Tell us something about your job that would surprise most people

I think you guys would be surprised how many people drive around railroad crossing gates and get killed.

I assumed it was pretty rare (because honest, it takes an exceptional level of stupidity to get hit by a train when you’re in a vehicle), but across our roughly 200 miles of track, I’d say 5-10 people get killed every year.

72MachOne99GT said:

I think you guys would be surprised how many people drive around railroad crossing gates and get killed.

I assumed it was pretty rare (because honest, it takes an exceptional level of stupidity to get hit by a train when you’re in a vehicle), but across our roughly 200 miles of track, I’d say 5-10 people get killed every year.

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Nah, it's a common occurrence down here, to no ones surprise.

May not die, but I swear there's a weekly news article of some idiot getting whacked by a train in Florida.

The world of automotive suppliers is small.

When y'all are on here squabbling over brands and "quality", I am generally lol'ing because I know there's one company making it for both competing brands. The only difference is price and the name on the box.

From chassis to drivetrain to gaskets and more, I could blow some minds.

As a general contractor, I rarely actually build anything anymore. I spend most of my time figuring out how to comply with all the layers of bull shit regulation, or how to cheat the system when someone wants something that can't legally be done. The amount of shit that we've been forced to comply with in the last 10-15 years makes it hard to get anything done. You wonder why the price of homes are through the roof, thank your government.

Example of the latest bull shit. Now the electrical inspector wants the electricians to torque every fixture to spec. They don't have a way to test this. Now my electrician has to go through every fixture, switch, and outlet and write down the torque spec (every manufacturer has a different spec). The inspector at final inspection will quiz my electrician on these specs, and if he doesn't know them or have them, he will be failed. Between getting the specs and torquing things, amount of hours this is going to waste per project is somewhere around 8 hours. 8 x$115 =$920 + my 20%= $1104. Your home price just jumped $1104 and you got some torqued screws for your new home. No real value was added to your home, but you eat the cost.

tistan said:

As a general contractor, I rarely actually build anything anymore. I spend most of my time figuring out how to comply with all the layers of bull shit regulation, or how to cheat the system when someone wants something that can't legally be done. The amount of shit that we've been forced to comply with in the last 10-15 years makes it hard to get anything done. You wonder why the price of homes are through the roof, thank your government.

Example of the latest bull shit. Now the electrical inspector wants the electricians to torque every fixture to spec. They don't have a way to test this. Now my electrician has to go through every fixture, switch, and outlet and write down the torque spec (every manufacturer has a different spec). The inspector at final inspection will quiz my electrician on these specs, and if he doesn't know them or have them, he will be failed. Between getting the specs and torquing things, amount of hours this is going to waste per project is somewhere around 8 hours. 8 x$115 =$920 + my 20%= $1104. Your home price just jumped $1104 and you got some torqued screws for your new home. No real value was added to your home, but you eat the cost.

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Dont want the boxes getting loose when you’re constantly plugging and unplugging in the vacuum cleaner...

..........Think about what you pay for a 24 pack of beer.
.
Now think about ( 1 ) can filler putting out 38,000 cases per shift, & running 3 shifts per day, 6 or 7 days a week.
Been out of the game since 2008, wouldn't surprise me if there are faster can fillers than that now..

1 Alibi 2 said:

..........Think about what you pay for a 24 pack of beer.
.
Now think about ( 1 ) can filler putting out 38,000 cases per shift, & running 3 shifts per day, 6 or 7 days a week.
Been out of the game since 2008, wouldn't surprise me if there are faster can fillers than that now..
View attachment 1600631

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Went to the coors factory in Golden with the wife

Absolutely bananas how fast they can box and can there. Clearly they are paying cents on the dollar for each beer, and by the time it's on the shelf, they're making some serious margins

IronSnake said:

The world of automotive suppliers is small.

When y'all are on here squabbling over brands and "quality", I am generally lol'ing because I know there's one company making it for both competing brands. The only difference is price and the name on the box.

From chassis to drivetrain to gaskets and more, I could blow some minds.

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It's that way in a lot of industries. Hell, aren't there only like 3 factories that make TVs?

This may or may not surprise a few of ya.

I used to work at McD's as a crew member, then manager..The beef patties that we cooked for the burgers would be set on a 8 minute timer once they're done cooking on the grill(same concept for all food that is cooked at McD's), when that timer would go off we were supposed to dispose of any meat left in that tray and then cook another run depending on how much our projection charts say to cook for that time period of the day, majority of the time when the 8 minute timer went off, crew members would simply reset the timer and continue making burgers with the expired patties. Now, nothing is generally wrong with the patty, it's just not as fresh which is why most of the times you get a dry ass burger from Mcdonalds.
There were times where I'd be working the evening shifts, come in and find patties that have been in the tray for an hour or more.

McDonald's actually has a decent little system that projects how much product their supposed to cook at specific times of the day, sometimes the amount of product needing to be cooked needs to be modified for more or less but about 85% of the time those projections were just about spot on so that the customers receive fresh, hot food. The lazy managers and crew members are pretty much the direct reason for the poor quality of food/service by not holding up to the McDonald's standards lol.

Air Ambulance pilot here.
There are no keys, codes, or special security devices needed to start up a parked Helicopter. The only thing that really keeps them from being taken is that if a non helo pilot tried taking off, they would find themselves in a huge pile of “used to be a helicopter” within 8-10 seconds.

The cost of custom manufacturing equipment is stupid expensive.

I won't go into full detail, but our group of 3-4 regularly write PO's worth more than the median house price in the US ($227k)... for one piece of automation equipment. Not an entire production line. I currently have a $300k machine being built and that's not even the most expensive in our group.

Everyone wants to complain about the price of X, but have no idea of the costs to produce it.

Sent from my SM-G975U using the svtperformance.com mobile app

TaraFirma said:

Air Ambulance pilot here.
There are no keys, codes, or special security devices needed to start up a parked Helicopter. The only thing that really keeps them from being taken is that if a non helo pilot tried taking off, they would find themselves in a huge pile of “used to be a helicopter” within 8-10 seconds.

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You mean the collective stick is important? Always liked what my Microprose Gunship game (1983) said about flying Helo's they said it was like balancing two beachballs on top of each other and if you can do it congratulations you can be a helo pilot. If you can't you might just want to take up golf.

Silverstrike said:

You mean the collective stick is important? Always liked what my Microprose Gunship game (1983) said about flying Helo's they said it was like balancing two beachballs on top of each other and if you can do it congratulations you can be a helo pilot. If you can't you might just want to take up golf.

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More like balancing two beach balls on top of each other on your head while you’re standing on another beach ball that’s balancing on a broomstick..

Electrician, believe it or not, women DONT call us because they are "bored" and need some "servicing"

72MachOne99GT said:

Dont want the boxes getting loose when you’re constantly plugging and unplugging in the vacuum cleaner...

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Did you read that inspectors have no way to test the torque? Plugs coming loose has never been a problem. It is causing an unnecessary expense that gets passed to the homeowner. Same thing with all the strong tie shit they are forcing everyone to use. It actually causes the Inspector to miss actual framing mistakes because all the Inspector worries about is getting Simpson paid on the framing hardware.

I work for an app developer building apps in a super competitive space.

Everyone games their reviews in the app stores. One of our competitors (fortune 1000) launched a competitive version of our app and had a few hundred thousand reviews in a very short period. The volume didn't correlate to their downloads.

However, the stores don't really care and typically turn a blind eye to this and many other things.

I own/operate a Ford dealership.

I see people daily driving and buying vehicles that have higher payments than their mortgage. I see people signing 25+% interest loans where they'll end up buying the car twice before it's paid off. I see people signing up for 6-7 year payment terms to get the payment they 'can afford', yet they drive 20-25k miles a year, so before it's paid off they'll have anywhere from 130-160k miles.

Socal Mach said:

I was on CVN 62, 63, and 72.

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Skimmers! Lol. I have more time jacking off at test depth on a fast boat than you guys do at sea.

850SNCobra said:

This may or may not surprise a few of ya.

I used to work at McD's as a crew member, then manager..The beef patties that we cooked for the burgers would be set on a 8 minute timer once they're done cooking on the grill(same concept for all food that is cooked at McD's), when that timer would go off we were supposed to dispose of any meat left in that tray and then cook another run depending on how much our projection charts say to cook for that time period of the day, majority of the time when the 8 minute timer went off, crew members would simply reset the timer and continue making burgers with the expired patties. Now, nothing is generally wrong with the patty, it's just not as fresh which is why most of the times you get a dry ass burger from Mcdonalds.
There were times where I'd be working the evening shifts, come in and find patties that have been in the tray for an hour or more.

McDonald's actually has a decent little system that projects how much product their supposed to cook at specific times of the day, sometimes the amount of product needing to be cooked needs to be modified for more or less but about 85% of the time those projections were just about spot on so that the customers receive fresh, hot food. The lazy managers and crew members are pretty much the direct reason for the poor quality of food/service by not holding up to the McDonald's standards lol.

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I see that things have changed a lot over the years. MANY years ago I worked at a McD's and back then it was the usual practice to have burgers (and fish filet sandwiches) wrapped and ready to go in the heated bins. They were always on a timer. Maybe it was 8 minutes. I can't remember. When the timer expired, the products had to be thrown out, replaced by freshly made produce. Even back then, the manager of this particular McD's was pretty spot on as far as how many burgers to make at any specific time. I remember seeing people (homeless or poor) often digging through our dumpster near closing to find still warm burgers to feed on. Then, I believe, they started locking the dumpster to keep people out. Probably concerned about liability.

Airdale actually but I did spend 2 weeks on the Chicago back in the mid 90's. You can keep that bubble head stuff.