I often get the sense that I’m in the only one here doing manual labor but I’m sure there are others.
Identify yourselves.
I process meat. My hands are rarely dirty but sometimes there seepage through my overalls.
I do occasional vehicle maintenance, like replacing brakes, starters, alternators, water pumps, radiators, etc.
Last one I did the other week was replace an old rotted leaky fuel line. Fun fun…
switch to my feet
I work for an ISP in the southeast USA as a field technician and it’s dirty work sometimes. Fixing rodent damage to fiber connection boxes for businesses, placing temporary cables when underground lines get cut, working in dusty equipment closets, etc.
It’s not bad or hard work most days.
I work as an assembler in a sporting goods store. I assemble bicycles, indoor and outdoor furniture, bbqs, snowblowers, lawnmowers walk behind and rideon), log splitters.
I fulfill various contracts put out for my industry. They pay very well but involve great risk and can be taxing on the soul. I just keep telling myself these were bad guys, and if I didn’t get to them, someone else would’ve eventually. And I draw the line at women and children.
I work in a factory supervising and working in a department of a company that is making accessories for yachts and oddly enough the military. Luxury and military equipment is definitely an odd combination.
I don’t want to be too specific as there aren’t many companies that do this, but some of our orders are 2-4 items, that are a very small part of a yacht and they sell for my whole salary and then some… It’s gross.
Shipwright welder. I crawl all throughout the bowels of Navy and civilian ships with my gear in tow. I build new areas, cut out old areas, and perform repairs on hulls and pipes.
I love welding. One of my favourite things to do in my previous job. I’m highly skilled at oxy-acetylene welding steel pipes in really tight and difficult places but my favourite one was TiG welding stainless steel with automatic and ventilated mask while listening to podcasts. Really meditative just being in your own bubble staring at the bright spot of molten metal.
I’m shit at welding for someone who’s generally handy in just about every other area. If you want two pieces of metal that barely stick together, with wires sticking out all across the seam, then I’m your guy!
Right? I tried my hand at welding a rec tube to a plate to make an oil tank for knife making. I had to use epoxy to keep it water tight.
Do you get covered from head to toe with grease and grime? Does it pay well? I have a friend who’s about ready to wrap up his underwater welding classes, and supposedly he’ll make some big bucks after he graduates.
My boss just had me change two coworkers’ passwords so they wouldn’t be able to log back in.
I keep washing and washing, but the blood won’t come off.
I don’t anymore, but some jobs I’ve had that involved very dirty hands were dishwasher, weed puller, landscaper, helicopter mechanic, industrial carpenter, commercial carpenter, residential carpenter, ditch digger, field worker, and machine shop saw operator. I’ve had my share of dirty jobs.
The dirtiest by far was industrial carpenter. I’d go to work with clean jeans and a clean white shirt, and every day I’d come home with jeans that were black from the knees up, and a shirt that was black from the chest down.
I had to wear white shirts because nothing else would come clean. Only white with a lot of bleach would give any appearance of being laundered after a day at work on that job.
I still have a T-shirt from that job, some-odd 20 years later, and it has Hilti C100 industrial epoxy stains all over it, just as hard as the day the shirt was stained. That’s my “shit’s about to get real” work around the house shirt.
what about industrial carpentry caused that?
Working up in the rafters for concrete tilt-up buildings that had already been in service for decades. There’s so much nasty-ass grime up there, and years worth of dust and crud.
crud being a technical term I assume
I believe the industry standard term is “fucking bullshit”. ie. “Now I’ve got this fucking bullshit all over me!”.
Hands themselves stay clean, but through my gloves/gown, I’m regularly elbow-deep into blood, guts, and poop.
Surgical technologist. It gets pretty nasty.
Pay is kinda shit though, so I’m trying to switch over to nursing.
Damn, I wouldn’t expect the words “surgical” and “shit pay” to go together, especially when a basic surgery gets billed at $40,000+. From what you described your day at work to involve, you deserve all the money! Especially since you’re helping people.
We’re ultimately ‘just a tech’. We make enough to pay the bills, but not enough to make things like the check engine light not-terrifying.
It’s a good foot-in-the-door job, especially if your path of entry is like mine (enlisted USAF, they just told me “You’re going to be a surgical tech!” and I was like “Cool! …what the fuck is a surgical tech?” and they covered all my training for it).
I generally discourage people from actually paying to go through a surgical tech school, cuz if you can afford that, then you can afford to go to nursing school, and nurses make about twice what we do.
Super cool experience, but not a good long-term career choice.
Cleaning CD’s, tapes, cameras, computers, cartridges, all the stuff you’d expect from a typical Blockbuster store.
Window manufacturing Our 2-part industrial sealing silicone gets everywhere; hands, clothes, hair, whatever. Never comes out of clothes and you gotta scrub hard to get it off skin.
Project Technician working in development of machines
Wash them
