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.

  • Track_Shovel@slrpnk.netEnglish
    241·
    12 days ago

    Soil scientist. I spent 10 years stomping through the bush and digging pits when I got there.

    Now I sit behind a desk.

  • That_Devil_Girl@lemmy.ml
    20·
    12 days ago

    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.

    • ContrarianTrail@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      10·
      12 days ago

      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.

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        12 days ago

        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!

        • domdanial@reddthat.comEnglish
          3·
          11 days ago

          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.

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      12 days ago

      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.

  • rowinxavier@lemmy.world
    10·
    12 days ago

    I work in disability support so I may use various creams while massaging, I get messy while helping people with washing and toileting, and I feed people which can get messy. I also help people with their yards, cleaning their house, washing their pets, whatever they need.

  • Agrivar@lemmy.world
    10·
    11 days ago

    I used to be a programmer, but I got sick of the whole corporate scene. Now I build and maintain houses - and my hands are dirty a good amount of the time!

  • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    11 days ago

    I don’t have a dirty job anymore, but the dirtiest job I’ve had 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.

  • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
    9·
    11 days ago

    Facility maintenance. We grease motors, change belts, tighten bolts. One of the fuel pumps on our generator has a leak, so that’s a fun bit of dirty hands.

    My approach to maintenance also involves a lot of cleaning, because I believe clean equipment runs better over time. So cleaning off fan blades, insides of electrical cabinets, sumps, etc. We also fix sinks and toilets.

  • BluescreenOfDeath@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8·
    12 days ago

    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.

  • nick@midwest.social
    7·
    12 days ago

    I work in tech now, so I’m a lazy schlub. However, I’m also a college dropout out (English major) who had a ton of actual jobs in the past. Warehouse loading delivery trucks, worked in a cabinet shop, food service, etc. i

    I think college grads who go into tech should have to work a normal job for at least a year before getting their tech job and making six figures right out of college.

    Otherwise you end up with these entitled shitbags who complain that their company provided duck confit at lunch doesn’t have crispy enough skin (an actual thing that actually happened when i was at a big FANG company. Fucking unbelievable)

    So even though I’m a techbro shitlord, i have respect for the people who work jobs.

    • Nate Cox@programming.devEnglish
      6·
      12 days ago

      Are you me? I’m also a lazy tech schlub now who was formerly a paint store warehouse worker, home renovation worker, etc.

      Fully agree that everyone going into tech should spend real time working hard labor and retail. I genuinely feel that my non-tech experiences made me a better person and a better tech schlub.

      I remember tech coworkers complaining that the wall filled with free snacks and candy didn’t have the right kind of snacks and candy, and having to hold myself back from going full Everett True.

      • nick@midwest.social
        3·
        11 days ago

        Man i feel that complaining about the free snacks 100%.

        Covid was so hard for some of these kids because they had to fend for themselves during the work day while working from home. Constant complaints.

        You and i would get along great i bet :D