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.
Wash them??
Hurr durr!
Soil scientist. I spent 10 years stomping through the bush and digging pits when I got there.
Now I sit behind a desk.
How can I reduce my poly count IRL to look more like a Dire Straights video like you do?
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.
So… what’s your hand care routine?
I’ll go first.
Self-employed general contractor / plumber
Do you happen to be in the Toronto area?? I’m looking for a plumber. Lol
Sorry, I’m across the Atlantic
Thank you for your service
o7
Farmer
Awesome. What do you farm?
Flooring and Flooring Accesories
Ah, the ol’ Hank Hill of flooring.
Tallship sailor/rigger
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!
Damn that’s a crazy transition. How do you like it?
Well, it’s been about twenty years and I haven’t gone back to the cubicle farm!
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.
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!”.
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.
I load and run two large fiber lasers cutting sheets of metal up to 1 1/4 inch thick.
Same. Well, except for thickness. I’m only running a 4kw.
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.
Diesel mechanic, the black never washes off!!
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’m a mechanical engineer for a small manufacturing plant and I run their maintenance department. Its more hands on than most engineering jobs though.
