What do you do for work?

[Deaf Arty]

Retired from the Marine Corps and then became a professional engineer. Worked for the State of California and the County of San Diego as a civil and a traffic engineer, then worked for myself as a consultant. But now I'm Retired with a capital "R", and i get to BBQ, take landscape photos, and play golf! Lovin' it.

[Jkahnert]

I work for a company that sells CNC Machine tools, mills and lathes etc. Basically I teach our customers how to program and operate their new equipment.
I enjoy darts and fishing, and of course grilling.....

[HouseHomey]

ComfortablyNumb in n out at Magnolia and Trask off the 22 freeway.

[gcdmd]

Retired radiologist with 12 years active duty U S Army Medical Corps followed by 20 years private practice. After a 10 year vacation I taught anatomy and physiology at our local community college part time for 7 1/2 years. I'm once again not gainfully employed.

Cooking in various forms is my main hobby now, along with reading, mostly cook books and history. I just started reading "A Bowl of Red" by Frank X Tolbert, which is a combination cook book and history of chili cooking. I cooked at a soup kitchen for a while and now for various church events. My wife and I are both active in our church.

I used to help with the grandkids a lot, but they're pretty much grown now, in high school and college. In more recent years it has been fun going to their sporting events.

[FireMan]

As Woody Guthrie would say, I work hard, yessir, hard work. Can’t tell ya, but it’s hard.

[RobertC]

I'm a harmless drudge, a professor who studies arcane things in an obscure field. I spend my time delving deeply into a small question, trying to understand more and more about a smaller and smaller thing with the goal that someday I may know everything about nothing. When you study arcane things in an obscure field it's good to have a Plan B so my mom and step-dad insisted that I work in his butcher shop until it looked like I could actually make (almost) a living as an academic. My step-dad had marvelous 3-D imaging. He could run his hand across a side of beef and visualize the musculature and knew where to make the first reference cut that would determine how much yield he'd get from the rest of the animal. That's where I learned that cows, pigs, sheep, goats, deer, and rabbits all have the same general anatomy. Once you know how to cut up a chicken, you can pretty much cut up a duck, a goose, a pheasant, a quail, or I suppose a hummingbird or an ostrich. Since birds are the modern-day descendants of dinosaurs, I'm thinking I could probably cut up a brontosaurus. It'd probably taste like chicken.

As a hobby, I mostly ride my bike and follow bicycle racing. I did a bit of racing long ago, but quickly learned that I wasn't good enough, and I abhor drugs both in the meat I eat and the meat I carry on my bones. Nonetheless, because of my academic work, I happened to figure out a way to measure something that world-class cyclists are interested in, so I've had a chance to work with Olympians, Tour de France riders, and world record holders.

I mention my hobby because there's a connection: athletes care a lot about what they eat, they tend to watch their weight pretty rigorously, and when they do eat meat they tend not to eat large masses of it. I got into smoking meat because it's one of several ways to infuse a lot of flavor into a small quantity of meat. Basically, I trade off quantity for quality, where quality means flavor. Life is too short and pleasure too fleeting to waste time on indifferent food.

[miked]

NASA Project Manager at Goddard Space Flight Center. Currently managing "Lucy" - a mission to the Trojan asteroids co-orbiting with Jupiter. Just launched 'OSIRIS-REx' in Sept 2016 - a sample return mission to the asteroid Bennu. It arrives this year, takes the sample in 2020, and returns to the Utah desert on Sept 24, 2023. Prior to both of those, it was 'GOES-R' (geostationary weather satellite) and 'Aqua' (Earth observing satellite). For fun, i fish in the Chesapeake Bay, race sailboats in the Bay (and bluewater), hack up a golf course or two, reload & shoot, and try to get better at BBQ'ing...

[Mudkat]

I'm sure you get this all the time but.. I'm sure your're great at BBQing. It's not rocket science! Ba dum bum bum.

[PBCDad]

I'm a structural engineer, working mainly to retrofit existing buildings to withstand earthquakes but our work can vary quite a bit. So far it looks like I'm the only structural, although I believe it was Troutman who said he studied it but doesn't do it for work.

Who has time for hobbies? I have two little kids who are explosions of fun, and I love spending an odd minute or two with my wife. I play piano as a side gig, wish I had time to play my trombone too, and help wherever I can with the charity that my wife started. I love to cook because I love seeing other people enjoy it, and barbecue was kind of the start of that journey. I cook only occasionally though with everything else going on, which is probably good for my waist...

[Jetski]

My official job title is Property Mapping Specialist for a large coal company. My degree is in geology, which I have not spent one single day actually doing. I spent 15 years surveying in Texas. I got my SIT (surveyor in training) certificate and then almost immediately took the job I'm at today (darn economy was really taking a toll on the small surveying firm I worked for). I sift through lots and lots of title work, stare at a database and occasionally draw a couple of lines on a screen and let everyone know that is the property we control.

I have had many hobbies over the years, some of which I do often and many I rarely do. Some of these include fishing, hiking, camping, golf (recently disk golf), biking, collecting rocks and fossils (yeah, there was a reason my degree is in geology), BBQ (of course) and brewing beer.

I've enjoyed reading everyone's stories. There are a lot of very interesting careers posted. Cheers!

[LuchaPig]

My bosses are very successful 3rd-party Amazon sellers(wholesale, not private label) and when they decided to start selling an eCommerce course they brought me on to be Community Manager. I mostly recover lost passwords and manage the social media. My degree is in Mass Communications but my work history is a lot of customer service so the job is a real mix of the two.

For hobbies I like TV(can't get enough Man Fire Food or American Pickers, and too many non-reality shows to ever list), pro wrestling(all of it, big companies and small, from any country), and forever perfecting recipes for chili and salsa.

Cooking with fire, podcasts, and video games are really how I clear my brain out on the weekends.

edit: just remembered, my biggest hobby is honestly sitting around thinking to myself "I wonder when the next stray dog is going to limp up the driveway and join the family", I swear it's like a secret underground network that hands out a map to my house

[Yianno]

I am an M.D.
Besides cooking for family and friends to enjoy, I love any kind of fishing and fish all year round sun or ice, fresh or salt. I also enjoy the outdoors and car shows.

[BBQCentralShow]

I am a Class 8 Sales Representative for a Peterbilt dealer here in Cleveland, OH. I sell the trucks that DWCowles drives...well, he actually drives a Freightliner...but if he could drive a Pete, I know he would take one in a heartbeat!!

[cjv140]

I am a law enforcement officer, have been for over 20 years. Great job at times, others not so much. I of course enjoy cooking and smoking meat, especially ribeye steaks or pork butts. I was a drummer in a classic rock cover band and I loved that. I enjoy trying new beers, wines, and single malt scotches. I love camping in Wisconsin and Michigan with my wife and adult kids, when we are cool enough for them. Treat people right, you never know what they have going on. A little random kindness goes a long way!

[Locotech]

Retired locomotive rebuilder, (and happy about it). Into BBQn when we're not freezin' here in the great white north. Actually putting a small brisket on t'day for pastrami.it's about 30F so a good day for it, pics could follow. Into music, fishin', hangin with my kids and their families. Keeping my truck running.