If you don't work IT, retail, or food service what do you do for work?

Public transport, manufacturing and service/maintenance.

Engineering

Physician Assistant in a Radiology dept.

Wastewater-based epidemiology. Basically we track infectious diseases in wastewater, and the results guide public health decisions.

I work in IT and I don’t like following rules

Engineer (p.s. don't become an engineer, it's not as great as they sold it to us)

I'm a Stonemason, and I work in conservation.

OP clearly just wanted an excuse to show off their vast collection of response images....

Farmer!

When people work with hazardous materials, they hire me to make sure they do it safely or legally. I mostly work in waste handling, soil remediations and laboratories.

It's pretty fun and interesting, but it's been very bad for my enjoyment of homegrown food, swimming outdoors or going downwind of any industrial sites.

Welder. I make the sparky sparky hot and sticky with the metals.

Branch manager at a 3 trade business (HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical). Very much enjoy beating the competition and taking all of their great talent because they can’t treat them well. It’s not hard to actually give a damn about your people. Turns out, if you do that they like working for you and end up performing even more.

I do cosplay erotica for a living. I make awesome costumes, I take them off, and just post to Patreon. I suppose it's kindof retail, as I'm giving the photos to people, as a reward for subscribing, but I set my own schedule and choose what goes out. The freedom is incredible

Trusts and estates for high net worth clients.

Lawyer. Wouldn’t really recommend.

I used to work at a place that made envelopes and printed forms.

Fascinating seeing 12 foot tall stacks of rolls of paper.

I run a business repairing consumer-grade 3D printers.

Nice try feds

I'm a therapist, and I train other therapists. And I supervise some therapists and I train other therapists to supervise other therapists. And I manage a team of therapists who train other therapists and who train other therapists to supervise other therapists.

Kind "in it" at this stage.

Im an electrician, it's pretty sweet if you ask me. Not necessarily the job itself, but the money you can earn doing side-jobs

Tower climbing grease monkey. Aka wind turbine technician.

Part plumber, part electrician, part IT, part jiffy lube, all crazy!

Audio engineer and composer. I do music for a lot of little indie games and short films, etc. and then I also mix music, and edit audio for corporate earnings calls.

I'm a storyboard artist/3d generalist. Basically I draw all day, everyday for short films and TV shows. I find it pretty awesome because A) I love to draw and now I get paid to do it which is, from what I understand, very uncommon for artists. B) I'm helping shape a story from basically beginning to end. C) I also get to do silly voices sometimes when they need someone to fill in.

But, a big downside is that I'm sitting and staring at a screen around 6 to 7 hours a day which destroyed my eyes and I get leg strain sometimes from sitting. I want to get a stand up desk eventually.

After a long and lucrative IT career I got a certificate in Ecological Restoration. I now do land stewardship, monitoring and maintaining habitats. Literally outstanding in my field, or marsh, or scrubland...

I coordinate an academic makerspace at a college.

I did work in IT, but now I'm retired young. I could go back to work and make double my income, but I just don't wanna. I'd rather have less income with a stable, comfortable life and the freedom to do whatever I want every day, than spend all day stuck in a job just to have no free time to enjoy the extra money I'd be bringing home.

I used to be a Janitor, and now I'm a web designer. I still go to trash businesses and make them all pretty.

I put $1000 in bitcoin in 2012

Then i wake up from my dream and calibrate temperature sensors on medical refrigerators

Teach at a university

I fight with landlords.

Health care. The things I've seen!

I'm glad to see there's a few of us in the 5 figure salary club here!

I'm scientific support for a major pharma company. I tell people my job is essentially to be Hank Hill, as I'm in charge of compressed and liquid gases. I keep everyone squared away with liquid nitrogen, liquid helium, liquid argon, and any number and size of gas cylinder.

It's not a bad job. Pay is ok for what I do, people are generally nice, and most days I'm done the bulk of my work in 2-3 hours, so the rest of the time is mine unless someone needs something.

The rest of the day I'll prep and respond to posts here, study music, read comics or books, and watch cartoons. Nobody seems to care as long as the work gets done.

It's low stress and a decent environment, so I got no complaints. It's not as good as my last job, doing data analysis of hazardous chemicals. The place was generally run really well and almost all my work was doing daily reports on inventory. I made macros to do everything, so my work was done in less than half an hour most days and I got to work at home.

Being a nobody in pharma is pretty great as long as your group is cool.

I'm a museum curator based in Europe (very different from the Americas). It's a wonderful job of travel, being close to history and bringing some goodness into the world, if you don't mind the salary of working for a charity.

Librarian at a PreK-5 school (3-11 years old). I teach 45 minute classes to everyone each week. 700 kids, 32 classes. Less stress than classroom teaching while still following the same schedule.

I manage money and people.

I'm in IT, but one of my lifelong friends is a radio tower climber. He drives up to the mountains, climbs these 500' radio towers, and repairs them. Another close friend is an audio engineer. Another close friend owns a taxi company in a small tourist town. Another friend is a building maintenance manager. Another friend is a regional bank manager. There are millions of jobs out there. Lemmy just attracts a specific kind of person.

I’m a water engineer!

Sourcing, recycling, and transporting

Insurance claims investigation. In-house PI, essentially

I'm an artist in animation ✏️

Prosthetist. I work with patients to make and fit artificial limbs to them.

Environmental engineer. I clean up chemical messes like oil spills, and make sure that the resulting land is safe enough for people to live on it.

It's fun and challenging, if somewhat depressing at times. Some things take a LONG time to clean up. On the plus side, I have great job security.

I work with school kids who have disabilities.

Sound and communications technician. I put cables in the walls, floors or ceilings for structured cabling projects.

Not glamorous work but, I get to be in large buildings and, most of the time I work in climate controlled occupied space.

Musician / music teacher.

It's pretty cool

I'm a linehaul driver, pic from my first day at this job. I pull a set of double-trailers back and forth between two company terminals overnight. Same route each time, home every day. Pretty chill and easy work, I just listen to audiobooks and podcasts all night as I try not to slap anyone with my back trailer. any recommendations for something new to listen to I'd love to hear it

How many years did you prepare the image collection before asking this question, OP?

I work in IT, by the way. (Don't use Arch though, Tumbleweed crew represent!)

I teach middle school

I work as a theatre tech (light and sound) at a college(theatre arts department). I do however use Linux and made some scripts in Python to control my ligtdesk and sound table. So a bit of IT related work. But also talk with students about the creative part of lights, sound and projection and how they can use it during and after there study in there shows.

I also do some shows for them in the small Theatre in the college and outside the college.

And give them a workshop teaching them the basics and how they can tell to a tech what they want and how they can do somethings themselves.

Snack food manufacturing, running machines that put snacks into bags and then those bags into boxes.

Whilst I am doing a CS degree now, for the last 9 years I was a 5 axis CNC machinist for stone products. I still do It part time as they haven't found a replacement yet (after a year lmao).

Machine maintenance / Macgyver. We make air filters and I have to make sure the machines that make them are running.

I also do any other random jobs. Currently I'm creating a simple webpage to submit machine issues that get sent to a Google sheet and an email sent out.

I also machine metal replacement parts. Of course I make any personal projects I want to as well.

Mathematics Lecturer (just teaching foundation mind).

It's far more fun than people think, but with next to no real holidays (summer is actually quite busy). Also it sucked being on temporary contract, because you had no idea if you'd have work in 12 months no matter how good you were.

Electronics RF Engineer, working with legal compliance. Loads of calculations and paperwork. Occasionally, I'll get to test something with cool expensive equipment.

Bridge Inspector for state DOT/DOH.

Software engineer, aka glorified code-monkey. Ook!

You might say that my job fits under the umbrella of IT, but no, it's totally a different thing! ;)

Production of commercial robots. Though, I just lost my job and the job I was going to pulled out last minute, so next week, I won’t be working on anything.

Construction electrician

I'm a rope access industrial radiographer.
Edit: colloquially known as a "bomber"

I drive a tugboat and transport clean oil on the East and Gulf Coasts.

I'm a wedding photographer. My dad was a wedding dj and I grew up around the wedding industry. I went to school for art and photography was my focus. Wedding photographer just made sense. I love what I do and I can't imagine anything else.

State government paper pusher

Embedded Software Engineer. Like the software that would run on a coffee maker, medical equipment, bulldozer, etc.

Manufacturing. Can't sell shit if you don't make it first.

Soon to be qualified plumber, maybe a month to go or so.

I'm an endlessly adjuncting philosophy professor. Going back to law school in the fall at age 38.

Prep school teacher for international middle school kids hoping to go to an English-speaking high school.

Teach all the basic intro classes in an accelerated high school curriculum the semester before they attend high school so that when they get there the language barrier, new facts and different educational style doesn't crush them mercilessly.

Power ranger (erectrician)

Electrical Designer - HVAC switchboards & systems primarily

Correspondence delivery profesional

(postal worker)

I work 400 hours a month in order to feed people that think I'm trying to kill them.

Law

Drive people to the hospital.

Conference & Event Services for a local college.

(I didn't know what that meant until I started here, but essentially, we are the campus party planners)

I do customer service for a shipping company. Alot of my calls are just people complaining about how much this company sucks ( they are not wrong ) but work from home and put very little effort in my job and spend a lot of time gaming at work . I also have a morning job delivering news papers and amazon packages which I actually kind of like but does not have full time opportunities.

Statistician.

But the Simpsons lied to me. I have not been offered the opportunity to go to space.

I'm a professional Bastard

Intermediate CS teacher

Grumpy sound guy.

I helped design large-ish electrical grids. 30-100k cables

Without the actual calculation bits, unfortunately.

Not very interesting. Bad software. Management didn't really care about the problem. I was there so the problem was "managed" from their point of view.

I used to fix radios, does that count as IT? I would mostly just swap cards since everything's digitized now but every now and then I would get something old and have to jury rig it because the parts haven't been manufactured in over ten years.

Before that I worked at Target, before that I was in theatre, and I'm currently back in school.

Currently as intern at a municipality as financial advisor. Hoping to get a job from within the municipality.

I'm a case manager for a local org that supports people with intellectual disability. I like my job, I set my own hours, and even if there was no profit motive it would still need to be done. My only complaint is where I brush up against the capitalistic intersection, so the county is our funder and they really pinch every penny compared to, say the sheriffs' office.

Quality Director for a multinational manufacturing company

I’m an engineer in a manufacturing environment

Does consulting for energy utilities helping them improve their mapping systems (GIS) count as IT? I do manage cloud infrastructure but also assist with all the various pieces and parts that go into digital maps and integrations.

Manufacturing

Construction carpenter. I do a majority of the tasks for building most structures. From rough structure to final touches I do a lot.

helping professional. i won't be more specific here.

I work at a shipyard servicing and rebuilding engines.

Healthcare

Emergency humanitarian response program planning/monitoring/evaluation with a UN agency.

Quality control chemist testing pharmaceuticals. Most of what we do is for clinical trial use and research purposes. It's been a good job.

I work as a car photographer in a dealership. We sell cars online so whenever we get a new car or someone trades in their car I take pictures of all the features the car has. However when there's few cars for me to photo I'm also responsible for checking what cars are dirty. My only complaint is that I don't really care about Toyotas and I work for a Toyota dealership

My primary job is IT, but I am starting a farm and worked on one as a teenager.

I'm a psychiatric RN out in the community. I work with people who have thought disorders like schizophrenia at their homes or under the bridges.

I'm a product development engineer in the biomedical industry. Although from what I read it seems I should have taken a few extra courses in school and gone into software engineering. However I do still enjoy my work (not more than not having to work, but still.)

Maintenance, transitioning into automation tech.

UPS delivery

I sell gold and silver over the phone.

I teach kids how to do physics, and how to write about doing physics.

Watch the mentally disabled. Most of the time they just need a friend so I get paid to hangout with em. Just gotta make sure they get their meds and food on time. Hell a few weeks ago I got paid to go to a baseball game cause he wanted to go.

Realtor and brand and marketing consultant for our brokerage. Not the astronaut or veterinarian I pictured myself as a kid. But still, I’m happy :)

I was/am a compositor/vfx artist for film and tv, but the industry has imploded over the last year so it's been a few months.

Video game qa

Quality manager in a plastic extrusion manufacturing facility.

Solar installer, I put solar panels on things and get them working. Recently my company got a reputation for competence with floating solar arrays so we've been traveling to build and fix them all over the country. Electricity and water is a fun combo.

Commercial wide format print shop owner

Quality tech in manufacturing

I don't really have a title, but I work in a factory.

Go to college kids. Fuck the expense, you still get many more opportunities that a factory scumbag like myself does not. If you don't know what you want or what you're capable of, who cares. Go anyway for anything and you'll meet people who you can network with and you'll be exposed to classes and topics you might not ever have considered. I'm the only scumbag failure in my friend group who didn't go to college and I'm the only loser working in a literal sweat shop while they all work from home with very nice salaries and wives/husbands they met at college. I'm still single.

Go to college.

Behavioral healthcare

Transportation engineer (in training) working for an engineering consulting firm! Primarily helping design active transportation infrastructure and road reconstructions.

I'm a truck driver, well nowadays more in the office than behind the wheel but I do still pull loads here and there.

I'm a hydraulic fitter. I repair and maintain hydraulic systems, primarily on earthmoving equipment.

I manage a service engineering team for semiconductor equipment.

I approve people applying for disability benefits.

Acquisitions manager for a library

Drink service

Healthcare. I'm the senior Pharmacy Tech for our little independent psych pharmacy.

Before joining healthcare, I worked both food service, and have my degree in Computer Science. I try to keep my passion of food alive in my home kitchen, and mix CS into my job responsibilities, and hobbies.

Mechanical engineer in the space industry

Safety adviser currently in airport safety

CNC machining. It's manufacturing; I work with titanium, inconel, and on occasion steel.

HSE consultant: I teach people how not to be in the next Darwin Awards

I'm a skydiving instructor but I am taking a break from that while I have been taking up scuba and teach yoga on the side.

I also do photography but I'm getting more into underwater videography now.

I'm a real engineer.

Does it count if i used to work in IT?

I still work in IT but I used to too.

In my youth I worked at a 24 hour gas station/restaurant for 2 weeks. It was robbed twice (not while i was there) and someone hit and ran and smashed up my car all in 2 weeks. But i did get unlimited coffee, pop and donuts (after 6pm) so overall I'd give it a 3/5.

Not unusual but accountant in a private company. Accounting, like IT, is great because you can work at just about any company. Though to be fair I do some IT like most accountants, there is overlap since so much of the systems work is accounting systems, I'm sure the IT guys feel they are doing some accounting.

For the US:

https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/employment-by-major-industry-sector.htm

Category Buyer for a large manufacturing company.

Budget analyst

Nonprofit

Before I worked IT, I was a job coach. I helped individuals with disabilities perform their jobs and teach them skills and all that. It was pretty cool because they sent me to all kinds of different places. I did work in a hydroponics non-profit, a senior center, a DMV, a bank, and some other places. It was pretty cool and most of the individuals I worked with were really nice and cool.

Engineering at national lab

Physician associate in mental health

High school teacher (Latin)

I’m in IT now, but before that, I worked in construction. I operated tunnel boring machines that dug tunnels for underground metros. It was super interesting work, and I’m glad I did it, but it was incredibly tough.

Honey dipper, lighthouse keeper, lamp lighter, encyclopedia deliveries, phrenologist, and whaler.

garden and landscape building