno how weird it is - but I quickly recognize multiples of 8, can count by 8, try to break strings of numbers into octets, consider letters up to “F” to be numbers…
Oh, I test computer stuff (SAN hardware, primarily)
I’m a career soldier and former Drill Sergeant. I’ll reflexively reach for my hat when going from indoors to outdoors and vice-versa, whether I’m in uniform or not.
Also, all zippers/buttons/fasteners must be fastened at all times. When I’m standing at the cashier to make a payment, even in civilian clothes, when I take my wallet out of my back pocket, I’ll unbutton the pocket just long enough to remove the wallet (assuming the back pocket of my pants has a button, of course) and then button it back up until I’m ready to put my wallet back into the pocket. Then it’s unbutton and rebutton time.
Drives me crazy when I catch myself doing it.
I also make note of all unbuttoned/zipped/un-whatever fasteners on other people’s clothes, even if I don’t yell at them about it any more.
Not mine, one from a coworker.
We worked in a chemical factory. That company is, in general, very safety-conscious, and that specific factory is a company “lighthouse” in many respects, including safety. We’d feel ashamed when someone broke an ankle… outside work! :smack:
Anyway, one of the guys noticed that, because he was so used to wearing googles and helmet, whenever he wore sunglasses and needed to adjust them he’d grope for… uh… where’s the hardhat… oh durn, I’m in my car, not in my carT!
My team at work covers companies including foodmakers, so I’ve become quite familiar with ownership of various grocery brands. As a result, whenever I’m skimming the aisles in a supermarket or convenience store I find myself unconsciously thinking “That’s made by Unilever … that’s Premier Foods … Kraft … RHM … Nestle …”
You might explain to us laypesons what one has to do with the other.