Wastewater-based epidemiology. Basically we track infectious diseases in wastewater, and the results guide public health decisions.

Engineer (p.s. don't become an engineer, it's not as great as they sold it to us)

I'm a Stonemason, and I work in conservation.

OP clearly just wanted an excuse to show off their vast collection of response images....

Farmer!

When people work with hazardous materials, they hire me to make sure they do it safely or legally. I mostly work in waste handling, soil remediations and laboratories.

It's pretty fun and interesting, but it's been very bad for my enjoyment of homegrown food, swimming outdoors or going downwind of any industrial sites.

Branch manager at a 3 trade business (HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical). Very much enjoy beating the competition and taking all of their great talent because they can’t treat them well. It’s not hard to actually give a damn about your people. Turns out, if you do that they like working for you and end up performing even more.

Welder. I make the sparky sparky hot and sticky with the metals.

I do cosplay erotica for a living. I make awesome costumes, I take them off, and just post to Patreon. I suppose it's kindof retail, as I'm giving the photos to people, as a reward for subscribing, but I set my own schedule and choose what goes out. The freedom is incredible

Trusts and estates for high net worth clients.

Lawyer. Wouldn’t really recommend.

I run a business repairing consumer-grade 3D printers.

Nice try feds

I used to work at a place that made envelopes and printed forms.

Fascinating seeing 12 foot tall stacks of rolls of paper.

I'm a therapist, and I train other therapists. And I supervise some therapists and I train other therapists to supervise other therapists. And I manage a team of therapists who train other therapists and who train other therapists to supervise other therapists.

Kind "in it" at this stage.

Tower climbing grease monkey. Aka wind turbine technician.

Part plumber, part electrician, part IT, part jiffy lube, all crazy!

Im an electrician, it's pretty sweet if you ask me. Not necessarily the job itself, but the money you can earn doing side-jobs

I'm a storyboard artist/3d generalist. Basically I draw all day, everyday for short films and TV shows. I find it pretty awesome because A) I love to draw and now I get paid to do it which is, from what I understand, very uncommon for artists. B) I'm helping shape a story from basically beginning to end. C) I also get to do silly voices sometimes when they need someone to fill in.

But, a big downside is that I'm sitting and staring at a screen around 6 to 7 hours a day which destroyed my eyes and I get leg strain sometimes from sitting. I want to get a stand up desk eventually.

I used to be a Janitor, and now I'm a web designer. I still go to trash businesses and make them all pretty.

Audio engineer and composer. I do music for a lot of little indie games and short films, etc. and then I also mix music, and edit audio for corporate earnings calls.

I coordinate an academic makerspace at a college.

After a long and lucrative IT career I got a certificate in Ecological Restoration. I now do land stewardship, monitoring and maintaining habitats. Literally outstanding in my field, or marsh, or scrubland...

I put $1000 in bitcoin in 2012

Then i wake up from my dream and calibrate temperature sensors on medical refrigerators

Teach at a university

I fight with landlords.

I did work in IT, but now I'm retired young. I could go back to work and make double my income, but I just don't wanna. I'd rather have less income with a stable, comfortable life and the freedom to do whatever I want every day, than spend all day stuck in a job just to have no free time to enjoy the extra money I'd be bringing home.

Health care. The things I've seen!

I'm glad to see there's a few of us in the 5 figure salary club here!

I'm scientific support for a major pharma company. I tell people my job is essentially to be Hank Hill, as I'm in charge of compressed and liquid gases. I keep everyone squared away with liquid nitrogen, liquid helium, liquid argon, and any number and size of gas cylinder.

It's not a bad job. Pay is ok for what I do, people are generally nice, and most days I'm done the bulk of my work in 2-3 hours, so the rest of the time is mine unless someone needs something.

The rest of the day I'll prep and respond to posts here, study music, read comics or books, and watch cartoons. Nobody seems to care as long as the work gets done.

It's low stress and a decent environment, so I got no complaints. It's not as good as my last job, doing data analysis of hazardous chemicals. The place was generally run really well and almost all my work was doing daily reports on inventory. I made macros to do everything, so my work was done in less than half an hour most days and I got to work at home.

Being a nobody in pharma is pretty great as long as your group is cool.

Librarian at a PreK-5 school (3-11 years old). I teach 45 minute classes to everyone each week. 700 kids, 32 classes. Less stress than classroom teaching while still following the same schedule.

I'm a museum curator based in Europe (very different from the Americas). It's a wonderful job of travel, being close to history and bringing some goodness into the world, if you don't mind the salary of working for a charity.

I'm in IT, but one of my lifelong friends is a radio tower climber. He drives up to the mountains, climbs these 500' radio towers, and repairs them. Another close friend is an audio engineer. Another close friend owns a taxi company in a small tourist town. Another friend is a building maintenance manager. Another friend is a regional bank manager. There are millions of jobs out there. Lemmy just attracts a specific kind of person.

I'm an artist in animation ✏️

I’m a water engineer!

Sourcing, recycling, and transporting

Insurance claims investigation. In-house PI, essentially

Prosthetist. I work with patients to make and fit artificial limbs to them.

I work with school kids who have disabilities.

Sound and communications technician. I put cables in the walls, floors or ceilings for structured cabling projects.

Not glamorous work but, I get to be in large buildings and, most of the time I work in climate controlled occupied space.

Environmental engineer. I clean up chemical messes like oil spills, and make sure that the resulting land is safe enough for people to live on it.

It's fun and challenging, if somewhat depressing at times. Some things take a LONG time to clean up. On the plus side, I have great job security.

How many years did you prepare the image collection before asking this question, OP?

I work in IT, by the way. (Don't use Arch though, Tumbleweed crew represent!)

Musician / music teacher.

It's pretty cool

I teach middle school

I work as a theatre tech (light and sound) at a college(theatre arts department). I do however use Linux and made some scripts in Python to control my ligtdesk and sound table. So a bit of IT related work. But also talk with students about the creative part of lights, sound and projection and how they can use it during and after there study in there shows.

I also do some shows for them in the small Theatre in the college and outside the college.

And give them a workshop teaching them the basics and how they can tell to a tech what they want and how they can do somethings themselves.

I'm a linehaul driver, pic from my first day at this job. I pull a set of double-trailers back and forth between two company terminals overnight. Same route each time, home every day. Pretty chill and easy work, I just listen to audiobooks and podcasts all night as I try not to slap anyone with my back trailer. any recommendations for something new to listen to I'd love to hear it

Snack food manufacturing, running machines that put snacks into bags and then those bags into boxes.

Software engineer, aka glorified code-monkey. Ook!

You might say that my job fits under the umbrella of IT, but no, it's totally a different thing! ;)

Machine maintenance / Macgyver. We make air filters and I have to make sure the machines that make them are running.

I also do any other random jobs. Currently I'm creating a simple webpage to submit machine issues that get sent to a Google sheet and an email sent out.

I also machine metal replacement parts. Of course I make any personal projects I want to as well.

I'm a rope access industrial radiographer.
Edit: colloquially known as a "bomber"

Bridge Inspector for state DOT/DOH.

Construction electrician

Whilst I am doing a CS degree now, for the last 9 years I was a 5 axis CNC machinist for stone products. I still do It part time as they haven't found a replacement yet (after a year lmao).

Mathematics Lecturer (just teaching foundation mind).

It's far more fun than people think, but with next to no real holidays (summer is actually quite busy). Also it sucked being on temporary contract, because you had no idea if you'd have work in 12 months no matter how good you were.

I drive a tugboat and transport clean oil on the East and Gulf Coasts.

Production of commercial robots. Though, I just lost my job and the job I was going to pulled out last minute, so next week, I won’t be working on anything.

Electronics RF Engineer, working with legal compliance. Loads of calculations, measurements, and paperwork. Occasionally, I'll get to test something with cool expensive equipment.

Soon to be qualified plumber, maybe a month to go or so.

I'm a wedding photographer. My dad was a wedding dj and I grew up around the wedding industry. I went to school for art and photography was my focus. Wedding photographer just made sense. I love what I do and I can't imagine anything else.

Manufacturing. Can't sell shit if you don't make it first.

Embedded Software Engineer. Like the software that would run on a coffee maker, medical equipment, bulldozer, etc.

State government paper pusher

Power ranger (erectrician)

I'm an endlessly adjuncting philosophy professor. Going back to law school in the fall at age 38.

Electrical Designer - HVAC switchboards & systems primarily

blerp

I'm a professional Bastard

I work 400 hours a month in order to feed people that think I'm trying to kill them.

Correspondence delivery profesional

(postal worker)

Conference & Event Services for a local college.

(I didn't know what that meant until I started here, but essentially, we are the campus party planners)

Drive people to the hospital.

I do customer service for a shipping company. Alot of my calls are just people complaining about how much this company sucks ( they are not wrong ) but work from home and put very little effort in my job and spend a lot of time gaming at work . I also have a morning job delivering news papers and amazon packages which I actually kind of like but does not have full time opportunities.

Statistician.

But the Simpsons lied to me. I have not been offered the opportunity to go to space.

Engineering

Quality Director for a multinational manufacturing company

Intermediate CS teacher

Grumpy sound guy.

Law

I'm a case manager for a local org that supports people with intellectual disability. I like my job, I set my own hours, and even if there was no profit motive it would still need to be done. My only complaint is where I brush up against the capitalistic intersection, so the county is our funder and they really pinch every penny compared to, say the sheriffs' office.

Currently as intern at a municipality as financial advisor. Hoping to get a job from within the municipality.

I work at a shipyard servicing and rebuilding engines.

Construction carpenter. I do a majority of the tasks for building most structures. From rough structure to final touches I do a lot.

I helped design large-ish electrical grids. 30-100k cables

Without the actual calculation bits, unfortunately.

Not very interesting. Bad software. Management didn't really care about the problem. I was there so the problem was "managed" from their point of view.

Manufacturing

Does consulting for energy utilities helping them improve their mapping systems (GIS) count as IT? I do manage cloud infrastructure but also assist with all the various pieces and parts that go into digital maps and integrations.

helping professional. i won't be more specific here.

I’m an engineer in a manufacturing environment

Healthcare

I was/am a compositor/vfx artist for film and tv, but the industry has imploded over the last year so it's been a few months.

Emergency humanitarian response program planning/monitoring/evaluation with a UN agency.

Quality manager in a plastic extrusion manufacturing facility.

My primary job is IT, but I am starting a farm and worked on one as a teenager.

I teach kids how to do physics, and how to write about doing physics.

Solar installer, I put solar panels on things and get them working. Recently my company got a reputation for competence with floating solar arrays so we've been traveling to build and fix them all over the country. Electricity and water is a fun combo.

I sell gold and silver over the phone.

I'm a product development engineer in the biomedical industry. Although from what I read it seems I should have taken a few extra courses in school and gone into software engineering. However I do still enjoy my work (not more than not having to work, but still.)

I'm a psychiatric RN out in the community. I work with people who have thought disorders like schizophrenia at their homes or under the bridges.

I work as a car photographer in a dealership. We sell cars online so whenever we get a new car or someone trades in their car I take pictures of all the features the car has. However when there's few cars for me to photo I'm also responsible for checking what cars are dirty. My only complaint is that I don't really care about Toyotas and I work for a Toyota dealership

Quality control chemist testing pharmaceuticals. Most of what we do is for clinical trial use and research purposes. It's been a good job.

UPS delivery

Realtor and brand and marketing consultant for our brokerage. Not the astronaut or veterinarian I pictured myself as a kid. But still, I’m happy :)

Maintenance, transitioning into automation tech.

Video game qa

Watch the mentally disabled. Most of the time they just need a friend so I get paid to hangout with em. Just gotta make sure they get their meds and food on time. Hell a few weeks ago I got paid to go to a baseball game cause he wanted to go.

I manage a service engineering team for semiconductor equipment.

Healthcare. I'm the senior Pharmacy Tech for our little independent psych pharmacy.

Before joining healthcare, I worked both food service, and have my degree in Computer Science. I try to keep my passion of food alive in my home kitchen, and mix CS into my job responsibilities, and hobbies.

Drink service

Transportation engineer (in training) working for an engineering consulting firm! Primarily helping design active transportation infrastructure and road reconstructions.

I approve people applying for disability benefits.

Acquisitions manager for a library

Commercial wide format print shop owner

Mechanical engineer in the space industry

Budget analyst

Quality tech in manufacturing

Behavioral healthcare

HSE consultant: I teach people how not to be in the next Darwin Awards

I'm a truck driver, well nowadays more in the office than behind the wheel but I do still pull loads here and there.

CNC machining. It's manufacturing; I work with titanium, inconel, and on occasion steel.

I don't really have a title, but I work in a factory.

Go to college kids. Fuck the expense, you still get many more opportunities that a factory scumbag like myself does not. If you don't know what you want or what you're capable of, who cares. Go anyway for anything and you'll meet people who you can network with and you'll be exposed to classes and topics you might not ever have considered. I'm the only scumbag failure in my friend group who didn't go to college and I'm the only loser working in a literal sweat shop while they all work from home with very nice salaries and wives/husbands they met at college. I'm still single.

Go to college.

Safety adviser currently in airport safety

I'm a hydraulic fitter. I repair and maintain hydraulic systems, primarily on earthmoving equipment.

Clinical research, one little dent in our knowledge of medicine at a time.

I'm a real engineer.

High school teacher (Latin)

Nonprofit

For the US:

https://www.bls.gov/...

Category Buyer for a large manufacturing company.

Physician associate in mental health

Not unusual but accountant in a private company. Accounting, like IT, is great because you can work at just about any company. Though to be fair I do some IT like most accountants, there is overlap since so much of the systems work is accounting systems, I'm sure the IT guys feel they are doing some accounting.

Does it count if i used to work in IT?

I still work in IT but I used to too.

In my youth I worked at a 24 hour gas station/restaurant for 2 weeks. It was robbed twice (not while i was there) and someone hit and ran and smashed up my car all in 2 weeks. But i did get unlimited coffee, pop and donuts (after 6pm) so overall I'd give it a 3/5.

I’m in IT now, but before that, I worked in construction. I operated tunnel boring machines that dug tunnels for underground metros. It was super interesting work, and I’m glad I did it, but it was incredibly tough.

Engineering at national lab

Before I worked IT, I was a job coach. I helped individuals with disabilities perform their jobs and teach them skills and all that. It was pretty cool because they sent me to all kinds of different places. I did work in a hydroponics non-profit, a senior center, a DMV, a bank, and some other places. It was pretty cool and most of the individuals I worked with were really nice and cool.

Honey dipper, lighthouse keeper, lamp lighter, encyclopedia deliveries, phrenologist, and whaler.

Screenprinting. I also did work as a quality tech for machining. Manufacturing jobs in general do not seem to get any public recognition even though they can be some of the most engaging and can cater to a lot of people that don’t enjoy the employee-customer relationship.

That being said, finding the sweet spot for management can be a challenge.

It’s a career path that’s practically ignored in schools and I wish math classes used more examples from engineering and manufacturing to answer the age-old “Where am I ever going to use this?” question.

Engineering.

garden and landscape building

I'm a die Cutter operator. I take printed sheets and turn them into boxes for food.

Physician Assistant in a Radiology dept.

I work in electrical power delivery for municipal transportation, supervision-level. Before that, I was a shoreside engineer (basically a mechanic, not an engineering degree) in marine services. My work has always come very organically, often starting in floor-sweeping assistant positions.

Key Account Management

I work in individual support under the NDIS in Australia. The NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) is a system that disabled people can access to fund various needs not covered by our medical system. I help one client who has had a stroke with eating and massage, another client with woodworking and metalworking, another with cleaning and organising their house, and really anything else they need.

It is really flexible and allows us to meet their needs, not what someone else thinks their needs must be.

Construction Superintendent. But did IT work when I was younger haha.

I'm an industrial alpinist

Plumber & Home improvement contractor

I recently started my own business and now I do variety of jobs related to home maintenance except electrical. If this'll pay enough to keep me and my SO fed then based on my experience so far it was the best decision of my life. It doesn't really even feel like work and 98% of customer encounters have been positive. I've gotten 5x more thank yous in 2 months than I got in 10 years at my previous job. We've all had bad experiences with shitty contractors. I truly try to not be one of them.

Scientist

Commercial Real Estate Lending - Portfolio Management. I monitor loans for losses and collect periodic financial statements. I hate it. I used to do business loan underwriting and trying to get back into that. Had a dream job lined up but ended up failing the background check because of a bankruptcy 6 years ago.

My primary job is IT.

But I am also a fully licensed pyrotechnic operator in California and put on large public displays throughout southern California. I also help with safety seminars showcasing special effects used in the film industry to local fire authorities so they are familiar if a production films somewhere under their jurisdiction.

I'm an attorney for a local government.

I am an accountant and prepare financial reports.

Student Service for one of college, accommodating for student(s) with disabilities.

Machine operator. I run some CNC machines that are paired up with robots to handle the loading and unloading of the CNC's.

If and when industrial robots are hooked up to cameras and computers that can problem solve, my current job will be gone or very boring.

BDE

Clinical Mental Health Counseling, in-patient setting

Lumberjack (tree care professional)

Licensed US Customs Broker, I help my clients navigate getting their goods imported through US Customs.

Just by the numbers I would assume quite a few Lemmings work in utilities companies and healthcare.

For me it's healthcare. I am an EEG tech and sleep tech.

I work for a very large organization that deals in supporting nonprofit organizations (mainly) in part of a training team. My specific role is administrative support and curriculum development, as well as coordinating overall operations and logistics for one specific team.

Consulting in healthcare/public health/public safety

Public accountant/auditor

My "job" (I put it in quotes because it's more like a gig that's paid) is experimental and doesn't have a direct name, but I often shorten the explanation as working with media/reporting/archiving/charity.

I'm a software developer. I work in automotive and do a bit of everything from embedded programming to cloud based software.

Customer Service Rep is my title

CSR/AR/AP/Billing/IT is a lot closer to my actual workload

Before that I worked in the yard doing propane repair, and my name starts with Ha- so if I ever make Assistant Manager, well, I'll truly have become my childhood hero by complete fuckin accident.

Oh, I also used to be the guy responsible for keeping the people living up in the hills near Redding, CA with power after the fires 2 years ago. During the 6 rivers lightning complex fire in 2022 I was within a few hundred feet of the fire break crews while I was 4x4ing up mountainsides to keep generators full of fuel.

Law enforcement, digital forensics. Not in the US.

I got my education in software engineering but have really enjoyed working a fairly unique logistical role in healthcare. I'm not particularly people-facing; I WFH; I work part-time; I get good benefits. The work-life balance has been just too good when it comes to raising kids.

Wage slave till the say I die, till I touch the sky.

Telecoms project engineer.

I supervise and co-ordinate the roll out of FTTH networks.

I'm on a 3-person marketing team for a local company. It's almost all content creation (designing internal docs, benefits and employee handbooks, on-location signs, promotional items, videos, engaging social media content) and the higher-ups are willing to let us try silly garbage if it's clever & engaging.

We also spend a lot of time crafting accessible communication (how-tos, breakdowns of charities we support and how, what events we have coming up) to make it easier for our employees as well as retail and industry customers & partners to figure us out and get the most out of what we have to offer.

I always thought marketing meant trying to sell people stuff they don't need, but it's mostly just us trying to make sure the people who are interested can hear us through the din on the chance we can help.

Product Design, I work on the visual and user experience over the lifecycle of (currently) medical software.

Shipping/Receiving at a custom print shop

I'm a Substation Designer. I work closely with electrical and mechanical engineers to design the layouts for electricity sites that transfer high-voltage electricity to low-voltage, and low-voltage to high-voltage. You drive by a few of these sites every day most likely, as they're a massive part of our electrical grid.

I stumbled into this job by accident, and I'm really glad I did, because I love it. :)

Public transport, manufacturing and service/maintenance.

I work in garage door repair/replacement.

Scanner monkey, working in the immigrant mines.

I work in analytics. I usually enjoy the work. It's fun showing people insightful things, but it can be a drag when folks don't listen.

Doctor

Telecommunications. Administration for a company that constructs fiber networks.

Research Analyst for businesses.

I guess DevOps or whatever the eff DevSecOps is

I’m the guy who helps our coders figure out how to build their stuff, our testers figure out how to automate their stuff, and help them follow good app security practices. Somehow im the expert in Java when they can’t figure it out, the expert in JavaScript, the expert in python, etc, based mostly on my Google skills. Luckily we hired someone else for Kubernetes because I just don’t have time to stay ahead of them. Today someone tried asking for help with Ruby and I had to draw the line

My manager tried to stick me on Windows when I started, but it’s really not supported for Engineering. Our products are all on variations of Red Hat and Amazon Linux, all our technical staff has Mac laptops, and management uses Windows for their presentations and stuff