I’m an environmental chamber technician. I fix and test the equipment that does all of the temperature and humidity testing for most electronics from consumer grade stuff to stuff that is literally going into space. Basically an environmental chamber is just a programable box that is refrigerated and/or heated that you put stuff into to see how it performs at different temperatures. The ones I work on also often have programable humidity levels for testing equipment under basically any normal atmospheric conditions. The ones I work with are anywhere between the size of a household microwave and slightly larger than Volkswagen Beetle. The ones that don’t use liquid nitrogen can manage temperatures anywhere between 200C and -75C. The liquid nitrogen ones can of course manage temps as low as liquid nitrogen gets.
As far as education and certifications go, there isn’t much. In the US you do need an EPA 608 certification to work with refrigerants but that only cost like $100 (my employer covered it) and it’s a lifetime certification. Everything else was just on the job training. I just got mentored by some coworkers, did some independant study, and practiced. The biggest thing is just haveing a technical mindset. Troubleshooting is troubleshooting so basically if you’re someone who can usually figure out how to fix things on their own then odds are you could do my job with minimal refrigeration training.
As far as getting into the same niche today, I definitely would if I could find the job (it’s not all that common). I love working with refrigeration and troubleshooting these machines scratches tha puzzle solving itch in my brain. It’s fun to see the unique options that certain customers get like water cooled systems or liquid nitrogen boost units. Also seeing as how these machines need to be benchmarked at a known ambient temp, it is one the very few refrigeration related jobs that you get to do from a strictly climate controlled building. It is always exactly 23C in my work area because that’s exactly what our testing spec calls for. To top it all off the pay isn’t bad. I could be making a bit more in normal HVAC but not much more and, unlike HVAC, my equipment comes to me in my climate controlled shop. I don’t have to climb up on a roof when it’s 40C outside to fix someone’s AC.
Depending on how larger instances go about monetizing, at a smaller scale donations can work. But once you hit a certain threshold costs for things like storage and staff go up a ton and pure donations will stop being enough.
I work in the surgical pathology department in a hospital.
Anything you get removed from surgery comes to me to be examined. Then I describe what I have and what sort of pathology I can see with the naked eye. I select and cut out pieces of tissue that are important to the case. The tissue undergoes further processing and eventually reaches the desk of a pathologist (a type of physician) who examines the tissue microscopically, forms a diagnosis, and ultimately signs out the case.
My job can assist with several things depending on the case…
To help the clinician confirm or determine what type of lesion or disease process the patient has
To document and confirm that a surgery was necessary
To stage cancer cases
To determine whether or not a cancer or lesion has been completely removed from the patient and there is none left inside their body
To make sure the patient does not have an unsuspected cancer
I see everything from tiny boring specks of tissue they biopsy during a colonoscopy to large cancer resection cases.
The other day, I got an almost entirely necrotic above the knee amputation with maggots. A few days before that I got a 9 lb spleen. It’s fun in the lab.
In the US, my job generally requires a very specialized 2 year master’s degree (on top of a bachelor’s degree in any subject). In other countries, the role of my job can be fulfilled by different types of people depending on the country and education will be different.
I found out about the job on Google lol. I was looking for something hands on in healthcare or anatomy related, but I didn’t like patient contact. I would probably select this career again if I had a second go around. It pays pretty well and is interesting. But grad school in the US is very expensive.
I basically failed out of engineering. It turns out I care more about people and systems, so I have a job at a City doing something called Asset Management. Which means I coordinate all the different ways the different departments take care of their infrastructure, and plan for the City to keep doing what they do for 50, 100 years out.
It’s a bit of people, relationships, organization work, finance, engineering, operations, data analytics, planning, risk mitigation, public consultation, blah blah blah. I’ve moved up in the industry to the point where I’m helping other city’s do similar work.
Do you feel like your job is on the whole fair? I have often wondered if claims investigators either come to believe most claimants are lying or, conversely, that insurance companies are exploiting people.
System integrator or automation integration. It has a few names. My title is currently controls specialist but that also changes constantly. I install, setup, and program PLCs to run any type of plant automation. I also set up HMIs and stock tracking systems. I haven’t done it in a while but interfacing with SAP used to be a big part my job. Now I mostly just program conveyors and configure HMIs so people can see status without being on the floor.
I started this job by having an MS in ME and taking the first job I could get out of college. It was never my intent to have this career path, but now I kind of like it. It’s crazy stressful at times though. Whole production facility can go down for hours if I make mistakes.
I don’t generally believe in a “higher power”, despite having religious parents, I never really understood it… I just don’t get how people can genuinely believe that there is a higher power that is somehow watching over everyone. That’s not to say tat religion is a bad thing. It’s not, in fact most non-radicalized religions have genuinely good teachings, be it Christianity, Buddhism or Islam (and others, again I’m not too into this stuff, these are just the religions I can speak semi-confidently about), they all fundamentally teach the same basic things, don’t be an asshole, live modestly, help others, etc… (yes I do know it’s MUCH more complicated than that).
That’s the way I ultimately see the “higher power”, as a way to get people to be good members of society by making them believe that there is a higher power that will bless them if they are.
For one glorious summer I was a small boat sailing instructor at a summer camp. My life was sitting on the beach and teaching kids to sail. I had a wonderful tan, and sun bleached hair. My life was stress free and wonderful. I got into it by learning how to sail at that very camp, and applying for the job. It paid minimum wage, but it also came with free room and board, and I was a kid, so I didn’t really need any money anyways.
Dang, I missed out. I applied for that job somewhere up in Maine, just to get away from hick-ville south USA. I think they thought I was crazy to want to drive that far.
Not in this field anymore, but used to be a landscaper for a handful of years.
A lot of people think that landscaping is just grass cutting, but it’s called that because you are literally scaping the land, and sometimes beyond that.
Hell, roof work, foundation laying, pressure washing, among other things, have been a part of my duties during my time in that field.
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