OTT: What's your day job? (10-7-2025)

[Adam]

Off-Topic Tuesday 10/7/25 - What’s your day job?

We’re all car folks on nights and weekends but what keeps the lights on Monday through Friday?

Tell us what you do for a living and whether or not the skills involved transfer to wrenching in the garage.

Pics are welcome but not required.

 

[Desert Sasqwatch]

Been working aerospace engineering since 1996 - field technical support, manufacturing & operations, quality, mission assurance , but it's the 15+ years prior to engineering that can translate into the knowledge needed for a Goblin - test technician, mechanic, go-fer. It's been a long, strange trip but it ain't over yet! Still have lots of adventures and challenges left before hanging up the spurs. Oh, and a Goblin to get built someday!

 

[Rttoys]

Auto tech. Was at the Chevy dealer for 6ish years, then a private fleet mechanic for 24+ years. My previous employer decided to eliminate my division, so I’m looking for whatever I want to do next.

 

[Markm]

Worked 24 years in Chevrolet service and currently work on whatever I want for the past almost six years

 

[Blizzard25]

Also a car person to keep the lights on Monday through Friday, I do lots of reverse engineering and software engineering for HP Tuners.

 

[jirwin]

Also a car person to keep the lights on Monday through Friday, I do lots of reverse engineering and software engineering for HP Tuners.

I'm a software dev too (mostly web backend and Linux server stuff). Would love to hear more about what you do. Sounds like a good blend of my hobbies haha

 

[Captain Dave]

I am a charter boat fishing captain in the Florida Keys. I guess the maintenance of the boat has some similarities to wrenching in the garage but realistically the skills in the garage help me work on the boat more than boat skills transfer to the garage.

 

[Vwsaabvt]

Left my 11 year county job as a police fleet mechanic almost two years ago to work as a chemical operator making ammonia. Never imagined I would leave my county job but the opportunity at my new job was too good to pass up.

My former job maintaining and building police cars definitely made it easy to build my Goblin. Minus doing all the wiring harness work in my living room, most of it was done at my work garage after work.

I thought when I left my previous job that I would want to still work on cars, but I really don't miss doing it everyday. Since I have left there have been a few oil changes, and two brake jobs done in my barn. I started tearing apart my Goblin for a turbo swap, bought a lift, and have left everything sitting for a few months now, and I am not in any hurry to install the lift or turbo.

 

[LaunchPad]

I am retired USAF prior enlisted, then officer. (1991-2016); I have a degree in mechanical engineering, and 90% complete master degrees in civil engineering, electrical engineering, homeland security, and military operations. The military would fund any ONE masters up to completion and they moved us about every 2 years- so long as a masters wasn't completed my education was highly subsidized and the relocations usually also forced some changes in fields. I have no desire to go back to school for completion of these (miserable) degrees and even less desire to find "regular" employment where some other entity determines what tasks I perform with my limited time left on this earth.

I "work" out of my shop which is located on my acreage far out in the boondocks of Nebraska about 150 feet from my house (my wife calls it play and assumes that I have infinite free time for various things other than the things I call "work"). When "working" I turn out extremely low production hand built cars. I can't really say I make a "living" doing it because the military pension really pays the bills and beyond that I roll every penny I come across back into the shop or one of the various "cars" . . but it allows me to keep one each of my prototypes and occasionally do something like a Goblin just for my own personal toy- and still call that a vocation. My collection has progressed to being overly problematic for inside storage. I am trying to convince the wife the shop needs a 24x60 addition with 6 lifts just to STORE them. I rarely leave the acreage since the commute is a short walk so ironically these cars don't get driven too much- that is good because not all of them run. . currently. lol. Maybe I can someday say I curate a museum?

I find myself fairly content and happier than any time I can remember. God has blessed me much in the last few years that I can call what I do "work". I also get to meet some of the best folks like through the Goblin build and some of the shows I attend with one of my (running) projects.

 

[Traé]

My career has been in HVAC and Mechanical Engineering.

I joined a sheet metal union local to me when I graduated highschool. I worked in a sheet metal fabrication shop for a bit but made my way into the field welding in mostly lab, pharmaceutical, and healthcare applications.

moved to a testing, adjusting, and balancing role setting up, verifying, and assisting with commissioning of HVAC and plumbing systems.

My most recent company is an Architect/Engineering firm as a Mechanical Engineering Specialist, fancy title for commissioning agent. Strictly verifying MEP installs for the owner and testing all aspects of them. I assist with a bit of design but am not licensed at the moment.

I’d say being mechanically inclined, having an attention to detail, and actually enjoying researching topics helped in the build.

 

[Jareth]

Sr. Manager Engineering CAD & Tech Support (SolidWorks, PTC Creo, Windchill PDMLink)

 

[ah.b.normal]

Gaad! I'll just say Sales/Retired.




iiDANGER!!
Long Story Below:
I'll just hit the high points, out of H/S(1980) I was a bicycle Mech/sales/college student. I ran a couple of shops(in there first wife, got her degree, she then dropped me like a rock) but ten years in(1990) and at breaking point; it was open a shop or move on.
I got married and left the bikes for part time auto grease monkey for an Exporter that was the East Coast Importer for DeTomaso and other brands, tinkered in that a few years. 92, #1 child born(M). I was trying to open a restoration shop; cancel that. My wife had the degree from GT and now 6 years into her career at The Coca-Cola Co. Finance div/computer stuff and I was about 2 years into an Eng degree on the 12 year plan at that point. Much more advancement in her field! We planted second offspring.(F)
90's, uneventful, added to the squad again in 96(M) while she also worked on 1996 Olympics with the Co. I kept a small fleet going and renovated kitchen, my Novas became just transportation. But no car payments!
Late 90's She was tapped to work on the Co.'s SAP implementation, which they nailed! Then she and her cohorts slayed the Y2K dragon. 1999 Coke sent us to Coca-Cola Western Europe in Brussels to implement SAP. Despite uproar of 9/11 we buckled down and she and her cohorts completed the system implementation by summer 03(1 year ahead of schedule. SAP tried to Poach(hire) her but we had been far from family long enough. Home office: Waldorf, Germany?, I'm thinkin' "Nein".)
Back to the ATL for a decade of "Salad Years". I worked at a friend's Hardware store but my focus was our kids. Also worked at an old friend's auto shop/race car shop when he needed me and time allowed. Worked on an Elva with a Renault motor, wierd! ancient Rollers, Jags into the 70's and of course Panteras, Bizzarini's, Alfa's, the Red Allard(the one with the Caddy V8), ancient Americans and a single Longchamps.(look it up) Also, the most beautiful car ever, The Alfa Romeo, Montreal.
FF to 2018 and Momma retired from The Coca-Cola Co, to hawk her SAP project skills on the open market.(KA-CHING!!) Kids finally relaunched so I retired to be her RV driver/Butler(with benefits that a gentleman would never disclose). 2025 she threw in the towel for keeps.
So I am a "Camp Follower", Look up a civil war general who was famous for his camp followers. (A General "H667er"?)

 

[ah.b.normal]

In my bio there is my first wife, yeah; funny that. She left me for the Dry Cleaning King of the SE after she earned a finance degree at GA State.(His first wife is now the DC Queen.) My EX took along my idea of a Junk Yard that charges entry fee(to cover liability laws) and set up to keep the EPA happy. Buy broken cars for steel(pay by the #), pull best stuff like "engine, trans and cats" expecting to break even on purchase, Process fluids out of them(EPA) then place the remains on the yard, crush dead rows after a certain amount of time. Repeat. They founded Pull-A-Part. She only drives Bently convertables since 1990. No hate here, I am pleased to have had a viable biz idea.

 

[Goblinfanclub1234]

Mechanical Engineering. 90% was design and sales of commercial HVAC equipment like air handlers and chillers heat pumps. I also worked for Heat Demon designing heated accessories for motorcycles ATV and other things like that. Recently did a job as a Research Analyst for the department of energy but new admin got rid of us. blew the whistle on some money laundering from the last admin but no one really cared. The non profits operate a lot of racketeering operations funded by our tax dollars.

 

[Robinjo]

Mechanical Engineering. My last job was working for the department of energy managing 100 million in money laundering to fake non profits paying themselves $200/hr to engage in racial discrimination of americans. I was a whistle blower but I don't think anyone will ever go to prison.

Yo..... I'd like to hear more about this.

 

[Chris_WNC]

I’m an old Army SATCOM tech with an electronics degree. I shifted over to body armor design and testing. I’m currently in metal fab and run a fiber laser and CNC press brakes and saws. Everything was helpful when building my Goblin.

 

[Leo Zugner]

BFA in Graphic Design and BS in Industrial design. Designer for various toy companies including Mattel in the Hot Wheels and Matchbox departments. Now work for a design and engineering consultancy designing stuff ranging from carbon fiber fishing nets to dog toys, to pool robots, to valves for NASA. Work skills apply to some fabrication and making one-off stuff for the goblin.

 

[Dale E]

Retired (a few times). Served in USAF (Vietnam era). Televised Christmas show from Berlin - Tempelhof studio (1968). Ready deployed with palatized field hospital to the 1968 Israeli conflict.

Career paths -- music, medical 40 years, foster care transporter, pharmaceutical delivery.
Music helps with NVH, balance, tuning.
Medical helps with a multitude of things in automotive. Kinetics, wiring and fluid diagnostics, balance, tuning.
Foster and pharmaceutical transport equal a lot of windshield time.

 

[Scott #321]

Airport Ground facilities and Fleet manager. Hate winter, title use to be just Airfield superintendent but during covid I was given a new title in lieu of a raise for the same position.

 

[ccgillett]

Long career in computer science, worked on everything from compilers to OS kernels and other system software. Worked in logic simulation helping to design one of the first 64-bit CPUs back in the day. Led technology for several startups from 2001-17 and got a few successful exits. These days hanging out in a large enterprise as a manager and spending free time on LLMs and Agentic AI as I build a 1-man (and lots of bots) startup.

Software development is almost entirely abstract thinking, and structures in software do not necessarily map well to real-world structures. That said, computer science, algorithm design, and writing code encourages intellectual curiosity. Debugging broken systems helps to foster tenacity and stubbornness. Creating good software requires organizational skills and ability to follow detailed instructions (API specs and such). Those attributes translate well into working in the garage, where for a guy like me everything is new and needs to be understood. Building this car, as well as my other car projects, has given me enormous respect for guys in the trades, fabricators, etc. as well as those who do mechanical engineering and design.