I wanted to go to school and be a germanic studies person – fairly worthless in retrospect. I had to go to a tech school, so I ended up with a BA in European history focusing on the reformation. Well. That didn’t last too long. When I got frustrated with Latin American history, I became a metallurgist. So I am a PhD metallurgist, masquerading as a solid state physicist/vacuum scientist and trying to figure out what graduate students are going to break next. Have sponge, bucket, and limited expectations hoping to be entertained.
Also very quiet. 160 some posts after some three years. Too much time away from my office.
I’m a factory grunt. Officially my classification is “off-buck welder and general assembler” which used to mean welding trucks together but now consists of feeding metal to robotic welding machines instead.
My job is mindless grunt work, in an environment more gossipy than a high school cafeteria. Long hours in barely moderated climate conditions with a staggeringly high rate of repetitive work injuries. Having to ask permission to go potty, and actually wait up to a half hour to recieve it, is icing on the cake.
OTOH, conciousness isn’t much of a requirement, muscle memory suffices and I can and do choose to opt out of office politicking. After years in the service industry, it’s nice knowing I have all the major holidays off. No projects or deadlines or commissions to worry about, and the benefits are solid.
An unusual bonus is an often underappreciated aspect of seniority, the majority of 3000+ folks at my workplace will put in upwards of twenty-five years. This means at 34 not only do I consistently get called “young lady” but there’s an atmosphere of respecting older workers for their knowledge and versatility as opposed to constant fretting about the young pups behind you coming along to take your job.
I really dig the “young lady” part. 
I am an ecologist and GIS wonk with the National Park Service. I coordinate and carry out species inventories for a group of national parks, as well as various monitoring activities (water quality, air quality, fire effects, soil, etc.)
Really freaking awesome job. This is what I was made to do.
Too bad it’s probably going away next year. 
Wow, we sure do have a lot of scientists and tech gurus here. Make me feel all fluffy…
I’m a carpenter. I work for the local Board of Education. My most recent jobs included building all cabinets and worktables for a primary school science lab, and replacing the bottom 2 feet of 140 foot long exterior wall in a school.
I have a BSc in chemistry, I’m a qualified diver(SSA and scuba), and I have been a logger, gold sluicer, hard rock miner and a sawmill worker. The only time I was bored was when I worked as a quality control supervisor in a flakeboard plant.
I like working with my hands,and detest routine. 
Hey, cool! I am an RN with 10 years dialysis experience, currently director and chief instructor of a small dialysis tech program in a private school.
And I can’t seem to let go of my other fun job, which is home health nurse. As much as I hate the paper work, I do love my patients so much.
I’m a medical technologist. Seven years on the bench as a generalist, now in cardiac (heart failure) research. Heavily into clinical chemistry, immunchemistry and chromatography, as well as lab testing R & D. Also an amteur radio operator, involved in Skywarn.
Vlad/Igor
I’m an ornithologist doing arboviral research (West Nile/Eastern Equine Encephalitis) with a bunch of mosquito biologists. I also do some goose work. And plot mosquito populations for the state of New Jersey. And teach grad stats.
Annnnnnd, because Rutgers University believes that 40 hours constitutes a day, I also am the lan admin/web mistress for the entomology department. On the whole, I prefer to catch birds.
Haven’t seen this one yet … I’m the plant manager in an ice cream factory.
I’m a full time student, and a Women’s Artistic Gymnastics coach. I will be very (pleasantly) surprised if anyone else here is (or was) a gym coach.
I love my job! I get to work with the talented girls at my club, and it’s so rewarding. Damn having to get a “real” job when I graduate! (Although I make more p/h than my first-year-graduate brother, so hmm…)
Yuummm. Do you love ice cream or are you totally sick of it by now?
I’m a motorcycle technician. BMW, Triumph and vintage British bikes mostly.
It’s all unclviny’s fault.
Do we not have the best patients in the whole world? Most of mine are home PD patients, and I do way more desk work than I like to; I wish everyone could know just what it is these people go through on a day to day basis just to stay alive. It’s amazing how low awareness is for kidney disease.
Is your company hiring?
Emergency Travel Counellor here.
The job description is troubleshooting problems for people stranded anywhere in the world.
The reality is eight months per year working overnights and reading SDMB between infrequent calls, and four months (November to February, thank you lack of daylight) working Friday to Monday, which will give me two days per week to read threads here.
As you can probably tell from prior infrequent posts, spelling is not a job requirement.
Another librarian checking in.
I’m a reference librarian at a small public library (15,100 town pop.). Cheers to you, Lsura; I’ll have my MLS in December.
Thinking about transitioning to the academic World of Reference, myself, but we’ll see what happens.
If it weren’t for the crappy pay, librarianship would be the very best job in the world. Just hope I remember that when I’m living on cat food in my old age.
Mrs. Furthur
I sell enterprise-type software to the education marketplace (K-12).
It can be brain-numbingly tedious dealing with the entrenched bureaucracy, but it is quite rewarding financially and summers are great!
Director of Process Development. Atomic Force Microscopist. Metrology and R&D for a large optical disc (DVD and CD) manufacturer. Retired Military Musician.
Never a dull day…
I work in the Audiovisual department at the RAND Corporation.
And because I live in L.A. it’s mandatory that I call myself a screenwriter.