Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire How has your work changed through the years

This hasn't changed my work, (landscaping contractor), it's shifted it to a different direction




These are great tools for cutting pipe in trenches

We cut with a hand saw or a hack saw at one time. They haven’t figured out a way to do away with muddy ditches yet.

Water heaters and boiler controls are mostly electronic now. Very few standing pilots except in residential heaters.

When I took over my position in 2007, it was a simple test & repair proposition. Because of a new generation of products launched a couple of years later, it has evolved into a full blown product support function complete with everything from document management, customer support, parts management, rudimentary IT functions, database maintenance, test equipment maintenance, and other functions, plus I've taken on a lot of training responsibilities. Things just keep getting more interesting to the point that I'm considering delaying retirement a couple or three more years. I'm getting weary, but I must say that I really do like my job.

We cut with a hand saw or a hack saw at one time. They haven’t figured out a way to do away with muddy ditches yet.

Water heaters and boiler controls are mostly electronic now. Very few standing pilots except in residential heaters.
.

The young boys where I work have no clue how to make a lead joint. They know how to use snap cutters to cut cast iron. There is a couple that don’t know to use the big die head to thread 2 1/2 to 4”” steel or the 6 to 8” die. I have no idea how to install pex pipe.

I got my Master Electrical License when I was in my twenties. Source of pride because they weren't required in 117 of 120 counties in KY back than. Kept them up and continued education for thirty years. I made a living calibrating and maintaining GE current , voltage, watt and synchronizing relays in power plants for last twenty years. Now most of these relays have been replaced with programmable microprocessors and engineers with laptops do most of the programming. Nobody I work with even worries about keeping their license up anymore or knows what the logic they just downloaded even really does in effect to relay logic anymore.Power plants are ran on a need to repair only in case of shutdown status because of the winds of change constantly changing directions these days.

My staff used to take orders from customers while I was out selling. Now I have far fewer staff members, people don’t come to us anymore, and I have to train my people to be inside sales people to take full advantage of the interactions we do get with our customers.

I’m more of a sales manager than a sales rep. Not my thing I’d love to have no one reporting to me except an administrative assistant.

The times they are a changin...

Through no one's fault but my own, I didn't keep up with tech in heavy equipment repair. But since I'm too old to give an honest days work in the field anymore, I guess the timing was about right. Some things don't change though, worn out moving parts, hydraulics, power train. I used to resent the phone calls of folks looking for free advice and tips on how to keep their old obsolete iron running. Now, I secretly enjoy getting a call from an old customer, or a referred call. Since they don't give out medals in my trade, I am well satisfied with a good reputation.

My space has changes significantly. Back in the day analysis could be done with paper and pencil. Then it was excel. Now it's SSIS, SQL, Tableau, Python R etc. My work laptop probably has 10k worth of software licenses that have to be renewed each year.

When I got started in Special Inspection in Commyfornia we made more than the Engineers and we had to basically teach them how things worked in the real world
30 years latter I get paid a $1 less than the unskilled Laborer pushing a broom on most jobs that I go on.
This is due to the Engineers being butt hurt for being taught their jobs from people that grew up in the trades when they came out of a book.
And the Fact that the majority of inspectors are coming from the book to the real world and do not know anything them selves.
They call it Fake it till ya make it.
The New comers will work for penny's until they move on to another job. They use it as a stepping stone job.

I sure hope I am out of Commyfornia before the next big Earth Quake in the big city's hits because it is not going to be a very nice place when Shhitt hits the fan here and things start collapsing everywhere and people are killed.

It seems like my job changes drastically every year.

Every year?

I thought it was every time the weather changes?

Me, I retired a coupla years back, so my job is to keep my wife and dogs happy.......................




and keep an eye on this place.

Geno

I retired in 2013 but saw some real advances in technology and also some hard headed ideas get pushed aside. There were open cabs and riding on tailboards on old brush rigs. Air conditioned cabs and automatic transmissions. I took my engineers exam in a double clutchin', mutha fuggin Pierce Arrow open cab. Our paramedic rigs got air conditioning in 1997, I became a PM in 1984. There were chiefs that thought AC would distract PM's and didn't want to order them with AC. SCBAs became lighter and more efficient. We learned a lot more about the science of fire behavior. After 911 we got into mass casualty incident control including mass decontamination and all the terrorism crap. We were issued body armor.
For better or not, our wages climbed substantially. Where this was a negative is that we would all get together and build walls or patios or paint a house or help do a valve job or clutch job. The better wages moved people into the ability to pay someone else to do it. It kind of diminished the team concept. This kind of tied in to the PC culture that got to us. Our dorms went from gladiator style barracks to private cubicles. People would put a TV in and then go hide in the evenings. I had to take a class in dealing with Gen X, I felt that they should keep their heads down and their pie holes shut while they were on probation and thank God out loud everyday for the the job they were fortunate to have. Some bitch from HR gave the class on sexual harassment and said if accused we would be going down. Everything became racial. You couldn't even fart out loud at the end. I never dealt with HR for almost 30 years. In the end I was in the "principles office" 3 times and retired as a subject of investigation. It was sad to contrast my early career enthusiasm with how bad I wanted out at the end.

From being a machinist to an engineer to a scientist. Blue prints, to CAD drawings, to solid bodies. From conventional machines to DNC machining centers. From working to sitting on my butt and working. To sitting on my butt working to sitting on my butt getting others to do my work. To being retired and back to doing all the work.

Sounds like a liberal trainwreck.

Started out programming on 80 character punch cards, then moved to on screen typing. Wrote every program by hand, line by line, every dot, comma and semicolon. Had to know a lot of syntax and obscure modifiers.

Now it's mostly drag and drop and fill in the parameter boxes so my syntax skills have atrophied. Although occasionally I still get to do a little old fashioned coding, those are the fun days.

I started in 1975 with a gas company. I designed distribution systems for new subdivisions, designed large industrial and commercial metering facilities. Designed regulator stations, etc. All using formulas for gas flow and capacity. I figured the bill of material down to the nuts and bolts. I also did the cost estimates for these jobs. I also bid the jobs, and worked with the winning contractor to get the projects done. I also inspected said projects. All using drafting pencils and drafting tools and a calculator. Then in the 1990's I had to learn AutoCAD as we began drawing everything with the computer. Cost estimates, and bids were done on the computer.

I stuck my head under water and there were sharks everywhere. Then I bought a speargun.

Kind of the way it went with flying and ATC. Telling pilots where to go is fun.

In my industry, much like the federal and state governments, we have made great use of technology to reduce our administrative overhead costs and to run the business more effectively. So even though margins are lower, our sales are much higher and we're making a living still.

Well, technically I suppose you do, but the problem is that it's usually spent before you get it.

I'll be 70 in four months. Still working. Will probably work until I keel over, unless something happens to my wife. Construction estimating. The industry has changed to the point that medium and large general contractors are really brokers. Subs do all the hands on work. Electronic plans, electronic take-off programs, electronically submitted bids have all increased the amount of work one person can do. Keep up or go away.

In reading the posts about crop farming and cattle farming, we couldn't feed this country without the technology to process the food. Most people don't understand that. Or even know that. You look at a chicken processing plant where the line processes 1000 chickens an hour. Look a the the cattle processing automation. That is how Wally World sells a loaf of bread for 88 cents.