What's the best job you ever had, and why?

[strantor]

Unless the pay was so outrageously high that it alone was enough to greet each morning with a smile, I'm not asking what's the highest paying job you ever had. I'm asking what job you woke up looking forward to going to (or at least didn't dread going to) more than any other. And why was it the best?

 

[lordbeezer]

Army 4 years. That wasn’t going to be it. Service tech 20 years at ford dealers up and down the east coast. Last 7 parts and service director. Made good money and had a ball. Got the wild hair up my a:: went to police academy. Worked long hours for lower pay. Helped people when I could. Locked up the ones that needed it. Made assistant chief. After many years. Didn’t like desk duty. Back to patrol. Loved going to work. So my favorite. Had to retire when had stage 4 cancer after 20.

 

[twhite]

That is easy. It was from the time I was 14 to 18. I washed Post Office trucks every Sunday morning. Started at 3:00 am and finished up by 8:00am. We then went to Breakfast. Made decent cash. Especially for a kid in High School. I live in SOCAL so only a couple of cold months. 30s. I know that is not cold.

I did it with a few of my friends. I have not thought about this for 30 plus years.


Cutting oil is my blood.

 

[benmychree]

I think that would have to be when I opened my own machine shop in 1973, I did look forward to going to work (most of the time), I also enjoyed my monthly trips to Heinz Machinery in Berkley, bought a good number of machines from them and nice lunches nearby. I got an equal amount of pleasure when I sold out and retired!

 

[Cadillac]

I’ll update you when I find one.

 

[Ulma Doctor]

I worked at a Equipment Rental Yard for a couple years after i got back from diesel school in my early 20's
the pay sucked, the owners were jerks, but the other mechanic and i had a blast fixing fubar stuff everyday.
the owners were coin counters and had zero knowledge of equipment or how to keep them running
they had a well equipped shop, and no shortage of broken things to keep me interested.
i worked on everything you might be able to imagine in a rental yard.
everything form log splitters, to air compressors, to dump trucks to construction equipment, from welders to backhoes
2 stroke engines, 4 stroke engines , hydraulics, pneumatics, welding, electric motors, and on and on
it was fun to take really fubar stuff and breathe new life into it.

the owners sold out to a new company.
the owners had a meeting with the crew to inform us that in 2 weeks we were going to get new management.
the employee hours were going from 8 to 6 hours a day- but 6 days a week instead - mandatory.
we were going to take a pay cut to do it by loosing 4 hrs a week and not getting overtime for Saturday work.
enough was enough, i was not willing to accept the BS and quit right in front of everyone as soon as i heard the terms.
i loaded my toolbox, and moved on....
i was looking for a job when i applied to the rental yard, i knew things would be OK

 

[Boswell]

for a few years, I provided phone technical support for high end Server and Storage systems (think what runs Google and Amazon) I was the top dog and got the hardest problems, got flown around the US and many other parts of the world (usually with little or no notice) to fix things that could not be fixed over the phone or to train field techs. Every day I would talk to customers from small business to fortune 500. They would be on their last straw and got to "make their day" by solving their problems. I eventually moved into management which I also liked but not as much as when I was on the phones.

 

[Winegrower]

They were all good, and at one time I was VP Engineering for a robotics company, where we designed custom Automatic Guided Vehicles that ran around factories carrying up to 4000 pound loads, all under computer controlled dispatching and traffic control. Every engineering discipline was needed and generally critical, along with some philosophical and psychological skills. In the evenings, for testing and fun, we’d run the vehicles around the test track, programming them to pick us up and drop at various locations. It was like having a giant train set.

 

[Aaron David]

When the economy crashed in '09, I had been in logistics at pretty much every level from loading trailers to account manager for an international firm. But I had been laid off, and no one in that world was hiring. And so I was unemployed for around a year, until a friend of mine got me a part time job delivering auto parts for an auto electrician that mainly built police and emergency vehicles. I was great working in a shop that was pretty low key, as most of the workers were former car stereo guys, and the actual mechanics were some of the best in Sacramento. I learned about rebuilding starters and alternators, making CableCraft products, and, best of all, I got to drive a lot of cop cars! Which is pretty cool, even for a guy in his 40's.

Nothing like delivering a sheriffs Dodge Charger, fully loaded with everything but the shotgun and laptop, across the Sierras to Wausau Co. You do 90mph, and cops just wave to you.

 

[matthewsx]

Might have been when I was 14, working at Cal Kart in San Jose fixing mini bikes and karts for half the $17/hr service charge.

Or, maybe running my kart company back in the mid 2000's when my driver beat Buddy Rice (Indy 500 champ).

Or, maybe now. I get to run a small department keeping a factory running, and I get to commute on a company vehicle



John