How do you pay the bills?

[Luigi]

My turn

I am doing qualifications for pharmaceutical machines and the stuff around. That can be complete filling lines for syringes or vials (small bottles) incl. cleaning machine, heat tunnel, filler, optical inspections. But also large vacuum cleaners that are used in cleanrooms and must fulfill special specifications. When new machines are ordered or existing machines are changed, I write the documents for testing them, i.E. the correct amount of liquid medicine that is filled into the syringes/vials or the efficiency of the cleaning machine, the heat in the heating tunnel etc.

I'm not very much in electronics (the low voltage stuff....transistors, caps, ICs etc.). I'm better in the higher voltage (230V) and if there's something to fix in the cabs I do that. Or the mechanical thing, metal and wood

[Blanka]

I'm an architect, the traditional one, not part of the group that fills up monsterboard with jobs I DONT WANT.
To dampen the strong fluctuation in income (building and construction is doing horribly in the Netherlands) I partly teach.
During another bad year in B&C, I designed a nice looking multi-game cab, which resulted in making a small production run of 33 cabs. So for a short time I was probably Europe's only arcade cab manufacturer doing some sort of serial production. It thought me an awful lot about buying parts, serial assembly, customers and quality control.

[level42]

Actually this is a pretty cool thread, most I knew (about) what they did, but f.i. Thorsten, even though we've met a couple of times already, I never knew what you did for a job (I guess we just liked to talk ARCADE too much )

You're in a good sector, medicine will only grow the coming years

We are so far doing OK. Despite indeed (as Blanka says) construction being terrible at the moment in Holland we do still have a lot of maintenance contracts. Besides that we also have a branch that does Hi-Fog (high pressure water-mist) systems. That's a kind of sprinkler, but the nozzles release VERY tiny drops of water and under high pressure (120 bar or so). The result is that there is much less rest damage (almost none) after the system has been operated, it leaves almost no water on the floors and stuff within the building. Even so much better that it is widely used in data centers and around the 020 these data centers keep popping up like mushrooms at the moment !!
I know nothing about "water pipes, pumps and valves"  etc. but we also try to sell our alarm systems needed to monitor those systems which is pretty successful.

Our company actually recently hired two new guys....can't be a bad sign.

Hey Blanka, 33 machines is an impressive run for a small market ! Well done, but you had good advertising too

[Q*ris]

Until August I was working for a group of record labels and band booking agencies in Belgium as, mostly, graphic designer but also sometimes booking agent and tour manager.
I really enjoyed the backstage life a lot and met some awesome people (some terrible too of course).
Maybe you've heard that the music industry is not doing that well  so after the company offered to reduce my salary (by half!) I decided to quit and start my own thing.
I'm now a freelance graphic designer (still feels weird to say that) working mostly for... the same clients! 
I have never even had to set up a webpage or print new cards because the clients I have now knew my work already.
The other good thing is that I now work from home so bye-bye traffic jams.
As I totally stopped tourmanaging I kinda miss a bit the wild life on the road but now get to spend more time my 2 years old son... can't beat that, I really enjoy being a dad.
It's a new life, so far so good...

[level42]

The other good thing is that I now work from home so bye-bye traffic jams.

Glad you manage to compensate that now and then with some insane road-trips

[Tup]

You must be busy the last couple of years Tup....

Like you wouldn't believe. And it is only getting worse. We're expecting a rise of about 20% more applications this coming year 

[ckong]

Cool topic, it's nice to know a bit more about each other's background, without it getting too uncomfortable.

I am a financial controller, at a company which makes products for the house construction world, like gas flue systems, air- and watertightness products, ventilation products, etc. It's fun because I get to work with financial data. On the other hand, not useful for this hobby, where more technical and electrical skills would be useful. I lack them pretty much.

[caincan]

i play simcity for real

[cudabee]

I've been a coin-op mechanic since 1988 and worked in a big arcade 8 years prior to that.Best job in the world in 1981.
I became a mechanic because the pinballs and videogames started to dissapear in the arcade more and more in favour of gambling.
As a mechanic i could choose my servicecalls more or less and i mostly got the pinball related since i was good at that.
Nowadays pinball is gone and videogames non existant, so i repair roulette tables and gaming machines instead.Pinball is still very big in my sparetime luckily.

[strykr]

Im a Sound Engineer and Music arranger for a small Publisher/Studio. It (barely) pays the bills!

[TimePilot]

Like i said in my resto thread, i work in a glass coater company, we work with large areas of glass and coat this under vacuum to make glass with sun protection and thermal protection. I´m the operator to drive that plant, day and night.

[SeTTleR]

Hey,
I'm a computer science student, currently writing my Master's Thesis and working at the same time in a company that builds networking devices, like firewalls, proxies, etc.
This gives me a lot of knowledge about software but the craftman's work and is totally not mine. In electronics, i have some dangerous half knowledge, so I'm heavily depending on help there
But as a student, I am limited in space and money, so my "collection" is unfortunately very small at the moment being 2 Cabs. But nonetheless, they make a lot of fun!

[bencao74]

I`m a System Engineer for a space system company. In charge of assembly, integration and validation. Means I know how to use Excel

[Sonic 1992]

Wow, Thanks alot guys.... lol 

Now I know how Penny feels when she is with the guys on Big Bang Theory!        

I'm an "A/V Guy"  which basically means I maintain the Theatre and projection equipment for a museum in Houston, Tx.  and Horrrayyyy for me, School Group season is coming up, and I'm in charge of keeping them from destroying the place! 

[Tup]

Hahahaha, good luck with that Sonic!